Customerland

Burnout isn’t a people problem. It’s a system problem. We keep trying to “fix” individuals when the environment is doing exactly what it was designed to do—extract. My colleague and friend Michael Fisher Ed.D. Fisher nails this. cstu.io/fd268d

Most companies think they’re doing branding. They’re not. They’re decorating. RobertPassikoff breaks it down to something far more useful: 11 questions that determine whether your brand actually drives loyalty and profit or just looks good doing nothing. cstu.io/c2ade6

Most companies get collaboration wrong. They treat it like a people problem. Hire better. Train harder. Talk about culture more. Meanwhile… nothing actually changes. Because collaboration isn’t about personality. It’s about environment. cstu.io/139521

Most leadership advice doesn’t survive a real room. Pressure goes up. Stakes tighten. People get defensive. That’s where frameworks die. This doesn’t. Michael Fisher Ed.D. Fisher (CEO of AllantGroup) lays out a five-step sequence you can actually use cstu.io/49c8da

I’ve known and worked with MichaelFisher for about 6 years now. This is the first excerpt from his new book “From Boardrooms to Barns” is just a taste of the kind of wisdom and guidance I’ve experienced and hope you will too. cstu.io/d7e4ec

A lot of AI talk today is about agents doing work. What happens when AI starts designing the work itself? In my latest conversation with AlanTrefler, CEO at Pegasystems, we discussed the idea of AI as a business architect. Listen here: cstu.io/d76364

In a recent discussion with Recurly’s Chief Product Officer, Priya Lakshminarayanan, two datapoints stood out: nearly one in four new subscriptions originates from a former customer, and 75% of subscribers who pause eventually return. cstu.io/585df7

Is it just that listening for the silent loyalty signals is difficult or is it that we pay too much attention to top-line metrics and don't have time for the underlying shifts? Robert Passikoff goes almost all the way to Nantucket to prove it out. cstu.io/5270c1

Fresh off the Winter Olympics, it's clear that some kinds of downhill movement are, in fact good. There are the kinds of races to the bottom that you want avoid - as in marketing. Ski racing to the bottom = good. Marketing races to the bottom = bad. cstu.io/f0685f

You're familiar with "death by a thousand cuts" - it's a prevalent theme in the CX space. But Katie Costanzo of CSG has a different take. What if you looked those same thousand cuts from the other side of the equation? cstu.io/40c551

One of the things I appreciate most about publishing work from Robert Passikoff is that he delivers the punch while simultaneously delivering the truth. Case in point - today's feature on Customerland: The secrets of successful product launches. cstu.io/95ca6d

Raise your hand if you could use some perspective on life in the B2B lane. (My hand is up). That's one of the reasons why I appreciate every time I get to talk with Ruth Stevens. cstu.io/0d46d8

In my view, we need to pay more attention to people like @RuthStevens. Not only is she an accomplished data-based marketer but she's also one of the few people in my orbit whom I consider to be genuine thinkers (no disrespect to the rest of you). cstu.io/b03cdf

One of the more persistent myths in retail right now is that dynamic environments create chaos for store teams. In practice, the opposite tends to be true. Dynamic planograms aren’t about change - they’re about precision. cstu.io/a45a15

Simple question / hard answer: What is the connection between you and your audience? @AndrewSchulkind on answering that question the right way. cstu.io/8c750a

When everyone can produce competent work at scale, the old signals of progress (volume, velocity, channel activity) stop meaning much. The dashboards light up but differentiation quietly disappears. My conversation with Johann Wrede, CMO at UserTesting. cstu.io/b2a588

Hot take: Fan data isn’t the bottleneck anymore. Trust is. You can have the cleanest profiles in the world — if people don’t believe them, nothing moves. This came up in a great conversation with Derek Slager (Amperity). cstu.io/6f00b2

In conversations with sports teams, the same pattern repeats. Data teams deliver a unified profile. And somewhere between those steps, momentum stalls. Derek Slager, CTO & Co-founder, Amperity and his team may have actually solved that problem. cstu.io/6ce36a

The moment a system chooses how to proceed rather than simply what to do, trust becomes the central constraint. Who is accountable when an agent delegates to another agent you don’t control? cstu.io/3b8639

Brand saturation has crowded out authentic brand management. In most markets, the average consumer can name dozens of brands across categories without much effort. Apple, Coca-Cola, Nike, McDonald’s, Amazon, Disney – these are household names. But so what? cstu.io/a914b2