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Six Dimensions of Digital maturity podcast episode with Mr Marketology

by Kelly Kubrick on October 11, 2016

What are the Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity?

Recently, I had the pleasure of chattting with Jeff Beale, aka Mr. Marketology as part of his Marketing Strategy Sessions podcast and YouTube channel. Jeff and I discussed the Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity, the business planning model we first proposed at Digital Strategy Conference.

Watch our conversation on YouTube (20 minutes, 47 seconds) by clicking the video embedded below:

In this episode, Jeff and I discuss how the digital maturity model came about and how organizations can use it to their advantage. In particular, we talked about:Image of the Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity - the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model

My thanks to Jeff Beale for his interest in sharing the Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity the larger Mr Marketology community! Learn more at the Mr Marketology website, on Facebook, @mrmarketology on Twitter or Google Plus.

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Kelly KubrickSix Dimensions of Digital maturity podcast episode with Mr Marketology

Can we diversify Canada’s economy through digital policy?

by Kelly Kubrick on April 4, 2016

On Tuesday April 19, 2016, Canada’s Digital Policy Forum (CPDF) will host stakeholders and policy makers to discuss improving Canada’s performance in the development of its digital economy. The Forum proposes that “inevitably, any sound strategy for economic diversification must be a digital strategy.”

At Digital Strategy Conference, we defined digital strategy as “the process of identifying, articulating and executing on digital opportunities that will increase your organization’s competitive advantage.” If you expand ‘your organization’ to incorporate Canada, we can extrapolate that organizational-level thinking to economy-level thinking.

If digital enterprises empower and drive growth, the CPDF Diversifying Canada’s Economy Through Strong Digital Policy Forum asks what kinds of policies and institutions are needed to encourage and scale that growth. How can we best enable digital innovations? The day is set up to:

  • Establish the current cyber-security threats and attack environment (behold the recent hospital system held hostage);
  • Discuss the potential for user-generated data to impact us socially, politically, and economically;
  • Ask if data from our devices be brought out of the private domain and used to serve the public good, without compromising privacy or safety?
  • Learn from Sweden’s model for exploiting the opportunities of digitalisation
  • Debate if government and the private sector are capable of collaboration and cooperation at speed, or if our  competitive skills will merely erode further?

As co-author of the dStrategy Digital Maturity model, I’m looking forward to hearing from industry such as Google and Intuit – and from academics and policy makers such as the Information & Communications Technology Council (who recently released Digital Talent: Road to 2020 and Beyond), the Social Media Lab, a multi- and interdisciplinary research laboratory at Ryerson University and at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University and Sweden’s Digitalisation Commission.

If digital readiness interests you, consider participating in the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey. Intended to help organizations understand the dimensions needed for digital readiness, as with the Forum, understanding how we can build digital capacity at an organizational level can also serve to help us identify capabilities and gaps in advancing our national competitiveness.

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Kelly KubrickCan we diversify Canada’s economy through digital policy?

Mapping Digital Maturity travels west to Vancouver

by Kelly Kubrick on October 24, 2014

Now that we can share the dates of our next Digital Strategy Conference – May 12-14, 2015 at UBC Robson Square in Vancouver – we are also pleased to announce that we’ll be offering our Mapping Digital Maturity Workshop immediately before the conference kicks off, on Monday May 11th, 2015.

Mapping Digital Maturity Workshop

As instructor of the Mapping Digital Maturity workshop and Conference Chair, I will teach attendees how to assess their organization’s digital capabilities, and their current level of readiness in anticipation of rigors of implementing a digital strategy.

Over the course of the day, workshop attendees will create a strategic road map to digital success. Literally. I will show you how to map your organization’s maturity so that you end up with a visual of your digital strengths and opportunities.

As co-author of the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model, a business planning tool we’ll use throughout the day, I will also share benchmarks and insights from the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey so that you can bring the information back to your colleagues and management teams.

We first offered the workshop at Digital Strategy Conference Ottawa earlier this month. Some of their comments to whet your appetite for the next Mapping Digital Maturity Workshop:

  • “Extremely helpful in getting a clearer perspective on our organization’s challenges and opportunities”
  • “Useful for articulating to management where our focus needs to be”
  • “Loved how discussions were used as learning”
  • “I recommended that other members of my team attend”
  • “Enabled us to benchmark with other institutions and gave us practical tools”

If you have not participated in this year’s dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey, we welcome your insights. The survey takes about 15 minutes to complete. I look forward to seeing you all in Vancouver in May!

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Kelly KubrickMapping Digital Maturity travels west to Vancouver

Announcing two new workshops: Digital Maturity and Content Strategy

by Kelly Kubrick on June 24, 2014

Originally published on the Digital Strategy Conference blog; republished with permission from dStrategy Media.

For this year’s Digital Strategy Conference Ottawa, September 30-October 2, 2014 at Carleton University, we are pleased to announce the launch of two new workshops. Both will be held on Day 3, Friday Oct 2nd, 2014 – which means you may have a tough choice in front of you!

Mapping Digital Maturity Workshop

In my dual role as Conference Chair and instructor of the workshop I will teach workshop attendees about digital maturity – what it is and how it applies to the development of digital strategy.Mapping Digital Maturity workshop, I look forward to showing workshop attendees how to assess their organization's digital maturity. Our first step will be rate your organization’s capabilities and level of readiness across the Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity Workshop

We’ll use a business planning tool – the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model – to show you how to assess your organization’s digital maturity or your organization’s digital capabilities and level of readiness for implementation.

In May 2013, I was fortunate to have the chance to outline the concept of digital maturity during a podcast with The Voice from IABC Ottawa. You’ll get the rundown in a mere 15 minutes by listening to the episode on Player FM.

During the workshop, I will share detailed findings from our dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey. If you have not participated, we welcome your insights – this year’s Digital Maturity Benchmark survey should take about 15 minutes to complete.

Additional details about the Digital Maturity Workshop are available at the Digital Strategy Conference website.

The Nuts & Bolts of Digital Content Strategy

If your organization is grappling with content strategy, have we got a treat for you! Joe Gollner is one of the world’s leading Content Strategists who just happens to call Ottawa (truth be told, he’s a Manotick man) home. In addition to leading workshops and educating managers and directors about the essentials of content strategy, Joe is the Managing Director of Gnostyx Research, an Ottawa-based consultancy and integrator specializing in content strategy and solutions.

Joe Gollner, Content Strategy Workshop Instructor

Join Joe’s workshop on October 2nd as he shows you how to define and execute a content strategy for your organization. At the end of the day, you will not only understand how content fits within the framework for your digital strategy, you’ll leave with several tools including a content strategy evaluation and planning framework that you can tailor to use within your organization.

Attend the conference and you’ll have two opportunities to learn from Joe. First on Sept 30th where he’ll share details of a Federal Government case study, or on Oct 2nd for his full-day workshop.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in September!

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Kelly KubrickAnnouncing two new workshops: Digital Maturity and Content Strategy

Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity – Introductory Review

by Kelly Kubrick on April 29, 2014

Originally published on the Digital Strategy Conference blog; republished with permission from dStrategy Media. Author: Jeremy Whittingstall – Professional communicator with a penchant for filmmaking on the side. Masters Degree. Accredited Business Communicator. Husband. Dad.

Take a deep breath, here is the Digital Maturity Model™ from 10,000 ft

The Digital maturity Model exist to give perspective on your current state and prepare you for moving forward. In 2013, Andrea Hadley and Kelly Kubrick introduced the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model™ and over the past year have conducted research that suggests the point in which an organization graduates from one level of maturity to the next. When you understand how the dimensions of digital maturity are measured, you’ll be better positioned to rate where your organization stands today and how to anticipate the next curve in the road.

Let’s dive in!

What is Digital Strategy?

Digital strategy is the process of identifying, articulating and executing on digital opportunities that will increase your organization’s competitive advantage.

So – if digital strategy is a process, remember that a process presumes a progression – from an initial starting point, to the approach of and overtaking of milestones to destinations both identified and unknown.

However, most of us need something far more concrete to take those first steps into digital. A practical and efficient way to do this is to take advantage of established planning tools, such as a maturity models. “Maturity Models” are a tried and tested planning tool and can be found across industries and topics.

Maturity Model = Planning Tool

“Maturity” relates to the degree of formality and optimization of processes. Think about a process in your organization, complex or simple:

  1. Opening a new store
  2. Publishing a web page or email newsletter issue
  3. Producing a conference

As a planning tool, maturity models can be used to help you improve these processes by assessing your approach to them today. As with other maturity models, the Digital Maturity Model™ is also a business planning tool. It is intended to help your organization assess and improve its digital processes.

The Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity

Think of these as the resources and capabilities your organization must have in place in order to identify, articulate and execute on digital opportunities.

  1. Human Resources
  2. Technology Resources
  3. Data Strategy
  4. Content Strategy
  5. Channel Strategy
  6. Social Business Strategy

Ratings of Digital Maturity

The second key component in the Digital Maturity Model™ is the rating scale. The model contains assessment criteria you can use to rate your organization’s current approach to each dimension.

Image of dStrategy Digital Maturity Model™

dStrategy Digital Maturity Model™

Breaking down the dimensions

Human Resources

The first dimension of digital maturity is Human Resources. Think of your people in three different groups:

  1. People currently working with digital technology and process.
  2. Senior management / C-suite looking at threats and opportunities resulting from digital, and the impact of digital on the organization’s business model
  3. People who are not using digital technologies, processes or media who could be; finding increased efficiencies

Now, think about your organization’s approach to its people working on digital:

  1. Who are they and what level are they at?
  2. Is digital their primary responsibility or is it an ‘off the corner of their desk’ prioritization?
  3. What kind of organizational support is provided?
  4. Do they work alone or as part of a larger team?
  5. Do they report to management that has digital training and or expertise?
  6. If part of a team, is the team predominantly working on digital or non-digital initiatives?
  7. What kind of training – in digital – is provided to those resources?
Technology Resources

The second dimension of digital maturity addresses your organization’s approach to the technology resources your organization uses to implement its digital initiatives. Think about your organization:

  1. Which technologies have you invested into support your digital initiatives?
  2. How are those technologies used / supported?
  3. Are the technologies used by individuals? By teams? Or across the organization?
  4. What policies and procedures do you have in place to govern the use of the technologies?

We’ve identified four core technology categories:

  1. Content management systems
  2. Analytics
  3. Channel management
  4. Social business
Data Strategy

Data strategy reflects all the ways you capture, store, manage and use information. What do we mean by data? Your data sources might include:

  1. Email marketing, Social media and/or campaign data from ad networks or paid search
  2. Market Research data from surveys, focus groups or usability testing
  3. Sales, prospecting or lead nurturing data; or CRM data; ecommerce data
  4. Call center data from call logs, interactive voice response (IVR)
  5. Web analytics data from tools such as Adobe Analytics or Google Analytics
  6. Data from Content Management System or social business tools

In our “digital” world, it is a key dimension of our digital strategy. Data is the output of the implementation of our digital initiatives and it is what’s driving continuous improvement processes (or optimization); as well as increased accountability and the opportunity for making more informed business decisions.

Content Strategy

This section relates to your organization’s approach to content. content strategy is a comprehensive process that builds a framework to create, manage, deliver, share and archive or renew content in reliable ways. Remember, your content assets could include:

  1. Sales / advertising collateral
  2. Product support and / or customer service content
  3. User generated content such as reviews, testimonials, customer service tickets.
Channel Strategy

Our model assumes three potential channels you may be leveraging:

  1. Marketing/Communications channels
  2. Transaction enabling channels
  3. Distribution channels

You’ll notice that “mobile” is not a channel – instead, our model assumes your digital channel interactions regardless of the customers use of desktop web vs mobile environments.

Social Business Strategy

“Social business” is an emerging term with a three pronged approach. It presumes an intent to interact and collaborate:

  1. With your community (Requires a foundation in social media)
  2. Between your employees (Requires the culture and technology to support a collaborative work environment)
  3. Between your customers (Requires infrastructure to support their efforts)

The Social Business Dimension speaks to the organization’s approach to interaction and collaboration with all three audiences.

So that’s it! The Digital Maturity Model from 10,000 ft. Over the next three days we will be going into granular detail on what each dimension means and how to map it for your company. Stay tuned!

kellykubrick_100

Kelly Kubrick, President, Online Authority / Partner, dStrategy Media

andreahadley_100

Andrea Hadley, Conference Chair, Digital Strategy Conference Vancouver

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Kelly KubrickSix Dimensions of Digital Maturity – Introductory Review

How mature are we, digitally?

by Kelly Kubrick on February 3, 2014

Originally published on the Digital Strategy Conference blog; republished with permission from dStrategy Media. Post updated with availability of subsequent Benchmark surveys.

Share your digital experience

Consider participating in our digital evolution by completing the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey online.

When we first formed dStrategy Media to launch Digital Strategy Conference, we kicked off the Vancouver and Ottawa events by introducing the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model™. Not only did the audience confirm the tremendous value that our digital maturity model provides, they promptly asked, “what’s next?”

Benchmark our industry’s digital processes

Both in answer to that question, and to help our digital strategy community plan for the coming year, we are fielding a research study. Our findings, along with a review of the Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity, will be delivered at the next Mapping Digital Maturity Workshop.

We welcome your participation by completing the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey online.

How does your organization compare?

Interested in learning more? Consider our Mapping Digital Maturity corporate training – a practical, hands-on day of learning help your organization create its road map for digital success.

To learn more about the Digital Maturity model, research or workshop, contact Kelly Kubrick.

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Kelly KubrickHow mature are we, digitally?

Digital Maturity: the Channel Strategy Dimension

by Kelly Kubrick on January 20, 2013

Originally published on the Digital Strategy Conference blog; republished with permission from dStrategy Media.

The fifth dimension of digital maturity is your Channel Strategy. It is one of Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity™ assessed in the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model™, a business planning tool to help organizations improve their digital processes against an established standard.

Channel Strategy icon from the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model

This dimension relates to your organization’s approach to its channel strategy for its digital initiatives. You’ll notice that “mobile” is not a channel – instead, our model assumes your digital channel interactions regardless of the customers use of desktop web vs mobile environments.

Three channel categories

There are three categories of channels, not all of which may apply to you.

  1. Digital marketing and communications channels including the use of paid (advertising), owned (website, mobile app or blog) and earned (social or public relation) media OR
  2. Digital ‘transaction-enabling’ channels such as a) ecommerce or membership sales, or to accept donations b) Non-financial transactions such as accepting job or grant applications, accepting votes or generating leads OR
  3. Digital distribution channels including direct to consumer, retail, wholesale or affiliate / partners.

How does your organization approach its channels?

Think about your organization and its approach to channel management:

1. Which of the three categories of channels described above are you currently using?
2. How would you characterize your organization’s approach to each?
3. What is the funding model for your digital channels?
4. How do you measure performance measurement of your digital channels?

Next, let’s take a look at your organization’s social business strategy.

Answering these questions is will help your organization determine if it is in the best position to implement your digital initiatives. What do you think? Have you got the right channel strategy in place to ensure your organization’s digital success?

Next: Social Business Strategy

Next, let’s take a look at the sixth dimension, your organization’s social business strategy.

Participate in the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey

For specific questions that measure the human resources dimension of digital maturity, take the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey. We will share our collective results at the next Digital Strategy Conference.

Learn how to measure your organization’s digital maturity

Or, to measure your organization’s digital maturity across all six dimensions, register for our Mapping Digital Maturity Workshop, a practical, hands-on learning session to help your organization create a road map for digital success.

read more
Kelly KubrickDigital Maturity: the Channel Strategy Dimension

Digital Maturity: the Content Strategy Dimension

by Kelly Kubrick on January 10, 2013

Originally published on the Digital Strategy Conference blog; republished with permission from dStrategy Media.

The fourth dimension of digital maturity is your Content Strategy. It is one of Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity™ assessed in the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model™, a business planning tool to help organizations improve their digital processes against an established standard.

Content Strategy icon from the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model

With thanks to the combined efforts of Rahel Anne Bailie, Noz Urbina, Halvorson, Kristina and Melissa Rach to provide our industry with working definitions:

Content strategy is “a comprehensive process that builds a framework to create, manage, deliver, share and archive or renew content in reliable ways”

Content strategy encompasses multiple processes

• The inventory and format(s) of the content it produces
• The location and storage of its content
• The organization’s content development and publishing process
• The performance measurement of the content it produces
• The content evaluation and archiving process

Content assets include more than we think

• Information about your organization, the people/employees, and contact information, mission.
• Product and service information
• Sales collateral
• Marketing and or advocacy collateral
• Advertising collateral
• Customer service information
• Employee education and training material
• Product support
• Policies and legal information
• User generated content such as reviews, testimonials, customer service tickets
• Your web, mobile app, blog, social or email content

How does your organization approach content strategy?

Now, think about your organization’s approach to content:

  1. Is there a comprehensive inventory of content?
  2. Which format(s) is that content available in?
  3. Where is content located and stored?
  4. What is your content development and content publishing process?
  5. Who is responsible for producing content?
  6. How is content evaluated?
  7. What is your content archiving process?
  8. Are you producing all the content you need?
  9. What is your policy towards the use of third party sources of content such as user generated content?
  10. Is there clarity internally about the difference between responsive versus adaptive content?

Definition: Responsive Content vs. Adaptive Content

Responsive content “responds to the environment based on screen size, platform and orientation. Content designed for desktop is automatically resized to the screen size of the device in use” – essentially changing in how the content is displayed, visually.

Adaptive content is “format-free, device-independent, scalable, and filterable content that is transformable for display in different environments and on different devices in an automated or dynamic fashion.”

Source: Rockley, Ann and Charles Cooper, Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy, Second Edition, Ann Rockley and Charles Cooper, New Riders, 2012)

With adaptive content, structure is applied to content so that it can be displayed accordingly to business rules that vary by use case.

Answering these questions is will help your organization determine if it is in the best position to implement your digital initiatives. What do you think? Have you got the right content strategy in place to ensure your organization’s digital success?

Next: Channel Strategy

Next, let’s take a look at the fifth dimension, your organization’s channel strategy.

Participate in the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey

For specific questions that measure the human resources dimension of digital maturity, take the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey. We will share our collective results at the next Digital Strategy Conference.

Learn how to measure your organization’s digital maturity

Or, to measure your organization’s digital maturity across all six dimensions, register for our upcoming Mapping Digital Maturity Workshop, a practical, hands-on learning session to help your organization create a road map for digital success.

read more
Kelly KubrickDigital Maturity: the Content Strategy Dimension

Digital Maturity: the Data Strategy Dimension

by Kelly Kubrick on December 20, 2012

Originally published on the Digital Strategy Conference blog; republished with permission from dStrategy Media.

The third dimension of digital maturity is your Data Strategy. It is one of Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity™ assessed in the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model™, a business planning tool to help organizations improve their digital processes against an established standard.

Data Strategy icon from the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model An organization’s data strategy “reflects all the ways you capture, store, manage and use information.” Without a data strategy, organizations struggle with

  • Uncertainty about what data is collected / available
  • Poorly understood data standards, and how that can lead data quality issues
    • Is it ‘stale’?
    • Is ‘clean’ and / or ‘trusted’?
    • Is it ‘usable’ / is it ‘accessible’? In which formats?
  • Deciding how long they should store data
  • Who / which roles should be responsible for protecting and securing data
  • A lack of recognition of the strategic value of the data collected

Now, think about your organization’s approach to your data:

  1. Could you inventory the different data sources your organization has available? Within each, do you know what data you are collecting?
  2. How would you characterize your organization’s collection of customer data such as email addresses, ecommerce sales data, or member information?
  3. How would you characterize your organization’s use of data?
    • How ‘clean’ is your data?
    • Do you trust the data?
  4. Who is responsible for collecting and cleaning the various data sources?
  5. Are you collecting the data needed for you to take action with it?
  6. How quickly does your organization act on the data (offline / operational, customer, or digital) you are collecting?

When assessing your level of maturity in data strategy, think about the data you collect, how you use and share it and how frequently and how quickly you act on it.

Answering these questions is will help your organization determine if it is in the best position to implement your digital initiatives. What do you think? Have you got the right data strategy in place to ensure your organization’s digital success?

Next: Content Strategy

Next, let’s take a look at the fourth dimension, your organization’s content strategy.

Participate in the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey

For specific questions that measure the human resources dimension of digital maturity, take the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey. We will share our collective results at the next Digital Strategy Conference.

Learn how to measure your organization’s digital maturity

Or, to measure your organization’s digital maturity across all six dimensions, register for our upcoming Mapping Digital Maturity Workshop, a practical, hands-on learning session to help your organization create a road map for digital success.

read more
Kelly KubrickDigital Maturity: the Data Strategy Dimension