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Why Modern Marketing Teams Should Consider Going Headless

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By Sanjay Sarathy

A few years ago, I shared my perspective on the notable rise the industry as I was tracking in businesses adopting a headless architecture. At that time there was no doubt that a headless system would become a significant enabler of today’s visual economy.

Fast forward to today, and it has become even more apparent that headless is more than tech vendor jargon. It’s a must-have for businesses, especially those that rely heavily on a media-first, highly visual user experience.

As I explained back then, a headless digital asset management (DAM) system decouples the master asset library from one centralized interface, enabling asset consumption from other systems via custom or pre-built interfaces. Adoption of headless DAMs is accelerating, and I have a front-row seat to watching brands today reap the benefits.

Modern marketing teams — especially within organizations that have a complex technology stack with multiple content systems — must evaluate how they can take advantage of headless DAMs to increase flexibility and stay competitive in the visual economy.

Pain Points of Traditional SaaS Applications

A side-effect of the pandemic is the massive investment businesses have made in their online presence to create user experiences that engage, convert and cultivate long term loyalty. With 84% of consumers saying that a video has influenced them to buy something, it’s more important than ever for brands to deliver the images and videos online shoppers are drawn to.

Because of this, managing rich media quickly and efficiently has become a necessary yet daunting challenge. Basic features of content management systems (CMSes) cannot efficiently organize, source, optimize and deliver visual assets at the scale needed today.

Traditionally, SaaS applications are deployed in either of these two ways, both of which have significant downsides:

  • Best-of-breed applications: Despite their innovative features for business functions, independent best-of-breed applications tend to render operations more complex and create silos. Fixing the related issues is a time-sink for developers and marketers alike.
  • All-in-one platforms: This is a unified and streamlined approach through which applications seamlessly integrate with one another. Though efficient, all-in-one platforms can lack advanced components.

With headless applications, brands can eliminate these roadblocks and deliver engaging experiences to their audiences.

Well-Structured APIs and Path to Going Headless

Headless DAMs are ideal for organizations with a complex technology stack with multiple content systems, teams and workflows.

For these organizations, having concise and well-structured APIs that efficiently process media assets and metadata creates an appealing user experience. They must have well-tested technology integrations to store their metadata along with the media assets.

That way, businesses can seamlessly integrate their other platforms and best-of-breed applications to organize, search and manage visuals through an embedded or customized UI.

Headless Leads to Agility, Customization

To keep pace with the rise in media demands and consumption, brands must have a consistent structure in which to successfully manage, transform and deliver those assets. Headless technologies makes this possible by providing features that are:

  • Scalable: Different teams can share the same content repository across all the websites, apps and systems for creating and delivering experiences, ensuring consistency and efficiency. Besides being accessible through the main UI, all DAM functionalities can be extended into existing systems and workflows, leading to higher user adoption and creating a true single silo-less source of truth.
  • Flexible: With robust APIs and SDKs, developers can use their programming language of choice to build a custom interface or to integrate with other systems, simultaneously increasing developer productivity.
  • Agile: Building a best-of-breed stack with a headless architecture allows for agile replacements or upgrades to the stack, adapting to changing business needs while adopting new trends and technologies.
  • Customizable: In contrast to the one-size-fits-all approach of even the best-performing traditional DAMs, a custom UI built on top of APIs enables functionalities that meet specific business needs.

These distinct advantages enable businesses to process all media types efficiently and create more compelling visual storytelling across different channels. It also enables faster time-to-market to meet consumer demands.

Enabling Faster, More Engaging Visual Storytelling

Headless commerce, headless content management, headless DAM — these phrases reverberate throughout conversations in enterprise software today, as brands strive to meet consumer needs and acquire the technology necessary to manage each piece of the storytelling puzzle. Every industry has a story to tell.

Marketing teams across all industries, from retail and ecommerce to media and technology, are always looking for ways to improve customer engagement without sacrificing internal efficiencies. And going headless may well be the answer.

Feature Image Credit: marv

By Sanjay Sarathy

Sanjay Sarathy is VP developer experience at Cloudinary, a provider of end-to-end digital media management solutions. With more than twenty years experience in leading global marketing programs, his work spans tech start-ups and established market leaders in SaaS, Big Data, analytics and e-commerce.

Sourced from CMS Wire

 

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Marketing marketers: the unique challenges of your agency’s marketing team

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By Georgie Monaghan

Agencies’ in-house marketing teams have a unique job – what Propellernet’s marketing director Georgie Monaghan calls ‘marketing marketers.’ How can they navigate it? She takes us through those challenges, from managing resources to dealing with the struggle of not being able to talk about some of your best work.

It’s the question that I’ve begun to dread and I’m not sure why: “So, what do you do?” Oh, shit. My brain runs through all possible answers. “I’m in marketing.” Nope, they will collar me in to helping with their aunt’s dog grooming company. “B2B marketing.” Do they know what B2B means? “I market marketers.” Well, that is what I do but now I sound like a dick; there’s a blank nod; the conversation changes. The moment’s gone.

Rob Mayhew’s hilarious and very honest portrayal of agency life has got me reflecting on my own role recently – which is ultimately to market some of the UK’s leading marketers. It’s a role that comes with its own unique challenges. So, for the brave marketer marketers, this one is for you.

Finding resource

There is none. If you’re doing your job right, everyone is manically busy and resourced to the max. But to do your job, you need resource – to write content, to write award entries, to run an event… the list goes on.

This is a good problem to have, and it’s one that I’ve faced a lot in agency roles. How do you tackle it?

First, you’ve got to be clear why an opportunity deserves resource. It’s not just about monetary investment – for a business that sells time, why is this important?

Second, be proactive: what can you do to limit the resource needed? Can you ghost write elements of response you need? Everyone works differently, so learn how key stakeholders like to operate and create a plan based around them individually.

Finally, be flexible. Agency life is fast-paced; to enjoy the role, you have to be able to flex. Yes, set your deadlines and meet them, but don’t beat yourself up if everything on your well-articulated marketing strategy doesn’t happen. Keep track of those things, monitor and report on them, and voice when things really are impacting your performance.

And yes, you will invariably be there with one minute to go still trying to get an award entry uploaded.

Marketing agency budgets

Often, the events you would love to target are astronomically out of reach. Award entries add up. And random expenses from across the business get thrown your way.

As with resource, be flexible and proactive and build business cases. Beyond the data you can see, business development, client services and HR need to be your best friends to keep track of incoming leads; common threads across upsell opportunities; and brand perception when it comes to recruitment.

We’re doing the most amazing work – but you can’t tell anyone about it

This happens so often in agency life. You win a new client… but you can’t announce it. And of course, you’re getting the most amazing results for that client, but you can’t case study them or put them forward for an award. There’s nothing we can do about it. It’s just one of those things. It cuts deep. Smile, move on and drink a large glass of wine while reading the new win updates the following week.

Brand messaging

I vividly remember sitting in a meeting with the recommended agency register and them saying: “Don’t say it’s your people that make you different… of course it is, everyone says that. What really makes you different as an agency?” This has stuck with me throughout my career, brand and agency side. People, their skills and their contacts often come and go. Why should a client work with you as an agency? What can you bring them over another agency? What is true and genuine to your brand? These are big questions that you won’t be able to answer on your own. But you’ll be flying when you know what they are.

You’re marketing the experts

No one said this was going to be easy, but let’s be honest: that’s why we love it. When you present your marketing strategy for the year, you are doing this to a room full of people who are paid to build out marketing strategies day in and day out for some of the world’s leading brands. Intimidating or what? But you know your agency, you’ve got under the skin of your brand and have used all the data and insights you can to build out those recommendations into a strategy. You’ve got this.

And, in regards to being at the forefront of a fantastic industry, full of brilliant minds – well, there’s no other place I’d rather be. Here’s to the silent army of marketing marketers. I salute you.

By Georgie Monaghan

Sourced from The Drum

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Elon Musk Is ‘Giving Serious Thought’ To Creating An Alternative To Twitter

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By Michael Cohen

Musk made the statement after an earlier set of Saturday tweets sharing his discontent with the microblogging and social networking company. He later replied to a follower who asked if Musk would consider creating a new platform to give free speech top priority.

Musk also continued to support the idea of incorporating Dogecoin DOGE/USD into a potential alternative platform.

Crypto YouTuber Matt Wallace suggested a new logo for Twitter, if Musk decides to buy the company, instead of creating one of his own.

The latest set of tweets come after Musk questioned if it was time to replace Twitter, as reported by Benzinga. Musk has criticized the social media platform for “failing to adhere to free speech principles,” which he says “fundamentally undermines democracy.”

Former President Donald Trump has also taken issue with Twitter’s objectivity,  and launched his own social media platform called TRUTH Social, to take on Twitter and Meta Platforms FB+ Free Alerts unit Facebook.

Photo: Courtesy of Ministério Das Comunicaç on Flickr

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By Michael Cohen

Sourced from Benzinga

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How to Skip YouTube Ads

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By Eric Griffith

Don’t pull your hair out when commercials take over your videos. Here are six ways to jump right to the content you want.

Online video streaming is big business; YouTube made $28.8 billion in advertising revenue alone last year, a 3.5x increase over what it made with ads five years ago, according to data gathered by Tubics. Plus, YouTube Premium, the paid version of the service, has 50 million subscribers.

Tubics

What’s amazing is that the majority of that ad revenue goes back to the content makers, giving them plenty of incentive to keep making more videos—at least until Instagram or TikTok poaches them. (Here’s a calculator that will tell you how many views and how much engagement videos require to make money. It’s not easy, but it’s hard to break through on Insta and TikTok, too.)

 

With 2 billion monthly users worldwide, YouTube’s a content-sharing juggernaut with a unique place on the internet because the majority of its videos are also easily shared or embedded on other websites. That increases the reach of the service well beyond the confines of YouTube.com or even some apps. It’s competing now with Roku, Plex, and others by offering hundreds of ad-supported TV and movies for free.

That all sounds great for the creators and the viewers…until you run into an interminable number of ads. The worst ones are the in-stream ads that run before, or sometimes during a video. But the standard banner ad that appears overtop a video is also annoying as it obscures the view.

Maybe you grew up with commercial breaks on TV, or the popups on websites, and can accept them as the cost of doing (free viewing) business. But for most, YouTube advertising is obtrusive and frustrating. Fortunately, there are ways to get around the commercials.

1. Pay Up for YouTube Premium

Not to be confused with YouTube TV, which can replace your cable TV viewing, YouTube Premium is the same as YouTube but without that ads. It comes bundled with YouTube Music Premium and lets subscribers play songs and videos in the background on the desktop, and allows video “downloads” to watch later. That freedom from ads extends to mobile devices and even TVs with a YouTube app on them. And it strips out the ads on shares you make to YouTube Kids for the youngsters.

A YouTube Premium subscription costs $11.99 per month after a one-month free trial. You can also get a five-member (plus yourself) family plan for $17.99 per month. If you’re a student, you pay only $6.99 a month.

YouTUBE PREMIUM SIGNUP

Paying for Premium is the legal, ethical way to skip YouTube ads because it ensures the people making the videos you watch get paid. The real trick would be to get Premium for free somehow after that initial trial. One option is to subscribe to Google One and get YouTube Premium free for three months.

However, there are caveats. YouTube Premium isn’t available everywhere, so if you travel to an unsupported region, you may see adds when your geographic location is identified (usually via your IP address). (A VPN that spoofs your location can probably fix this.) You may also see ads in embedded YouTube videos if they’re on a site where you block browser cookies. Make sure you are signed in with the Google account you used when you signed up for YouTube Premium.

2. Wait Just a Few Seconds

The majority of the in-stream ads that pop up before/during a YouTube video are short—usually 15 seconds or less. You can typically (but not always) skip the ad with a click of the Skip Ads link at the lower right after five seconds.

SKIP ADS

That’s a pretty good compromise between ad watching and ad avoidance. But creators have the option to make ads unskippable because if you click “Skip Ads” immediately after five seconds elapses, the ad in question does not count for the video maker. It’s not what YouTube calls an “engaged-view conversion.” For it to be an engaged view, you have to watch at least 10 seconds of a skippable ad, or the whole thing if it’s under 10 seconds.

Here’s an explainer for the video makers on how it impacts them—and how viewers can sometimes become “engaged” even after the video ad gets skipped.

Other tricks you can try:

If your video has a lot of pop-up banner ads, drag the red progress bar all the way to the end, then click the Replay button. This doesn’t help you skip the initial pre-roll ad, but may help skip some of the banners.

I also frequently see people recommending that you type an extra character at the end of a URL, like a period. By the time I usually got an extra character typed and hit return on the keyboard, the five-second skip had already come up. In my tests, this worked sometimes, but not all the time, and it doesn’t do anything to get rid of banner ads.

3. Try Tab+Enter

During the pre-roll ad on a YouTube video, hit Tab+Enter. It brings up the About This Ad box, telling you why you got it and who the advertiser is, and you can then report the ad or at least ask to stop seeing the ad in the future.

ABOUT THIS AD BOX

If you select Stop seeing this ad, you’ll get a warning that the particular ad shouldn’t be showing again, but it won’t stop you from seeing ads from that same advertiser in the future.

When you report the ad, you go to a whole new page where you can tell on the advertiser for violating YouTube’s policies on trademarks, counterfeit goods, or even just showing multiple ads (which is against the company’s “unfair advantage” policy).

Use that dialog to go into your own Google Ad Settings (or visit adssettings.google.com/authenticated). This isn’t going to stop you from seeing ads, of course, but it can at least limit exposure to the ads that aren’t tailored for you. Or if you hate that customization aspect—because it requires so much tracking of what you’re doing—turn ad personalization to OFF.

GOOGLE AD SETTINGS

4. Install an Adblocker

Google allows an extension for the Chrome browser in its Chrome Web Store, so who are we to argue? Install Adblock for YouTube. (There are multiple extensions with a variation on this name, but the one you want has over 10 million users.)

Reboot the browser after installation just in case, but otherwise, you’re likely to see results instantly. This extension puts a little “cleaned by Adblock for Youtube” [sic] line under each video.

BLOCKER.PNG

You can also get similar extensions for Firefox (AdBlocker for YouTube), Microsoft Edge, and other desktop browsers.

Go nuclear on ads with something like the preferred AdBlocker Ultimate, which works on multiple desktops, Android, and iOS browsers. That one will cost you (after a 14-day trial) $29.88 per year for up to three devices. And yes, it works on display and video ads on YouTube. However, the popular AdBlock will also let you create a list of YouTube channels you want to support by showing advertisements while blocking commercials on all the rest.

5. Try YouTube Clones

The above methods are best for desktop use. You can’t really block ads at all in the YouTube mobile apps. However, a select few apps can provide an approximation of the YouTube interface while offering access to the service’s videos. Many work on both Android phones and even streaming hubs, like the Amazon Fire, that use a variation on the Android OS—you just need to be able to sideload the apps. You’re typically not going to find them in a legit company store like Google Play. The upside of using one is they strip out the ads, of course.

Apps you can try include SmartTubeNext, NewPipe, and SkyTube. Be aware that Google doesn’t like them. It allegedly already got at least one, called YouTube Vanced, shut down via a cease-and-desist letter. That could happen to any of these other tools as well. They may work for a while even if they go under, but it’s unlikely to last if that happens.

6. Download Your Favourites

If you have videos you watch over and over for your personal pleasure, you can download them from YouTube to store on your computer. This is indeed still taking money away from creators. But if it’s for personal reasons, you’re probably not running completely afoul of the terms of service, or the law for that matter. For the full scoop on how to do that, read our complete YouTube video download tutorial.

Download YouTube

Bonus: Stopping Ads on Your Own Content

Maybe you make your own videos for YouTube and you’re not interested in any of that filthy lucre. You do it for your art. You can turn off the advertising so people can view your vids unfettered by crass commerce.

In YouTube, click your avatar icon at the upper right and select YouTube Studio. Click Continue, then on the left Content. Put a check in the box next to any videos for which you don’t want ads, then in the drop-down menu on the left, select Monetization. The top box should say Off > Apply. Save the changes and you’ll never have to worry about any money coming in.

By Eric Griffith

Sourced from PC Mag

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Fast-Forward: 4 Business Problems Solved by B2B Content Marketing

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By Joshua Nite

For B2B business, the pandemic was a magnifying glass pointing out the cracks in systems. We discovered just how fast digital transformation can be when our livelihoods are on the line. We found that global supply chains aren’t as resilient as we thought. We found that remote work is far more viable an option than we’d been led to believe.

None of these realizations were brand new — we were just able to see them clearly for the first time.

The same is true of B2B buyer behaviour. When we talk about how the pandemic changed B2B sales and marketing, what we mean is that we can finally see what we have missed before.

As we rebuild what’s broken and seek to evolve to the next level, we have a chance to put the buyer at the centre of our efforts. Here are some of the biggest challenges ahead, and how we can meet them.

Solving B2B Business Problems with Content Marketing

1 — Communicating Empathy

You don’t get through collective trauma like we’ve all experienced for the past two years without a few scars. People are still adjusting, processing, struggling, even grieving. At the same time, businesses have needs that your solution can meet, problems you can solve. But how can brands help without seeming insensitive?

Content marketing is our most powerful tool for communicating human-to-human, offering actual value. Now is not the time for bland corporate-speak, either — showcase your people in your content, along with others in your industry who have earned respect and trust.

Be helpful and kind in your content. Be a caring companion to your audience. After all, marketers are the keepers of data — we know these people and what they’re struggling with. We’re in a unique position to create uplifting content.

“Be a caring companion to your audience. After all, marketers are the keepers of data — we know these people and what they’re struggling with. We’re in a unique position to create uplifting content.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites Click To Tweet

2 — Leading with Purpose

Lately, businesses have come to the ground-breaking realization that people care deeply about social issues. This is a discovery on par with the earth-shattering epiphany that B2B buyers are human beings who need emotional appeal as well as facts.

This epiphany has led to serious discussions about “purpose.” What does your brand stand for besides shareholder profit? What issues are top of mind and how is the brand helping address them? How can we let people know that we share their values?

Content is key for a brand that’s looking to lead with purpose. It’s the medium to tell the brand’s purpose story, of course. But we can go deeper: Content can be a way to amplify other voices and help tell their stories.

A brand can post a Martin Luther King, Jr. day message, complete with one of his safer quotes. But a content marketer can publish a blog post from a leading voice in the Black community. A brand can say they stand with Ukraine. A content marketer can bring refugee voices directly to a sympathetic audience. That’s leading with purpose, not purpose as an afterthought.

3 — Humanizing the Brand

I’ve written before about humanizing B2B marketing — specifically about how easy it is to overthink the whole thing. What’s the line between relatable and unprofessional? Will we lose trust in our competency if our content is too light-hearted? How do we relate to our entire audience without alienating a segment?

Here’s the thing: You can’t humanize a brand.

I say again: You CAN’T humanize a BRAND.

Kool-aid man pitcher

The exception that proves the rule.

Brands are not humans. People are. Content marketing can feature people on behalf of the brand, rather than attempting to speak for the brand.

Bring your executives into your content. Bring employees, influencers, external experts. Bring — I’m begging you — your customers and prospects in as well.

If you want to truly humanize, let the humans come out from behind the brand. Content marketers can lead the way.

4 — Building Relationships

I have talked more about building relationships in a decade of being a marketer than I did in a decade of being single. But in the world post-pandemic (and our current world of ongoing but milder pandemic), relationship-building is an even more crucial part of success for B2B business. Repeat customers, referrals and brand advocacy are all a more reliable source of revenue than even the most targeted advertising.

Content marketing can help build these relationships. The first three points I made are all about laying the groundwork for a relationship. Content can offer helpful advice, information about the state of the industry, best practices — in other words, what your audience needs to succeed in their professional and even personal lives.

The quickest way to build a relationship? Give your potential customer that crucial bit of advice to make them look brilliant in front of their boss. Give your existing customers recognition and highlight the awesome success your brand helped them achieve. The more you lift up and celebrate your buyers, the more they are likely to do the same for your brand.

“Content can offer helpful advice, information about the state of the industry, best practices — in other words, what your audience needs to succeed in their professional and even personal lives.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites Click To Tweet

Elevate Your Content to Solve B2B Challenges

It’s been a rough couple of years. Human beings have experienced individual and collective trauma, and we’re still processing and rebuilding. That’s true both of the marketers creating content and the people consuming it.

The way forward is to use content for what it’s really good at: Telling stories, amplifying human voices, and providing value. That’s not to say content should be doing all of the above instead of driving a business outcome — I’m saying that helpful, human content is the way to drive a business outcome.

We have the privilege, as content marketers, to create something that serves both the brand and the audience, and might even be fun for us to create. It’s a unique opportunity and one we should all embrace.

Check out Content Marketing service page for more inspiration.

By Joshua Nite

Sourced from TopRank Marketing

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10 Books Every Leader (and Aspiring Leader) Should Read

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Sourced from Next Big Idea Club

A funny thing happens when you get far enough into your career: you’re often expected to lead, coach, or mentor others. It’s a great idea, but being a leader requires an entirely new skill set, one that may have nothing to do with your success up until now. So to fast-track your leadership learning curve, check out the ten remarkable reads below.

Download the Next Big Idea App to enjoy “Book Bite” summaries of hundreds of new nonfiction books like these.

CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest by Scott Keller etc

CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest

By Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra

From the world’s most influential management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company, an insight-packed, revelatory look at how the best CEOs do their jobs based on extensive interviews with today’s most successful corporate leaders—including chiefs at Netflix, JPMorgan Chase, General Motors, and Sony. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by co-author Scott Keller, in the Next Big Idea App

Boundless Leadership: The Breakthrough Method to Realize Your Vision, Empower Others, and Ignite Positive Change By Joe Loizzo and Elazar Aslan

Boundless Leadership: The Breakthrough Method to Realize Your Vision, Empower Others, and Ignite Positive Change

By Joe Loizzo and Elazar Aslan

Whether you’re a CEO, manager, team leader, consultant, coach, social entrepreneur, or community activist, this book offers the tools you need to clarify your vision, lead others, and ignite positive change in the world. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by co-authors Joe Loizzo and Elazar Aslan, in the Next Big Idea App

Ambitious Like a Mother: Why Prioritizing Your Career Is Good for Your Kids by Lara Bazelon

Ambitious Like a Mother: Why Prioritizing Your Career Is Good for Your Kids

By Lara Bazelon

In this captivating and radical look at work-life balance, an acclaimed law professor and mother reframes our understanding of working women—and shows how prioritizing your career benefits mothers, kids, and society at large. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Lara Bazelon, in the Next Big Idea App

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Animal Farm

By George Orwell

The classic political fable based on the events of Russia’s Bolshevik revolution and the betrayal of the cause by Joseph Stalin. Listen to our professionally-read Book Bite summary in the Next Big Idea App

Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism by Tom Peters

Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism

By Tom Peters

Legendary management expert Tom Peters returns with more people-first wisdom for leading during these tumultuous times of socio-political unrest and a global pandemic. Listen to our professionally-read Book Bite summary in the Next Big Idea App

Lead with We: The Business Revolution That Will Save Our Future By Simon Mainwaring

Lead with We: The Business Revolution That Will Save Our Future

By Simon Mainwaring

By leading with “we”—putting the collective above the individual, holding the sum above the parts, and emphasizing the importance of the role that everyone plays—you can not only help solve the escalating challenges of today but also unlock extraordinary growth for your business, and abundance on our planet. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Simon Mainwaring, in the Next Big Idea App

Inclusify: The Power of Uniqueness and Belonging to Build Innovative Teams By Stefanie K. Johnson

Inclusify: The Power of Uniqueness and Belonging to Build Innovative Teams

By Stefanie K. Johnson

In this groundbreaking guide, a management expert outlines the transformative leadership skill of tomorrow—one that can make it possible to build truly diverse and inclusive teams that value employees’ need to belong while still being themselves. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Stefanie K. Johnson, in the Next Big Idea App

Think Talk Create: Building Workplaces Fit for Humans By David Brendel and Ryan Stelzer

Think Talk Create: Building Workplaces Fit for Humans

By David Brendel and Ryan Stelzer

Think Talk Create enables us to cultivate trust and define collective values, seemingly “soft” attributes that nonetheless markedly increase innovation and, ultimately, financial performance. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by co-authors David Brendel and Ryan Stelzer, in the Next Big Idea App

Wellbeing at Work: How to Build Resilient and Thriving Teams By Jim Clifton and Jim Harter

Wellbeing at Work: How to Build Resilient and Thriving Teams

By Jim Clifton and Jim Harter

Wellbeing at Work explores the five key elements of wellbeing—career, social, financial, physical, and community—and how organizations can help employees and teams thrive in those elements. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by co-authors Jim Clifton and Jim Harter, in the Next Big Idea App

Provoke: How Leaders Shape the Future by Overcoming Fatal Human Flaws By Geoff Tuff and Steven Goldbach

Provoke: How Leaders Shape the Future by Overcoming Fatal Human Flaws

By Geoff Tuff and Steven Goldbach

Two renowned strategy consultants deliver an insightful exploration of how people tend to act tentatively in the face of uncertainty and provide the tools we need to do things differently. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by authors Geoff Tuff and Steven Goldbach, in the Next Big Idea App

To enjoy Book Bites from anywhere, download the Next Big Idea app today:

Sourced from Next Big Idea Club

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Unique Connectivity Lets Highly Creative People’s Brains Take ‘Road Less Traveled’ to Their Destination

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Sourced from Neuroscience News.com

Summary: The brains of highly creative people appear to work differently from those who are less creative in terms of connectivity, a new study reports.

Source: UCLA

A new study led by UCLA Health scientists shows highly creative people’s brains appear to work differently from others’, with an atypical approach that makes distant connections more quickly by bypassing the “hubs” seen in non-creative brains.

Exceptionally creative visual artists and scientists—called “Big C” creative types—volunteered to undergo functional MRI brain imaging, giving researchers in psychiatry, behavioural sciences and psychology a look at how regions of the brain connected and interacted when called upon to perform tasks that put creative thinking to the test.

“Our results showed that highly creative people had unique brain connectivity that tended to stay off the beaten path,” said Ariana Anderson, a professor and statistician at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behaviour at UCLA, the lead author of a new article in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.

While non-creatives tended to follow the same routes across the brain, the highly creative people made their own roads.

Although the concept of creativity has been studied for decades, little is known about its biological bases, and even less is understood about the brain mechanisms of exceptionally creative people, said senior author Robert Bilder, director of the Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity at the Semel Institute.

This uniquely designed study included highly creative people representing two different domains of creativity—visual arts and the sciences—and used an IQ-matched comparison group to identify markers of creativity, not just intelligence. The researchers analysed how connections were made between brain regions globally and locally.

“Exceptional creativity was associated with more random connectivity at the global scale—a pattern that is less ‘efficient’ but would appear helpful in linking distant brain nodes to each other,” Bilder said.

“The patterns in more local brain regions varied, depending on whether people were performing tasks. Surprisingly, Big C creatives had more efficient local processing at rest, but less efficient local connectivity when performing a task demanding ‘thinking outside the box.’”

Using airline route maps for comparison, the researchers said the Big C creatives’ brain activity is akin to skipping flights to connecting hubs to get to a small city.

“In terms of brain connectivity, while everyone else is stuck in a three-hour layover at a major airport, the highly creatives take private planes directly to a distant destination,” Anderson said.

“This more random connectivity may be less efficient much of the time, but the architecture enables brain activity to ‘take a road less travelled’ and make novel connections.”

This shows a head with a colorful cloud above it
“Our results showed that highly creative people had unique brain connectivity that tended to stay off the beaten path,” said Ariana Anderson. Image is in the public domain

Bilder, who has more than 30 years’ experience researching brain-behaviour relations, said, “The fact that Big C people had more efficient local brain connectivity, but only under certain conditions, may relate to their expertise. Consistent with some of our prior findings, they may not need to work as hard as other smart people to perform certain creative tasks.”

The artists and scientists in the study were nominated by panels of experts before being validated as exceptional based on objective metrics. The “smart” comparison group was recruited from participants in a previous UCLA study who had agreed to be contacted for possible participation in future studies, and from advertisements in the community for individuals with graduate degrees.

Sourced from Neuroscience News.com

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For Purpose Marketing to Work, Start With Invertising

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By Max Lenderman

As businesses realize the potential windfall from becoming more purpose-driven, such initiatives are increasing. There is no shortage of evocative statements coming from companies that had historically found pride in espousing naked capitalism and ruthless efficiencies.

These outward-facing messages and campaigns are imperative to look good in the eyes of the consumer and salve the shareholder itch for performance. And yet, there’s a massive disconnect between external communications and internal cohesion: No matter what good an organization says it does, it matters very little if it does not collectively align on and believe in the mission.

As ESG becomes the standard-bearer of a company’s purpose, it will increasingly need coordination and buy-in from all sectors of the organization—not just the marketing department. From finance to procurement, HR and investor relations, everyone needs to have the same ambition and drive for accountability.

It is said that a purpose-driven organization knows why it exists and who it is built to serve. If these two imperatives are not fully understood and embraced by everyone involved, then the company is in peril of falling flat at best and failing miserably at worst.

A study from Gallup that surveyed thousands of employees across hundreds of U.S. companies has laid bare the disconnect: Only 27% believe their company delivers on its purpose promise.

This is a staggering revelation. Despite the slew of corporate purpose statements, campaigns and leadership pledges that companies espouse, it is not registered by the very workers who must live it.

Organizations that unambiguously know why they exist and who they’re built to serve are indeed purpose-driven. The problem is where that knowledge is stored and activated. For most organizations, this understanding is housed and articulated only at the top and, unfortunately, rarely trickles down to rank-and-file employees.

How can leaders get their people to reflect on the purpose of the company, let alone their own purpose within it? How do the building blocks of an organization—business units, functional expertise, performance hubs, recruitment and development—get the autonomy and incentive to work more purposefully? How can purpose-driven actions like corporate social responsibility and philanthropy get integrated into the core of the business rather than remaining siloed and side-lined?

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Feature Image Credit: andresr/Getty Images

By Max Lenderman

@maxlenderman

Max Lenderman is CEO of Mudfarm Ventures and a member of the Adweek Academic Council.

Sourced from ADWEEK

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10 Clear-Cut Ways to Land That Dream Job After Age 50

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By Jenny Cohen | Edited By Ellen Cannon 

Find ways to turn your age into an asset as you search for that dream job after 50.

Just because you’ve been working for decades doesn’t mean you have to give up the idea of landing that job you always dreamed of. There is still plenty of time to switch jobs, grow your wealth, or go into another field. The best jobs aren’t limited to the young, and there are plenty of openings available to workers over 50 years old. However, you may have to take a different approach to land that dream job than you did when you were 20 or 30. Here are some things to consider if you want to make a change after 50.

1. Shorten your resume

You may want to list all of your accomplishments over decades of a successful career, but try to curate your resume to focus on your most recent achievements. Potential employers might not want to wade through pages and pages of your resume searching for relevant experience. A longer resume could also bore hiring managers before they get to the important pieces for a particular job.

2. Emphasize your expertise

When you edit your resume, make sure you still have relevant work experience on there that could be vital for a new position. Perhaps you increased revenue for your current company or added more customers to a previous employer’s roster. You may also want to have multiple resumes that emphasize different expertise depending on the position you’re applying for.

3. Drop the dates

As part of your resume refresh, think about dropping the dates on things such as when you graduated from college or when you worked at a particular job. There isn’t always a need to mention when you worked for a particular company or even list your length of time there. As part of your work to shorten your resume, you may also want to simply cut out positions you had more than 10 years ago to make your resume look less dated.

4. Optimize for search engines

Search engines have become more important to hiring managers as they try to handle hundreds or even thousands of resumes sometimes. So managers may weed out resumes based on keywords they’re looking for — or hiring software might do it automatically. A good way to make it through the search process is to check the job listing and see which words or experience they’re specifically searching for, then add those words or phrases to your cover letter and resume.

5. Mention technology

It’s a sad fact that many employers think older workers don’t know technology. Show a potential employer that you are plugged into new and innovative technologies. Make sure to include a section on your resume for programs or programming languages that you work with already. Add any certificates that you may have earned for technology specific to a possible position. You also may want to check out free online education programs that can get you up to speed on the latest things you may need to know.

6. Network

This may have been something you did when you first started your professional career, but it could still be important when you’re a few decades into your career. Work your current network and find out if colleagues, friends, or other acquaintances in your profession may have leads on open positions. And consider joining and being active in professional organizations or local groups. This may help you get your name and face in front of potential hiring managers.

7. Update your LinkedIn profile

LinkedIn is a great professional resource for workers regardless of age. You can create a new profile or refresh your existing profile to make it more appealing to hiring managers and recruiters. Remember to add search-engine keywords that will help them find you on the networking site. LinkedIn also has a jobs section listing open positions that may be a good fit for you.

8. Prepare for hard questions

Some recruiters may bring up your age during the interview process; that is illegal. Workers over age 40 are protected by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. If a recruiter says you’re overqualified or may want a higher salary than a younger applicant, remember to emphasize your experience and willingness to share your experience with other employees.

Perhaps you might want to talk about your experience as a mentor to younger co-workers as a way to pass what you’ve learned on to others. You might also want to mention your ability to adapt and try new things on a team with other employees who may not be the same age as you.

9. Update your wardrobe

While you should be judged on your experience, it is possible that a hiring manager or recruiter may also look at what you wear or how you look as part of their decision making. Try to find business clothes that are modern instead of relying on a suit or skirt you may have bought 20 years ago. And if you’re doing video interviews, think about using a neutral background and perhaps investing in a light that may brighten up your face and work space.

10. Start your own business

If none of these options work, it doesn’t mean you have to give up the idea of landing your dream job. Instead, consider creating the job you want by starting your own business. Do research on how to start a business and take into consideration issues such as a business plan, ideas for funding, and how to market your new business. You’ll also want to look into the legal aspects of a new business such as getting a license, filing paperwork for an LLC, or figuring out accounting issues related to running your new endeavour.

11. Bottom line

There are plenty of great opportunities for workers over 50, and that dream job is within your grasp if you approach it in a way that emphasizes your experience and desire to work. So think about little changes that can make a big difference in helping you move forward to a new job and potentially earn more.

By Jenny Cohen | Edited By Ellen Cannon 

Sourced from Finance Buzz

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5 simple exercises to kick-start your creativity

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By Arianna O’Dell

The pandemic has prompted us to re-evaluate our approaches and philosophies toward work—not just our work-life balance, but our working lives as a whole. When the world could so suddenly change, what is that we value most?

In August 2021, 4.3 million workers quit their jobs, another dramatic step during the so-called “Great Resignation.” I have explored a variety of creative outlets over the last few years, from creating music to an online design store to dabbling NFTs. When I tell others about my various creative endeavors, many people respond that they “wish they could do something like that” and tell me they don’t believe they are a creative person. Creativity is a skill that can be developed over time, and it can lead you down paths and into careers you never considered.

Create for yourself first

One of the biggest obstacles to creativity is fear, and worrying about what other people think of your work. When I used to create music, I would ask my friends what they thought. I would cling to every piece of feedback and would be hurt when someone didn’t like the piece of art I had worked so hard on. It would paralyze me from releasing songs and the music would change into something that didn’t feel authentic. I quickly learned that when creating art, don’t ask for feedback, make what feels authentic and true to you.

Octavia Goredema, author of Prep, Push, Pivot: Essential Career Strategies for Underrepresented Women, echoes the sentiment saying, “Don’t get attached to validation. Often, people won’t get what you’re doing while you’re creating something, or even after you’ve created something. That’s okay. Validation often comes long after the hard work is done. Not all opinions are equal.” Value your own opinion and you will feel assured about whatever you create.

Try new skills you believe you’re bad at

We tell ourselves we can’t do things before we even consider them a possibility. Then it becomes a habit, involuntary: “I’m not musical,” “I can’t paint,” “I don’t understand poetry,” etc. We believe these things because we may have tried these things once when we were schoolchildren and did not immediately excel or show talent with. I can vouch for this idea of charging ahead. I began making music with zero experience, purely because I love music and now my songs are considered for placement in television shows and movies.

Practice visualization. Mehta Mehta, a global executive creative director at Hogarth Worldwide, suggests, “Visualize in your mind, the moment, the position or the feeling you want to achieve. See it in detail, move around it, make it real in your mind and explore the many possibilities.”

Build a community of fellow creatives

Although people often view creativity as an individual effort, that creatives may start for themselves, many creative people I’ve talked to have a community of creative colleagues they engage with on some level or another. These circles are composed of cohorts they trust to bounce ideas off of.

Justin Gignac, a founder, and CEO of Working Not Working, a community for creatives, says, “My most successful personal projects were ideas I sat on for months, even years. The ones that kept popping back up and I couldn’t shake them. I’d tell my friends about the ideas so much that they’d finally ask, ‘That’s great, man, but when are you going to do it?’”

Inspiration can spring from those moments when your friends push you to try something new. Collaboration can also move this process along.

“Learn from the best,” says Meng Kuok, Founder of Bandlab, an app that helps those with no musical experience to create their own songs. “Listen, watch, consume whatever you can find online. Imitate, copy from your favourite artists note for note, stroke by stroke—the more colours you add to your palette by learning from the best, the more ideas and options you’ll have at your disposal when you try to paint your own picture.”

Make the time for yourself

Creativity requires daily practice, and it’s important to put in the work. Dedicating some time each day is ideal, but that’s not always conducive to every individual’s creative process. Whether it’s a small daily practice or carving out full days for yourself, it’s important to make the time.

“Every day, I challenge myself to come up with a list of 10 new ideas to grow my business,” says Ajay Yadav, founder of Simplified, an application that allows non-creatives and creatives alike to create their own graphics. You don’t have to be lifting heavy weights every day, even a little quick exercise can help keep your creativity fresh.

Build up to greatness gradually

You’ll find that even the smallest steps can lead to big strides in progress. Chase Jarvis, CEO of CreativeLive and the author of Creative Calling, underscores the importance of patient effort: “Don’t underestimate the power of creating something small every day, whether that’s a photograph, doing something interesting in the kitchen, or picking up that dusty guitar in the corner. Even for just a moment.”

No matter what your schedule is or what you have going on, it’s possible to bring your dream projects to life. When you dive in and face new challenges, you lead yourself down a path of a more purposeful career and life.

Feature Image Credit: Elīna Arāja/Pexels

By Arianna O’Dell

Arianna O’Dell is the founder of Airlink Marketing, a digital design and marketing agency helping companies create digital programs that drive results. When she’s not working with clients or traveling, you’ll find her making fun gifts at Ideas By Arianna and songwriting at Outsourced Feelings. More

Sourced from Fast Company

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