Workshop

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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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

Digital Maturity: the Social Business Strategy Dimension

by Kelly Kubrick on February 10, 2013

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

The sixth and final dimension of digital maturity is your Social Business 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.

Social business relates to the ways social media tools and practices have been adopted to support external customer engagement (such as crowdsourcing ideas for product development) and internal employee collaboration.

Evolving into a social business presumes an organization has a foundation in social media participation. With that foundation, the organization can more easily enable employee-to-employee (known as internal or enterprise social media networks) for current, or alumni employees), and finally, customer-to-customer digital interactions.

What is social business?

We have defined social business as the intent to facilitate interaction and collaboration in three directions:

Externally, with your community;
Internally, employee to employee; and
Between customers.

At the highest level of maturity, a social business one is that enables steps out of the equation entirely and enables its customers to support one another without needing to broker the conversation. Essentially, the organization recognizes that its customer base can help each other in a way that no single company could match by itself.

What is your organization’s approach to collaboration?

Think about your organization’s approach to social business:

How would you characterize your organization’s use of social media (blogs, forums, and or networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn?)
Which departments or groups are making use of or participating in customer facing social media such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus or YouTube or other social networks?
To what extent do you use social business tools to support your customers?

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 social business strategy in place to ensure your organization’s digital success?

Next: 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.

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.

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
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
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

Learn how to measure your organization’s digital maturity

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:

Is there a comprehensive inventory of content?
Which format(s) is that content available in?
Where is content located and stored?
What is your content development and content publishing process?
Who is responsible for producing content?
How is content evaluated?
What is your content archiving process?
Are you producing all the content you need?
What is your policy towards the use of third party sources of content such as user generated content?
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

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.

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:

Could you inventory the different data sources your organization has available? Within each, do you know what data you are collecting?
How would you characterize your organization’s collection of customer data such as email addresses, ecommerce sales data, or member information?
How would you characterize your organization’s use of data?
- How ‘clean’ is your data?
- Do you trust the data?
Who is responsible for collecting and cleaning the various data sources?
Are you collecting the data needed for you to take action with it?
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

Learn how to measure your organization’s digital maturity

Digital Maturity: the Technology Resources Dimension

by Kelly Kubrick on December 10, 2012

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

The second dimension of digital maturity is Technology Resources. 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.

Which technologies are in your technology toolbox today?

Technology Resources icon from the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model How has your organization addressed the availability and investment in the technology necessary for implementing your digital initiatives?

What types of digital initiatives are underway?

Are you publishing web content? Social media content? Email content?

If you are publishing digital content, are you managing your website internally or does your agency? Are you (or they) managing those efforts via content management systems?

As data is one of the outputs of web, email and social content management systems, are you using any kind of analytics tools to help generate insight in how those efforts are performing?

Are any of your people trying out any tools that let them collaborate more easily? Perhaps Google Drive or Dropbox to share files with your agencies? Perhaps Skype to avoid expensive long distance phone bills?

What kinds of rules and processes or governance do you have for the use of all of these digital technologies?

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 technologies in place to ensure your organization’s digital success?

Next: Data Strategy

Next, let’s take a look at the third dimension, your organization’s data strategy.

Participate in the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey

Learn how to measure your organization’s digital maturity

Digital Maturity: the Human Resources Dimension

by Kelly Kubrick on November 20, 2012

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

Introduced in the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model™, the first dimension of digital maturity is Human Resources.

In the model, a business planning tool to help organizations improve their digital processes against an established standard, we proposed six process areas – “The Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity™” – each of which is crucial for organizations to address in order to achieve success in digital.

Human Resources icon from the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model The first is your people – the human resources – working on your organization’s digital initiatives. Think about your organization’s approach to them:

Who works on digital initiatives?

Think of three different groups of people:

People currently working with digital technology and processes: publishing, sales / ecommerce, marketing / communications, or collecting / analyzing data;
Senior management / C-suite looking at threats and opportunities resulting from digital, and the impact of digital on your organization’s business model; and
People who are not using digital technologies, processes or media, but who could be, ideally finding increased efficiencies.

Who are those individuals in your organization? How many are there in each group?

Where do those people “live” in your organization?

Who are they and what level are they at?
Is digital their primary responsibility or is it an ‘off the corner of their desk’ prioritization?
Do they work alone or as part of a larger team?

What kind of organizational support is provided to them?

Do they report to management who have digital training and or expertise?
If part of a team, is the team predominantly working on digital or non-digital initiatives?
What kind of training – in digital – is provided to your people?

Answering these questions is the first step in understanding whether your organization is in the best position to resource, and ultimately implement your digital initiatives. What do you think? Have you got the right people involved to ensure your organization’s digital success?

Next: Technology Resources

Next, let’s take a look at the second dimension, your organization’s technology resources.

Participate in the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey

Learn how to measure your organization’s digital maturity

Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity Icons

Introducing the Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity, aka the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model™

by Kelly Kubrick on November 19, 2012

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

Do any of these sound familiar?

A digital campaign launches without measurement
A new product launches but the online customer support content doesn’t get updated
A new technology conflicts with an existing process in the online sales channel

Given all that we know about digital business today, how do these things happen?

It starts innocently. The pressure to launch – a responsive website, a Twitter account, anything – everything! – is such that the project kicks off without a clear, let alone known, process.

The requirement for action overwhelms the time available to plan. Suddenly, your digital presence suffers from the old “Fire, Ready, Aim” joke.

We promise there is a better way. Take advantage of established business planning tools such project plans and budgets. And, maturity models.

Take advantage of maturity models

A maturity model is business planning tool to help your organization improve processes against an established standard. Maturity models include assessment criteria and a method to score your efforts relative to the criteria.

The lower your score, the more opportunity there is to improve. The higher your score, the more you have optimized a given process, and the higher your maturity rating is.

Most importantly, the simplicity and clarity of a completed maturity model provides everyone in your organization a common starting point: the equivalent of the arrow on a map saying “You are here”.

What is a digital maturity model?

A digital maturity model is a business planning tool specifically intended to help your organization assess its digital processes against an established standard. Doing so will provide a framework – a road map, if you will – to progress your digital efforts.

By knowing where you are today, you are better able to decide where you could be in the future – and how you will get there. Assessing your digital maturity will help you visualize your path forward and set priorities for digital process improvement.

Introducing the Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity – the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model™

We created the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model, including assessment criteria and a rating method – from Zero, through Low, Medium and High – to help you assess your organization’s current digital maturity.

Image of the Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity - the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model

Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity – dStrategy Digital Maturity Model

Our assessment criteria span six dimensions, each of which is necessary for the successful execution of digital strategy. The Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity™ are described at each link below:

We look forward to discussing the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model™ with you here, and at the next Digital Strategy Conference.

In 2013, we introduced the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model™ at Digital Strategy Conference Vancouver, British Columbia and Ottawa, Ontario. Our audience not only confirmed the tremendous value that the Model provides, they asked, “What’s next?”

Share your insights

Next, we’re happy to report, is the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey. Now in it’s third year, we invite you to share your insights.

Learn how to measure and map your organization’s digital maturity

Then, you asked us how you could map your organization’s digital maturity and how you could apply and act on your assessment results. We listened and launched the Mapping Digital Maturity Workshop Corporate Training, a practical, hands-on learning session to help your organization create a road map for digital success.

We look forward to the next step in our collective path to digital maturity with you!

Mapping Digital Maturity Workshop

The Nuts & Bolts of Digital Content Strategy

Share your digital experience

Benchmark our industry’s digital processes

How does your organization compare?

What is social business?

What is your organization’s approach to collaboration?

Next: participate in the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey

Learn how to measure your organization’s digital maturity

Three channel categories

How does your organization approach its channels?

Next: Social Business Strategy

Participate in the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey

Learn how to measure your organization’s digital maturity

Content strategy encompasses multiple processes

Content assets include more than we think

How does your organization approach content strategy?

Definition: Responsive Content vs. Adaptive Content

Next: Channel Strategy

Participate in the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey

Learn how to measure your organization’s digital maturity

Next: Content Strategy

Participate in the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey

Learn how to measure your organization’s digital maturity

Which technologies are in your technology toolbox today?

What types of digital initiatives are underway?

Next: Data Strategy

Participate in the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey

Learn how to measure your organization’s digital maturity

Who works on digital initiatives?

Where do those people “live” in your organization?

What kind of organizational support is provided to them?

Next: Technology Resources

Participate in the dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey

Learn how to measure your organization’s digital maturity

Do any of these sound familiar?

Take advantage of maturity models

What is a digital maturity model?

Introducing the Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity – the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model™

Share your insights

Learn how to measure and map your organization’s digital maturity

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