There is a time in the maturity cycle of a digital business when it quite concretely makes sense to in-source advertising. This time is usually punctuated by 3 aspects: 1) a positive business case that allows for just as many (if not more) competent humans to work on your business 2) an elite digital leader that is proficient in selecting, onboarding and keeping top talent and 3) an organization that is ready to embrace and fund an internal digital capability. Any of the 3 gone array, the project will at best cost more than it should and at worst cause chaos in the trenches of one of the most crucial operating department.
Read MoreWeirdly enough, digital marketing strategy in mature companies with multi-million media budgets per month toss the creation of their digital media strategy, or even worse their digital marketing strategy, to their agency in charge. The agency often has a superficial understanding of the business and most often little to no connection to key executing departments in the eCom/broader marketing space: buying, planning, trading, CRO, UX/UI, creative production, offline media buying - to name a few. The agency is also often times not briefed on the overarching business vision and are too far from the short term financial view (the almighty P&L & cash-flow) to understand when to pivot. Or when they are about to get fired.
Read MoreWhat defines anti-fragility during the global pandemic? More-over what does this mean at a personal and professional level?
Antifragility is a property of systems that increase in capability to thrive as a result of stressors, shocks, volatility, noise, mistakes, faults, attacks, or failures. It is a concept developed by Professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book, Antifragile, which can be frustrating to read if you are not into hardcore academic papers. However I find this concept ever more relevant in times of a global pandemic that has vastly accelerated the digital transformation. As Einstein once said: “It is really when entire companies need to work from home fully will they realise and capitalise upon the digital tools they under-estimated”.
Read MoreThe saying goes that the most efficient team size is 7. When the start-up reaches the size 7 x 7 (7 managers leading a team of 7) things seem (relatively) stable: there is not much structure in place, and the company operates on shared mental flows rather than hefty documentations but the machine seems well-oiled. It is somewhere between 7x7 and 7x7x7 that all hell breaks loose.
Read MoreThe first time I got to manage somebody was a little over two years into my work experience. I was damn eager to become the most Googly leader out there but had lacked the formal studies (unless you count a leadership course during my BSc as an appropriate study for the art of leading …), the structural coaching and the experience to do it properly. In reality I used an unfortunate, yet somehow efficient, mix of all my previous managers’ and my parents’ teaching paradigm …
Read MoreUnless armed with a 50 slides deck with impeccable animations, charts and a bullet proof narrative, speaking up to topics outside my area felt almost like … being an impostor. All the while, my colleagues, predominantly but not exclusively, men, offering their often best-guess opinion with abundance. To some extent I felt outraged that people had the audacity to fill in the …
Read More