James Surowieck recently published an article in The New Yorker entitled “Twilight of the Brands,” in which he suggests that brands are losing their ability to influence consumers. His logic was based on a book by my friend Itamar Simonson and Emanual Rosen,Absolute Value in which the authors argue that customers are now able to behave much more rationally than in the past in light of increased access to objective information about products and services through the Internet. Users of...

I read a blog post this summer that changed my whole perspective on what it means to be truly creative, as well as what it means to be a parent, and a leader. Sounds like a high order, and indeed it is.

The post was by a woman named Mica Angela Hendricks, an artist and illustrator. She told a story on her blog, Busy Mockingbird, about how she learned an important and surprising lesson in creativity from her 4 year-old daughter. The lesson was this: You can increase your creativity by...

Some say that Steve Jobs is famous for saying that he never asked for Customer feedback. But when Ron Johnson was tasked with creating the Apple Retail store experience he needed a way to benchmark Customer loyalty. That same question had occupied the minds of management consulting firm Bain & Co. They found that many customer surveys failed to measure this important metric, and so they began a journey to develop a single question that could act as a customer loyalty benchmark. We'll see how...

You can view budgeting as a way to invest in trust – you’re empowering teams,communicating openly, and building in accountability. Some organizations need practice on this one, so here are a few ways to tell if your budgeting is falling short:

1) Too much smoke, too many mirrors: High-trust organizations craft budgets that reflect their priorities about spending time, money and energy. Without a budget that embodies values, what you say is just advertising. That can erode trust. A business...

A new research study by SDL digs deep into the behaviors of millennials and how they interact with brands, media and content. The study sampled more than 300 millennials in the U.S. (ages 18-36), all college educated and employed full-time. The study itself builds on the SDL's recent Privacy Study that found 79 percent of customers are willing to provide personal information to a brand they trust. Here are some highlights that you may find interesting, all which would be suitable bullet...