User experience strategy

New York (CNN Business) The coronavirus pandemic has forced everyone to get creative. Whether through Zoom meetings , online fitness classes or take-out cocktails , companies in nearly every industry are pivoting to get through the crisis. Some work-arounds have been especially creative, such as individual exercise "pods" to get people back into gyms. But beyond short-term fixes, many innovative new strategies and business models have emerged that are likely to stick, even as many jurisdictions begin to reopen in some capacity. In many cases, these transformations are thanks to the increased adoption of technology and the digitization of businesses. Many of these changes were underway pre-coronavirus; the pandemic has just accelerated them. "What's important to customers has changed," John Roese, Dell ( DELL ) Technologies chief technology officer , told CNN Business. "We've broken through a bunch of psychological or … [Read more...] about Here are some of the creative new business models and strategies that have come out of the coronavirus pandemic

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Jesse Redniss is CEO & Co-Founder of Qonsent , the first data privacy enablement and engagement platform built for consumers and brands. The race to comply with data privacy laws is top of mind for advertisers and marketers these days with things like clean rooms becoming a hot topic seemingly overnight. This is fallout from “the demise of third-party cookies and identifiers” and the data void they’re leaving behind. This means the third-party data they already have needs to be scrubbed clean to not only ensure that consumer data is private ( and protected ) but that it’s also the right data they should be tracking and leveraging for related campaigns. In other words, there’s no reason why a brand needs to have your Social Security number or other personal identifiable information ( PII ) on file, especially if you didn’t give direct, first-party consent for them to do so. And herein lies the … [Read more...] about Are Clean Rooms The Answer To Data Privacy And A Killer Customer Experience?

Our exposure to chatbots is at an all-time high. From customer service to commerce to healthcare, chatbots are the fastest growing brand communication channel , thanks to their ability to handle issue resolution, remove friction in surfacing common information, and enable self-service to relieve human bottlenecks. advertisement advertisement But the growing chatbot landscape shows signs of fracture. In a recent study, over half of consumers who use chatbots cite dissatisfaction due to the frustration caused by “inconsistent answers” across chat and human assistance, while ranking preference of digital service channels like social media, human chat, and even email over chatbots. A finer point still, 60% of consumers would still rather interact with a human than a brand’s chatbot because of the ability to solve more complex and personal problems. The irony is that a chatbot’s premise to exist is to offload human-to-human interactions while … [Read more...] about Chatbots need to evolve to stay relevant in the age of virtual assistants

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Alexa Grabell was running sales strategy for a billion-dollar company when she grew frustrated by the lack of tools available to answer company leadership’s questions about how customers were interacting with their product. “I was building these hacky solutions,” she says. “The tools did half the job.” Out of this frustration grew Pocus, a startup founded by Grabell and Isaac Pohl-Zaretsky. Pocus, which was on Forbes’ Cloud 100 Rising Stars List last year , announced $23 million in seed and Series A funding on Wednesday. Founders Grabell and Pohl-Zaretsky, who serve as CEO and CTO of the startup, respectively, are Forbes 30 Under 30 enterprise technology alums for 2022 . The company declined to share its valuation. “Valuable data about how users interact with a product lives in other places like a data warehouse where sales people can't get access,” Grabell says. It’s time-intensive for engineers to transform … [Read more...] about Pocus, Which Helps Companies Manage Product Data, Raises $23 Million

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Your job doesn't fulfill you anymore, so you decide to pursue something more meaningful. You start to put your feelers out for new roles and even snag a couple of interviews. But, after a few weeks, your workload doubles, and you begin to lose focus. At this point, you're so exhausted from work and personal commitments that looking for a job starts to take a backseat. It’s a common predicament. Nobody enjoys looking for a job—especially when you already have one. While you may not be thrilled with your current role, searching for a new position is challenging. For one thing, there’s the time commitment. If you’re buried in projects and consistently worn out, how are you supposed to find time to look for a job? And then there’s the stealth factor. You don’t necessarily want your employer to find out you’re searching for opportunities outside the company. Finally, you may not even be sure what you're looking for, making the job … [Read more...] about How To Look For A Job While Working Full-Time

The machine learning boom is here, and it's only going to get bigger. When the pandemic decimated workforces and limited in-person interaction, artificial intelligence tools helped companies increase productivity. Industries such as hospitality , healthcare , and energy have all benefited from recent A.I. innovations, but there's more disruption on the horizon. I nstances of businesses using automated experiences are increasing, and automation is expected to grow in both the metaverse and in how companies pursue environmental, social, & governance (ESG) initiatives, according to Pranay Agrawal, co-founder and CEO of A.I. services and analytics provider Fractal. Here are three predictions from Agrawal on some of the next big steps for A.I. Customers will expect more from automation services. When the pandemic hit and businesses scrambled to adapt to a digital world, automation became much more commonplace in everyday life. People became used to seamlessly … [Read more...] about 3 Predictions for How A.I. Will Change Business Practices in the Near Future

Paul Bascobert is seen in this undated pix. (Photo credit: Handout via Reuters) - A + A (June 28): Thomson Reuters Corp  on Tuesday named Paul Bascobert as president of Reuters News , turning to a tech and media veteran to drive growth at the 171-year-old news organization. Bascobert, 58, is a former CEO of US print giant Gannett Co Inc, which owns USA Today . He also has held senior positions at Bloomberg LP, where he ran the business operations of its consumer arm Bloomberg Media, and at Dow Jones, where he was the chief marketing officer and launched new products and improved its subscription strategy. Most recently, Bascobert was the CEO of media and ad tech-focused Blue Ocean Acquisition Corp, a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) which raised nearly US$190 million in an initial public offering in December. He succeeds Michael Friedenberg, who left the company in December after a three-year stint that included appointing Alessandra Galloni as … [Read more...] about Thomson Reuters names ex-Gannett CEO as Reuters News president

The past two years have seen more than a tenth of Americans move from low-paying labor jobs to positions in tech. Dubbed as “new collar workers,” many of these people used recent lockdowns to learn new skills that have helped them find higher salary roles with greater flexibility. This workforce of people from non-conventional backgrounds can bridge the tech talent shortage, but only if companies can adapt their recruitment processes accordingly. advertisement advertisement Players like Google, Apple, and IBM have taken the step of dropping college degree requirements to attract new collar workers, but bringing on board new workers requires more than eliminating formal education requisites. Even before the pandemic, nearly one third of developers considered themselves self-taught, meaning the relevance of the college degree had already slipped. With the tech industry adding 12,300 jobs from February to March this year, … [Read more...] about How ‘new collar workers’ can help companies push past the Great Resignation

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Melissa Fortunato is an FBI Special Agent and Crisis Negotiator. Over the course of her career, she’s been involved in a number of high-stakes scenarios that required her to lean heavily on the skills of negotiation. She joined Negotiate Anything to share her most exciting stories, as well as her best advice for winning in everyday negotiations. The Importance of a Full Assessment Prior to entering a negotiation, it’s important to complete a full assessment of your counterpart. This may require more time than expected, but the outcomes will be worth it. Fortunato shared how she once went so far as to “marry” her undercover colleague just to get closer to a group of targets. She invested the time (months legitimizing her cover) which then presented a perfect opportunity for building connections: a wedding. For Fortunato, conducting a full assessment meant finding strategic ways to connect with the targets in order … [Read more...] about Negotiating Like A Pro: Tips From An FBI Special Agent

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin The talent revolution is in full swing, and even with threats of a recession, tech workers will still be in high demand. They have the skills companies need and the ability to shift jobs with ease. Many employers assume tech workers want remote work—and that offering the opportunity to work away from the office is the best way to attract them and keep them around. But this is a myth with only 18% of tech employees preferring remote work, according to a new study. What do tech employees really want? And how should their expectations inform the way employers think about creating work experiences for all of their people? The Influence of Tech Tech workers are a great place to start in considering the work experience, because tech is a significant sector of the economy, and it is therefore influential for many other areas of work. In fact, according to data sources , the tech industry is the second biggest driver of the … [Read more...] about Think Tech Workers Want Remote Work? Think Again: 5 Ways To Respond