Many customer journey maps are inside-out, based on company structures, not customer needs. Without an accurate journey map, companies struggle to be relevant.

Relevance, like beauty, is in the brain of the beholder. It takes time and work to make your messages relevant, but the payoff is worth it.

Constant change requires quick response. Marketers have benefitted from agile methods, but most are unaware of emerging organizational innovations available.

Marketing behaves more like stock markets or weather than predictable machines. By working with marketing’s complexity instead of ignoring it, companies will realize more value.

The butterfly effect, the whimsical term for non-linearity, adds mystery to marketing. A human- machine intelligence partnership offers an effective way to surf the enigma.

Like healthy food, good research nourishes your decisions. But many studies are more like cheap fast food. After nine years as an IDC analyst, I learned a lot about how to source and interpret data - skills I would have found useful in my earlier marketing career.

Organizations mobilize tiger teams when a valuable and difficult project needs to get done quickly. If you’ve participated on a tiger team, congratulations! You already have real-life experience in an important element of an agile organization.

Today, the best marketers are scientists. They test. They research and analyze. They look to better understand customers and the future. It’s a role available to any marketer.

Safely scale customer-facing empowerment while avoiding chaos. Wisdom from leaders in hospital operating rooms, military theatres, and software development.

Marketing organizations experience constant change. Using methodologies adapted from software development, Agile marketers gain increased productivity, greater innovation, faster delivery and staff satisfaction.

Science and technology ensure that we seldom fail for lack of knowing. Our problem is more often applying knowledge consistently and correctly. Checklists, used in hospitals, aviation, and other turbulent environments, can help marketers get things right with customers.