Book Recommendation: Digital Sense

I’ve probably read nearly 100 books by “social media experts” and I have become quite jaded. I’m tired of the “same old, same old” that I’ve been thinking about for 10+ years now.

I used to think that too many people wrote a book when it should have remained an article or a blog post.

These days, I have a bit more of an expansive view.

Seeing how difficult it was for me to actually write my book, my new approach is “you know what, give it a shot. At least they put the work in, so there’s maybe something of value in there.”

Which brings me to Digital Sense by Travis Wright and Chris J. Snook.

As you begin, you encounter a story about the Kansas City Chiefs football team and the capability of an empowered individual to make change.

It’s easy to dismiss this as “ok, I’ve heard many times about how one tweet can change everything” and the basic street cred being laid out is “it was kind of a big deal…in Kansas City.”

However, where things get REALLY sexy and interesting is what they do to extract global lessons from this local phenomenon. Their writing style is very straightforward and is designed for a more mainstream marketer and general business audience, I would say.

But that doesn’t take away from the power of their conclusion.

And their conclusion is: It’s all about customer experience.

Yes, on the one hand, many people have said this before and the whole uber-focus on CX is still a relatively new phenomenon.

Plus, we don’t have great clarity yet about how to effectively measure it.

So, it’s challenging, but what Travis and Chris do quite well, I believe, is simplify the big task by providing something they call the “Experience Marketing Framework.”

That’s when I knew this book had more practical value than most. It’s worth an exploration and I loved the “Three agreements to customer-centric accountability cultures” at the beginning.

It’s almost like taking an oath.

I admit that I am powerless over the demands of always-on marketing

The power (our customer) that is greater than our organization gives me the singular focus necessary to restore my sanity and find focus.

I will take a fearless inventory of our insights, vision, and execution annually and score them with brutal honesty against the customer needs, competitors’ strength, and external forces that threaten our existence.

In the CMO Primer for the Age of Blockchains, I argued that CX is only going to intensify as a differentiator as decentralized systems hit the mainstream.

A book that provides a framework for doing this and wraps it within a concept of “digital sense” seems to be a worthwhile investment of time and money.