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BRAND MINDS 2020 rescheduled for September 25

As a large-event organiser, social responsibility and the safety of participants are among BRAND MINDS‘ top core values.

In light of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and global spread, we have decided to reschedule BRAND MINDS 2020.

Here is our company’s full statement:

Dear world changers,

First of all, thank you all who chose BRAND MINDS as a business destination in 2020!

We know that your decision to join the event came with great excitement.

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY & SAFETY

These days, we are closely monitoring the growing concerns over the coronavirus (COVID-19), occurring on a global scale, along with the advice provided by the World Health Organisation.

With the kindest thoughts in mind for all of our over 5000 expected attendees, coming from 40 countries, we decided that rescheduling the event for September 25th 2020 is the most responsible decision to make.

Uniting the business world is our mission, but taking care of the people in our community is our top priority.

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EMPATHY AS AN ACT OF KINDNESS

Being mindful and empathetic of this critical situation that humanity is facing is an act of kindness that we show to all of our peers affected by this difficult period.

It is not just about us, as individuals anymore, but about each person that we love and interact with.

It is a challenge for the entire humanity and we will only overcome it by being responsible to make all the necessary efforts to stay safe.

All the speakers, our team and partners have every single participant’s best interest at heart and we are doing our best to provide an amazing experience for BRAND MINDS 2020.

We highly appreciate your support and understanding in rescheduling the event and we wish everyone to be safe.

Sending our kindest thoughts,

Brand Minds Team

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To answer all your questions related to your participation in BRAND MINDS 2020, please read the updated FAQ page which includes the following topics:

  1. NEW EVENT DATE
  2. TRANSFER PROCEDURE
  3. BRAND MINDS 2021
  4. NEW AGENDA
  5. SAFETY MEASURES
  6. ACCOMMODATION & FLIGHTS
  7. REFUND POLICY
  8. COVID-19 FORECAST
  9. RED FLAGGED COUNTRIES
  10. LATEST UPDATES

If you still have concerns that haven’t been addressed in the FAQ page, please send us a message at contact@brandminds.com.

Stay safe and follow the directions of your local health authority!

We hope to see you all in September for a great edition of BRAND MINDS 2020.

Diana Stafie, Strategic Foresight Consultant: Foresight allows companies to prepare for the future

As a business owner or entrepreneur, what do you fear the most? The ever-changing market, the competitors or the rapid rise of new technologies?

You fear all of them. You fear what you don’t know. You fear the future.

What if you could know today what could impact your business in the future?

Strategic foresight allows companies to do just that – prepare themselves for the future.

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Diana Stafie

Diana Stafie is a Strategic Foresight consultant and Partner at futureStation, a Foresight OnDemand consultancy company. I reached out to Diana and asked her a few questions on strategic foresight, an emerging discipline in the business environment.

In this article:

  • Definition of foresight
  • Benefits of doing strategic foresight
  • How companies can integrate future thinking in their cultures
  • Foresight vs Predictability
  • Three books on foresight

Q: What is foresight: strategy, tool or process?

All that, plus mindset.

When I think about our foresight work done for clients, the analogy that comes into my mind is that we are like a “Waze” for business – instead of “Outsmarting traffic, together” we could Outsmart competition, together.

Using the foresight discipline and its methodology, we help companies understand the different routes (scenarios) that they should consider in their journey and choose the one that takes them to the preferred destination.

We also warn them of the different pitfalls (innovations, consumer behaviour change, emerging technologies) that they might encounter on the way. Not all players in an industry reach the same destination; by using foresight as a “Waze” for business, companies could reach some goals sooner than their competitors.

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Q: Name 3 benefits that companies receive when using corporate foresight.

The strategic warning would be one: by working with foresight tools, companies can identify those vital early signs of change that could influence or disrupt their industry. It is a contribution to the mitigation of risks explicitly related to external events — changes in the competitive environment.

Further on, the methodology allows them to think in alternative scenarios and turn change and uncertainty into opportunities. If you were a decision-maker, wouldn’t you like to have an early warning capability?

Foresight also helps companies build relevance: understanding future trends allows companies to anticipate what consumers/employees want next and create relevance for them. Ask yourself, is the industry changing, but your company is not?

[bctt tweet=”Diana Stafie (Strategic Foresight Consultant): Not all players in an industry reach the same destination; by using #foresight as a “Waze” for business, companies could reach some goals sooner than their competitors.” username=”brand_minds”]

And foresight also helps companies show thought leadership. A thought leader is a company who, based on its expertise and perspective in the industry, offers unique guidance, inspires innovation and influences others in the business environment. And by understanding the trends and uncertainties of the industry, companies could communicate as Thought Leaders.

Also, according to the 2018 Corporate Foresight benchmarking report made by the Aarhus School of Business,

Organizations that value future preparedness are 33% more profitable than the average.

Q: How can CEOs and top executives build a culture of future thinking in their companies?

We often feel that we live in a short-term world, so long term thinking does not come easily. The short-term pressure is coming from all sides, especially in our Eastern European context. But doing foresight can be a solution.

Start by designing a framework of early signs warning. This can provide the ability to not just observe the future happening, but to actively shape it.

Take time and understand trends and the changes in consumer behaviours. By doing so, companies can decode consumers’ emerging expectations and offer products/services that consumers might not even realise they needed so much.

Most of our knowledge is about the past, but all our decisions are about the future. Most of what we need to know to make the right decisions today is outside our comprehension – we don’t even know it’s there.

So, start reflecting more upon whether or not you know enough about the future you are aiming for. Companies could do that by running scenario planning exercises and asking “what if” questions – this encourages teams to consider events that may only be remote possibilities and stretch their thinking. Get inspiration from Shell; they’ve been doing foresight since the 1970s.

Q: What is the difference between foresight and predictability?

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Danish physicist Neils Bohr said,

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.

In its antipathy to prediction of any kind, the strategic foresight field orients towards future preparedness with the help of qualitative, exploratory and narrative tools.

Do we think there is only one future?

If not, why do we only plan for one?

Foresight catalyses thinking in alternative futures.

Q: Foresight experts look into the future. How many years into the future?

The time horizon considered for the foresight analysis depends on industry dynamics (product life cycles: retail – fast, mining – slower), the intended use of the analysis (operational vs strategic), but also the management’s appetite for uncertainty.

The great hockey player Gretzky said once that,

A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.

Thus, it also depends on where companies want to “play”.

Q: Recommend one book on foresight that entrepreneurs, CEOs and startup founders should read this year.

For a book focusing on foresight methodologies and processes, I would recommend “Thinking about the future” (Andy Hines and Peter Bishop).

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Thinking of more generally future-focused books, there are two just released: “The future is faster than you think”   (Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler) and “After Shock” which is a compendium of essays by the world’s foremost futurists observing the 50th anniversary of Alvin Toffler’s “Future Shock” while also looking ahead to the next 50.

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Ionut Vlad (founder Tokinomo): A founder needs to become better at almost everything

Ionut Vlad is the founder & CEO of Tokinomo, an innovative solution for retail marketing.

Tokinomo is the answer to one of the problems brands have in retail space – which is neither branding nor packaging, it’s visibility. The company developed an in-store shopping engagement which helps retailers increase sales with an average of 200% (scroll down to see the tool in action).

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Ionut Vlad, founder & CEO Tokinomo

Ionut is intuitive, smart and creative and set out to make his own contribution to a better world. I caught up with him before flying to a retail trade show and asked him a few questions.

Read on to find how he switched direction from employee to tech startup founder, three challenges his team had to overcome to develop his retail solution, his point of view regarding whether or not retail is dead and what skills he believes a successful startup founder should acquire or develop.

[bctt tweet=”Ionut Vlad, founder @Tokinomo: Initially, nobody believed us when we said we could increase their sales by over 200% although we had hard facts to prove it. #worldchanger” username=”brand_minds”]

1. You are a fine arts graduate and have been the art director for a global advertising company. In 2016 you decided to develop Tokinomo, an innovative solution for retail marketing. What made you switch direction from employee to tech startup founder?

During the time I’ve worked in advertising, I realised that FMCG brands needed a better way to engage and communicate with the shoppers in-store. That was the reason I’ve come up with the idea.

In the same time, I guess I was always looking to do something on my own, to create something unique as opposed to being just a well-paid employee forever. I believe I have an entrepreneurial spirit which runs a bit on my male side of the family as well. My father and uncle also had this spirit, and I think it got to me somehow.

2. Name three challenges that your team had to overcome while developing Tokinomo.

Only three? 🙂

First was the founder’s lack of technical background. Especially in electronics. We had to rally a strong team behind us to compensate and make it happen. Creating a dream team is always hard. Michael Jordans are hard to come by.

Second – novelty. Although bringing something new to the market seems like a significant advantage, from another point of view it is harder. Decision-makers are more too often reluctant to embrace new technologies, and they would instead adopt a follower attitude. We needed visionaries and daring individuals willing to challenge the status quo. Initially, nobody believed us when we said we could increase their sales by over 200% although we had hard facts to prove it.

Last, but not least – lack of deep insights from the retail industry. It is a pretty secretive closed caste kind of industry. It took us a while to realise the intricacies of their world, and we still have a lot to learn.

3. Tokinomo is currently available in Morocco, Italy, Switzerland, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates. What’s next?

Actually, meanwhile, we are also in Saudi Arabia, Greece, Czech Republic and Ukraine 😀

We will continue to expand our distribution network across the globe, and we sign about 2-3 new distribution contracts per month.

Once we get our footprint in most territories we are interested in, we will be able to implement our solution at a higher scale partnering with the biggest global brands and retailers. Since many of my colleagues think I’m a dictator, I have no choice but acting like one and my plans for conquering the world are very much in place. After that, Mars is next :).

In parallel, we are working on new solutions to solve other relevant problems in the retail scene and add-ons to the current device. We have a few exciting new features coming along this year.

4. Many say retail is dead. What are your thoughts on the subject?

There’s a little joke I read somewhere: Nietzsche said “God is dead” and I don’t know about God, but Nietzsche is certainly dead 🙂

In some form or the other retail is far from dead. Even brick & mortar retail is very much alive, still holding around 90% of the total sales.

Of course, it currently reinvents itself, it becomes more omnichannel, it needs to embrace more new technologies and like in every story and every industry there are winners and losers. So my answer is losers will die, and winners will thrive. The ones who will be quick in adopting new technologies and solutions (especially Tokinomo of course) will do quite well.

5. What skills do you believe a successful startup founder should acquire or further develop?

It’s a difficult one. A founder needs to become better at almost everything. He is forced to change himself. He needs to become a leader, to have patience, wisdom, to be realistic, daring. If I picked one skill, I would say he needs to be courageous. Surprisingly, like the lion in the Wizard of Oz, it’s something that you can develop along the way. At least this is what I feel is right in my case.

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Raul Popa (CEO of TypingDNA): Choosing the right co-founders is critical

Raul Popa is CEO, co-founder and data scientist at TypingDNA, the company that recognizes people by the way they type on computers and mobile devices.

This revolutionary technology is called typing biometrics and it is used in cybersecurity, fraud prevention and risk-based authentication.

Typing biometrics is a type of behavioural biometrics, embedded in people’s transient behaviour when typing on a keyboard.

Raul and his team started 2020 auspiciously: TypingDNA raised $7M in January with a total of $8.8M in funding over four rounds. The company is one of the most promising Romanian tech startups right now. Top publications like TechCrunch, Forbes, ProductHunt and Financial Times have featured TypingDNA.

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Raul Popa

Prior to TypingDNA Raul co-founded other startups, helped launch several innovative software products and coded core software components used by millions. He is a Techstars alumnus with 15+ years of expertise in software development, product management and business management.

In the following interview, I ask Raul about starting a company with the right co-founders, the skills he believes every techpreneur should acquire, his opinion on AI and the future of cybersecurity.

1. You are a sociology graduate, and yet, you have chosen to develop your career in a different industry: AI and machine learning. What made you switch direction?

I’ve taught myself coding when I was in middle school. I used to hack and modify games, even built my own games.  By the time I got to high-school (a math-intensive one), I was more interested in math and philosophy than computer science.

Being a participant at the National Philosophy Olympiad competition helped me get into several top universities without an exam.

Since I realised I also liked statistics a lot, I chose to study at the Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, Faculty of Sociology, which was the best statistics school available. At the time I entered, it also had the highest per seat competition of all faculties in Transylvania/Cluj-Napoca (35 people per seat, if I remember correctly), so pretty much everyone either scored an almost clear ten or was a national olympiad winner in a distinctive field. Incredible colleagues, professors and school, I miss it a lot.

Since AI/ML is technically a field at the convergence of statistics, math and computer science, I wouldn’t say I’ve gone very far from my studies, but yes, AI is a newer domain than sociology.

Then, of course, statistics and quantitative methods are just part of what you learn in sociology. Another significant part has to do with social psychology which I loved. It’s where you learn how masses of people behave and why, and that can help you in entrepreneurship too.

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Raul Popa receiving 2019 Made in Romania Award (photo: Raul Popa personal archive)

2. In 2016, you co-founded TypingDNA. Was going from employee to starting your own company an easy decision to make? Why/Why not?

I had previously co-founded two other companies. Although my role was not that of the CEO, it gave me a good idea about what it means to work for your own company.

Also, even when I worked as an employee, most of the time, I was a manager, the person in charge, and I did deal with similar stuff I deal with today.

When I started TypingDNA, in 2016, I went from managing tens of people to only one (myself). Later on, once I proved the technology I had built was working, I asked Cristian and Adrian to join me and grow the company together.

I initially wanted to do a sabbatical year. I had been fantasising with the idea of a sabbatical year for about ten years, then, in 2015 I sold some of my shares in a previous company, and I said to myself, this is it, I’m taking THE sabbatical.

Which I did, starting 1/1/2016, but that lasted only three days. I realised I had to start working on TypingDNA. It made clear sense to me how this technology will be employed everywhere and why I needed to start working on it asap.

Also, everyone I told about this crazy idea thought it was stupid (other than Cristian and Adrian). To me, that was a clear indication that I had to do it. Even family and friends back then were very sceptical but supported me nonetheless.

[bctt tweet=”TypingDNA CEO Raul Popa on having the right co-founders: What you want to have is a shared vision and the ability to function together.” username=”brand_minds”]

3. Your co-founders are Cristian Tamas and Adrian Gheara. Three is better than one, but is it also challenging? What are your recommendations for other co-founders just starting out?

Choosing the right co-founders is critical; it’s among the most important things.

Most companies that succeed change their business model or their technology. They pivot, everyone pivots a bit, but they very rarely change their founding structure.

I chose Cristian and Adrian because they were the first to believe in this technology. Cristian has done marketing research on his own and came up with a business model I liked, while Adrian was so convinced about what I was building that he was ready to invest his own money to make it happen. To me, this was mind-blowing!

It took me a few months to decide to ask them to join, in a period when I was trying to figure out the best course of action. In retrospect, I think it was the right decision.

Some people recommend complementary co-founders, I’m not sure that’s the most important thing. Larry and Sergei were very similar, for example.

What you want to have is a shared vision and ability to function together.

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The TypingDNA team: on the right Raul Popa, Cristian Tamas and Adrian Gheara

4. What skills do you believe a successful techpreneur should acquire or further develop?

Ability to learn continuously and fast, ability to say no, ability to help other people succeed, and the ability to make smart people follow your vision.

5. Artificial Intelligence: humanity’s saviour or its downfall?

Could be both. At this point, however, AI is the way to go.

The same way you couldn’t oppose industrialisation 100 years ago, you can’t do anything about AI either – it is inevitable.

An old Chinese proverb says: “When the winds of change start blowing, some people build walls, others build windmills”.

6. Tell us your opinion on the future of cybersecurity.

The cybersecurity market is growing fast, with some subdomains, like IAM (Identity Access Management) seeing incredible growth.

The number of non-overlapping companies in the cybersecurity space tells me the market is still in its infancy.

It’s tough to predict how it will evolve, but it is clear that hackers and fraudsters are not going away.

We need better security tools we can employ daily as the cybersecurity-hacking game slowly turns into an AI vs AI war that never ends.

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New speaker at BRAND MINDS 2020: Annicken R. Day, Leadership & Culture Strategist

We are thrilled to welcome Annicken R. Day, Leadership & Culture Strategist to our amazing lineup of BRAND MINDS 2020 speakers!

Her speech will focus on Creating cultures that buzz with creativity and joy.

She is an expert in the field of culture change, high performing teams and leadership in the new world of work.

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Won BEST PLACE TO WORK 3 years in a row

In 2002, she was hired as Head of HR/Chief Cultural Officer at Tandberg Videoconferences, a large electronics manufacturing company founded in 1988 in Norway.

For fourteen years, Tandberg managed to ride the waves of every technological development, but the company’s top management wanted to make sure its most precious resource, the employees were cared for as the company grew.

That’s when Annicken was hired with the mission and mandate to “take care of the corporate soul”.

Thanks to her relentless efforts and innovative programs, Tandberg was awarded Best Place to Work in Norway in 2008, 2009 and 2010 and among the top 50 Best Workplaces in Europe.

25 YEARS of creating HIGH-PERFORMING CULTURES, changing MINDSETS and EMPOWERING teams

Throughout her career of 25 years, she helped many top Fortune 500 companies create unique and innovative corporate cultures.

Annicken also led many initiatives focused on introducing new mindsets across the organizations. Her goal has always been to create a culture of learning that was grounded in individual responsibility.

Together with her teams, she has created programs and experiential workshops where employees developed mindsets and behaviours that served business needs, solved problems and made real-time changes in the way they worked.

Simon Sinek says when the company takes great care of its employees, the employees take great care of the company. The company’s business outcomes are an accurate reflection of this care.

Learn more: The Circle of Safety – Simon Sinek’s rule for great leadership

So was the case of Tandberg. The positive and empowering company culture spearheaded by Annicken helped Tandberg become the #1 global market-share leader in videoconferencing.

At the peak of its growth, Tandberg was acquired by Cisco for $3,4 Billion.

The corporate world has a huge leadership challenge. The old models are outdated and ineffective. Command and control don’t work anymore.

Excerpt from Fly, Butterfly, author Annicken R. Day

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Empowering 70,000 employees as CULTURE AMBASSADOR

Annicken continued her valuable work at Cisco where she was appointed Culture Ambassador.

In her new role, she switched from 1800 employees at Tandberg to 70,000 employees spread across the globe.

Her responsibility was to inspire and support the company’s global leaders and employees in realizing the tremendous power of having highly engaged and empowered teams.

To reach her goals she led a global culture change initiative which generated a 13% increase in employee engagement in the teams that attended her programs.

The change Annicken drove at Cisco was substantial and outstanding:

  • more effective collaboration;
  • higher cost-saving;
  • better results;
  • lower attrition;
  • overall higher employee satisfaction.

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Worked with companies on the FORTUNE 500 list

In 2012 Annicken founded Corporate Spring, the company which helps leaders create thriving, high performing cultures.

Corporate Spring provides culture workshops, online learning and assessment & coaching services to high-profile corporations with thousands of employees and billion-dollar revenues like Microsoft, Cisco and Accenture.

It’s time for leaders, companies, and their boards to embrace a more humane leadership style and do what their shareholders are asking them to do: create financially healthy, sustainable, and thriving companies. And to do that, they need to start with caring about—and investing in—their people.

Excerpt from Fly, Butterfly, author Annicken R. Day

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Author of Fly, Butterfly

Annicken is the author of Fly, Butterfly, a fictional story of personal and professional metamorphosis, inspired by true events. It is the story of Maya Williams’s journey from burned-out exec to an enlightened leader.

Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take, host of the TED podcast WorkLife with Adam Grant said the following about her novel:

Annicken R. Day has a gift for transforming bureaucracies into businesses that buzz with creativity and joy. With her debut novel, she shows that she also has a knack for crafting stories about transforming ourselves.

Why you should come and see Annicken R. Day at BRAND MINDS 2020

The stats are clear: highly-engaged employees drive more business.

Happy employees deliver up to 50% higher performance than those who are disengaged. Companies that have highly engaged employees are on average 20% more profitable, and over time they deliver significantly higher returns.

Employee disengagement is costly. According to a Harvard Business Review report, unhappy employees cost employers anywhere from $450 billion to $550 billion every year.

Building the right company cultures is mandatory for business success.

Join BRAND MINDS 2020 – The Growth Weekend on September 25th and watch Annicken R. Day speak about Creating cultures that buzz with creativity and joy!

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Jesper Laursen (CEO of Brand Movers): A successful entrepreneur needs to be a comeback kid

Jesper Laursen is the CEO of Brand Movers, an award-winning content marketing agency, the founder of the international think tank, the Native Advertising Institute, and the journalistic production company Media Movers.

He is passionate about building a business through storytelling. He was originally a journalist but has now been working with content marketing and native advertising for more than a decade both as an international speaker and as a consultant through his businesses.

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I reached out to Jesper and invited him to do a short interview. He said yes so I happily asked him a few questions about his decision to turn entrepreneur, the challenges he faced while building his business, his opinion on the skills entrepreneurs should acquire to be successful, and the future of marketing.

Read his answers below.

1. You are a journalism graduate. What made you decide to become an entrepreneur?

As part of becoming a journalist in Denmark, you have to do an 18-month internship at a media company.

I quickly had some ideas on how to revitalize journalism and the organization, even as an intern, and I presented this to management.

They didn’t listen at all. The ideas might have been bad but in the process, I realized that it would take me way too long to climb the ladder high enough to have a say on how things were running.

So I went out and started my first company when I was still at the journalism school. It ran for seven years with decent success. I’ve been an entrepreneur ever since and today I run three other businesses.

[bctt tweet=”Jesper Laursen (CEO of BrandMovers): One of the most underestimated challenges for #entrepreneurs is the paradox of how success can actually kill you.” username=”brand_minds”]

2. You’ve been running your company for more than a decade. As a successful entrepreneur, name a few challenges you and your team had to overcome.

One of the most underestimated challenges for entrepreneurs is the paradox of how success can actually kill you.

By that, I mean that you oftentimes have to deliver the work before you’re paid. And the faster you grow, the more work you have to deliver before you see any revenue and that requires solid cash flow.

You can, of course, try to get a loan or venture capital but that means selling part of your business. We haven’t been interested in that yet and as a consequence, there have been challenges with our cashflow every time our business has taken a big leap forward.

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3. What skills do you believe successful entrepreneurs should acquire or further develop?

Three things.

Firstly, you need to be a comeback kid. It’s almost impossible to experience endless success. You will always run into problems at some point and it’s crucial to be able to cope with challenges and bounce back mentally even from big blows.

Secondly, you need to be able to think analytically. You don’t have to be the most intelligent person in your industry but you at least need to be street smart enough to think four or five steps ahead.

And then thirdly, be brave and fearless. And by that, I don’t mean stupid or reckless. But to be successful you will need to step out of your comfort zone and take chances on a regular basis. You have to be comfortable with that.

[bctt tweet=”Brand Movers CEO Jesper Laursen: You need to be a comeback kid, be able to think analytically and last but not least, be brave and fearless. ” username=”brand_minds”]

4. Technology in paid advertising: yay or nay?

Absolutely yay.

There are endless opportunities in technology – both in paid advertising and in general – and it is empowering more and more companies to be independent of agency help.

That said, one of the biggest mistakes companies make when it comes to technology is that they over-invest. It is so easy to get excited about the possibilities but if you don’t have the resources and skills to leverage the technologies you invest in, you lose money and might even end up hurting your business instead of helping it.

5. A lot has changed in marketing in the past years. Name 3 trends in native advertising that you believe will go big in 2020.

I think we will continue to see publishers playing a bigger role with brand studios popping up all over.

The agency ecosystem is being turned upside down and I predict the losers will be media buying agencies and advertising agencies.

Advertisers, on the other hand, will benefit from the competition. Advertisers will begin to integrate native advertising more with the other tactics that they are using instead of treating it like a stand-alone activity. Especially content marketing will be integrated with native advertising.

Technology and data will be a major thing in 2020. Not sure we’re going figure it out in 2020, but GDPR and Apple’s crusade against third party data are both closing and opening doors and we will have to start dealing with this disruption of our market.

[bctt tweet=”Jesper Laursen (Brand Movers CEO): The future belongs to the brands that are genuinely obsessing over helping their customers achieve their goals.” username=”brand_mins”]

6. What is the future of marketing? Share your vision with our readers.

I could go with artificial intelligence, voice or some other thing that we usually hear.

But I’m going to go with helping.

hand-clickLearn more: How voice is changing customer behaviour and the way we do marketing

By that, I mean that the future belongs to brands that are genuinely obsessing over helping their customers achieving their goals or aspirations and solving their problems.

I believe that consumers will turn away from brands that keep manipulating them in new and different ways and turn to brands that they feel they can actually trust.

And the only way to gain trust is to be transparent and genuine.

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These holidays offer the gift of EDUCATION!

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Success is a continuing thing. It is growth and development. It is achieving one thing and using that as a stepping stone to achieving something else.

John C Maxwell

The best Return On Investment is EDUCATION

There’s no better investment than the investment in yourself.

To be successful in any area of your life, you need to keep growing and change your fixed mindset to a growth mindset.

No matter your age, past life experience or career stage, learning never stops.

BRAND MINDS is the biggest business conference in Central and Eastern Europe. Our mission is to unite the business world by providing valuable insights from leaders in business, marketing, science, storytelling and entrepreneurship.

3 Reasons to attend BRAND MINDS 2020

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1. Get relevant ideas for your business and personal growth

In our past editions, some attendees extracted ten business ideas while others came home after the event with ten pages worth of hand-written notes.

By attending BRAND MINDS 2020, you get a full-day intensive business strategy training with some of the world’s most renowned experts.

What can you learn at BRAND MINDS 2020?

  • How to scale your business;
  • How to use the latest trends in marketing to reach your customers;
  • How to foster innovation and support creativity;
  • How to forecast the future for your business investments.

2. LIVE is the best experience

The team behind BRAND MINDS is working relentlessly all year round to design everything in great detail with the sole purpose of ensuring every attendee has the best conference experience yet.

When an idea struck a chord with you, you will remember it because of how it made you feel. Our goal is for every attendee to have at least one Aha moment. We hope the experience will help them change their mindset and provide them with a new vision of the future and how to achieve their dreams.

Give your loved one the perfect gift these holidays

Surprise them with a ticket to BRAND MINDS 2020!

Whether they are running their own business, working in marketing or tech, looking to improve their storytelling skills or discover the future trends influencing our world, show your support by offering them the chance to be part of the BRAND MINDS growth experience.

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3. Meet Top Speakers on Business Strategy, Science, Technology, Branding and more!

Every edition we are selecting only the best speakers with extensive professional experience in the following industries: business, marketing, journalism, entrepreneurship and innovative technology.

Learn how to tell your story in a creative way

Nothing interesting or new comes from looking in the same direction everyone is looking.

That’s why Malcolm Gladwell’s books are New York Times bestsellers: he is interested and genuinely curious about the world and takes an unusual and original approach to known issues. In doing so, he came up with brilliant concepts like the 10.000-hour rule of success, The Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context.

At BRAND MINDS 2020, Malcolm Gladwell will deliver a speech on creative storytelling.

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Learn how to scale your business globally

A successful serial entrepreneur and media mogul, Gary Vaynerchuk comes from a family of immigrants. He’s been working to make money since he was seven years old.

Gary’s ability to recognise trends in human behaviour is foundational of his business success. His mission is to influence entrepreneurs in achieving a positive and practical mindset.

At BRAND MINDS 2020, Gary Vaynerchuk will give a speech on business growth.

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Learn about how to use branding in scaling your company

In 2014, world-renowned consumer expert and brand consultant Martin Lindstrom conducted the largest neuromarketing study ever done. The study was worth $7 million, it was paid for by three brands and used fMRI to peer inside the brains of 2000 volunteers while being shown various ads, logos, commercials, brands, and products. Martin’s book Buy-ology is based upon the findings of this study.

At BRAND MINDS 2020, Martin will speak about discovering global trends in marketing.

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Learn the latest trends in technology

Werner Vogels’ vision and leadership have led to the creation of the AWS, one of Amazon’s highly successful services. As VP & CTO at Amazon.com, Vogels is responsible for steering the company into the future by finding new ways in which the company can use technology to help people and bring new business.

At BRAND MINDS 2020, Werner Vogels will be speaking about innovation at scale at Amazon.com.

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Discover the trends affecting your business

A true successor of Einstein and co-founder of The String Field Theory, Michio Kaku is one of the most widely recognised figures in science in the world today. Based on the latest research, he will provide predictions on future trends affecting the business environment.

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How pursuing further education drives change in your life 

Although Tara Westover’s parents didn’t allow her to attend primary school, she became a self-taught student and graduated from Cambridge and Harvard. Growing up, Tara never imagined that one day she would leave her birthplace and attend two of the most prestigious schools in the world.

Tara is the embodiment of grit and resilience. She pursued her dream against all the odds, managing to overcome physical abuse, physical injuries, the lack of primary education and support from her parents.

On the stage of BRAND MINDS 2020, author Tara Westover will talk about the power of education.

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Who better to host such a fantastic event than journalist and CNN international anchor Richard Quest?

The host of Quest Means Business, Richard Quest is a great interviewer, providing business reporting and analysis for the past twenty years.

Every attendee is a world-changer: come to BRAND MINDS!

Alin Popescu (CEO & founder Avocatnet.ro) – Leave your crown in the garage when you get home

Alin Popescu started avocatnet.ro as a hobby, in 2001. In 2008, he gave up his career in law to become an entrepreneur, focusing on avocatnet.ro team and business objectives.

In the following years, avocatnet.ro went beyond the “legal website” label and became the biggest online business community in Romania.

Now, avocatnet.ro is the largest Romanian online law, economic & financial community, with more than 850.000 registered members and 2.800.000 monthly visitors and one of the biggest legal online networks in the world according to SimilarWeb. In 2013, private equity and venture capital fund Catalyst România invested in avocatnet.ro.

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Alin Popescu, CEO & founder avocatnet.ro

Alin Popescu has written four books (all related to internet law and business issues) and told many stories on different scenes in various events. He also helped in drafting legislation related to the internet business.

I was curious to know more about Alin’s experience developing avocatnet.ro in the past eighteen years, so I’ve asked him a few questions. Find his answers below.

[bctt tweet=”Avocatnet.ro CEO&founder Alin Popescu: It doesn’t matter how much money you make if neither the power nor the projects nor the limits you exceed are out of balance.” username=”brand_minds”]

1. Name three lessons you learned in your private life that enriched your business-running skills.

I learned a long time ago that if you want to have a fulfilled life, it is essential to have something to do, someone to love and something to hope for. I positioned this idea as a significant direction in my life.

It doesn’t matter how much money you make if neither the power nor the projects nor the limits you exceed are out of balance. Work brings great results, so it is worthwhile to work hard for the things that matter to you, but you must know how to recover after such periods.

After a long time in which I had lost myself in all sorts of failed experiments, I realised business was not a part of my life. I also realised I couldn’t change into a new person, a husband and a father when I got home to my family, who had no connection with the businessman. So I embraced the idea that my life had them all at once, in a mix that needs to be balanced, in which all these things must coexist and not get in the way of each other.

It is important, though, especially for those who are used to being bosses at the office, to leave your crown in the garage when you get home. It is a principle I have heard from Indra Nooyi, which, in my opinion, defines someone’s relationship with their family. Many of the problems at home come from the fact that we carry with us, like potato sacks, the functions and habits of the office. At home, whether we want it or not, the relationship we have with our family members is not one of subordination, but a more complex one, which has nothing to do with hierarchy. Respecting this principle is important for your mental health :).

2. You are a successful founder and CEO. What fears did you have to overcome?

Success is relative. And I don’t think there can be such an extraordinary bird that lives in the madness of Hiroshima or Chernobyl. Although the media and the modern world present it exactly this way: out of context, fixed on a super niche of one’s life, etc. Success is, in this way, a kind of diploma that we all hang on the wall, trying to prove to others that we deserve their attention.

And this is also why one of the diseases of modern man is the so-called impostor syndrome. Nature has given us the awareness that we should balance things, not just perform in certain areas of our lives, so it is complicated to live with all those diplomas. They are true millstones, preventing us from doing all the extraordinary things we could do.

Eighteen years ago, when avocatnet.ro launched, I wanted to reach a million people. To help each of them solve a problem, no matter how small. As it turned out, I was thinking impractically. Dreams often do not have that practical component like “good, you got there, now what are you doing?”.

So, when we happened to reach these people, a few years since launch, we had to learn how to build a business on the go. And we learned the idea that a project that helps people has to live. And, slowly, we developed a mindset and many, many other things. We started to help various associations and foundations, which build the infrastructure for multiple problems of our readers. We have created services and products to help us monetise part of the audience so that we could continue both social and commercial projects. We have invested in technology, in machine learning and many more, because if you cannot keep up with the society you live in, you are facing a slow and painful failure.

Today, avocatnet.ro reaches, every year, over three-quarters of the Romanians connected to the Internet. To these people, we explain the Romanian legislation. There are many places where different people thank us for the impact we had on their lives. But, to get here, we had to, one by one, understand how to build a community, how to develop products and services online, how to do eCommerce, how to do online marketing, how to build a business, to manage a business, how to make money, how to spend money correctly, and many more.

And I had to understand that I had a pretty strong introvert component, that it was much easier for me to talk to a crowd than it was to speak to a single person, and that, although I did not have a relationship with money, finances should interest me, though, because they are one of the critical fuels of our lives.

3. What was the most challenging moment developing avocatnet.ro?

The defining moment for us was when we were a few days away from potential bankruptcy. We bet a lot on the construction of a legislative software, which would update and provide the Romanian legislation in full. We built the project, attracted investment and subsequently failed to push it on the market.

We had to pivot and build all the services that now support our budget (avocatnet.ro premium and the online courses we sell). We have lost, somehow, throughout this period, a few years in which we could have grown. We are, however, at a moment when we have definitely overcome all these problems, and I am glad because there is nothing more stressful than having a financial deadlock when you call your suppliers waiting to get paid only to repeat the same sorry excuses like a broken robot.

4. You have been running avocatnet.ro for 18 years. In a world where Silicone Valley startup founders grow their companies as fast as possible with the goal of selling them later to investors, what are your recommendations for entrepreneurs looking to develop their businesses in the long term?

I believe more in long term businesses than in those that have been majorly inflated over a short time and sold afterwards to others who continue playing the same game. And I think that from many perspectives. It’s weird for projects that never get the maturity they might need. It is stressful for the entrepreneurs, who are the perfect mice running on a wheel.

[bctt tweet=”Avocatnet.ro CEO&founder Alin Popescu: Don’t rely on one chance, because things might not work out that way.” username=”brand_minds”]

And, more importantly, it is bad for society. Because a steroid-increased project has much more chances to fail than to succeed. Most do. And the people who work for these projects are thus trapped in a flood of uncertainty that is transposed into their daily lives.

Do we wonder why our society is becoming more and more strange?

Maybe that’s one of the reasons why. We live in times when landmarks we used to consider poles of society for many years (job, family, peace of mind) are transformed into something else, perhaps as interesting, but difficult to understand now.

If I were to give someone advice, I would advise them to envision their life for the next ten years at least. Think about how their business and their life can be combined all this time. Don’t rely on one chance, because things might not work out that way. And nothing is harder than waking up at 40 or 50 years old, confused, in a world that has changed so much that you find it very difficult to adapt to.

[bctt tweet=”Alin Popescu (CEO Avocatnet.ro): We talk about the Internet of Things now, but soon enough we will talk about the Internet of Bodies.” username=”brand_minds”]

5. Technology for established businesses: friend or foe?

I think technology, at least for now, is just a tool. Technology is neither a friend nor an enemy. The people behind the technology, however, are many. For business or other reasons, technology is becoming more and more a means of manipulating our will, attention and desires. And that will not help us, in the not too distant future.

If we talk about the internet of things now, soon we will also talk about the internet of bodies. We may not care what the smart vacuum cleaner does or what the smart fridge does, but it will definitely matter if the artificial, smart pancreas turns against us. If an older man calls his nephew or granddaughter to help him pay the ransom in bitcoin because otherwise, he cannot access the pancreas he needs to live.

Technology is, in many ways, the greatest good that has happened to us, humans. It has expanded our experiences in a way that we cannot fully understand even now. However, we must pay attention to how we interact with technological development in the future, because the golden age we are living now, that of primordial discoveries, will quickly change into a chase after gold, when corporations, states or various individuals will understand that they can use our data, equipment or mind in a much more harmful way.

And this without talking about AI and its unpredictable future.

6. You are a proud and responsible father to Ana, your daughter. How do you achieve the much sought after work-life balance?

It’s hard to say I reached the balance I was talking about. My wife has the same type of problem. As a doctor, it is easier for my wife to solve this particular problem by explaining to Anna that a child was suffering and had to operate or do who knows what other procedure. If we are to joke, being a doctor is still an extra power in the eyes of children.

But we strive to find that balance. And there is nothing more difficult for parents to digest than their child telling them to put the phone away, in certain moments. So I tried to involve Ana, who is now seven years old, in the things I do at the office. To understand why I talk to certain people, why it is important to respond to certain things at certain times. And children understand these things. You give them the power to feel like great people, to lead the world from other positions than they have now.

And without a doubt, it helped me a lot to leave my crown in the garage when I got home. Because Ana, sweet as she is, does not accept masters. She accepts only people she can partner with, to help her forget that she is a child and has no power over the world around her.

Join the Conversation

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Underline app – remember more from the books you read

What is the Underline app and how it can help you remember more from the books you read? 

A big part of what makes you the person you are today is your memory. Memory is a brain function that protects your brain from information overload, a risk we run daily now, in the digital age. Your memory acts as a filter and keeps you sane and a functioning human being. It’s the reason why we forget.

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source: intelalearning.wordpress.com

The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve hypothesizes the decline of memory retention in time. This curve shows how information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain it.

If you are an avid reader, wouldn’t you like to remember more?

How does the forgetting curve change when you practise repeating it?

As you can see in the graphic below, repeating the newly-learned information is the best way to increase memory retention.

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Underline helps you remember more from the books you read

Underline is a book-to-text scanning app. With the Underline app, you can make the most of reading.

What technology is Underline based on?

Underline is based on Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. The team developing Underline has improved this technology to help users scan a book to read digitally, fast and easy.

Underline app features

Here’s what can you do with Underline:

1. Scan text

Take highlights from physical books by taking a photo of your desired page or paragraph and have Underline extract the text.

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2. Sync Underline with your Kindle

Sync Underline with your Kindle and all your highlights will become organized and searchable.

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3. Save highlights/ideas

Save highlights and ideas from print, digital or audiobooks in one place.

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4. Create and share your highlights on social media

Why share other people’s quotes and smart ideas when you can share yours? Underline helps you create and share cool photos from your highlights with your friends on social media.

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5. Find and read book summaries

Explore the Underline community to discover and read book notes and summaries from real people.

6. Write summaries

You can also use Underline as a summary writing app. It’s easy to remember books if you write summaries.

7. Take notes by voice

Underline also works as a voice-to-text book writer. Just talk and the app transforms your voice notes into text. If you are the kind of writer who doesn’t need much editing or is more comfortable talking than writing, this app is for you.

8. Read books offline

If you don’t have time to read your chosen book, scan its pages, save the images and read them whenever it’s convenient for you or when you are offline.

Benefits of using Underline

When was the last time you took notes? It was probably in your student years when you employed the old pen-to-paper technique.

It worked great then, but now you read your book while commuting, on a train or the subway. As much as you would like to, taking notes by pen while holding the book in one hand and the bar with the other is just impossible (you are not expecting to grow a third arm anytime soon, are you?).

Underline solves this problem by allowing you to take notes anywhere, with your smartphone.

  • Easy to use – the app uses your smartphone’s camera, you don’t need anything else;
  • Convenient – you can take notes anywhere;
  • Saves time – if you are pressed for time, you can read book summaries. Underline is a great resource of free book summaries;
  • Remember more – go over your notes and highlights to fight the forgetting curve;
  • Learn better – writing down your notes is the best way to learn;
  • Save it now, read it later – Read your chosen book whenever it’s convenient for you.

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Source: getunderline.com

The rise of prosumers is the latest challenge for marketers

On this page:

  1. Definition of the prosumer
  2. The reasons consumers turn into prosumers
  3. Prosumers – an opportunity for marketers
  4. How could marketers facilitate prosumption
  5. 4 steps marketers should take to make the most of prosumption
  6. Conclusion

As a marketer, it’s your job to know everything there is to know about the people consuming the products for which you are creating marketing campaigns, brand activations and advertising.

They are the consumers.

But who are the prosumers?

Prosumers – definition

Prosumers are the people who produce some of the goods and services entering their own consumption.

The prosumer is not a new concept. In his book, ‘The Third Wave’, futurist and businessman Alvin Toffler predicted the decline of consumers and the rise of prosumers, people who produce many of their own goods and services.

Next year will mark forty years since Toffler published his book in 1980 which means enough time will have passed allowing us to see if his prediction was correct.

Marketing guru Philip Kotler recognized the importance of prosumers for brands and marketers and in 1986 he published an essay in Advances in Consumer Research Volume 13 – The Prosumer Movement: a new challenge for marketers’. In his essay, Kottler builds upon Toffler’s concept of prosumers from a marketing perspective.

Two reasons for consumers becoming prosumers

Instead of purchasing products and services from the market, prosumers can be found making their own clothes, cooking their own food, rearing their own cars and hanging their own wallpaper, says Kotler.

Why do people become prosumers?

Why would they rather produce their own soap than buy one of the many choices the market has to offer?

Kotler identified two reasons: better quality and self-actualization.

Prosumption activities for better quality products/services

Mass production is the manufacture of large quantities of standardized products often using assembly lines or automation technology.

To produce the products, manufacturers are always looking for ways to drive costs down sometimes at the expense of their workers, environment and overall quality of the product.

A lot more care goes into a product prosumers build or produce themselves, from the quality of the materials used to the finishing look. These prosumers care about what goes into the food they eat, the clothes they wear or the detergents they use to wash their children’s clothes.

Hollywood actress and mother of three, Jennifer Garner became increasingly concerned with the quality of food she was feeding her babies.

She began making her own organic, cold-pressed baby food blends. Her blends are free from preservatives, colours, concentrates or added sugars. Just like the food she used to eat when she was a little girl, living on her parents’ farm.

Her company, Once Upon a Farm is a member of the Organic Trade Association and a Certified B Corporation which means the company meets the highest standards of overall social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.

Read more: 3 successful businesses founded by Hollywood stars

People would favour “make” decisions over “buy” decisions.

Philip Kotler, The Prosumer Movement: a new challenge for marketers

Prosumption activities to achieve self-actualization

Self-actualization means the full realization of one’s creative, intellectual, or social potential.

The concept has been popularized by Maslow in his hierarchy of needs pyramid where self-actualization is the ultimate life goal. Maslow defined self-actualization as follows: “What a man can be, he must be.”

How is prosumption tied to self-actualization?

To answer this question, we must first know what self-actualization is for each person.

Is it becoming a painter? Or taking care of children? Empowering people of all ages to change their lives by acquiring a new set of skills?

Whatever it is, self-actualization is different for everyone.

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Agricool co-founders Guillaume and Gonzague / agriculture.gov.fr

French startup Agricool has reinvented the way strawberries are grown and potentially agriculture as an industry.

Co-founders Guillaume and Gonzague came up with the cooltainer, where fruits and vegetables grow vertically.

The cooltainer doesn’t harm the environment, is cost-effective and 100% sustainable. Agricool also created the cooltivator, a new kind of urban farmer. The cooltivator uses the cooltainer to grow their own greens, essentially having a garden in their apartment.

Prosumers – an opportunity for marketers

In his book, Alvin Toffler said prosumerism will usher in the end of marketing.

Philip Kotler has a more positive perspective. Although the increase in prosumption activities means fewer customers for mass-produced goods and services and less consumer interest in brands, he believes marketers should view prosumerism as a challenge and an opportunity for creativity.

Kotler says as follows: “Instead of marketers fighting prosumers, they should look for opportunities to facilitate prosumption activities.”

How could marketers facilitate prosumption:

1. Create better tools. Create better tools for prosumers to use, including better electric power tools for carpentry work, better tools for farming small plots of land, and so on. Agricool is a great example of empowering urban farmers to grow their own food.

2. Simplify the product on the process. “Painting by number” kits allow “Sunday painters” to produce better-looking paintings. “Adhesive wallpaper” allows more people to hang their own wallpaper.

3. Create how-to content. People looking to produce products need to acquire new skills. Think of ways to help them achieve their goals. It could be by providing them with the opportunity to attend evening classes. Or publishing how-to-do content in various formats: text, video or audio.

4 steps marketers should take to make the most of prosumption according to Philip Kotler

  1. Identify the most popular prosumer activities;
  2. Think through appropriate product and service responses;
  3. Direct your promotion appeals to themes stressing individuation, skill-building, and productiveness;
  4. Develop more specialized messages to reach these highly segmented target markets.

Conclusion

Alvin Toffler’s prediction of the rising prosumers was correct.

Philip Kotler’s prediction of marketers creating messages for highly segmented customers was correct.

He was also accurate when thirty-four years ago he envisioned the increase of how-to content. Today how-to videos are in top four content categories watched by YouTube users next to comedy, music and entertainment/culture.

Creating highly personalized messages is one of Facebook’s recommendations to advertisers looking to increase ad conversions. Being relevant to your customer’s needs is the secret to advertising success.

Relevancy is the word for email marketing also. Email provider MailChimp found that segmented email campaigns perform better than non-segmented campaigns.

One more marketing insight Kotler was right about: people searching for “others with kindred interests, finding them and communicating with them through electronic media”. In the late nineties, people joined discussion forums. When our lives came under the influence of social media, people created Facebook Groups to share information, support and help each other achieve their dreams.

As Philip Kotler says in his essay, prosumers should be looked at as another market segment.

The marketer’s role is to creatively support prosumers achieve their goals.

The aim of marketers should not be to protect the exchange system. The purpose of exchange networks is to facilitate the pursuit of human satisfaction. If the market system is overextended, and if people want to meet more of their own needs, on what grounds should marketers object? The market, after all, is a human invention and it will last as long as it serves human needs.

Philip Kotler

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Do you want to be successful? Listen to these 9 DON’Ts (2 of 3)

Do you want to be successful? Listen to these 9 DON’Ts!

In part 1 of this article read about the first three DON’Ts:

  • Don’t leave things unfinished,
  • Don’t allow technology to distract you
  • Don’t dismiss other people’s thoughts or opinions.

Let’s get on with part 2.

4. Don’t allow yourself to burn out

Working to achieve your dream doesn’t feel like work. It’s easy for startup founders and new entrepreneurs to end up working long crazy hours into the night.

Building something from the ground up – a new product or service – is exciting and it gets the adrenaline pumping. Man or woman, young or in your forties, your body is flesh and blood, not steel. You cannot go on forever on little to no sleep, fast-food and working around the clock.

When your body gets tired, your mind follows closely. Developing the product, raising money, hiring valuable employees, dealing with the competition, questioning your decisions, fighting your inner critic etc is a highly stressful life day in and day out. Mental fatigue and depression are real and they are unfortunately widely spread among startup founders and entrepreneurs.

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In a nutshell – experiencing physical and mental stress is the road to burnout.

In April 2018, KPMG Australia commissioned a study into entrepreneur wellbeing where 70 venture-backed founders were invited to answer questions.

The findings confirm what we already knew:

  • Founders experience heavy workloads;
  • The 64-hour week is the average among founders;
  • 40 per cent of them said they had worked every day for the previous three months;
  • 23 per cent could not remember taking three consecutive days off in more than a year;
  • 80 per cent of founders wished they could spend more time with their friends or children;
  • two-thirds were kept from spending as much time as they’d like with their partner or spouse;
  • Most reported their work impacted their sleep and physical wellbeing;
  • 43 per cent of founders were unhappy with their fitness level.

Ryan Holmes is the CEO of Hootsuite, the social media management platform he founded in 2008. In one of his articles on LinkedIn, Ryan talks about how he achieved work-life balance and avoided burnout. He recommends career interval training, a concept he borrowed from the fitness industry.

HIIT is a new concept of exercising which means alternating periods of intense activity with periods of rest or lower-intensity exercise.

Finding a balance is great but sometimes it just can’t be helped when you are trying to make a product work. It’s ok to put everything on hold, let your family know you won’t be available for a period of time and dedicate your days and nights to your work, says Ryan. But this can’t go on forever.

Much like HIIT (high-intensity interval training), career interval training means bursts of activity need to be offset by periods of rest and recovery.

As with interval training, intense, all-consuming stretches at work require real downtime to recover. And this is the step that’s too often missed. We go right from those all-nighters back into our normal work schedule. What’s really needed is an extended period away from the job — be that in the form of a few weeks vacation or even a longer sabbatical.

Ryan Holmes, CEO at Hootsuite

Balancing work life and home life can be tough, but getting drowned by your workload won’t help you achieve much of anything. Burnout impacts your company’s bottom line. Find a balance.

5. Never stop learning

You went to high-school than attended college or university. Maybe you liked learning and had high grades, maybe you found school boring and couldn’t wait to finish your formal education. The good news is – learning never stops.

Whether you are a new entrepreneur just starting out, keep learning. Even if you are an experienced entrepreneur, keep learning.

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In the last decade, our world experienced more technological leaps than in the previous century. Our lives have dramatically changed in ten years’ time.

It’s a fact: technology is accelerating, says inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil. In his book, ‘The Singularity is Near’, Kurzweil reminds us that smartphones didn’t exist a decade ago, no one owned a computer three decades earlier, and the first personal computers arrived about 40 years ago.

To put things in perspective, the iPhone in your pocket has over 100,000 times the processing power of the computer that landed man on the moon 50 years ago.

Formal education cannot keep up with our ever-changing and evolving world. It is a necessary foundation upon which to build our future. In school, we develop a vital skill – we learn how to learn and that we need to keep learning.

As a young boy, Elon Musk took refuge in reading. Talking about his childhood in one interview, Elon said he was raised by books – he would spend even 10 hours a day reading.

Bill Gates reads 50 books a year because reading is still the “main way that I both learn new things and test my understanding”, he said in a 2016 interview.

Whether it’s to develop a particular skill or acquire a new set of skills, keep learning. Go outside your interests and learn something new.

You might be surprised to find new ways that help you improve your performance or stimulate your creativity. Not so long ago, mindfulness and meditation were strictly associated with spiritual gurus. Today both mindfulness and meditation are two valuable techniques that support entrepreneurs achieve their goals.

6. Don’t listen to your inner critic

Do you ever think I’m not good enough, I won’t be able to perform, I will fail, I am a failure? This is your self-talk speaking negative thoughts.

Why is it that when we talk about a friend we find so many good and positive aspects, but when it comes to our own person, we are critical and judgemental?

The inner critic is a pattern of destructive thoughts toward ourselves. It can affect every aspect of our lives, including our self-esteem and confidence, our personal and intimate relationships, and our performance and accomplishments at school and work.

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Read more – Self-awareness: 5 tactics to improve it

We all have that inner critical voice, but we need to acknowledge it through self-awareness and learn how to silence it.

Entrepreneurs, startup founders and professionals in every industry struggle with self-doubt and fear. These strong emotions are holding them back from being their best self and doing their best work.

Don’t allow your inner critic to dominate your life!

Bring down the imaginary walls that you have created in your mind and achieve your highest potential!

In her book, Banish your inner critic, author and Brand Minds 2019 speaker Denise Jacobs shows you how to transform your self-talk into a tool for success, identify and quiet your voice of self-doubt and generate more creative ideas than ever before.

This article will be continued with part 3.

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No more language barriers with Ambassador, the smart earbuds

With the help of smart earbuds called Ambassador, there are no language barriers to stop you.

Does your job include travelling to various parts of the world? Does your role imply talking to people who speak a variety of languages?

Did you ever wish you could speak 3-4 foreign languages but never had the time to learn any of them?

With the help of Ambassador, now you can.

Ambassador, your real-time professional translator

Ambassador is an over-the-ear interpret engineered for professionals and travellers.

It is specifically designed for high-quality translation accuracy, easy and hygienic sharing, and features 3 modes for different scenarios: Listen, Lecture, and Converse.

These smart earbuds are designed to allow professionals from all backgrounds to have smooth conversations free from the constraints of language barriers.

ambassador-real-time-interpreter

What technology is Ambassador based upon?

The technology behind Ambassador is made up of speech recognition, machine translation, and speech synthesis.

These technologies are subjective to several elements, including the person speaking, the chosen language, and the context of the conversation.

In general, the translations are accurate for general conversation but with our machine learning technology, the more people use the technology the better it gets.

Ambassador supports 20 languages

Ambassador supports English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Russian, Arabic, Greek, Hindi, Polish, Turkish, Chinese Mandarin, Japanese and Korean, plus 5 new languages, including Cantonese, Dutch, Vietnamese, Thai, and Hebrew.

Ambassador is made by Waverly Labs

Waverly Labs is a tech startup at the convergence of wearable technology and machine translation.

Using the latest technologies in speech recognition, machine translation and the advances of wearable technology, the Ambassador is a smart earpiece which allows wearers to speak different languages but still clearly understand each other.

Simply put, when one person speaks, the other hears it in their native language.

Waverly Labs was founded in 2013 by Andrew Ochoa, CEO and Director of Product Development and William Goethals, Electrical Engineer and Head of Manufacturing. The startup has raised a total of $6.1M in funding over 3 rounds.

In November of this year, Waverly Labs has been named a CES® 2020 Innovation Awards Honoree for Ambassador Interpreter.

Benefits

  • Hygienic over-the-ear design for seamless sharing, longer battery life, and uncompromised signal quality.
  • Advanced microphone array to naturally interpret people around you with high clarity.
  • Smooth sharing with guests by pairing multiple Ambassadors to one smartphone.
  • Translate and understand dozens of languages/dialects with guests and groups.

Features

  • Two mics work in tandem to capture speech up to 8 feet / 2.5 meters away;
  • Up to 4 Ambassador units may be paired with one smartphone;
  • Three translation modes: Listen / Lecture / Converse;
  • Continuous and Push-To-Talk translation settings;
  • Compatible with free iOS and Android app;
  • Up to 6 hours of battery life.

10 Applications of Ambassador

  1. Small Business
  2. Education
  3. Training
  4. Hospitality
  5. Events/Conferences
  6. Entertainment
  7. Travel
  8. Medical/Treatment
  9. Legal
  10. Family/Friends

Remember Babel fish, the small, bright yellow fish in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy which can be placed in someone’s ear and allows them to hear any language translated into their native language?

Well, our world has caught up with author Douglas Adams’ imagination only the solution is not biologic, it’s a technological device.

Sources: waverlylabs.com, crunchbase.com

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