Podcasts about emerge interactive

Welcome to Episode 97 of The Future of Work, the podcast that looks at every aspect of work in the future, featuring industry experts and thought leaders discussing how work is changing and evolving. The Future of Work is NOW.In the past 2 episodes with digital product design CEO at Emerge Interactive, Jonathon Hensley, we have looked at the basics of product-building principles and the whether work should be designed in a similar way.In this final episode, we focus a little more on the work Jonathon's company does and how they approach a client request to design a product, and how that is intertwined with looking at the company's work experience.

Welcome to Episode 96 of The Future of Work, the podcast that looks at every aspect of work in the future, featuring industry experts and thought leaders discussing how work is changing and evolving. The Future of Work is NOW.In this second outing with Emerge Interactive CEO, Jonathon Hensley, we look at the connection between product and work experience design. We start to look more practically at how technology is only a tool and it's how we connect the human to it that is the key to success. 

Welcome to Episode 95 of The Future of Work, the podcast that looks at every aspect of work in the future, featuring industry experts and thought leaders discussing how work is changing and evolving. The Future of Work is NOW.For the next three episodes we are joined by the CEO at Emerge Interactive, a UX design agency specializing in digital product strategy and full-stack development, Jonathon Hensley. Our goal is to unpack his thoughts around digital product design and better design of the work experience. In this first episode we go back to the basics of what product building principles are and we find out why 84% of digital products fail to meet expectations.

On Product Management in HR & Employee Experience, a conversation with Jonathon Hensley, CEO of Emerge Interactive What is alignment and why it is so important Why many digital initiatives fail How to define an effective product strategy that bridges the execution gap Managing executive stakeholders and expectations Aligning outcomes and constrained resources Links Jonathon LinkedIn's page Emerge Interactive. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/abruptfuture/message

Today's Lesson in Product Management comes from Jonathon Hensley, Co-Founder and CEO of Emerge Interactive and Author of Alignment: Overcoming Internal Sabotage and Product Failure. When I first heard about Jonathon's book, I ordered it immediately. Alignment is one of the hardest parts of my job as a product manager, and I've enjoyed putting his advice and frameworks into practice. In this conversation you'll get to hear the origin story that drove Jonathon to write the book, how to build the foundations of alignment in your own company, and the pitfalls that you should be aware of as you do. And Be sure to grab the link to Jonathon's book in the show notes before you close the podcast app. Here's what we discussed: 1:18 Johnathon's Introduction 2:24 Origin story of Alignment 4:34 How Jonathon defines Alignment 6:45 The importance and definition of vision 8:35 How to build the foundation of alignment 11:05 Three themes of the book: Assumptions, Communication, and Strategy 13:24 The difference between reality and truth 17:30 The danger of the “fail fast fail often” mantra 19:57 The pillars of good strategy 25:08 Product Management hack to get unique customer insights 30:45 The four levels of alignment 32:00 Where alignment falls apart 38:30 The impact of written communication and documentation 43:00 Grab Jonathon's book Alignment: Overcoming Internal Sabotage and Product Failure Grab a copy of Alignment on Amazon Connect with Jonathan and Emerge Interactive --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/productmanagementlessons/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/productmanagementlessons/support

Jonathan Hensley was inspired at a very young age by his entrepreneurial parents to combine technology and psychology then innovate through empathy. He is the CEO of Emerge Interactive where they help clients innovate and implement technology with a people-centric approach. In other words, leading people to manage the outcomes. Sharing his experiences on alignment, strategy and empathy while implementing digital solutions to business problems, Jonathan explains what leaders need to focus on, how they need to be trilingual in order to collaborate with trust rather than simply coordinate to execute. emergeinteractive.com

Jonathon Hensley is co-founder and CEO of Emerge Interactive, a digital product consulting firm. Join us as we discuss his new book, Alignment: Overcoming Internal Sabotage and Digital Product Failure Here are some of the questions we discuss: What is alignment and why is it so important? Why do so many digital initiatives fail? How do you define an effective product strategy that bridges the execution gap? What is essential in understanding customers? What can businesses do to make better decisions as they are moving quickly? For more than two decades, Jonathon has helped startups, Fortune 100 brands, technology leaders, large regional health networks, non-profit organizations and more, transform their businesses by turning strategy, user needs and new technologies into valuable digital products and services. Jonathon writes and speaks about his experiences and insights from his career, and regularly hosts interviews with business leaders and industry insiders.

This week, VP of Sales and Marketing Zach Rego talks with Jonathon Hensley, Co-Founder & CEO of EMERGE and author of the must-read digital transformation book Alignment about how to successfully launch a digital product.

Jonathon Hensley is the CEO of Emerge Interactive, a digital product agency based out of Oregon with a very impressive list of clients, including AT&T, Wells Fargo, Starbucks, and Microsoft. Jonathon works with clients to transform business strategies, user needs and new technologies into valuable products and experiences. In this episode, he helps us understand what digital products are, why many digital endeavors fail, and the importance of following the process precisely. He is passionate about improving efficiency internally for his clients but also improving the customer experience externally.

Hey there and welcome back to Eggs! Joining us today is return guest Jonathon Hensley. Jonathon is co-founder and CEO of Emerge Interactive and author of the new book Alignment: Overcoming internal sabotage and digital product failure. For more than two decades, Jonathon has helped startups, Fortune 100 brands, technology leaders, large regional health networks, non-profit organizations and more, transform their businesses by turning strategy, user needs, and new technologies into valuable digital products and services. His work focuses on helping leaders define the value they want to create in a succinct and tangible way; where to focus, why, and what it will take to achieve that outcome. Jonathon writes and speaks about his experiences and insights from his career, and regularly hosts in-depth interviews with business leaders and industry insiders. Here to talk about all that, the new book and more is our guest, Jonathon Hensley.----Jonathon HensleyCo-founder and CEO of Emerge Interactive and author of the new book Alignment: Overcoming internal sabotage and digital product failure.https://www.emergeinteractive.comhttps://www.productalignment.comCredits:Hosted by: Michael Smith and Ryan RoghaarProduced by: Michael Smith and Ryan RoghaarEdited by: Audiostar Entertainment Theme music: "Perfect Day" by OPMThe Carton:https://medium.com/the-carton-by-eggsFeature with Zack Chmeis of Straight Method up now! https://medium.com/the-carton-by-eggs/zack-chmeis-35dae817ac28The Eggs Podcast Spotify playlist:bit.ly/eggstunesThe Plugs:The Showeggscast.com@eggshow on twitter and instagramOn iTunes: itun.es/i6dX3pCOn Stitcher: bit.ly/eggs_on_stitcherAlso available on Google Play Music!Mike "DJ Ontic" shows and infodjontic.com@djontic on twitterRyan Roghaarhttp://ryanroghaar.com

Jonathon Hensley is CEO of Emerge Interactive, where he works with clients to transform business strategies, user needs and new technologies into valuable products and experiences. An accomplished writer and speaker, Jonathon has lectured on topics such as the connected consumer's impact on business, creating value through data-driven experiences, and user-centric approaches to innovation. In 2012 he was recognized in the Portland Business Journal's “40 under 40” as one of Portland's emerging professional and community leaders. Under Jonathon's stewardship Emerge Interactive has committed to a simple philosophy: The relationship between Emerge and its clients should exist to create real and lasting value. To change the conversation. To move people to action. To inspire and motivate a team to focus on what matters. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Dream Business Radio #433 On this week’s Dream Business Radio Show, I interview entrepreneur the co-founder and CEO of Emerge Interactive, Jonathon Hensley. Emerge is a digital product consulting firm that works with companies to improve operational agility and customer experience. Download MP3 Connect to Jonathon on their website: EmergeInteractive.com

There are three things you can use to achieve more with less and reach your goals: the power of the pause, frameworks to think about success, and how we all have complex challenges. Jess Dewell brings you real examples about stepping back and surveying the landscape and bringing what you find into your daily journey. She discusses how to hone what you’ve learned and apply it to an achievable future with Erik Host-Steen, Business Consultant; Crista Grasso, Creator Lean Out Method; and Jonathon Hensley, CEO of Emerge Interactive.

As you'd expect for a Tech CEO, Jonathan Hensley is a busy man. Day to day, Jonathan Hensley serves as both the CEO of Emerge Interactive and as the technology advisor for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The tech titan who was raised in The Bay has seen his industry explode before his eyes dating back to his boyhood, well aware of both the game-changing innovation and the high-priced fluff that’s come and gone over the years. Because of all this, Jonathan knows exactly what it takes to have staying power and growth. The secret? Technology isn’t about computers, it’s about people. More importantly, it’s about their problems. “Technology is the moment someone decides they’re hungry,” says Jonathan Hensley on this episode of the Digital Hospitality podcast. *** Digital Hospitality: A CaliBBQ.Media Podcast What was your takeaway from this episode? Email shawn@calibbq.media. We want to hear from you because your opinion matters to all of us at Cali BBQ Media. Your voices and opinions shape this podcast and our other digital content.   RELATED LINKS — Emerge Interactive:  Emerge Interactive is a Digital Product Agency based in Portland, Oregon.  "A great idea is just the beginning. Through every stage of the product life cycle, Emerge is a brain-trust dedicated to forward thinking, creating value for our clients and the customers they serve, building digital products people love and use." Schedule a Call with Emerge at https://calendly.com/emergeinteractive/initial-consult/?month=2020-12 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathonhensley/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/jonathonhensley     Team Emerge Interactive is Inspired by Innovators: Emerge Interactive solves complex digital product challenges. As they state on their website: "When you can’t afford to get it wrong we’re here to help. We create smart products, web and mobile solutions."   Learn more online at https://www.emergeinteractive.com/about/   Inspired by the likes of Steve Jobs and the Apple innovator’s keen sense of using tech as functional, problem solving tools, Jonathan Hensley and his team at Emerge Interactive are all about adding value to all involved. “The most successful companies are shifting from command and control to servant leadership,” Jonathan Hensley said in our rich and entertaining conversation. “A company can enter a market with a million options and completely dominate the market because they understand the customer. They understand that the customer is looking for something different and they’re willing to serve their needs and really listen and engage with them. You can’t ever stop doing that.” When Jonathan says you can never stop listening and engaging, he means it. “The companies that stop growing and stop scaling are the ones that stop listening to customers,” emphasizes Jonathan. “You go to customers to understand their needs and problems. The companies that do really well fall in love with the problem, not their idea of the solution.” Falling in love with the problem, not their idea of the solution, is the real key here. The only way to fall in love with the problem is to listen to the customer and deliver care, concern and solutions in a very human way even if it’s done digitally. “How do you think about engaging people’s emotions and needs through technology?” Jonathan Hensley asked. “You’ve got to start with the fundamentals. Technology comes with this promise that it will solve all these problems, but it usually doesn’t come with fair expectations after that. Technology is only half the equation, and it’s only as good as the people that are using it. So, how do you actually empower the people? You have to understand that.” Empowering the people for leaders like Jonathan is a two-way street. As a CEO of a digital product agency, Jonathan has to be in touch with the needs of his client and the morale of his staff.

In this episode hear from Tammy Dickerson CMP, the founder and president of The Baker Group, Inc (TBG). TBG, founded in 2000, is an award winning, certified women and minority-owned full service Event Management firm that builds brands through dynamic special events. TBG has become a go-to event production firm for large-scale regional conferences and meetings throughout the United States for such clients as AEG, Coca Cola and Wells Fargo. The Baker Group produces several international conferences such as the Milken Institute Global Conference hosted annually in Beverly Hills, California. Since the COVID pandemic hit the scene, she has transformed her company into providing interactive virtual events for her clients, attracting thousands off participants. Read more at: https://tbg-events.com/On the Executive Spotlight:Jonathon Hensley, is the CEO of Emerge Interactive, - a digital product agency, executing digital product transformation for technology companies such as Nike, Mercedez-Benz and Unilever. Jonathan works with these clients to transform business strategies, user needs and new technologies into valuable products and experiences. An accomplished writer and speaker, Jonathon has lectured on topics such as the connected consumer’s impact on business, creating value through data-driven experiences, and user-centric approaches to innovation. Read more at: https://www.emergeinteractive.com/Visit the Entrepreneur Presenters for November 15th at their Websites:Curtis Kennedy from Vertiball, a portable, mountable, precision muscle massager that uses our patented mobile mounting system to lock onto walls and alleviate muscle pain, at https://www.vertiball.com/Mike Bradford from Wonderflle, the only Belgian-style waffle iron that let's you stuff all the foods you love inside your waffles, at https://www.wonderffle.com/ Visit https://passagetoprofitshow.com/ for the latest updates and episodes.

In this episode hear from Tammy Dickerson CMP, the founder and president of The Baker Group, Inc (TBG). TBG, founded in 2000, is an award winning, certified women and minority-owned full service Event Management firm that builds brands through dynamic special events. TBG has become a go-to event production firm for large-scale regional conferences and meetings throughout the United States for such clients as AEG, Coca Cola and Wells Fargo. The Baker Group produces several international conferences such as the Milken Institute Global Conference hosted annually in Beverly Hills, California. Since the COVID pandemic hit the scene, she has transformed her company into providing interactive virtual events for her clients, attracting thousands off participants. Read more at: https://tbg-events.com/On the Executive Spotlight:Jonathon Hensley, is the CEO of Emerge Interactive, - a digital product agency, executing digital product transformation for technology companies such as Nike, Mercedez-Benz and Unilever. Jonathan works with these clients to transform business strategies, user needs and new technologies into valuable products and experiences. An accomplished writer and speaker, Jonathon has lectured on topics such as the connected consumer’s impact on business, creating value through data-driven experiences, and user-centric approaches to innovation. Read more at: https://www.emergeinteractive.com/Visit the Entrepreneur Presenters for November 15th at their Websites:Curtis Kennedy from Vertiball, a portable, mountable, precision muscle massager that uses our patented mobile mounting system to lock onto walls and alleviate muscle pain, at https://www.vertiball.com/Mike Bradford from Wonderflle, the only Belgian-style waffle iron that let's you stuff all the foods you love inside your waffles, at https://www.wonderffle.com/ Visit https://passagetoprofitshow.com/ for the latest updates and episodes.

Jonathon Hensley, CEO and Founder of Emerge Interactive, has written the new book, Alignment, providing a user’s guide to achieving success through complementary work that's centered around common goals. True alignment requires clarity and connection across four dimensions:  Individual- how your contribution matters Team- how your expertise contributes to collective goals Organization- how your contributions address strategic priorities Market- how you help fulfill what the customer is seeking Augmenting your team’s alignment with your digital presence affirms why consumers of your service/product need it and need you. With people and technology working together, your function is frictionless in ways that your team and your clientele can see and experience.

  Host Dr. Bob Kaiser is joined by Jonathon Hensley, author, speaker, co-founder and CEO of Emerge Interactive, a Portland, Oregon-based digital product agency focused on the healthcare industry. They discuss how leadership can transform the healthcare industry in the digital space by focusing on the patient experience.

https://www.emergeinteractive.com/SPONSOR: http://apply.fundwise.com/minddog

CEO and Chief Creative Officer Show notes: http://www.markgraban.com/mistake9 My guest for Episode #9 is Jonathon Hensley, the CEO and Chief Creative Offer at Emerge Interactive, where he works with clients to transform business strategies, user needs and new technologies into valuable products and experiences. He is also author of the upcoming book, Alignment -- and you can register to get a free digital copy here when it launches. In this episode, we talk about lessons he's learned in consulting with clients, in particular how w broad goal doesn't always lead to a clear cohesive vision for exactly where you're going and exactly how you're going to get there. How can we turn "great intentions" into meaningful progress? "[In times like these], you need to be really clear and be diligent and stay the course on your vision. But know that you're going to have to keep adjusting on how you're going to get there and be adaptable and resilient, which everybody is being forced to do right now." Jonathon Hensley --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/favorite-mistake/support

From Industry 4.0 to 3D printing to wearable technology, there are so many advancements happening in manufacturing. But it's easy to get sidetracked by these shiny objects. We need to focus on the problem or goal at hand first. And then APPLY the right-fit technology accordingly. On this episode of the podcast, I invited Jonathan Hensley, co-founder and CEO of Emerge Interactive, a digital product consulting firm that works with companies to improve operational agility and customer experience. Jonathon and I talked about: Digital products and services that might be applied in the industrial sector Customer experience in the data Changing operations, supply chain disruption, and labor retention in the manufacturing space To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

In this episode, Jonathon Hensley, CEO of Emerge Interactive, a digital product consulting firm shares his thoughts on developing a customer engagement strategy for online brands. Insights he shares include:  Why most businesses get strategy wrongWhy customer engagement is a key part of a digital marketing strategyHow to distinguish and define customer engagement and user engagementThe key principle that is required to increase customer engagementThe role alignment plays in increasing customer engagementHow to develop a customer engagement strategyHow to ensure that the business has a common language and understanding to increase customer engagementHow to deliver a truly omnichannel experience based on empathyShould we ditch the sales funnelHow to use user flows to identify key attributes and behaviors to drive better customer research and thereby increase customer engagementand much more

Jonathon Hensley is co-founder and CEO of Emerge, a digital product consulting firm that works with companies to improve operational agility and customer experience. For more than two decades, Jonathon has helped startups, Fortune 100 brands, technology leaders, large regional health networks, non-profit organizations and more, transform their businesses by turning strategy, user needs and new technologies into valuable digital products and services. Jonathon writes and speaks about his experiences and insights from his career, and regularly hosts in-depth interviews with business leaders and industry insiders. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and two boys.Originally from Silicon Valley, Jonathon got into the digital product space inspired by the incredible people developing new technologies all around him and the possibilities they unlocked. This fueled his curiosity to understand how technology transforms the ways in which people live and work.That curiosity continues to drive him today, as he works to help businesses harness technology. His work focuses on helping leaders define the value they want to create in a succinct and tangible way; where to focus, why, and what it will take to achieve that outcome. His favorite part is going beyond the idea and mapping how you bring together people, data, and processes so that clients can succeed.After the interview…Get Jonathon’s ebook Alignment https://www.emergeinteractive.com/podcastVisit Emerge Interactive http://emergeinteractive.comFollow Emerge Interactive on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Emerge InteractiveFollow Emerge Interactive on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/emerge-interactiveFollow Jonathon Hensley on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathonhensleySchedule a free strategic review with Jonathon today https://calendly.com/jonathon-hensley/consultationTIMESTAMPS1:10 Jonathon’s #1 leadership tip2:30 how Jonathon helps business leaders leverage technology to engage customers and support employees4:00 examples of unique applications of technology (for example, shifting a website’s role from a “brochure” to a “product”)7:40 key functions for a website in 202011:20 learning from failure and breaking down alignment (individual alignment, team alignment, organizational alignment, and market alignment)17:15 realignment strategy23:15 common struggles with alignment (not investing in customer feedback, not managing expectations with internal teams, siloed knowledge, and skipping steps)28:55 creating an effective customer feedback loop31:25 resolving conflicts between priorities of business units36:15 servant leadership37:50 why leaders need to become trilingual in business, design, and technology40:30 Jonathon’s upcoming projects

Jonathon Hensley is co-founder and CEO of Emerge, a digital product consulting firm. For more than two decades, Jonathon has helped startups, Fortune 100 brands, technology leaders, large regional health networks, non-profit organizations and more, transform their businesses by turning strategy, user needs and new technologies into valuable digital products and services. Jonathon writes and speaks about his experiences and insights from his career, and regularly hosts interviews with business leaders and industry insiders. Originally from Silicon Valley, Jonathon got into the digital product space inspired by the incredible people developing new technologies all around him and the possibilities they unlocked. This fueled his curiosity to understand how technology transforms the ways in which people live and work.

We are surrounded by technology and it comes to hand in almost everything we do. Using technology right can transform your business, your experience, your customer’s experience and your results. But getting technology right is difficult. This week on Make It Right guest Jonathon Hensley of Emerge Interactive provides insights and tips on how he […]

COVID-19 initially forced Spartech’s Paulding Ohio plant to reduce its workforce by 65%. When a new product was requested this plant got fired up with a plant conversion and a new process. It is now on the path of 40% employment growth and one of their best years ever.  This week on Make It Right […]

Welcome back to Eggs! Today's guest is Jonathon Hensley. Jonathon is the co-founder and CEO of Emerge, a digital product consulting firm that works with companies to improve operational agility and customer experience. For more than two decades, Jonathon has helped startups, Fortune 100 brands, technology leaders, large regional health networks, non-profit organizations, and more, transform their businesses by turning strategy, user needs, and new technologies into valuable digital products and services. Here to talk about finding alignment, digital transformation, improving customer engagement, designing for behavior, user experience, and so much more, join us in welcoming Jonathon Hensley to the show. Our Guest:Jonathon HensleyCo-founder and CEO of Emergeemergeinteractive.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathonhensley/Credits:Hosted by Michael Smith and Ryan RoghaarProduced by Michael SmithTheme music: "Perfect Day" by OPMThe Carton:https://medium.com/the-carton-by-eggsFeature with Zack Chmeis of Straight Method up now! https://medium.com/the-carton-by-eggs/zack-chmeis-35dae817ac28The Eggs Podcast Spotify playlist:bit.ly/eggstunesThe Plugs:The Showeggscast.com@eggshow on twitter and instagramOn iTunes: itun.es/i6dX3pCOn Stitcher: bit.ly/eggs_on_stitcherAlso available on Google Play Music!Mike "DJ Ontic" shows and infodjontic.com@djontic on twitterRyan Roghaarhttp://ryanroghaar.com 

Digitalization is reliant on a workforce that's willing to accept the change. To discuss how manufacturers can bridge that gap and gain buy-in from their workforces, Amanda Del Buono interviews Jonathon Hensley, founder and CEO of Emerge Interactive, a company that assists organizations in achieving digital transformation. Read the full transcript here: https://www.controlglobal.com/podcasts/manufacturing-tomorrows-workforce/advice-for-gaining-buy-in-to-digital-transformation/ Learn more about Jonathon’s new book, “Alignment”: https://www.emergeinteractive.com/podcast/

This week on the pod, Erin and JH chatted with Jonathan Hensley, Co-Founder and CEO of Emerge Interactive, about the power of alignment right now. He talked about what alignment means for teams, how it can help speed up your process, and where research fits into the picture. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/awkwardsilences/message

My guest this week is Jonathan Hensley, an Author, Speaker, Digital Transformation & Product Consultant, and the Co-Founder & CEO at Emerge Interactive where he works with clients to transform business strategies, user needs and new technologies into valuable products and services. Check out Emerge Interactive and grab the free book: https://www.emergeinteractive.com/podcast/Connect with Jonathan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathonhensley/-Some Experience Design goodies...Learn how to get hired as a UX Designer: http://hiredux.com/-Feel free to stalk the Experience Design podcast on Instagram at @xdpodcast#staycuriousSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/xdpodcast)

Our podcast is designed to provide you with top business insights, fresh perspectives from world-class guests, and the tools you need to lead better than before. In this episode, Tony Richards interviews Jonathon Hensley, CEO of Emerge Interactive, on aligning your digital products with your business strategy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

According to research, 84% of digital transformation projects fail. How can we fix that? Who is responsible — the leadership or the execution team? Our guest today is Jonathon Hensley, founder & CEO of Emerge Interactive. You'll learn how to define (and document) your vision as a product owner, build the best team possible, and drive digital projects to the desired outcome. Podcast feed: subscribe to http://simplecast.fm/podcasts/1441/rss in your favorite podcast app, and follow us on iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play Music. Show Notes Emerge Interactive — Jonathon's digital product agency Balsamiq, Axure — wireframing tools Insights by Emerge Interactive — a section with interviews, articles, and other resources Download your free Digital Product Vision & Planning Checklist (and get a chance to win a free workshop) at emergeinsights.com/uibreakfast Follow Jonathon on Twitter: @jonathonhensley Today's Sponsor This episode is brought to you by Balsamiq, the easiest-to-use wireframing tool. Balsamiq is great for collaborating with your team and getting everyone on the same page quickly! Try it free for 30 days at balsamiq.cloud. Interested in sponsoring an episode? Learn more here. Leave a Review Reviews are hugely important because they help new people discover this podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please leave a review on iTunes. Here's how.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Creating products customers love feels like juggling a whole lot of balls at one time. It can be chaotic. It’s also a good bet that people on your product team, and most certainly in your organization outside the core team, have different understandings of what the product is about. It’s a real challenge to keep everyone on the same page. The tool that brings order to the chaos is vision. The product vision is like the guiding northern light for the product team, keeping everyone moving in the same direction. It is the responsibility of the product manager to create and share the product vision. Yet, it is not easily done. Very few great product vision examples exist. Thankfully for us, my guest knows how to create product vision and has done so many times. He is Jon Hensley, CEO of Emerge Interactive. Jon’s expertise is from driving innovation through design thinking from his work designing hundreds of digital experiences with organizations in a variety of industries.

Our GuestJonathon Hensley is CEO of Emerge Interactive, a digital experience company, where he works with clients to transform business strategies, user needs and new technologies into valuable products and experiences.An accomplished writer and speaker, Jonathon has lectured on topics such as the connected consumer’s impact on business, creating value through data-driven experiences, and user-centric approaches to innovation. In 2012 he was recognized in the Portland Business Journal’s “40 under 40” as one of Portland’s emerging professional and community leaders.Under Jonathon’s stewardship Emerge Interactive has committed to a simple philosophy: The relationship between Emerge and its clients should exist to create real and lasting value. To change the conversation. To move people to action. To inspire and motivate a team to focus on what matters.Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest:2:55: Emerge Interactive is a digital experience company which focuses on high-value digital experience on new opportunities and solving high-value user experience challenges. A lot of companies are struggling with digital modernization and there is a void in the marketplace of firms with expertise and experience to solve these challenges -- this is the void which Emerge Interactive fills. Mobile First is an extension of this as this podcast is a platform which aims to dig into what’s happening on this front. 4:52: With 20 years of experience in helping clients create digital experiences, the main friction area which Jonathon sees in not having a co-creative approach in companies is the fact that many businesses do not start as a digital business. The challenge is coming in with just one set of expertise and integrating digital to be part of the core.6:00: Co-creation is the idea of going beyond collaboration. Instead of working as separate team, you have to work as a single team unified with a common purpose. Co-creation is a methodology to support this. You combine the expertise of people across the business and the experiences of your customers and bring these all to the forefront of the process to quickly and effectively get to the most important needs of the business. 2:55: Emerge Interactive is a digital experience company which focuses on high-value digital experience on new opportunities and solving high-value user experience challenges. A lot of companies are struggling with digital modernization and there is a void in the marketplace of firms with expertise and experience to solve these challenges -- this is the void which Emerge Interactive fills. Mobile First is an extension of this as this podcast is a platform which aims to dig into what’s happening on this front. 4:52: With 20 years of experience in helping clients create digital experiences, the main friction area which Jonathon sees in not having a co-creative approach in companies is the fact that many businesses do not start as a digital business. The challenge is coming in with just one set of expertise and integrating digital to be part of the core.6:00: Co-creation is the idea of going beyond collaboration. Instead of working as separate team, you have to work as a single team unified with a common purpose. Co-creation is a methodology to support this. You combine the expertise of people across the business and the experiences of your customers and bring these all to the forefront of the process to quickly and effectively get to the most important needs of the business. 8:43: Some of the Jonathon’s takeaways from our first 50 episodes are: The spot-on idea that an employee experience is an enabler to the customer experience. Internal transformation can be very difficult but nothing can be more powerful in delivering an amazing customer experience. The reaffirmation that ideas are powerful but what it really comes down to is the ability to execute. This is the make or break in an organization. The ability to build great teams is fundamental to success. Get the right people on the right seats with the right expertise to get you where you need to be as a business.The uniform understanding with our guests that it is critical for businesses to understand their data. Thinking of data as service -- looking at how they move from upstream and downstream -- through the organization is becoming essential. 14:41: Jonathon shares what we can expect from the show moving forward: guests bringing in perspective, best in class tactics, strategies which are taking place, and how they are driving change and innovation in their organization. Beyond sharing experiences and insights, we will unpack to everyone what co-creation is to solve all the problems out there which we are trying to solve.20:14: Inspired by our guests’ reiteration of the importance of having a great vision and an actionable plan to get there, Jonathon shares that they are working on a product vision and planning checklist which listeners can use as a great resource. On top of this, they will also be releasing an eBook specific on how to make a business case for your mobile initiative in understanding what problems and friction points you are solving for and what kind of impact it will have in the organization.

Seasons Hospice & Palliative Care engenders hope in the lives of its patients and their family members. A community-based organization, Seasons Hopsice is on an ongoing mission to find creative solutions which add quality to life. Through the firm belief that individuals and families are the experts in their own care, we focus on the patient and family experience and empowerment.Our GuestBalu Natarajan, M.D. is a graduate of Northwestern University Medical School and has been the Chief Medical Officer of Seasons Hospice since 2005. He served in various capacities for Seasons from 2000 until 2005, including holding the position of Medical Director of the Illinois program.Board-certified in internal medicine, hospice and palliative care, and sports medicine, Dr. Natarajan has authored book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals. He has also lectured across the United States and around the world, including at the Annual Meeting of the American College of Physicians. He won the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee in 1985.Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest:Dr. Natarajan loves helping people and he learned early in his career that he is one of those physicians who can inspire other physicians to be better or to improve their workday to be able to do more for people. His current role in Seasons Hospice allows him to support 4700 patients a day through hundreds of physicians, hospice aids, social workers, nurses, chaplains and other team members who work together. He loved technology as he was growing up and thought he would be doing computer or software work. When he was 16, he went to a science show and one of the sessions featured a cardiologist who passed around an artificial heart after talking to them about it. He was hooked to science the moment he held that heart in his hand.His accidental journey to Hospice started when he needed a job for a year when his wife needed to go somewhere for school. He became a hospitalist for a year taking care of hospitalized in patients. He found himself referring patients to Hospice then did a talk one night during a team meeting, and it involved from there.Hospice is based in Chicago, Illinois and had just turned 20 years old. They are a joint commissioned Medicare certified hospice and their job is to take care of patients with life expectancy of 6 months or less. They are the largest employer of music therapists across the country and have a foundation which supports their patients non-medical needs. The communities they serve are generally urban and sub-urban markets. They serve 4700 patients a day in 29 cities from coast to coast.Dr. Natarajan’s focus is patient experience and he has all the support of all the doctors as well as the Nursing and Education and Quality Support of Care departments. His team takes this incredibly seriously and what they have been working on right now is getting the right person to the right patient at the right time, given the backdrop of short length of stay. Basically, this pertains to how they can serve to those who are acutely in need who just came into the program, and at the same time, getting to the people that they have been taken care of for months now. It’s not an easy thing to do and they are hoping that technology can have a huge impact on their ability to do this.He believes that the areas where technology can really make an impact on in their field is acuity scale, patient perceptions and developing a tool which can take all the triages and determine which patients need to be prioritized overlaid with geography. The challenges they are encountering right now in applying technology include connectivity (which is the biggest), rules and regulations which clarify which is a visit or not, and other logistical, legal and technological barriers.

VMware delivers digital transformation by starting from the outside, in. Starts with your customer then with your strengths. Think about these two, listen and open your mind so you can find opportunities and think about new ways to deliver strategic outcomes.Our GuestRobin Matlock joined VMware in July 2009 and serves as senior vice president and chief marketing officer. Bringing more than 25 years of marketing experience in the enterprise software and services sector, Matlock is playing a leadership role in positioning VMware as a market leader in Mobile Cloud. As CMO, Matlock is a key member of VMware’s Executive Leadership team responsible for leading all aspects of the Global Marketing organization, which includes Corporate Marketing, Partner, Segment and Field Marketing.Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest:As a marketer, Robin believes that it’s all about your personal brand. At an early age, she had already figured out that you have to differentiate yourself. Case at hand was the time when she ran for student council despite the fact that nobody knew her because she was new. She broke out from the rest by doing a skit, which nobody ever did during those days, and she ended up winning. If you want to stand out from the crowd, she learned that you have to be courageous and do something a little different. All these braveness came from her mom as she loved the stage and encouraged her to be bold and creative.In her heart of hearts, Robin is a business person. She loves the dimensions and complexities of growing a business and she finds marketing as a culmination of all the input and how you formulate a strategy basing on these. If you are not grounded in the business, you can be creative and cool but you will not be relevant.Robin started with Sales but segued into business development. From there, she went on to product management and then into the traditional broad-based marketing.VMware is an enterprise software company focused on large companies deliver IT services extremely efficiently. There are three big themes that they are focused on: cloud computing; mobility; and risk, reputation and security. VMware empowers IT organizations to help cause digital transformations by severing complexities of physical hardware, software and application environments and make it almost push-button simple.Digital transformation is not just a marketing ploy. It is very real and is happening right underneath our feet. Take Uber and Airbnb, for example – the concept of building a completely new industry using software is disrupting entire industries by thinking experience through software. This is digital transformation and in order to make this happen, you have to have the thirst and curiosity to transform, in general. Waiting for another person to figure it out is a sure way for you to be obsolete five years from now. You must think about how technologies change your business model as we are all impacted.Bringing about digital transformation in your business, you need to start from the outside in. It starts with your customer then with your strengths. Think about these two, listen and open your mind so you can find opportunities and think about new ways on how to go about this.

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Sethu Meenakshisundaram is President of SAP Mobile Services (Sybase 365), the global leader in enabling mobile interconnect, mobile engagement and mobile insight services for mobile operators, financial institutions and enterprises. With more than 25 years of experience in enterprise products and business, Sethu spent the majority of his career at Sybase as Chief Product Officer, building world-class OLTP and OLAP database systems that powers majority of the trading systems in capital markets. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: Sethu starts the show off with his mantra: “I want to make complex things simple, and simple things automatic” and what inspired him to chase this passion. Sethu has a mindset that failure is always an option, and it is not a failure but is actually a step towards growth. Coming from a huge family and with simple beginnings, he shares how trials and tribulations had helped him grow and why Kung Fu Panda is one of his heroes. Sethu has 250 warriors with different passions but works for a collective purpose. He shares that things will always be stressful but they are always happy and have inner peace. Sethu also talks about their business model, the power of their reach, why nobody can beat them and about an interesting little island call Kiribati. He explains why hyper connectivity is critical to the world’s mobile subscribers and the thing to focus on more than things such as VR. He elaborates that this is because of how the technology can help make people lives better by helping them in managing their money better, for example, thereby bringing in more value. Interesting topics he had heard during last year’s Mobile World Congress including drone technology and AI but he shares his slight disappointment as well due to the fact that it did not bring big impacts to developing countries. Seamless payment services, education through connectivity would have been great items for the Mobile World Congress to meet their social responsibility. Bringing people and technology together and IOT virtualizing all network operations coupled with the gamut of solutions that their SAP platform brings.

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Scott Lennartz is an experienced marketing professional, leader, and accomplished yogi. Whether growing a Silicon Valley business to multi-billion dollar run rates, revamping a local yoga studio to better serve the Portland community, or balancing a handstand in the early morning, Scott has successfully navigated a variety of challenges both large and small. Scott has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Mathematics, a Master of Business Administration, and is a Yoga Alliance E-RYT 500. He is currently the owner of Yoga Bhoga in Portland, Oregon, as well as the Vice President Marketing and Business Development at Voicebox Industries. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: Scott’s passion in putting his energy to things which make a change or makes an impact. His focus on outcomes was brought about by his craving of seeing results from decisions he had made after working with different types of companies. About his interest in technology since he was a kid, how things like coding gets him stoked and his smart decision when he went from Cisco rather than pets.com up to the time he left Cisco and joined Voicebox. What Voicebox is all about, how it works in a seamless way that makes users feels good, how they use the technology to tailor-fit or make a unique experience for users before and after the event and why it is essential to get rid of all the confusion by designing your products to be very intuitive. Scott discusses why they went for being mobile responsive but have not decided to invest in a mobile app. He shares that in their opinion, downloading an app will be a negative experience for their user and would contradict to their goal of having Voicebox to be as simple and fun as possible. The hurdles that they are experiencing such as internal growth, developing talent and raising capital for expansion. How they get input and feedback from customers through pop ups where you can enter a text message in your phone and it will pop up in the big screen. It’s fun and gets people to engage in more ways. The cool project that they are working on right now: Roulette, a feature where you can go to a page and spin to get random songs for you to sing. If you want to keep tabs on the things that Voicebox is working on, go to http://vbsongs.com/.

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Ken Herron is a cool hunter for new ideas, strategies, and technologies to increase the value of world-class brands. A global marketing alchemist, he unleashes peoples' creativity to use technology to develop stronger emotional connections between companies and their customers to drive revenue and market share. Ken has rapidly grown revenues for multiple early- and mid-stage startup companies. He has held executive marketing and sales leadership positions for multiple SaaS enterprises including Purple Communications, SocialGrow, and Online Buddies; and held product leadership roles with Avaya, Lucent Technologies, and AT&T. A graduate of the Stanford Graduate School of Business' Marketing Management Program, Ken earned his Master's degree in International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and his Bachelor's degree in International Economics and German from Drew University. Ranked the #2 Chief Marketing Officer on Twitter worldwide by "Social Media Marketing Magazine", Ken is a frequent author and popular speaker on leveraging technology for marketing, and the leading practices to engage enterprise and consumer brands' customers online. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: Ken starts off with how his passion of helping people put pieces together and have aha moments for themselves is derived from being an educator. He expounds on how he was molded and energized by being forced into new situations and by change. He shares his interest in being in a role where he can affect the most change and how this led to the journey he has so far. From being with large corporations where he felt he had very small impact, he moved to smaller organizations where he can have greater responsibilities and greater impact to both business and people he works with. How empowering it can be to have tools available at your fingertips to have an idea published and communicated directly; and whether or not it is more advantageous to have an entourage of designers, etc. to present presentations for you. What Unified Inbox is, some items which needs awareness from their users and non-costumers and the many way that their brilliant technology can make our lives way easier and improve the quality of our lives. How they are looking at improving their product in line with the current technology and especially for mobile; how they are making their content as accessible to as many markets as possible; and the processes they have in place to ensure they are keeping up with the trends. Check out the coolest project they had just finished by going to demo.unifiedinbox.com, log in and passwords are: uib. You can find the Unification Engine Project that they had just put up in their website. You can play with the tool by yourselves. You can find a virtual kitchen, virtual street scene, virtual factory, etc. and you can send messages using your own cellphone using your own network. Go and set your thermometer or turn on your vacuum cleaner..for real!

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Nic is currently the GM for Adidas Group North America Direct-to-Consumer. A veteran in the retail industry, Nic has been with the brand almost 8 years and has held roles of increasing responsibility during his tenure. He is highly knowledgeable about the sporting goods industry and is best known for the turnaround of a bankrupt brick and mortar business, making it one of our most profitable channels year over year. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: Why Nic is most passionate about the aspect of helping people achieve their goals and how this drive started. He shared how this value was embedded to him when he was a kid and stuck until he is 44. The underlying trend from his career transitions -- from Hollywood Entertainment Corporation to Target to Adidas -- and the secret sauce of how he managed to balance relationships and business. Nic goes through the process in identifying a person’s personal goals and how you can align it with company’s values starting with being a great listener, asking the appropriate questions and reading people’s non-verbal cues. Nic’s main focus items in his role as GM for Adidas Group North America including creating the vision and cultivating the culture within the organization (The Brand Guardian). The unique things that he is doing for the organization which makes him an outlier emphasizing on how he is flipping the traditional paradigm upside down in terms of the importance of roles. How Adidas transitioned to mobile and how mobile turned their world around especially with how information is passed on with lighting speed. The biggest hurdles that Nic is trying to overcome with the transformation that is happening in the industry and why innovation is a core ability that companies should have in order to cope up with all the changes. The initial pain points in the world of Direct-to-Consumer: being average in demand fulfillment, below average in mobile and below average in terms of connectivity to the ecosystem. How they are keeping themselves up to date with the evolving technology such as creating a newsroom with skilled individual tracking sites, buzz words and the works; and developing apps for music to make the consumers become part of the brand and help them move the brand forward. Nick believes that the future of mobile is already here and he expounds on what he thinks will come next.

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Robert is a startup enthusiast with a passion for technologies that make the world more connected, efficient and sustainable. He is currently Founder & CEO at Workframe, where he's focused on leveraging technology to reduce the cost, time and effort required to design and build an inspiring workplace. Robert previously served as Director, Business Operations & Insights at Intent Media, where he owned business analytics, FP&A and sales operations; earlier in his career, he also worked in venture capital and investment banking. He completed his MBA at the Yale School of Management and holds an MPhil in International Relations from Oxford University. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: We learn about what gets Robert up in the morning every day and his core of excitement; and the path he took to get to Workframe starting from Deloitte, Credit Suisse, SJF Ventures to Intent Media. He also shared why he ventured into commercial interior design and how it paved the way to his transition to Workframe. An overview of Workframe and what they do and why technology is a key piece of their being and a key piece of why they were able to scale. How they structure deals and the pricing models and methodology they use; and what they are focusing on right now to get traction. Strategies in testing the market including being aggressive in testing the market and the next steps to take towards expansion. The most recent hurdles that they have overcame which led them to scale and tactics they employed to get through them including building a core team of people to give them the credibility that they needed to be successful. The current challenges that Workframe is facing and what they are doing to address that. How mobile can go in and completely change the way the industry works because it can bring about better decision-making, better outcomes, reduces a ton of friction in the process, drives efficiency which drives cost down = the outcome is better all around. With the advancement of digital, Robert enumerates the things that he is particularly excited about surrounding all the opportunity it can open up to; and which one he feels will happening anytime soon.

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Maria Seidman is the CEO and co-founder of Yapp, an award-winning platform where anyone can create and instantly publish a mobile application for your event, group, or promotion. Before founding Yapp in 2011, she ran mobile for Warner Bros. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children, one of which was born while launching Yapp. She is passionate about women in technology, mobile trends, media, and entrepreneurship. Seidman was named Entrepreneur Magazine's Emerging Entrepreneur of 2014. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: Maria starts off with how her frustration of not being able to know to code paved the way to her passion in making software that users love to use to enhance their lives. About a women’s retreat that inspired her to create Yapp, at what point she decided that it was worth the investment and the process she went through in creating the app from validation to looking for a technical co-founder. Maria walks us through her choice of approach and steps she took from conception of idea to coming up with a prototype. The timelines and phases Yapp went through and some of the mistakes that they have learned the hard way. She also shares that, if she can start all over again, she would start on the mobile side and emphasize user testing and market research before building a single line of code. Solve the problem really well for a specific user and start from that → Why Maria’s advice can save you tons of time, money and effort. The transition she went through from working in an organization as global as Warner Brothers, the hustle she needed to employ when running her own start-up company and the pros and cons that went with the change. The initial hurdles they had encountered before they gained traction such as building their reputation and finding early adopters; and even the current ones now that they have scaled. The steps they implemented to get through their challenges and the iterations they did to optimize adoptions including efficient prioritization. She also talks about scaling customer acquisition and the roadmap for Yapp. Yapp’s ideal audience and the coolest things that they are working on right now.

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Kristoffer is a brand evangelist with solid expertise in visual design. He is a multi-disciplinary brand strategist with an international experience in content development for consumer experiences and brand positioning. He designed for brands like IKEA, H&M, Brooks Brothers, Lagos, Luxotica, Bloomingdales, David Yurman, Bjorn Borg, and Oakley. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: Getting to know Kristoffer as a dad of two, how he shifted interest dramatically, him being a passionate runner and biker and why he loves sports which forces you to get out of your comfort zone. He also shares how his upbringing and his sightseeing tours to churches during his early age relates to his current profession. The characteristics of the company that he goes for and how he views brand experience: having the will to adapt to change and knowing who you are. What he thinks is his strongest point and how he mends brands which had lost their purpose. Kristoffer gives detailed examples on how he focuses on a certain brand’s opportunities, does his magic and ignites them again. He also discusses creating sub-brands without the risk of fragmentation, how to succeed using this strategy and names companies who had done this successfully. Why he thinks that some big brands, such as IKEA, can take stupid steps and gives scenarios supporting his opinion. His thoughts on how digital can and cannot be useful depending on how you utilize it. Kristoffer also shares his strong belief why we have to stop thinking mobile as a revolution and in contrast, just think about it as a different vehicle. He throws in examples of how you can misuse this channel but also featured small brands that had excellently used digital: Black Sheep Cycling, Rapha, and I Love Ugly. What he thinks is the next disruptor in retail and where he thinks the future lays in brand experience: how far can you customize a product from the consumer from the get go.

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Mike McGuire is the Vice President of Research in Gartner for Marketing Leaders which specializes in mobile marketing, guiding digital marketers on how context, community, location and time converge on a consumer's mobile device to change the relationship between customers, prospects and brands. He is responsible for the mobile marketing research agenda and also covers the online music segment specifically, digital distribution and also looks after Gartner’s coverage of legal and regulatory issues that affect media companies. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: 01:12: As VP of Research, Mike enumerates the areas he focuses on in the mobile marketing agenda. This includes their marketing team’s dedication on mobile marketing research. In here, they zoom in on the breadth and depth of the tools and techniques which are important to mobile marketing. 02:55: Mike’s definition of how context, community, location and time are changing the relationship between the consumer and the brands. He also provides examples of how you can now do fine-grained distinctions from the cues derived from data gathered by mobile technology and change user experience leverage on this information. 06:46: With the massive push towards mobile, we discuss where a brand can start and how they can pull in contextual data to use for a certain return to justify investment. 13:51: If there is an opportunity for unique mobile engagement but a company that missed the boat in terms of being mobile first, should the company start with being mobile responsive/mobile friendly or invest more in mobile engagement? Mike devotes time in discussing why, since becoming a mobile responsive site isn’t a flip of a switch; the next big investment of a company should be towards being one. 21:09: The exciting things which Mike thinks are coming next including the extreme line of convenience which voice interfaces and the notion of virtual private assistants can possibly bring. We add in the positive and potential negative of VPAs and how it will affect brands and products.

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Ariel Avila started his career in Wall Street as an investment banking analyst at JP Morgan in the retail and consumer bank. He then joined JP Morgan’s equity research practice before attending Harvard Business School. The then joined Sears and later on, Trunk Club. He is focused on developing and executing strategic, operational and growth initiative. He currently lives in Chicago, speaks English and Spanish, is a runner and enjoys travelling. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: Ariel shares how he enjoys travelling, in fact, he has been to about 30 countries and his recent trips where Hungary, Austria, Budapest and Vienna. He also loves eating out and discovering new places, is planning to do his first marathon, and is passionate about mentoring and teaching people. Ariel started in college as a Political Science major but learned that it was not a practical route. Investment banking caught his attention as it sets a foundation of a career and you get to develop a rigorous analytical skill set. There are also lots of opportunities in this field as you get to work with smart, talented individuals; and get lots of responsibilities at early age. He was assigned in the consumer retail group and tis sparked his interest in retail. What his role entails and about his focus on two areas: rolling out test concepts for the brick and mortar side of the business and the alterations group. He adds how he keeps the business going, monitors demand and supply, and keeps an eye on their KPIs. How forecasting needs makes them successful and allows them to scale, their rigorous process to onboard tailors, how they source tailors and some of their challenges in hiring. Their peaks and valleys and sales patterns for Trunk Club; the hurdles and bottlenecks they experience especially in the people side – stylist to serve customers; and the concepts they are currently introducing to meet their goals in improving customer experience. How their back end operations work; and how they ensure that customers enjoy cohesive brand experience while providing individualized service at the same time. How mobile impacts Trunk Club customer experience and the initiatives they rolled out -- such as messaging, digitizing their tailoring tickets -- which enhanced responsiveness and engagement and introduced innovations to an old industry. Ariel shares Trunk Club’s differences, similarities and edge compared to its competitors.

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A former magazine editor with a focus on the outdoor and sports industry, Kyle has successfully merged design, sales and best practice into his ecommerce career. His knowledge of the space and how it relates to ecommerce is unparalleled, working with companies like Dr Martens, Chrome Industries, KEEN, Nau, Xterra Wetsuits, Retül, Ski Racing, Rudy Project, SKORA Running, Blue Seventy Wetsuits, Nuun, Endurance Conspiracy, Inside Triathlon and Carmichael Training Systems, among others. His specialties of both on- and off-site optimization, plus his digital marketing and A/B testing acumen is the basis of how he builds teams focused on a "test, learn, repeat" philosophy. Kyle is also an expert email marketer and has had many campaigns on Campaign Monitor's annual Top 100 list. He has led teams by collaborating with buyers and merchandisers, producers and marketing specialists, site managers (domestic, European and Asian), and analysts to fulfill an overarching global digital/ecommerce strategy. As a Magento expert, he was also a 2012 Webby Award honoree for Best Practices. He is a noted speaker on oft-controversial topics on the direction of ecommerce. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: Starting off in magazine because of his love for storytelling, Kyle shares what drove his fascination in writing and his adventures brought about by being a writer who elaborates on things. About his mentor, Dave, and how he drove him to cut his teeth in analytics, forced him to read stats, get out of his comfort zone and inspired him to innovate. How abstract thinking and thinking about the big picture is pivotal to success in the ecommerce industry. What drew him to transition to the brand side and how it can sometimes be challenging more than others. A story about what led him to Dr Martens and what he enjoys most working in there. His roles, responsibilities and what he focuses on in line with his role as Vice President for Global Digital at Dr Martens. Kyle expounds on the three things for a business to be successful and which will set a foundation for growth: great consumer experience, have your SEO dialed, and your email system. What they are doing to segment and tailor fit experiences and resources that he finds useful.

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Our Guest Julia Kaplan brings more than 20 years of leadership experience in product development, delivery and innovation. She is responsible for driving ThredUP product and user experience. She started her career as a software engineer in financial services and then moved on to work in technology for companies in healthcare, e-commerce, advertising, and media. Prior to joining thredUP, Julia held product leadership roles at @WalmartLabs, Kosmix, and Yahoo! Julia earned an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: Julia was born and raised in Eastern Europe and it took three months for her family to move to the US before collapse of Soviet Union in 1989. She shares how she did not speak a word of English when she arrived, how she worked to put herself through college, choosing Berkeley on price, how the educational system differs in the West and how, through it all, everything was still a rewarding experience. While she worked as a software engineer, Julia became interested in venture capitalism so she set her sights on entrepreneurial strategy and finance after school. Despite this, she ended up enrolling in product management, which she did not regret. Julia’s journey started with Visa followed by becoming a certified trainer for Microsoft where she taught people who wanted to learn web development when it was very new before. She then worked with Ford where she got exposed to product management. This is where she got the bug and decided to pursue her MBA. After business school, she came back to California to work for Visa as a contractor and in Yahoo where she took care of the platform side and eventually moved to the media side during the latter years. She joined Kosmix in 2010 where her team became WalmartLabs when it was acquired. Her core responsibilities as a VP of Product at ThredUP involves managing a small but dynamic team. Their tasks revolve around product culture and they maintain a very strong discipline around user research and user testing. They reiterate a lot and are pursuing the mobile first approach in line with their focus on amazing customer experience mainly through product findability. Julia gives us examples to show how her team uses research, user testing and iteration on one of their two-week engineering sprints. She shares take aways, challenges and unexpected surprises which can arise from this cycle. We learn about the key things that happened when they transitioned to mobile responsive and invested in mobile apps. Julia also shares why how ThredUP uses qualitative and quantitative data from user research and what KPIs they look at for the data to drive iterations. Rapid Fire Questions What is your definition of innovation? Innovation is thinking of things – may it be technology or process or something else – and applying this in a new way to create better customer experiences or better way to solve customer problems. Would you put more emphasis on the idea or the execution? How would you weigh each of them and why? I agree with the quote that an idea without execution is just a hallucination. Great ideas with bad execution are not going to succeed. Ideas are important but I’ll put more emphasis on execution. I would say 20% - 80%. What is your biggest learning lesson on your journey so far? Customers are going to go for better pastures. If somebody else gives them better experience, better price, better assortment…they are going to go there. So it’s very important to stay on top of things, to innovate and always listen to your customers. What is your favorite business book? Competing Against Luck by Clayton Christensen Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan The Membership Economy by Robbie Baxter What is your favorite digital resource? Marvel UserTesting.com Looker What is your favorite app and why? Uber Houzz What is the coolest thing that you are working on right now that you want everyone to know about? We are about to launch a beta of a new app that some people will call comparative shopping but it’s more than that. It will inspire consumers to think 2nd hand first.

Our Guest Aki Iido is the Head of Mobile at Zappos Family of Companies. He holds lead link roles to the mobile and engineering circles, as well as a CTO role. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: Getting to know Aki’s background from being originally from Japan but born in Guatemala, having a Japanese dad and a mom from Central America. He also shares going to college in the US, getting a job in LinkExchange which was acquired by Microsoft, and his initial hesitations in joining Zappos. How Aki was led by his roommate, who was then a Computer Science major, to the engineering space. The pivots and transitions that he made when he worked in Zappos and some challenging things that they had encountered such as learning new systems and tools, and doing some back end work such as developing workhouses systems. Coming from this, Aki then shares the take aways that he learned from all the experience in modernizing the supply chain. How it is working the full gamut of the business from the internal to consumer-facing facets of the business. The big things that are prohibiting scaling in mobile and how he takes advantage of the new agonies and leverage on these experiences. The exciting aspects in working in the mobile team and the pros and cons in developing in two platforms, Android and iOS. Aki shares the biggest ability that you should have get the biggest return such as the need to look at the data, understanding where the user need is by reviewing your web server logs (how many visitors are checking your site is, what mobile devices do they use and what platform are they in) and using these to improve your user experience and make your decisions. Looking at data and seeing that most of the traffic is coming from mobile, Aki suggests what experiences retail should be natively building for a better web experience and how you should go about planning your strategy to have the least investment impact. Rapid Fire Questions What is your definition of innovation? Always look ahead. Embrace and drive change. Never be scared and try to have fun. Would you put more emphasis on the idea or the execution? How would you weigh each of them and why? If the execution is terrible, no matter how good your idea is, that’s not going to help you. Execution is 99% and 1% is idea. What is your biggest learning lesson on your journey so far? Apart from learning and solving problems, working with folks who are passionate in what they do, that’s when you see great things happen. What is your favorite business book? Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh What is your favorite digital resource? Safari Books iTunes What is your favorite app and why? Zappos Apple TV app What is the coolest thing that you are working on right now that you want everyone to know about? We are excited about all of our apps as we are making big investments and changes in this area so check out Zappos mobile.

Our Guest Luvleen Sidhu is the Chief Strategy Officer & Co-Founder of the BankMobile Foundation. She's been recognized in the industry, including being named one of Bank Innovation’s Top 10 ‘Innovators to Watch’ worldwide in 2016; the Lehigh Valley Business Women of Influence - Woman to Watch Honoree in 2016; a winner of New York Business Journal's Women of Influence Awards in 2016; one of Auto Finance News’ ‘10 Executives to Watch in Auto Finance’ in 2015; and one of Bank Innovation’s ‘2015 Innovators to Watch.’ She holds an MBA from The Wharton School and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Government from Harvard. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: Luvleen shares how her desire to have a positive impact to the society drove her to find ways to explore means of doing so. Government is a good vehicle to serve as a catalyst to change but she later found out that a combination of business and exponential growth in technology can positivity impact -- from local to global – people’s lives. She had always been drawn to leadership roles and this was the start on how this father-daughter duo disrupted the mobile banking industry. Learning how working in Lehman Brothers and her exposure in Wharton stirred up the entrepreneurial bug in her. Business school had provided Luvleen exposure in case study methods analyzing how start-ups address unmet needs and this inspired and started her entrepreneurial journey. From a corporate job in investment banking to financial services consulting, Luvleen took the leap to working full time in BankMobile and was successful. She shares how they did this by starting with the non-subjective things such as looking at the market and their current behavior like interacting with their banks via mobile; identifying the opportunities the current banking model; and instituting the BOYB concept to grow and scale exponentially. Luvleen shares it is good to have a goal in mind work towards that goal but it is also essential to have the flexibility to pivot and experiment. From testers and concepts, she mentions that they got to their first milestones through marketing innovations such as digital advertising, word of mouth, PR and content development. About her book, ‘Why Can’t Banks Be As Easy As Uber?’, her motivation in getting it out and how it is an extension of her passion to get the community to be aware of the gaps in the current system and how they can look forward to a more futuristic banking. About their College BankMobilist Program, a nationwide campus ambassador program where they run workshops and seminars to educate students to make the best financial decisions in their lives. Luvleen shares details on this program which is a means of how to spread financial education across America and an extension of her passion to the education realm. How mobile has allowed them to scale, enable their mission and improve banking experience through things like biometrics and geolocation. Their main focus in BankMobile: make banking as effortless as possible and add value to consumers moment by moment by utilizing what technologies are out there to proactively identify the current market hurdles for banking to be more than just money management to help people in a day-to-day basis. How the elections impact the mobile banking market and Luvleen’s hopes in the coming administration. The things she is excited about in the future of mobile banking with the technology that we have in our fingertips which is untapped by the banking industry. Rapid Fire Questions What is your definition of innovation? Innovation has two components: First, the product should be more affordable, easier to use, has a model that should be sustainable and overall, should be a better product than one that currently exists in the market. And, no matter how good a product is, if you do not have customer acquisition and retention strategy, it does not matter at the end of the day. Your innovation has to have these to be a disruptor. Would you put more emphasis on the idea or the execution? How would you weigh each of them and why? The ideal situation is that you have a good idea and execute well but no one has ever been successful with a great idea and lousy execution. I think a mediocre idea with excellent execution will lead to great success so I would say 80%-85% execution, 15%-20% idea. What is your biggest learning lesson on your journey so far? It comes down to always having a clear vision on where you want to go then have a strategy in achieving this vision. But my biggest learning is that you should be open to the fact that that strategy and vision should be open to change and you have to be flexible and open-minded because without this, you can lose an opportunity of where you want to go. What is your favorite business book? The Third Wave by Steve Case What is your favorite digital resource? TechCrunch Engadget Tech section of the New York Times What is your favorite app and why? WeeChat What is the coolest thing that you are working on right now that you want everyone to know about? We are rolling out the next innovation of the BankMobile app coming out on December 8th with the most exponentially better user experience that I’m so excited in bringing to the market.

Our Guest Dan Armstrong is the Chief Digital Officer at BankMobile, America’s first fee- free mobile first bank. With mobile banking and financial services, telecommunications and technology projects in 40+ countries, Dan brings unique expertise in developing new products, technologies and distribution strategies that accurately match technology with consumers’ needs. For the past 20 years, Dan has worked in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America start-ups, mobile banking/payments, instant-account opening and correspondent banking, telecommunications, NFC, cards, alliances, regulatory, feasibility and automation programs. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: Getting to know Daniel more including his travels, e-telco projects and his learnings regarding the ubiquity of mobile around the world after being in many other continents. As takeaways from trying things out from the rest of the world, Dan shares the bigger things and functionalities that we should bring back. Dan’s observations of countries who are early adopters of technology vis-à-vis the user behavior that they are exhibiting. Dan’s background from having a degree in Philosophy, his real first job as a museum and exhibit designer for an architecture company and how this line of work did him well during his transition to designing websites. He also shares how he transitioned to banking and when the realization that having a mobile services package can very impactful to a lot of markets came about; and the different, interesting ways of how to get people to get a bank account from country to country. The main things that Dan is currently facing and the solutions that he feels would be a great fit to the market. This includes innovating by setting up an entire software services division with his CTO; white labelling by establishing a platform which can be sold to other channels which can be rebranded and repositioned; and doing what they do best: controlling experiences and enabling capabilities without necessarily conquering the world with your own brand. With all the new ways that they are working on in entering the platform, we inquire if Dan notices any user fragmentation and if they have plans to centralize these channels into one platform; plus what their core model differentiator is compared to others in the market. Where he sees the mobile banking will be in the near future and the interesting things that may come about. Rapid Fire Questions What is your definition of innovation? Innovation is a good term but is overused these days. I like the term partnership better – a lot of suppliers and vendors call their customers ‘partners’. Real innovation is doing something that fundamentally takes a step forward or sideways and not just incremental capabilities or UI…I want to take innovation at a higher standard. Would you put more emphasis on the idea or the execution? How would you weigh each of them and why? I believe that the key is really execution. Execute in a way that is so much more unique and attractive to people as execution is the trick to success. In our market, it’s all execution so it’s probably its 80% execution and 20% ideas. What is your biggest learning lesson on your journey so far? One size fits all is certainly not the way this world functions. Look at each market differently and it’s dynamics. What is your favorite business book? The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction by David Quammen What is your favorite digital resource? TechCrunch Krebs on Security What is your favorite app and why? Communications apps such as WhatsApp What is the coolest thing that you are working on right now that you want everyone to know about? We are involved in the working on the patent on the UI of our new app which will change a number of things that mobile banking has never done before.

Our Guest Diane Loviglio is the Co-Founder & CEO of Boon + Gable whose vision is to make shopping less time-intensive and more enjoyable. Boon + Gable sends a personal stylist to your home with clothes from brick and mortar retailers. The stylist advises what best fits for you and you pay only for what you keep. When not being a CEO, she can often be found in her favorite pair of AG jeans and playing with her 2-year-old daughter. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: Diane shares how Boon + Gable was born from a personal pain point, her background in architecture and her hobbies which include trying new recipes out, staircase walks in San Francisco, and exploring cities. Why Boon + Gable means ‘a favor to your home’ and why Diane choose this name for the company. What inspired Diane to transition from architecture to start up, her frustrations about the way she shopped before, and how she came up with the current model of their company. Diane introduces Clark, the company’s algorithm and how he interprets data; where and when your stylists come into play; and the oath which comes with signing up. Their strategies in driving ratings up and getting to their current Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 85% ; and where they are getting their consumer insights to get them to understand their customers more. How they figure out what to bring during their first and succeeding customer visits and their unique mobile-only model. Why she decided to go with a mobile-only approach; things that they are working on such a shortening sign up flows and tweaks in in-person visits; and her visions for Boon + Gable to take the business further. Rapid Fire Questions What is your definition of innovation? Innovation is doing things differently but not just for the sake of doing thing differently. It’s doing things differently so you can save the resource or create one. Would you put more emphasis on the idea or the execution? How would you weigh each of them and why? Totally execution. It’s like 1% idea and 99% execution. You can sketch up as many ideas as you want but execution is where the rubber meets the road, that’s the hard part. It’s where the nitty-gritty details are, it’s what makes or breaks the service. What is your biggest learning lesson on your journey so far? Being a founder and being able to grow a team, my biggest learning lesson is understanding the motivation of your team mates. It helps everyone align themselves. What is your favorite business book? Blah Blah Blah: What To Do When Words Don't Work by Dan Roam What is your favorite digital resource? Google What is your favorite app and why? Instagram and Tumblr What is the coolest thing that you are working on right now that you want everyone to know about? We’re bringing on some large retail partners which means that our catalog will triple our current 46k.

Our Guest Joshua Behar, Junior Director of Marketing for the brand, Ike Behar Apparel and Design, has worked in the company since the age of 15 and currently, is responsible in allocating ad dollars to create comprehensive marketing strategies in order to maximize brand exposure, awareness, and ROI. He also developed numerous corporate and promotional partnerships to promote brand awareness. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: All about Josh: from starting the job at a young age, his reverence for his grandfather who started the company, and how he got into digital marketing. When and why he pivoted towards new media and content marketing, and how being part of Gen Y gave him a fresh perspective to move towards implementation and adoption of modern methodologies in the seasoned company. How he drew their company, which is not too susceptible to change, to embrace and transition to the new concepts he had introduced and see the value of technology and his ideas. About the first campaigns that he built that proved return on investments, the KPIs that he associated revenue with and tools he used in tracking metrics. How he leveled up his next campaigns where he tried other different ways to sell and engage to the customers, all the while still capturing essential business KPIs. The other channels that he expanded on and how he went about achieving these milestones. How long it took for the company to transition and reframe their perspective towards the needing to make the shift. Josh shares how creating one uniform feeling across their social spaces can get your customers to take action and the value their brand got from their partnerships with Boyz II Men and the Dallas Cowboys. The digital infrastructures they had in place to land the partnerships that they had. Other technology which enabled their success besides social media, digital advertising and e-commerce. Rapid Fire Questions Would you put more emphasis on the idea or the execution? How would you weigh each of them and why? Even if you have the best idea but can’t show people how to engage with you, the idea will mean nothing. If you have a crappy idea and it is executed really well, it is still a crappy idea. So it’s 50 / 50 for me. What is your biggest learning lesson on your journey so far? In execution, you got to handle your end. In retail, it’s so easy for people to find options so you need to have your message on point. There are so many easy things that can go out of your control so those which are, you have to handle properly. What is your favorite business book? Who Moved My Cheese Money Ball by Michael Lewis What is your favorite mobile app resource? Google Display Network and Google Analytics What is your favorite app and why? Prime Now What is the coolest thing that you are working on right now that you want everyone to know about? Modernizing our digital custom experience. We want to bring the feeling of coming into a tailor shop over to the web and to mobile.

Our Guest Daniel is a designer with nine years of professional experience, focused on creating memorable, cutting edge web experiences. Daniel has worked in print and web for both product companies as well as in client services— serving such clients as ID90T, The National Geographic Society, Starbucks, Freeman, ComData, Nintendo, and Funimation. He is currently Vinli's EVP of Experience, leading all design and front-end development for the connected car company. Daniel is responsible for ensuring a consistent experience across the entire Vinli ecosystem. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: Getting to know Daniel more from his passion for technology and products up to their interesting version of pillow talk. How a pirated copy of Dreamweaver and Photoshop and the necessity of promoting a band led and inspired Daniel to pursue web design and development at the age of 14. The reasons on what drove him to transition from client services to the world of product and the challenges -- such as safety and the phase of how infrastructure moves together with ideas -- that he has encountered now that he is in product design and how these obstacles had helped him grow. Daniel expounds on why it’s taking so long for tech and infrastructure to advance to allow the speed of adoption and gives examples such as its application in the auto industry. The biggest changes he has experienced so far which opened up the way he thinks about mobile including the growing consumer demands for applications for their car and the fact that the shift towards digital is now much faster than anyone would expect. The new approaches in technology that he anticipates will come next for mobile and automotive such as radical advances in automobile apps, connectivity in cars, transparency from automakers and connection of cars to outside sources for data gathering. Rapid Fire Questions What is your definition of innovation? Doing significant things that no one thinks they need. Would you put more emphasis on the idea or the execution? How would you weigh each of them and why? Act from thought should quickly follow. Ideas are great and great ideas are even better but you are not going to know if it’s a great idea until you try to do it. The best way to do it is just try it and try it the best way you can. 40% Idea, 60% execution. What is your biggest learning lesson on your journey so far? The first idea is probably not the best one. If you think you have a great idea, there’s probably a better one. Keep working on it and don’t be afraid of failing. What is your favorite business book? The Hard Thing About Hard Things What is your favorite digital resource? A List Apart What is your favorite app and why? Two Dots What is the coolest thing that you are working on right now that you want everyone to know about? First is our connective service shop launch, which will change the way people get their cars serviced. Second is our connective dealership program which is such a shift from the way that car dealerships manage their inventory and how customers buy and own cars.

Our Guest Joe Blecha is the Global Director for Product Development at Stance Socks whose cause is to make a product as imaginative, as expressive and uncommonly cool as the people who wear it. Joe has over 16 years of experience the field of outer wear and has worked with companies like Nike, DC and Burton. He has worked for projects for the US Olympics Snowboarding team and mini clothing collections like the Nike SB and Jordan, to name a few. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: Getting to know Joe, what keeps him busy, and about his love for surfing, snowboarding, meditation and yoga. How his passion for outdoor clothing had budded from his love for individual sports and how these sports, which he started enjoying at a young age, had appealed to him tremendously and made him decide that this is what he wanted to do with his life. Joe also shares how he came to join the industry and his interesting beginnings. His journey in product development starting from gaining insights from customer feedback, coming up with ideas to make the product better, looking at possibilities and testing them out, arriving with a product, up until getting it out there for consumer validation. Reasons why he made the transition from working in Nike to joining a start-up including the advantages of being hands on with your product, innovation, the wider reach you get from a smaller group and growth. As Global Director for Product Development, Joe shares how he makes his impact through technology and creation of new processes. Technologies that he sees which enable process changes and which impacts supply chains. The attributes that Stance imbibes which allows it to scale; such a having a forward-thinking mentality and the ability to grow supply chains and produce committed supplies. What Joe thinks the company should focus more on: consumer experience, modernizing the supply chain by working inside out or focusing on digital products and systems? Channels that they have in place to measure how consumers get introduced to Stance; their spending habits; and comparing and contrasting results of various marketing campaigns. How they incorporate an approach which is a balance of art and science to come up with fresh ideas to improve customer experience; the timelines in implementing these; and the some of the limiting factors that they encounter during the process. Joe shares an internal initiative -- the Idea Innovation Hopper – how it’s structured and how it works; and how he sees mobile integrated in this process. The future of product development in Joe’s perspective, how mobile plays into it and where Stance is going to make that leap. Rapid Fire Questions Would you put more emphasis on the idea or the execution? How would you weigh each of them and why? The execution is slightly more important than the idea. Everybody can have a great idea but being able to execute on it is more important. It’s 60 – 40 for me. What is your biggest learning lesson on your journey so far? Be passionate in what you do and embrace adversity. What is your favorite business book? Autobiography of Elon Musk Shoe Dog Crucial Conversations What is your favorite digital resource? Ted Talks What is your favorite app and why? Insight Timer Headspace YogaGlo What is the coolest thing that you are working on right now that you want everyone to know about? We are the official on-field sock provider of the MLB.

Our Guest Mina Aiken is the Director of Customer Experience at Taylor Stitch where she focuses on creating the most humanized online shopping experience possible. She oversees all e-commerce, customer service and logistics. She believes that educating your customer and telling your brand story in an inclusive way makes a happier individual and a lifetime value customer. Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest: Getting to know Mina and how much she loves what she is doing, her favorite hobby during her free time: designing wedding invitations, and how it was like growing up in sunny Florida. How she came to be an ambassador for customer experience and hospitality at a young age initially because of her first job being in the restaurant industry and how her love for talking to adults and working with this crowd grew naturally. She also shared how her passion for provenance and to share the story behind a product or service to gain someone’s trust and how that led her to the field of brand development. What led her to take on the lead role in Taylor Stitch’s Customer Experience department, how she got hired, how the company grew after she joined and the things that she, and her team, focuses on a day to day basis. Attributes which make Mina effective in her role and some scenarios she had encountered wherein the customer was the one who gave them something that she didn’t know they wanted. The biggest changes in the industry that she had experienced so far including going digital and managing the e-commerce experience. She expands that customers nowadays expect to get something they want in a very timely manner, the increasing demand to interact with someone human when they have a question and making an interaction personal to someone who is on the other side of the globe. The omni-channels that Mina thinks are the key to retail and the importance in delivering consistent messages across channels, establishing trust and making the customer feel that they are connected to the brand at all times. Pain points the she sees in the industry, which needs to be addressed from the back end to the customer-facing sides such as Returns and Exchanges. In her perspective, how the major uptake in mobile influences the industry including the amazing things it has done in the field of retail, opening brands up to millions of potential customers, tracking, and the creation of completion which pushes for better customer experience. How social media, such as Instagram, can help humanize your brand and what she thinks about Snap Chat Periscope. Mina shares how she is most excited see how mobile experiences can be improved as better mobile technology can mean better shopping experience. On the business side, she continues how eager she is to see how technology will develop real time analytics for ongoing sales and customer engagement. Rapid Fire Questions Would you put more emphasis on the idea or the execution? How would you weigh each of them and why? You start with a great idea but to give that idea real shape, you got to hustle. People will then see how clear your idea is, what you are doing to perpetuate that and they want to be with your team, then some real muscle can push your idea forward. An idea is nothing without that muscle behind it and blind execution is just a waste of time but an idea has to come first. 60% for idea and 40% for execution. What is your biggest learning lesson on your journey so far? Listen to your customers. They will tell you everything that you need to know about what they want. What is your favorite business book? Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh What is your favorite digital resource? Google Search Engine What is your favorite app and why? VSCO What is the coolest thing that you are working on right now that you want everyone to know about? We are currently building a community of Taylor Stitch influencers. It’s in the early stages and will start to take some shape this summer.

Scott Emmons is the Head of Digital Innovation Lab for the Neiman Marcus Group. Scott built the Neiman Marcus Group Innovation Lab, also known as iLab, and is responsible for leading the organization in evaluating, designing, testing and piloting cutting-edge technologies and applications for luxury retail. Scott is working on BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) initiatives, as well as Wi-Fi/Local and Wide Area Network infrastructures, mobility, and digital signage initiatives. These innovation projects include the amazing MemoMi Memory Mirror, beautiful 4K touch table look-books, beacon enabled holiday passes, intelligent mobile phone charging stations and gorgeous digital directories for Bergdorf Goodman. Here are the highlights of my conversation with our guest: Getting to know Scott --- what usually consumes his day and how a Harley Davison and a pool fills the little free time he has left from time to time. From starting out as a contractor, to becoming an associate and then an Enterprise Architect, Scott shares the path that led him to head the Digital Innovation Lab at Neiman Marcus. Scott shares how exposure, being a nerd, his love of having a good problem and being an early adapter had inspired him to be in field of innovation. The biggest challenge he is seeing in the retail industry: understanding what the next generation of customer looks like and their preferences and trying to build something for them. Giving the sales associates iPhones and how this huge change of strategy impacted their business as communications improved between associate and customer transforming interactions. Scott also discusses why they opted for iOS rather than Android. Scott’s definition of an omni-channel approach which is basically, not thinking about individual channels but where the customer is at and where the customer wants to be, and then providing that channel. The channels where the biggest of their revenues come from and the pain points which Scott feels that the industry is having challenges catching up to. Innovation is important and Scott emphasizes how equally important it is to collaborate with his associates across the business and get out of the store to see what the customer is doing versus staying in the lab to provide the solution for the real customer problems. His advice for those who are thinking of moving to digital adoption and the initial actions that they should focus their early efforts on. Why Scott thinks that augment and virtual reality is the most realistic next hot thing and how it integrates and ties in the field of retail. The processes they go through, from funneling of idea to requesting funding for full roll out, in implementing innovative experiments and projects and the metrics associated for them to gauge ROI. Scott’s projected breakthroughs and the things he thinks have promising potentials. Rapid Fire Questions: Would you put more emphasis on the idea or the execution? How would you weigh each of them and why? I would not put more emphasis on either but the idea has to be good to be worth doing and the execution has to be flawless. It has to be a 50/50 weight for this to work in my world. What is your biggest learning lesson on your journey so far? What the customer wants is what’s the most important thing and the only way you are going to learn that is to get out in the stores and interact with the customers and associates. What is your favorite business book? Innovation Engine by Jatin Desai What is your favorite mobile app resource? Flipboard What is your favorite app and why? Quartz What is the coolest thing that you are working on right now that you want everyone to know about? You’ll know about it in six weeks or so.

Joanna Herrick started in the men’s clothing industry over 12 years ago, primarily in custom clothing. She joined Trunk Club in 2013, heading Operations in men’s custom clothing division. During that time, they have grown to be the 2nd largest custom retailer of men’s clothing in the country, using technology to combine a modern interactive experience with this old world craft. Here are the highlights of my conversation with our guest: How Joanna picked up tips and tricks through her early experience in the clothing retail industry which gave her knowledge on both frontend and back end processes in this field and bring this expertise to Trunk Club. From being a French horn player, Joanna shares how she got led to this industry through Craigslist and how she continues to hone her craft especially that the company continues to scale positively. With Trunk Club’s speedy expansion, the company grew from 3 people to 18 employees pretty quickly and Joanna tells us how Trunk Club was able to scale this fast, the changes they did to keep up with the rapid growth, and how she, herself, had evolved in able to meet demands. The priorities within their internal and external Operations team which Joanna needs to drive to ensure logistics in both sides work as they should. From websites to word of mouth, Joanna shares how customers find Trunk Club and how engagement is applied in the end-to-end process of their customer’s journey. We find out what makes Joanna great at the what she does, including maintaining about 20-30 customers of her own so she can experience firsthand whatever it is that they are building or putting in place. In building a digital space, what do you integrate first and build early on? Joanna shares the answer to this is being cognizant on where digital makes sense and where customers need human connection. Use technology and going digital to drive sales but do not take the personal aspect out of it. How Trunk Club gets to know their customers from onboarding to post- sign up; how their technology processes gathered data to arrive with the items to pack inside the ‘trunk’ of the customer; and how their app bring custom clothing to another level. Their hurdles and areas of improvement, where they are focusing on to make the next big enhancements in the clothing industry; and where they want Trunk Club to be to be ready for the next big growth. How mobile has affected their approach the digital infrastructure for their supply chain; how their app helps aggregate problems; and the process which takes place in their company to ensure that changes are made timely so they progress at the right pace. Joanna shares future enhancements and trends that she is foreseeing including the concept of visualization, and talks about the danger of going digital but losing the romance of custom and what makes it work. Rapid Fire Questions: Would you put more emphasis on the idea or the execution? How would you weigh each of them and why? Execution, for sure. We sit in rooms brainstorming all day but if it doesn’t work well and it doesn’t improve things for our team members, then it doesn’t really matter. No ideas are important because it keeps things fresh and it allows improvement but at the end of the day, it has to work in order to impact your business. Execution is 75%. What is your biggest learning lesson on your journey so far? Never get super attached to your work, just get attached to what works. What is your favorite business book? The Tipping Point What is your favorite digital resource? Our tech team is my favorite digital resource. What is your favorite app and why? HauteLook What is the coolest thing that you are working on right now that you want everyone to know about? The communications process I talked to you about and making it visual and seamless. It’s the enhanced Trunk Club version of the Domino’s pizza delivery.

Jonathon Hensley is CEO of Emerge Interactive, a digital innovation company, where he works with clients to transform business strategies, user needs and new technologies into valuable products and experiences. An accomplished writer and sought-after speaker, Jonathon has lectured on topics such as the connected consumer’s impact on business, creating value through data-driven experiences, and user-centric approaches to innovation.