• Wednesday 22nd May, 2019 6.30pm – 8.30pm
• Hosted at Grossi’s Arlechin, Mornane Place, Melbourne

We as always are really grateful to Guy Grossi, his sister Liz Grossi, and Angela McKay and the whole team at Arlechin for having us.  The support the Grossi Group gives Digital Women’s Network is so greatly appreciated and all of our members and guests enjoyed the delicious food and ambience at Arlechin.

Our Door prize of both a wonderful bottle of champagne and two flutes were kindly donated by Lucy from Emperor Champagne.

Curated by Angela Mellak from Digital Women’s Network, Here is an overview of our speakers;

• Lisa Wade – 
  • Lisa is a pioneer in the experience design industry 
  • She was an owner of Stamford Interactive, formerly Australia’s largest experience design agency 
  • In 2014 she sold this to PWC and then worked to embed human-centred design into PwC’s consulting approach and shaped PwC’s Experience Centre, 
  • Lisa Wade is a human-centred design career coach, and today is the founder of careerXD.com 

• Katrina McCarter – 
  • Katrina McCarter, International speaker, Founder and CEO of Marketing to Mums. 
  • Katrina has over 18 years sales and marketing experience across grocery and hardware 
  • Best selling author of “Marketing to Mums’
  • 2017 & 2018 Finalist in B&T’s Women in Media Awards ((Entrepreneur & Marketing category)
  • Regularly speaks internationally – Moms & Marketing Conference (Paris 28/9/18) and M2Moms Conference (New York 3/10/18).

• Mark Cameron –  
  • Digital Strategist, keynote speaker, media commentator and now CEO of W3 Digital
  • A certified Experience Economy Expert, 
  • Mark wrote Digital strategy column for BRW for over 5 years.
  • Columnist for Major Australian magazines Marketing Magazine and CMO.com.au, Marketing Week and Smart Data Collective.
  • He has been featured in The Australian Financial Review, The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.

What is the definition of Design lead thinking?

• The Definition of design lead thinking: for me is research based by digging and pressing further about how we determine what is the core of the problem, understand the systems around this problem, then finding a solution and understanding how does the whole organisation system work around it.

Mark tell us about your Design Lead philosophy?

Mark: Personally I see a separation between marketing and design lead thinking although they are part of the same discipline. In one sphere – Design and experience is given permission to be able to explore and spend time with the problem. In the other sphere, Marketing has become all about execution, speed  with a focus on Tech, stats and results.

Katrina: A real resistance to research is what I am experiencing. Short cutting and making assumptions, creating a strategy based on assumptions. Research is key and a deep understanding of the core customer is essential before moving forward..

Lisa: It is a risk management approach. Organisations spend so much time and money on developing solutions that it is such a risk to develop a solution before understanding all the facets of the problem. The need to understand the mindset and resist the temptation to jump to a solution without exploring all aspects of the problem. 

Mark: Helping Stakeholders to confront their own biases is also a part of that process. I worked on a project for the Vision impaired looking at what technology tools would better support them and it was assumed it would be a tech solution like a voice activated chat box. However we spent the time talking to the vision impaired and found they listen to Audiobooks at 10x the normal speed, so something like Alexa doesn’t work for them, it’s simply too slow. This research really helped show stakeholders what type of criteria was required to better meet their needs. It was a crucial part of the process in moving forward to create a suitable product.

Lisa, How do we ensure that Inhouse design teams are delivering real business value?

This is a real challenge as the growth in human centered design is happening in house. Senior stakeholders are wanting a clear return on their investment. The challenge is designers think about the customer but don’t consider or really understand the business benefits behind the design. It is important to understand the business drivers behind the work you are doing to ensure you are meeting the business objectives as much as the customer needs.

What are some of the collective challenges facing business today: is it their transition or their thinking?

Mark: Honestly it is both. Organisational change. Start with the right intentions – understand the customer and spend the time. In general companies are too quick to jump to a tech solution.

Whilst working with SAP in North America, post GFC, their organisation had to rethink everything they were doing. They knew that  90% of what they do will fail but the 10% will completely reshape their business to move forward.

The feeling that the rest of the world looks scary and we are not sure what is going to happen so let’s wait and see… is a mistake. Not taking action is the mistake. The rest of the world has evolved and the need to catch up sees companies looking for a silver bullet such as CRM or market automation (SPAM) etc. If you don’t take the time to find the right formula it will never work. Businesses need to go through the failures and the mistakes internally to then find what works for them and their customer.

Katrina: Such growth opportunities exist in understanding the consumer segment. The growth is not the tweak in the AI or chat bot that will see a company grow and expand, it is through creating new products and solutions based on clear and detailed research. I see lots of interest in shiny objects, the tech tools available to work with, however I still see countless marketing wastage by companies not understanding the customer. 

Lisa: I was recently at a Start up bootcamp listening to pitches from the top 20 startups around the world. There were 18 men and only 2 women, the men were all profit based companies and the women represented social enterprise. I was so shocked that all the start ups were focussing on the tech but when I asked them what problem they were trying to solve, they had such a shallow understanding. Unfortunately a great idea will fall over if it is not taken up by the customer. Highlighting the need to understand the customer problem you are trying to solve.

Mark: When it comes to technology, digital marketing and communications, businesses have two discrete choices. You can focus on understanding your customer well, segmenting the hell out of that data and then sending out more and more messages, on the path to creating smarter and smarter spam. Or you can collect the same data, understand your customer, work out how to innovate and then create more positive products and revenue streams. 

Katrina, as a Marketer, how do you see Design Lead thinking playing out in the businesses you are working with?

If I look at all the industries and the sizes of business, in traditionally large Corporates I do not see it playing out well at all. It’s actually the start ups that are doing a great job as they are looking to solve big problems. The FEMTECH space is really exciting. Elvie developed a silent breast pump with no cords and launched it on a model at London Fashion Week.  https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/london-fashion-week-model-breast-pump-valeria-garcia-marta-jakubowski-a8538886.html
Peanut designed a concept like tinder for mums helping them connect online when feeling disconnected in their locations https://www.peanut-app.io/. Milk Stalk is a service that enables mothers to pump at work and then courier home so they can pump and work and travel at the same time. Great solutions created by mothers for mothers.

Angela: Investment in female entrepreneurs in the USA last year was 2.2%, and growing, definitely an interesting space to watch. 

Katrina: Women are starting to solve their own problems after feeling misunderstood and their needs are not being met by existing companies in the “mother” space. They are really good at doing their research and listening to their market before they dive into product development.

What about the current digital landscape, Big data, AI, Social Media etc. What are your thoughts?

Mark: Ultra personalised news feeds, search results, social media etc are making us more polarised politically. Our relationship with computers is playing out in real time. The most fascinating part is how these filters and bubbles are shaping us as humans.  

Lisa: There is still a risk that we are creating a digital divide. The people creating these tech solutions live in bubbles 5-10km from the CBD but the majority of the people live 30km outside the city. We look around us and think everybody is just like us but it is not the case. I was recently listening in to calls at a call centre and there was one person who’s customer pulled out of the AVR as they didn’t want to hold up the que. They didn’t know that they were talking to a bot. Not everybody has the same understanding and experience with technology. With technology moving so fast there are cohorts of our population who will be left behind as they are not necessarily tech minded. This is why it is so important to understand the problem you are solving.

Katrina: A lot of organisations have a short term view from the top down. With Senior Management under pressure for their next career move and the need to meet certain KPI’s quickly, they miss the long term viability of the brand and the organisation.

Mark: The way public companies work with quarterly reporting focussing on immediate results but at some point you need to look at the longer term plan.  The CEO of GE in the UK said no more quarterly reporting, they shifted to yearly to take the focus into a longer term mindset.

How is the Digital shift impacting business operations:

Mark: Fundamentally, speed and technology have been the focus for the last 10 + years to reduce cost and manage risk. During this time new channels started to emerge and accessing a customer, and getting a customer to spend became much harder. CRM, Marketing Automation, eCommerce etc was focussing on new product/service around the customer but the closer they have gotten to the customer they have realised their core revenue streams are under threat. Organisations are starting to realise the need to internally review how they are helping the business to respond to an incredibly dynamic and ambiguous environment.

Lisa: Large organisations are moving into new ways of working but it is incredibly difficult for an organisation to restructure itself around a different type of thinking. They also have metrics and KPI’s from the top that do not necessarily support that kind of behaviour. It is a painful process to unstitch all structures of the organisation to see how they are functioning and making the required changes, but it is an essential one.

In regards to Australia, What in the digital landscape changed and how can businesses best combat these changes?

Mark: With the rapid changes in digital technology, all of a sudden competition came from where they did not expect it. This can be seen in the retail sector. 

Lisa: A huge risk to business is the pot shots of disruptors taking out small pieces of business here and there recognising a niche or a weak point in the customer journey. You get many of them and the entire organisation will weaken over time. Large companies don’t have the agility to respond with huge corporate structures so they cannot react in the time required. 

Who’s doing it well?

Mark: Nike Plus story. They asked themselves, ‘What’s our brand really about’….. it’s about helping our customers perform better. As a result they created products to support the customers goal such as shoe sensors, wrist bands, app on phone, fitness tracking etc. Supporting their customers perform, building the brand around its purpose. 

Lisa: It’s about building a relationship with customers. In my experience there are really only three real drivers: Health, Wealth, Relationships. If a brand can identify a way to develop a relationship with the customer on any of those platforms, the job to be done on what the customer is trying to achieve by purchasing that product or engaging with that brand, that is where the value and the growth is. The challenge is getting those values up the chain within the organisation. People have very fixed ideas about the industry they are in and how it is to be done. 

Mark: A case study for a chain of theatres in the US who wanted to sell more tickets in the middle of the day. They did all the standard things such as half price tickets, free popcorn etc and it was unsuccessful in growing sales. They then applied the jobs to be done theory and started exploring and understanding their customers and they discovered the customers during the day were mums who wanted a break from the kids. So the theatre built a creche and charged standard ticket prices and tickets started selling out.

Lisa: Woolworths saw a weak point in the customer journey. Grocery shopping online with click and collect. A special parking spot where you park and text that you have arrived and they bring your shopping to your car and place in your boot. It makes the experience so smooth and effortless that grocery shopping is now a joy!

What are three things that Brands can do to deliver growth in the future:

Katrina: Start by listening. We don’t listen enough and there is so much to learn by engaging with our target market and gaining their insights and their needs. I cannot say it enough, Research. It doesn’t always have to be formal, any type of research expands your understanding of what the problems are so you know what you are looking to resolve. Finally I would say to collaborate. Get your market involved in your product research. You will gain great insights and strong advocates.

Mark: Solve one problem really well. Rather than trying to do everything and subsequently doing nothing well. Focus on building a platform for growth

Lisa: The power of storytelling. Many companies are lacking the emotional connection between the brand and its purpose with the actual internal decision makers. It is important for the person doing the research to present in a way that brings the data to life for the CEO to connect. Find creative ways to engage with your customers and collaborate. The idea of co-design needs to come to the floor. It is also a good idea to slow down, pulling the arrow back, investing in the energy so that when the arrow is released it travels much further.

Lisa What motivated you to stay on and take PWC on the journey further than just selling your business?

• PwC is a really exciting place to work. It gave me a view into understanding business and the economic machine behind our society that I had never seen before. When we sold Stamford I was still in my mid 30s, so I was far from ready to hang up my boots. One of the reasons we chose to sell to PwC rather than the other companies we used to get approached by was because it would give an amazing runway for our team to grow. I’ve always tended to pursue things that interest me, rather than any other reason.

• The experience design space mostly comprises UXers and service designers, and the field is growing really fast. I recently read that UX is the 7th most in-demand skill globally. That’s amazing! But how do we ensure that inhouse design teams deliver real business value? 
  • Lisa
    • Design needs to grow up if it is to continue to mature. (what do you mean by that?) Outlined the shortcomings! Designers need to understand business as well as they understand the customer if they are going to help their organisations, who typically have their focus the other way around.
    • My passion now……is about helping people grow great experience design teams and individual careers, whether people are just starting out or have years of design experience. This will help strengthen our industry as a whole.

• What are the Pillars you contribute to Success in your work?
  • Lisa;
    • My superpower is my ability to listen and hear things that many people don’t hear. This means I can ask insightful questions that get people thinking about the same-old problems in a very different way. I’m also intensely loyal, which means that over the years I have surrounded myself with people who are incredibly talented and who I care about deeply. There’s a strong sense of trust that comes with this, that enables you to take risks that others probably wouldn’t. Risks don’t seem so scary when you are surrounded by people who have your back, come what may.

I hope you can join us 24TH JULY 2019 for an evening with SAMANTHA FREEBAIRN at Merchant. The event is all about DARING TO LEAD CULTURAL CHANGE! Samantha is a Pilot for RAAF, Young Global Leader with the World Economic Forum, Telstra Business Women’s Award Winner and a Pioneer in the Airforce for changing culture. The evening will take place at Merchant where you will enjoy a delicious two course full sit down intimate dinner with Digital Women’s Network and Samantha.

We will be spending the night looking at;

– In-depth look at the challenges and opportunities across the professional cultural landscape.

– Discuss the definition of what leadership is and most Importantly what it means to you.

– The various type of leadership style’s and how to apply a suitable leadership style that you will excel in.

– How to Inspire Female leaders with a focus on understanding key attributes of a change maker and the importance of trials

– How do we encourage to change the cultural environment in which we work?

– How do we inspire “New ways” of working?

– Insights and practical tips “How to both tactically and as an influencer” lead the way for many Women

There will be some takeaway materials and an opportunity to win a 1:1 coaching session with Samantha and some wonderful door prizes. Samatha is a Women’s Leadership Specialist, Pilot, Keynote speaker and as a Business Coach who  along with Digital Women’s Network.

DARING TO LEAD CULTURAL CHANGE, WITH SAMANTHA FREEBAIRN

WEDNESDAY JUL 24, 2019

6PM-9:00PM

INTIMATE DINNER AT MERCHANT

495 COLLINS ST, MELBOURNE VIC 3000

WWW.DIGITALWOMENSNETWORK.COM

Tickets selling fast;

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/dare-to-lead-cultural-change-tickets-62246410690

Looking forward to seeing you there!

The post Insights from Changing Digital Landscape appeared first on Women's Networking Events - Melbourne.

Lisa is a pioneer in the experience design industry and has been a leading practitioner since the dot com boom of the late 90s. She was an owner of Stamford Interactive, formerly Australia’s largest experience design agency when it was acquired by PwC in 2014. She then worked to embed human-centred design into PwC’s consulting approach and shaped PwC’s Experience Centre, which has grown to be a market-leading experience design capability offered by PwC firms around the world. Lisa Wade is a human-centred design career coach, and today is the founder of careerXD.com, a coaching platform that helps professionals pivot their careers into UX or service design, to help them grow amazing design careers.

Lisa, please tell me a little about your career before Stamford interactive, what drove you into the industry?

• I studied psychology but was a frustrated writer at heart. I graduated from university in the dot com boom of the late 90s when the internet was just starting and carved a niche writing and editing for websites. No one had thought that content was anything special yet, and much content was somewhat sadly built by the same person who designed and built the website. I realised that I needed to write differently than for print, and this lead to me working in the very emerging field of “web usability”. No one knew what I was talking about back then, so it’s amazing to see how UX has grown in 20 years.

I’m aware of the huge success you had with your Stamford Interactive, which I understand was formerly Australia’s largest experience design agency before selling in 2014 to PwC what were some of your key learnings? What was the main focus of your business values and processes to grow so successfully?

• Our business was built around creating a great place for our staff to become amazing designers. We developed a strong reputation as the place to go to build a career in experience design. People could start with no experience and within three years would be amazing consultants. When you look after your staff, they look after your clients, and profits just take care of themselves. Many of the people who cut their teeth at Stamford are in very senior design roles today. It’s a wonderful thing to think that our company sparked so all that design brilliance that has spread across the entire digital ecosystem in Australia.

How have you navigated through the industry to the empowering leader you are? Has gender played a part in the challenges and to your success? Do you have any guidance or words of wisdom to share here on this?

• Gender brings its own challenges. I’m a mum of three kids, and I used to say that Stamford was my third child, but then I went and had a third child! Many women are driven to perfectionism, which can hold them back. I tend to go with progress over perfection, which helps me cover more ground. It also helps me bring in other people to work on some things if they have the better capability in it than I do. I also had the good fortune (or was it foresight?) to marry an incredibly supportive husband who carries his fair share of the work at home. Women who have to bear the bulk of domestic duties can be weighed down by an enormous anchor. So choose your partner very carefully, ladies!

• I am convinced that gender equality needs to be fought in the kitchen and the laundry rather than in the boardroom.

• PwC gave me a platform to learn more about gender equality in corporate Australia, and it’s something I have become incredibly passionate about. I have been an entrepreneur since my mid-20s, and was self-employed until I went to PwC. Working with programs like Male Champions of Change during my time there made me realise the full extent of the gender problem that I hadn’t fully appreciated in all the years I was my own boss.

What are some challenges facing businesses in 2019?

• Large corporates are still in a battle to understand how to be truly customer-centric. They build experience design teams, but they still have metrics and KPIs in place that stifle innovation. This leaves them exposed to the small operators who can innovate without all that baggage. I think most industries won’t fall over to one single disruptor but will be weakened overall by the many innovators who take away lots of small pieces of their business over a number of years.

You are now the Founder and Principal at CareerXD.com what drove you to start this business?

• CareerXD.com enables me to give back to an industry that has been so good to me, as well as pursue my love of coaching, training and helping others grow. I’m the kind of person who just loves to grow things: businesses, children, gardens – whatever! I get a real kick out of nurturing something to make it grow into something strong and beautiful, so helping others grow their careers gives me a real buzz.

Can you please give us some insights into how you see the current digital landscape?

• As a human-centred designer, I can see that design practitioners are under increasing pressure because of the speed at which they are now required to deliver work. Businesses are not as willing to slow down to speed up. This means they are at huge risk of building the wrong solution because they never took the time to make sure they were addressing the right problem.

What are the top trends for 2019/2020?

• Automation is so hot right now (!) but we need to ensure that we always put the human experience front and centre. I recently attended a startup accelerator and listened to all these startups getting really excited about the tech they were building without being crystal clear on the human problems they were trying to solve. We still have a long way to go before tech, business and customer can have an equal stake in the game.

What are the key issues facing businesses in this ever-changing digital landscape?

• The digital landscape is always changing, but some things will always stay the same. The landscape is there to provide great experiences to human beings. If we think about what the human experience is through all this amazing technology we create, we can’t go too far wrong.

How do you see design lead thinking playing out in the businesses you work with?

• Design thinking and human-centred design has become hugely popular in the corporate world, but it’s nothing new, really. Old wine in new bottles! Many professions have been doing human-centred design for centuries. Doctors. Teachers. Psychologists. Parents. They are all experts at listening, identifying problems, understanding the human impact of the problem, codesigning solutions, testing and iterating. These are many of the skills that human centred designers use every day! This is so exciting to me, because it means that many of the people who want to enter this profession have skills that they can leverage to get started and create truly amazing things.

What’s next for CareerXD.com?

• CareerXD.com is growing every day. Right now we are growing a community of people who are at all different points of their careers in human-centred design. Currently, the focus is on coaching and community-building, but soon I’ll be offering some programs to help people who want to start a career in UX or service design to get a foothold in this industry.

Join us Digital Women’s Network and meet Lisa Wade on 22nd May where we will cover the topic of the ever-changing digital landscape! On the night we will explore what all business should be doing digitally, unpack the landscape, explore design thinking and its application. Discuss the digital trends, tools, service design, digital innovation and customer data strategy. Hope that you can come along and hear more from Mark and our incredible line up of speakers including;

• Mark Cameron Digital Strategist, keynote speaker, media commentator and CEO W3 Digital
• Katrina McCarter, International speaker, Founder and CEO of Marketing to Mums
• Lisa Wade Founder and Principal of CareerXD.com
• Angela Mellak MCIM, Top 3# Australia Linkedin Influencer, Anthills Judge top 100, Marketing Strategist Co-Founder and Digital White Space and Founder of Digital Women’s Network.

Join us to network the evening away, meet like minds and enjoy the Grossi hospitality.

• Arlechin.
• May 22nd 2019
• 6-8:30 pm
• Mornane Pl, Melbourne VIC 3000 (in the alleyway just behind Grossi Florentino)
• Nibbles provided by Grossi!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/how-to-keep-up-with-the-ever-changing-digital-landscape-tickets-58364636198?aff=erelexpmlt

The post Behind design lead thinking.. with Lisa Wade appeared first on Women's Networking Events - Melbourne.

In the lead up to our event 22nd May 2019, here is my sit down interview with the inspirational Katrina McCarter the Guru of Marketing to Mum’s. Please, e-meet (though I’m sure you may already have heard of her) Katrina McCarter, International speaker, Founder and CEO of Marketing to Mums

• Katrina has over 18 years sales and marketing experience working across diverse industries including grocery, hardware where she was always targeting mum as the purchaser this drove her to create the Bestselling book “Marketing to Mums’
• 2018 Finalist in B&T’s Women in Media Awards (Marketing category)
• 2017 Finalist in B&T’s Women in Media Awards (Entrepreneur category)
• #1 on Booktopia’s Business Best-seller list
• Book listed in ‘Must Read Australian Advertising and Media Books’
• Regularly speaks internationally – Moms & Marketing Conference (Paris 28/9/18) and M2Moms Conference (New York 3/10/18).

I am aware of the huge success you had with your online shopping website for mums called Bubbler.com.au. I believe you grew to a community of 150,000 mums before selling in late 2016, (amazing)

• What were some of your key learnings? What was the main focus of your business to grow it to such a large community?

Great question. I think I was only successful in growing my first business to such a large community of mothers was because I could really relate to them. I was in their shoes with three young children at home. I recognised their problems, motivations and wants. This enabled me to demonstrate a level of empathy which other big brands couldn’t. I was very connected with my community and this allowed my stay relevant with what we offered on our website. This deep level of customer understanding was an important factor in my success.

• What motivated you to start Marketing to Mums?

When I was running my first business, I quickly learned that brands were really struggling to understand mothers. They would lump them all together in one big group, perpetuate old stereotypes and wondered why their creative wasn’t being well received. I saw mothers becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the way they were being communicated with brands and, with that, I spotted a gap in the market and launched my marketing and research consultancy in late 2015.  I now support brands with education around mothers, research around their mothers and help them build a strategy which delivers sales growth and market share gains.

• What are some challenges facing marketers in 2019?

I think there is a great deal of pressure on senior marketers to deliver growth and this can be extremely challenging when your customers are changing so quickly and there are so many tools you could use. I see increasing overwhelm in the market as to where to start and working out what strategies will perform best for a brand. There is also increasing pressure on marketers to be able to demonstrate ROI for their marketing investments.  Successful marketers today are great storytellers who deeply understand and are connected to their customer. They are also happy to do things differently and are happy to take some risks.

• You teach at ADMA what are you seeing as the key areas of interest for students and companies?

Yes, I am the Instructor for the Digital Marketing Certificate and Digital Marketing Essentials courses for ADMA in Melbourne. Our first class always kicks off with understanding what the student’s current challenges are. In many cases, they’ve done their marketing degree but their digital skills are not up to date and this is what motivates them to enrol in the certificate class. In other instances, they are a senior marketing manager and managing all the marketing function but there are current areas they don’t feel strong in and I aim to fill that gap for them over the ten weeks we spend together.  Much of their initial interest lies in learning about the more technical aspects of paid advertising and search marketing however I feel that over the course this really expands.

• Can you please give us some insights into how you see the current digital landscape?

I’d like to answer this question from my client’s perspective. Clients say to me that they find the current digital landscape overwhelming. Many don’t have strong digital skills and they are finding it tough to keep up to date. These issues are particularly highlighted when these people are managing a market team. They feel that there are so many different tools and strategies which could be used but they need help understanding what will be most effective. I always bring them back to their customer. Typically, I start with an assessment to better understand where I think they have gaps or unmet opportunities. Then I undertake a research project to identify and understand their most profitable of the Mum market. I take my time in this stage as I need to understand their customer very deeply. I want to also understand their journey to finding the brand also. Once this is identified I can assist them to work out what are the best digital strategies they can employ as I have strong expertise around communication preferences of different segments of mothers based on my ongoing research into Australian mothers.

• What are the top trends for 2019/2020?

We are seeing kids and dads getting a growing voice in large purchasing decisions as younger Millennial families adopt a more egalitarian approach to parenting. Many brands need to be considering their strategy to reach these segments as well as mothers now and this means considering different digital marketing channels. A classic example is in the travel industry. Kids are shaking up the family travel market as we know it. They are heavily influenced by You Tubers they follow (from around 9 years of age) and they want to travel to places they’ve seen in their favourite You Tubers videos. So, we are indirectly seeing travel being impacted by You Tubers targeting tween and teens. Most travel companies aren’t considering this factor at all.

Amongst mothers, we are seeing a growing use of Podcasting which represents a great opportunity to get her uninterrupted attention. Brands could be sponsoring or looking to be featured on podcasts to build stronger, deeper relationships with mothers.

Another trend we are seeing is the return to minimalism. Marie Kondo has really led to enormous change as mothers are looking to simplify their lives. It’s about quality over quantity, particularly amongst Gen X mothers in Australia right now.

Mums are also rewarding brands who demonstrate diversity, sustainable business practices and bring more fun and playfulness into their brand communications. It means there needs to be a rethink about how you are communicating with mothers.

Digitally speaking Mums in Australia are still lovers of Facebook, although we are seeing increasing use of Instagram as younger women become mothers. YouTube is overlooked in my opinion and I am also seeing a return to greater use of Google advertising as brands become dissatisfied with their results from Facebook advertising.

• Last we spoke you had recently returned from a speaking tour in Paris and New York – what were some of the key global insights you can share?

I am writing about this at the moment in my book. I speak in the US each year and last year I also had the opportunity to share my research about Australian mothers. I have found that there are some insights which are universal. Brands still don’t understand mothers in enough depth and this means they are wasting much of their marketing investment with poor marketing channel selection. Many brands are continuing to perpetuate old stereotypes. There is a growing dissatisfaction with brand communications amongst mothers across the world which many brands have not woken up to. Globally, I see that opportunities within the Mum market abound. Whether that be in exploring poorly catered for sub-segments of the Mum market, to launching into other geographic markets, there are plenty of opportunities for brands to drive sales, profit and market share.

• What’s next for Marketing to Mums?

I am currently writing my next book which is pitched at Board Directors, C-Suite and Senior Marketers. The book helps answer the question of ‘Where can I get growth for my brand over the next decade?’. I highlight the enormous financial opportunities which abound in key sub-segments, geographic locations and industries. It will launch in October.

I’m also very committed to my podcast which I launched late last year. Marketing to Mums the Podcast helps marketing professionals improve their communications and sales to mothers around the world. I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to interview global brand leaders, leading researchers and best-selling authors to share the latest insights about mothers.

We are delighted to host at Digital Women’s Network, Katrina McCarter on the topic of the ever-changing digital landscape! On the night we will explore what all business should be doing digitally, unpack the landscape, explore design thinking and its application. Discuss the digital trends, tools, service design, digital innovation and customer data strategy. Hope that you can come along and hear more from Mark and our incredible line up of speakers including;

• Mark Cameron Digital Strategist, keynote speaker, media commentator and CEO W3 Digital
• Katrina McCarter, International speaker, Founder and CEO of Marketing to Mums
• Lisa Wade Founder and Principal of CareerXD.com
• Angela Mellak MCIM, Top 3# Australia Linkedin Influencer, Anthills Judge top 100, Marketing Strategist Co-Founder and Digital White Space and Founder of Digital Women’s Network.

Join us to network the evening away, meet like minds and enjoy the Grossi hospitality.

• Arlechin.
• May 22nd 2019
• 6-8:30 pm
• Mornane Pl, Melbourne VIC 3000 (in the alleyway just behind Grossi Florentino)
• Nibbles provided by Grossi!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/how-to-keep-up-with-the-ever-changing-digital-landscape-tickets-58364636198?aff=erelexpmlt

The post Here is my sit down with the guru of Marketing to Mum’s appeared first on Women's Networking Events - Melbourne.

Mark has worked on a vast array of digital and customer focused projects including major political elections, global brand strategy, innovation strategy, transformation initiatives, and digital product development a few of the things you may know Mark by include;

• Digital strategy columnist for BRW for over 5 years.
• Columnist for Major Australian magazines Marketing Magazine and CMO.com.au.
• Columnist for global publications such as Marketing Week and Smart Data Collective.
• His writing has also been featured in The Australian Financial Review, The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.
• The only person in Australia to be certified as an Experience Economy Expert, the framework that brands like Lego, Ikea and Disney use to develop and commercialise their customer experience.

Please tell us about your journey, how did you get into Digital?

• I started my career in an advertising agency in NZ, the office Jnr. I worked my way up and then went off to design School. After school started some early website roles, in the early ’90s before Google was a thing! Then joined hyperactive which was eventually bought out by Accenture. By this time (mid to late 2000) I had quite a few big web projects under my belt and in 2001 came to Melbourne for a bit en route to my big role in New York, but then September 11 happened and everything stopped. I was doing freelance work for some well known FMCG clients and stayed in Melbourne, 2003 joined Working three. By 2007 I took it over and over the years through a few iterations I’ve turned it into a digital transformation agency. Working with companies such as SAP North America, GSK, AustraliaPost and Telstra.

I understand you are a certified Experience Economy Expert, that you were the 225th person in the world to earn that title — and the first person in Australia. How did you get this qualification and what drove you to get certified? can you share with us some of the key concepts?

• Few years ago whilst working with SAP in Nth America, met a guy called Joe Pine he is the author of Mass customisation and the experience economy (He coined both these phrases).

Joseph Pine II is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and management advisor to Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial start-ups alike. In his speaking and teaching activities, Mr. Pine has addressed both the World Economic Forum and TED, and is a Visiting Scholar with the MIT Design Lab. He has also taught at Penn State, Duke Corporate Education, the University of Minnesota, UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management, and the Harvard Design School. He serves on the editorial boards of Strategy & Leadership and Strategic Direction and is a Senior Fellow with both the Design Futures Council and the European Centre for the Experience Economy, which he co-founded. For more, see www.StrategicHorizons.com.

• We kept in touch and Joe reached out and asked me to come to the US and get certified, at their offices called Strategic Horizons LLP, a thinking studio dedicated to helping businesses conceive and design new ways of adding value to their economic offerings.
• They only accept 4-5 people a year, I went through the process it was pretty amazing. The way they broke down the approach is incredible, they turned “experience design” into an experience itself, getting you to look at who are your actors, what is your stage, what is your script? They really think of all the elements involved in the process of developing the experience.
• They have a different angle from many other academic approaches on how to make the customer experience and experience of design understood and accessible. In recent years it has become very academic, Joe and his business partner are turning this on its head to make it accessible and easy to understand, as in order for it to get the traction it needs business leaders need to easily get it!

Tell us more about your design lead philosophy?

• Happy to answer that from the perspective of Digital Transformation. First Let’s unpack what Digital Transformation means, it means different things to different people and it continues to evolve. The language has changed and the meaning has morphed, Digital Transformation was initially very technology lead. Initially, it was all about cost out of a business “how do we keep wages flat” or “reduce headcount with Digital Transformation. Then it became Digital Transformation which was all about the customer- the customer marketing tools – marketing automation, personalisation etc.
• In recent times particularly after businesses have found out more about their customer, its focus is now all about business transformation. Most importantly how businesses can find new ways, what is the business cadence in a rapidly evolving market? The business model revolution as opposed to doing things faster- marketing, accounting etc. Its all about how can we reinvent our business around a digital world?
• A design lead approach means you have to break through the entrenched ideas and old thinking that “they can control this (their brand externally), and control that”. Corporate culture wants to jump to the solution. In the past companies identify a problem then rush to develop the solution, you start working on the solution sometimes for years and don’t fix the problem or it can take years to get any traction with the solution as it’s not really solving the problem.
• With a design lead approach, you investigate more than before you go back to the problem, you go back to the customer and you ask questions and take the themes that emerge and continue to dig beneath to uncover the real issues.
• From the designer thinking, he/she wants to spend time unpacking the problem, because if we really understand the problem the solution should be self-evident.
• For many businesses, it can feel like you’re in research for a long time, but once you get momentum developing the solution is fast and most importantly effective.

One of my favourite quotes in life is “the same consciousness that created the issue can’t solve it”- Everything is about the customer experience, whom do you see doing this really well? who do you see is really stuck and why?

• Nike plus is a great example globally of how they putt the customer experience first- the brand is all about performance, so they merged the digital world and created an ecosystem all the way to the Apple Watch.
• Locally I think Grilled is doing customer experience really well.
• Many brands in Australia a confused about customer experience and price. Price (price beat) is a hygiene factor, for instance when you go into Bunnings the best part of the experience is the service, not the price guarantee, how they deal with your issues and returns and of course the sausage keep you coming back!
• Many companies are really getting lost, they are trying to boil the ocean instead of just think of the 1-2 things they can do better than anyone else.
• Australian Retail has maintained a level of complacency and arrogance for a very long time. They have been singing “our economy is doing fine” and did nothing for years! Now its catch up time and they are trying to make everything work, racing up the personalisation curve and data curve and inevitably what happens is they do nothing well.
• Business in Australia have held off investing for a long time, I really noticed when working with the US, they were in pain, the GFC but they are in a state of acceptance. They know they needed to look at everything in a new way and 90% of things they take on test and trial possibly will fail but the 10% of things they do would do the opposite and would be amazing. The most exciting part is during the process it changes the culture, re-sets is so much so it builds the foundation for the next 50 years of business.
• Australia, however, is now trying to leapfrog, we need to accept that we need to fail. The burning platform hasn’t been here that’s why complacency has been alive and well. Intergenerational conversations are going on but really the issue here in Australia is fear of change.
• We have had growth year after year- why change!

Nothing breeds innovation like a necessity- if the burning platform is not there they don’t change.

• I am however really encouraged in hearing at a board level the patterns in the US are starting to happen here. High performing CEO are being asked about their customer strategy, boards are demanding their CEO have a forward plan and true customer and digital strategy this risk of not having forward-looking plans is too much of a risk and in many cases, they push the CEO out. It needs to be all about new ways of working, ensuring sustainability and reducing risk.

2017 You stated in one of your blogs “Developing capabilities now, both human and technological, that create focus and velocity among the resources and processes within your organisation has to be a priority. ” What in this still as relevant today? What are the current opportunities?

• More in focus now is what is your operations model, is it less of the old model “command, control and extract as much value out of your product as possible”
• If your market is moving you become nowhere fast. The question is how do you improve the business cadence and respond to a dynamic environment? How does the organisation work in a dynamic environment- You still need structure and process but you need to fatten out the organisation and build in things like continual customer enquiry.

Its key to knowing what your customers are actually saying. What do they want?

• The Banks just worried about their NPS score and look at what happened there! NPS is the only old metrics the boards tick off. You need a deep down into what is your customer trying to tell you?
• Imagine if the banks knew this? maybe we wouldn’t have needed a royal commission- if they would have listened they would have known.

Beyond Social platforms, mobile apps, analytics, understanding customer journey and the performance of services what do you see as the top trends are for 2019/2020?

• Trends are going to be what the software companies want us to buy; AI, “machine learning cut up”, marketing automation, more optimisation. It’s going to come thick and fast product, service platform and rammed down our necks!
• However, the big trend is happening at the board level. They are looking at how do we structure an organisation that is sustainable and growth focused. The businesses should be thinking deeply about who is the customer- who are you serving. For instance the old thinking from an Education standpoint, who were they selling to? originally it was academic, then it moved to the student however it’s really the Industry that is bidding for the students.
• People are having to learn to deal with that balancing and ambiguity, boards are getting their arms around the new thinking and are expecting their teams to be all around changing the way the organisation works.

We are delighted to host at Digital Women’s Network, Mark Cameron on the topic of the ever-changing digital landscape! On the night we will explore what all business should be doing digitally, unpack the landscape, explore design thinking and its application. Discuss the digital trends, tools, service design, digital innovation and customer data strategy. Hope that you can come along and hear more from Mark and our incredible line up of speakers including;

Katrina McCarter, International speaker, Founder and CEO of Marketing to Mums

Lisa Wade Founder and Principal of CareerXD.com

Join us to network the evening away, meet like minds and enjoy the Grossi hospitality.

• Arlechin.
• May 22nd 2019
• 6-8:30 pm
• Mornane Pl, Melbourne VIC 3000 (in the alleyway just behind Grossi Florentino)
• Nibbles provided by Grossi!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/how-to-keep-up-with-the-ever-changing-digital-landscape-tickets-58364636198?aff=erelexpmlt

The post Here is my insightful chat with Mark Cameron appeared first on Women's Networking Events - Melbourne.