Messy Rocks!

Yo!

“Siloed data architecture”, “data analyst”, “IT roadmap”, “portfolio rationalization”, “system integration” – you could be forgiven for thinking this is an IT text book, but no, these were the buzzwords at a CMO Roundtable I co-hosted with Microsoft earlier this week.  The change has been rapid.  In 2012, when we hosted MITR with IBM to celebrate what was then described as the nascent relationship between the CIO and CMO, not all the CMOs we considered for the recognition could name their CIOs, let alone claim to have worked closely with them.  Now most CMOs talk tech comfortably.  And thanks to cloud and software-as-a-service they can often DIY their tools.  Today, tech is a differentiator for most businesses and marketers who can combine an understanding of customer preferences with a comfort with IT are on a roll.  My tip for 2017? Invest in a serious tech roadmap.

There’s a new book by Tim Harford called “Messy”.  I’m more of a pop fiction reader but the kind folks at Outlook Business are letting me do business book reviews – see my first one, of Ashok Soota’s book here. Anyway, Messy is the kind of title that would definitely appeal to me.  Rhymes with my name after all.  An interesting takeaway from the book is that it’s better to have a common cause/enemy than a lot of team-building.  That a ‘homely’ office is better than an arty one.  The book also explains how and why Donald Trump was in with a chance.  As it was published before the results, that’s truly awesome.  Spoiler alert – Trump does it by creating chaos, but in a good (depending on your political allegiance) way. The book is worth a read if you’re messy or deal with messy people.

Last week’s quiz winner is Namita Rayangoudar “because she wanted people to enable cookies”. We’re giving away a custom Paul Writer cushion to the winners each week! So think whacky, think creative to win this one. “Why did the marketer measure the distance between the computers?”