The Corporate Woman

I have a lovely, long holiday planned with my husband and daughter.  Sixteen days off.  A rare thing in my life.  Normally, I only have a week off at a time (total of nine days), so this rarity will be something to treasure.  I’ve spent a fair amount of time the past few weeks encouraging my team to do the same.  For a Customer Insights organization, the end of the year is not a crazy one like some parts of the org, more a time to wrap up projects. 

I believe in setting a goal to try to get to zero by the end of the year when it comes to vacation time.  There is a reason we get that time off – it’s for balance, for health – both physcial and mental.  And it’s important to take time off.  This year, I won’t quite make zero – I’ll be short by a day and a half but that’s pretty darn close.  And it’s important to remember that there’s no award or recognition for not taking time off.  So if you are one of those types – you know the ones, the hoarders of time (I am a reformed hoarder, so I know what it’s like) – then try it for just one year.  Make it your goal in 2009 to get to zero vacation days by the end of the year.  You never know, if you try it once, you might find you’ll never go back to hoarding again.

Tags: Balance, Customer Experience, Family, Health, Vacation, Wholeness, Work

This past weekend was wonderful!  My daughter turned six and I was so happy to see her light up with joy and excitement this weekend.  She had her party, which she enjoyed immensely.  We took her out to dinner and an evening show of the Nutcracker ballet for the first time, which she thought was neat.  She was amazed at all the little girl ballerinas.  She has always loved that story, so it helped make the ballet come alive for her.  Seeing the whole weekend through her eyes was so sweet and poignant.  What happy memories we made – and memories, that’s what we have of the past, isn’t it?  Even though those are imperfect things, those memories, it’s what gives us the grounding for our today’s. 

Do you ever think about how we shade our memories, how they are never quite the way something actually happened but still, they are all that we have?  I know how I remember this weekend… how will she?  What are the differences?  Do the differences matter? 

Trust me to get all introspective at moments like this, I suppose.  The joy of the holidays and the making of happy memories is so powerful to me.  I just want to savor every bit of it.

Tags: Family, Self-Clarity

There isn’t one best way to best understand your customers but whatever you choose, it really needs to start with understanding their behaviors.  For example, your customer has decided to leave and you have a way to capture the reason why.  When they say price… do you accept that?  Or do you realize that price really means something else – such as “Budget – something in my life has changed and I need more money in my budget, so this has to go or I need a cheaper price” or “Value – I just don’t see the value in this vs. what I have to pay”.  Neither of those are actually price – they are root causes of the price top level statement. 

So being able to dig into the behaviors of your customers and understand why they do what they do is incredibly valuable.  In this way, you can really flesh out customer segmentation and work on developing personas or mental models that can actually give you actionable customer insights to drive decision making and strategy development.  And this part of a customer experience program can be very fun – I always enjoying digging in and understanding customers.  How about you?

Tags: Customer Experience, Customers, Loyalty

This morning we learned that Shawn’s grandfather passed away.  He passed away in his sleep, apparently peacefully, which is a blessing.  It is sad but also good to note that he had a good life, long and rich (he was in his nineties).  He is survived by his wife and children.  This is the third death in the family this year (four if you count one of our kitties).  A sad year indeed.  It’s made me think a great deal about loss and how people respond. 

Another thing that has been on my mind has been the concept of a funereal.  It raises all sorts of questions – is it appropriate to take small children?  How much will the little one understand vs. simply be restive and anxious?  When my mom passed away, we were there and I gave my daughter the option on whether she wanted to see her Nana and say goodbye.  She chose to see her but I would have been fine with either choice she could have made.   Either way, it is always a hard thing to go through for the adults and the children.  Probably one of the reasons I don’t want a funereal – I want an old-fashioned wake.  I want my friends and family to celebrate the memories.  Joy vs. solemn – that’s my choice.  What’s yours?

Tags: Family, Self-Clarity

Yes, it is that time of year.  Do you dread it or love it?  Me, I love it.  I enjoy the long weekend for Thanksgiving as a chance to celebrate and give thanks but also it is time to put up the tree (one of my favorite parts).  Our tree is a collective experience.  It makes me wonder how other people do their tree – is it a never changing thing, a new theme every year or a gradual build (like mine)?  Years ago, I gave in to my love of Victoriana on trees and set a theme.  Our tree is a lovely nine footer, filled with beautiful Victorian ornaments collected in reds, pinks, creams, golds & silver.  Every year, I buy a few new ones to add to the tree and love that process as well.  It’s almost like greeting an old friend each time it goes up.  My husband loves the tree so much that we have an ongoing discussion after New Years as to when it can actually come down.  Yes, we are one of those… the earliest I think it ever came down was Valentines.  The latest was early May.  As you can imagine, we get lots of compliments on the tree but also lots of eye rolls and good humored digs.  I think that Shawn would keep the tree up year round, if he could.  Me, I like to put it away (eventually) and greet it again after Thanksgiving… I think it means a bit more to me that way.  But yes, I like to keep up for longer than the typical season as well.  I have to wonder if we are the only ones…

Tags: Family, Self-Clarity