Chris Aarons is the author of The Digital Helix (a Wallstreet Journal and Amazon Best Seller), Transforming Your Organizations DNA to Thrive in the Digital Age. He has helped launch dozens of companies and products using a unique mix of digital, sales, and marketing strategies.
In 2006, he launched one of the first social media departments at AMD and later wrote the book Social Media Judo: The Essential Guide to Mastering Social Media and Delivering Real Results. Chris also teaches digital marketing at the University of Texas at Austin and has won numerous awards for his digital programs while working for clients such as Adobe, Amazon, AMD, Cisco, Dell, HP, LG, Microsoft, Philips, and others.
Top Takeaways: Business Transformation in the Digital Age with Chris Aarons
- Organizations are moving out of the industrial age and into the Digital Age
- Look for gaps within your job and see what could be changed
- Look at micro opportunities instead of life changing opportunities – build on these
- Every person/business hire companies, products or services to do a job – game changer in marketing
- Bring level of expertise – find a way to do it different and exhaust it – add to the idea and make it better
- Innovator’s dilemma is how do I come up with an idea that people want that hasn’t already been considered
- Example of McDonald’s triple thick milkshakes – easy simple answer doesn’t get to the real reason
- Watching customers transforms the simple answer into the complex reason and opens up opportunities for innovation
- How do we get buy-in from out of the box thinking – talk to the best customers and get facts – become the focal point for insight
- Surveys give you information; conversations are intellectual curiosity
- See what other people are doing to develop your ideas, read more, listen to podcasts – see where boundaries are
- Stillness is a strong management trait – Go to a dark room, close your eyes and just think about your ideas (take time to be still to evaluate your ideas)
- Developing a digital mindset (free download article) – be ready for the unexpected at a corporate level
- Create a culture for exploration, open ideas, reward for risk, opportunities for learning
- Ask for an excuse rather than permission to push the envelope
- 84% of start-up exploited a gap in their company and went out on their own because they could not implement their idea in their current organization
- Ask the what if questions until you find the gap and the opportunity
- Lack of experimentation and lack of connectedness is a challenge for a lot of organizations
- What are you doing with your insights, how are you sharing? Are you just making things mobile and not getting the real benefits of becoming digital
- Break out of the surface changes and start doing things innovatively
- What color is a Yield sign?
Listen to the Audio
Subscribe to the podcast – Never Miss an Episode
Learning From Leaders:
Current Book: The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail by Clayton M. Christensen
Leadership Superpower: Connecting things and seeing the next steps
Motivational Mantra:
[shareable cite=”JFK 8/30/1960″]There is no time for complacency. This is no time to abandon the drive and the optimism and the imaginative creativity which has characterized this country since its birth. This is no time for timidity or doubt. This is a time for boldness and energy. This is a time for stout-hearted men who can turn dreams into reality[/shareable]
Book Most Often Gifted: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t Hardcover by Jim Collins
Additional Items Mentioned
Connect with Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/caarons/
The Digital Helix: Transforming Your Organization’s DNA to Thrive in the Digital Age by Michael Gale & Chris Aarons
Social Media Judo by Chris Aarons
