Are you even aware you’re doing it? Writing in one-sentence paragraphs? Just because everyone else on LinkedIn is doing it, or so it seems? Just because — if you’ve thought about it — this style seems to make content more accessible? Or does it? Give it a think. Are one-sentence paragraphs the new bullet points, a lazy way to avoid the trouble of composing an argument? Composing an argument: that’s what paragraphs do by grouping sentences that together support one another, better communicating an idea. Just like you were taught in grammar school. And mind, Mrs. Smith-Jones (or whoever your com ..read more

Meaning is what a brand signifies or implies to the consumer. It is central to brand promise, and it contributes to expectations against which customer experience is measured. Dr. Martina Olbertova, CEO of Meaning.Global Dr. Martina Olbertova puts it succinctly: “Meaning bridges the gap between brands and people.” Martina is an expert on meaning and cultural relevance in business, the founder of UK/European consultancy Meaning.Global. She phrases the business goal as “to help brands and businesses stay relevant, meaningful, and profitable amidst global culture change.” Her work explores the ch ..read more

The CX Emotion conference takes place this week, online on Wednesday, July 22. If you haven’t checked it out, please do now — Our topics are emotion, experience, empathy, and impact. Attend to learn how to transform insights into killer brand strategy, stand-out marketing, happy employees, and satisfied customers, to learn about techniques and also technologies including natural language processing, facial coding, and speech analytics: Emotion AI. Please review the agenda: cx-emotion.com/agenda. We’ll be online on Wednesday, July 22, 9 am to 4:30 pm BST (UK ..read more

“The most important customer service qualities in the next normal: Expertise, empathy, and speed,” writes Vala Afshar, Salesforce Chief Digital Evangelist. “What separates the good from the great is empathy… Empathy means listening with interest, removing obstacles, minimizing wasted time and friction, and demonstrating generosity and the willingness to be accountable.” How to do it, to deliver customer service with empathy, to understand consumer needs, wants, and emotions? You’ll learn how at next week’s CX Emotion conference. CX Emotion teaches the art and science of emotiona ..read more

Is your business really responding to consumer needs and wants, as the customer sees them? Are you truly customer-centric, or is your customer experience program more of a “just make sure sales stay strong” thing? Are your insights programs unbiased, or is your research narrowly focused on sustaining business-as-usual with limited capacity to support innovation and ensure resilience? We need more than journey maps, customer-satisfaction scores, and media metrics to stay ahead of change and identify opportunity. That’s why I’m a proponent of deep listening, a communication technique that starts ..read more

Are you worried about overbooking your online event? Maybe you’re working with a Zoom or other subscription that limits you to 100 attendees. Or maybe you just want to keep your group’s open networking session to a reasonable size, one that will allow everyone to be heard, one that will leave no participant feeling lost. I run several meetups, and I moved our programs online starting in March. Going online wasn’t my preference. I definitely miss the interactions you get at an in-person event although on the other hand, I appreciate avoiding travel time and hassles booking venues. (Although a s ..read more

Empathy is essential in challenging times. It’s the foundation of interactions that connect, reassure, and engage. Empathy — that is, empathic customer experience — is center-stage at the CX Emotion conference, taking place online on July 22. CX Emotion (CXE) is a unique event, light on the marketing, focused on learning. It was originally scheduled as an in-person event, slated to take place in London June 2-3 with workshops and presentations, at a fabulous venue right off Trafalgar Square. Given the Covid-19 crisis, I reworked and relaunched CXE as an online event. I am going to miss th ..read more

Emotion AI — or emotional AI if you’re my British friend Andy McStay — describes tech that understands and conveys emotion in human and human-machine interactions. The algorithms are well understood — natural language processing, speech analytics, computer vision, and biometrics — but we’re only starting to come to grips with applications and with data, bias, and ethical implications. Emotion AI has many applications: consumer and market research, conversational interfaces, contact center operations, policy-making and finance, education, and, notably, healthcare uses that include suicide preve ..read more

Emotionally intelligent design is design that recognizes and respects human emotion, and it’s especially important in today’s tech-infused world. The designer aims to humanize technology, sensitive to the fact that emotion is an integral part of human make-up. We want the technologies we build and use to respond supplely to human needs. Emotionally intelligent design is the way. It’s better design, responsive design. Of course technology can be part of the designer’s toolset, specifically emotion AI technology that measures, interprets, and enables machines to convey emotion, augmenting human ..read more

I’ve released the program for the Emotion AI Conference, the only industry event focused on affective technologies, taking place March 30, 2020 in New York. Who’s speaking? Visit http://emotionai20.com/agenda . Highlights: Daniel McDuff from Microsoft Research, ex-MIT and Affectiva, will keynote on Emotion Inspired (Machine) Learning. We’ll have emotion-NLP talks by Pritam Gundecha, IBM; Moshe Wasserblat, Intel; and Jonathan Mall, Neuro Flash. We’ll have speakers on voice experience, neuroscience, wearables, and visual interactions. Barclays data science VP Anusha Dandapani will ad ..read more