Focus on Your Customer's Customer

I enjoyed reading this HBR post Focus on Your Customer's Customer by Kerry Bodine. But I wondered, isn't social media also pushing this and making this easier (and more important) than ever? In the past B2B companies hardly knew what the actual users/customers of their products thought of them. The Sales reps of B2B talked with DMU's (decision making units), not customers. Now via social media B2B sales can look past the DMU's and listen to the actual users/customers and use the data for product innovation, better customer service, different sales, etc.

Kerry replied to my comment and I'm happy to say she agrees! Do you agree? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

The Importance of Downtime

When you´re reading this I´ll be in a plane to the USA enjoying the first day of my vacation! Talk about downtime...

Watch this great TED Talk about where work gets done.


Good stuff eh?! It relates to my experience. How often are we interrupted at work? It's the managers job to interrupt people, says Fried. And should Facebook really be closed down because it's making us unproductive at work? And with all the meetings, how much time to have to get things done? So, M&M's are the problem: managers and meetings.

I ran into this related FastCompany post 'Why doing nothing is often better than doing something' (by Richard Watson). Interesting personal experience. I was wondering, is there any scientific proof that downtime is good? And how can be make downtime a good thing instead of 'an act of laziness'?

Well, while you're at work, I'm at work too. Enjoying my downtime to be even more productive when I get back. ;-)

On being wrong: I err therefore I'm human

TED Talks are just great. I recently advised someone who didn't know the talks to watch one or two videos every time she was uninspired. They're a great source of inspiration to me.

Just watch this video On being wrong by Kathryn Schulz. This is such a hard and important topic. It's one of the things we learn not to do much as soon as we go to school. After finishing college and university we know for sure: failure is not an option.

But it is an option. We know so deeply as well. And if we're in the right context at school, at work and in our families we embrace failure. Trying and not succeeding is essential for learning, for building experience and knowledge. About life in general and about our passions especially.

Because we don't and can't know everything. That's one of reasons I like social media so much. Social media done right helps us share the things we know, find interesting, but also share our questions and doubts. By being open about our knowledge and questions we give others the opportunity to build on them, learn, help us, pick us up after being wrong and encourage us to go on.

Realizing your wrong is not the same a being wrong, says Schulz. And it's only human to err. She quotes Augustine: I err therefore I am. (This statement has to do with Augustines acknowledgement of man being sinful, by the way. Not a popular concept these days...)

Schulz challenges us to take life as it comes: it surprises us, astonishes us, it turns up differently than we expect. We should rediscover wonder (- it keeps me going!). We should listen more and say we were wrong more often. (Refer to Jan van Veen's good post about the importance of listening.)

So, let's encourage each other to fail more. It's a priviledge.