Purpose Driven Leaders Are Taking on Disruption

  • 27 February 2017

  • 3 minute read

  • Industry insights

The rise of tech-savvy, innovative start-ups and a business environment that is changing so fast is part of the reason we’re hearing so much about disruption. Digital disruption has a key part to play in this phenomenon, but it’s not all about technology. Culture, leadership and the ability to innovate, or indeed disrupt your own organisation, are all weapons against the threat of disruption, or even tools to lead a successful disruption within your marketplace.

Nancy Altobello is Global Vice Chair of Talent at EY, overseeing the recruitment, development and retention of more than 230,000 EY employees in 152 countries. In a recent Q&A session Nancy discussed the need for purpose driven leaders in an era of disruption.

Taking Advantage of Disruption

The word disruption sounds bad, it sounds dangerous. However in a business context it’s like any potential threat, the challenge is to make it into an opportunity. Nancy describes the importance of defining how you can take advantage of disruption, how can it be exciting for your organisation, and your customers? By embracing potential changes and anticipating what’s around the corner it will allow you to use disruption as a positive force to achieve.

Purpose Driven Leaders

In order to see an organisation through a time of change or disruption, a leader must not simply tell you what to do or how to do it, but always take the time time to explain why. This is the essence of purpose driven leaders. It takes someone with the mindset to inspire a team, collaborate and include all involved to give a real purpose to what they do and why they do it.

Traits to Tackle Disruption

The ability to build trust with the whole team will allow leaders to do this most successfully. Teams are so diverse these days... Continue reading

What Design Trends Should We Be Looking Out For This Year?

  • 13 February 2017

  • 5 minute read

  • Industry insights

For small businesses it’s vital to keep ahead of the crowd and be up to date with design trends and new ideas that could help you innovate or reach new customers. The Drum recently spoke to a number of experts to discover their thoughts on the hottest design trends to watch out for this year. They’re talking VUIs, empathy, the speed of living, and old fashioned ‘good ideas!’

 

Hana Tanimura, senior designer, Google Creative Lab

Traditionally, design has been synonymous with some kind of visual output. But that is changing quickly, and I believe that designing ‘invisible’ interactions will become increasingly important in the future.

Voice user interfaces (VUIs) haven’t always been successful at creating genuinely useful experiences for people. But machine learning has advanced by leaps and bounds in recent months, which has in turn enabled huge improvements in the field of natural language processing. These technological developments have fueled a rapid evolution in VUI design, and we’re beginning to see designers grapple with the possibilities that a hands-free, eyes-free interface can offer. (While voice interactions aren’t appropriate for all situations, I believe they will become more and more commonplace as we continue to expect technology to work for and around us in a more seamless way).

Alan Dye, co-founder and creative director NB Studio

Michael Wolff, a good friend of NB and a collaborator on many projects, introduced Nick [Finney, co-founder] and I recently to this wonderful quote by Maya Angelou.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”.

I believe that creating work that makes people feel something is what branding is all about. And it’s what NB have been doing for the past 20 years. Being... Continue reading

Only 9% Of Small Businesses Focus On Website Conversion

  • 07 February 2017

  • 4 minute read

  • Learning & Development

The Digital Marketing Magazine recently reported on some research by marketing agency Digimax. The research asked small businesses about their discussions with web designers while working on creating their new website. Here are some of the key findings:

9% of the time spent in discussions focuses on website conversion 3% of time is given to branding 27% of discussion time was spent on layout 23% on graphics and pictures Content takes up 38% of the time

Obviously, as a small business you want your website to looks great. You want it to be attractive and appealing, as in many cases it will be the gateway for new customers and new business. Content was given the most time for discussion and this, of course, is what keeps your users engaged – but then what? 98% of the businesses questioned actually said that they are building a website to make more money. So surely encouraging users to buy, or at least make an action, is the next (very important) step, once they have been impressed by a beautiful looking site and consumed all of your engaging content. So if you’re having a new website created, or you’re considering a re-design here are some tips to help turn your visitors into customers by considering your website conversion.

Website Conversion – What To Consider

Calls To Action – it needs to be clear and easy for your user to do what you want them to do. Whether that’s to make an enquiry, sign-up or buy something. If your CTA is hard to find, unclear or involves to0 many clicks or slow loading pages you risk losing potential customers.

Usability & Navigation – does your menu structure make... Continue reading