Author: Michael S. De Lio

A Management Consultant with over 35 years experience in the CRM, CX and MDM space. Working across multiple disciplines, domains and industries. Currently leveraging the advantages, and disadvantages of artificial intelligence (AI) in everyday life.

Stating The Obvious…

Every night I read the headlines going into tomorrow’s news cycle and I’m amazed by the lack of investigation by the mainstream media, they would rather adopt stating the obvious and taking a side. Telling me it’s going to rain outside, when it’s already raining, is just not valuable information. Also trying to entice page-views by saying, it’s raining out and it has rained hard two days in a row is just hyperbole and obvious to most. Then we have tonight’s financial “shocking” news that the manufacturing industry will see a pull back in growth, something akin to the levels we saw back in 1946. Housing starts are at historical lows, unemployment numbers have reached record highs, small business will experience a difficult 2020, restaurants and hotels have been devastated during the first few months of 2020. Not being snarky, but if you weren’t aware of these headlines in your own head, or just by looking out the window of the shelter-in-place domicile you have been living in, then that rock that you’ve been living under has created a great shelter for you.

While we all are living sequestered lives, at a bare minimum I would hope the folks that get paid to “inform” us of provocative news which is based on their intrepid research, will begin to do what is expected. We want, or I’ll say even to go as far as to demand the information that is typically reserved to media-credentialed individuals provided as “news”. Don’t tell us about something we already know, especially with your opinion wrapped around it. More importantly, tell us how the government, industry or other channels are working to right the ship. However, if this goes beyond the expectation of our media professionals, then we are left to re-write the obvious to meet a stance that makes the audience complacent and uninterested in “your” breaking news.

Bottomline, we should be asking and expecting more from our media professionals, I’ll get opinion and sound bites from Twitter.

Okay to Accept Error?

By now most fact based readers have witnessed that the original estimates related to positive cases and unfortunate death from COVID-19 are starting to prove untrue. The worst case scenarios of millions of deaths are nowhere near these estimates. Yes, the infectious rates and general spread of the virus are not acceptable by most citizens and there is still trepidation of what can still happen versus, what has happened. However, throwing darts at a dartboard and hoping for the best is not acceptable to a vast population. If we go back to original estimates and revisit the “million / hundreds of thousands” of deaths forecasts, we would have done anything to stop this from happening. You know what, we did, by forcing non-essential businesses from opening, schools from instructing, sports from participating and the general population from congregating in groups of 10 plus. We instituted a social distancing policy of being six feet away from our neighbors. We started wearing PPE like masks and gloves. We ran out of anti-bacterial products like wipes, gels and sprays. We even witnessed neighbors calling the police on neighbors for going outside their own homes. Yes. this may have flattened the curve, but so may have seasonal changes. I’m not here to debate our reaction to neighborhood rhetoric, but I do want to talk about taking a righteous stance.

We Prepared for The Worst

I think mentally, we have all prepared for the worst of situations. We read, saw, discussed the possibility of millions of individuals dying from a virus we had no control over. We added that extra sebaceous layer to our psyche, hoping that we would not unravel at the possibility of assumptions coming to fruition. Then things started to level out, or what some have called flattening of the curve. The extraordinary death toll estimates started to come down down exponentially and the worst case scenarios began to see a softening. We started to allocate resources to locales that underestimated their assets. We started to see hotspots appear in low exposure areas, requiring a repositioning of resources and material to address the anomaly. Fortunately we proved that we can pivot and adapt as required, as long as the scenario was not beyond reasonable forecasts. Soon hotspots were squelched and a dialog of optimistic “light at the end of the tunnel” started to happen in conversations. Was this time to start preparing for hyperphagia in our virus journey? Ultimately we knew what was incorrect based on data and what was skewed based on emotion.

Accepting Error

At this point we realize that our readers comments, posts and dialog were being prefaced by preconceived thought and ratification of emotion. No matter how much data, intellect and knowledge is applied to the conversation, our emotional well-being is always the ruling party. For instance, if my colleague had lost a loved one during the current crisis, no matter how much I mention underlying symptoms, or a predisposition to the impact that the virus may have to them, will go unheard. If we can segment the hard numbers, from the soft, perhaps we will begin to witness acceptance in the scenarios that envelope us all. It will always be a matter of separating emotion from fact.

Exploring, During a Stay at Home…

A few weeks back we received formal recommendation, guideline, pressure, suggestion…whatever you want to call it to stay home to help “flatten the curve” during this pandemic. Depending on what part of the world, or country you are in, people took the direction in their own way and either met heavy or no resistance to their decisions.

Some went about doing their daily routines without any modification (ex. wearing masks, gloves or other PPE to reduce exposure), while others went all-in and wore every piece of equipment they can find to protect themselves and / or others around them.

There are definitely people on each side of the debate that will (tell) you why they did, or are doing what you see. However, while taking a side and trying to justify a position could be a provocative post, I’m not going to go down that path at this moment. There is something less controversial at play.

Exploring on your own time

This is probably obvious to most, but there are multitudes of things that you can potentially experience for the first time while relegated to sheltering in place. Those that have existing hobbies are somewhat lucky, because they can now dive deeper, or wider into their respective activities. There are others that have always wanted to try something new…I have colleagues trying to learn new languages, playing musical instruments, experimenting with painting, gardening when the weather permits, exercising or really anything new just to get away from watching 24 hour news, jumping on social media, or worse sitting in front of their laptops and PCs beyond the eight plus hours of work they already did for the day. However, if you have kids that are on social media, perhaps this is a good time to explore what they are doing on these platforms, get more engaged and informed. (Link Regarding Social Media Apps Kids are Using)

The reason I said “on your own time” above is that this may be the only time we have, we have been asked to stay put, don’t travel, incorporate social distancing and while most of us have and eventually will complain again “I just don’t have the time” – we now do. As they say hindsight is 20/20 and to look back a few months from now and wish we would have used this time to “explore” would be a shame. You’ll undoubtedly get direction on what to wear and how to act when you go to the grocery store, but deciding what to do when back at home is in your hands.

Sacrificing Millions to Save Thousands…

We have seen this comment over the last few days, while we are eliminating the jobs, the livelihoods and the futures of millions of people in hopes that it saves the lives of thousands of our loved ones. This is an absolutely brutal decision that needs to be made daily and I’m certainly glad that I’m not the person responsible for making this decision, especially considering that it’s a no-win scenario. I can’t even imagine the conversation between a Baby Boomer who is thanking a Generation X, or Millennial for sacrificing their future in “hopes” of keeping them virus free. While they (Gen X, Millennials) may not be heading into battle, outfitted in camouflage and provided government issued ammunition, they are assuming debt (Trillions of dollars) and deferred futures / lifestyles with no reparations on the backend for the sacrifices made now.

Downward Cycle

There are families that will never recover from this crisis that may (or may not) last six to eight months. They may have been getting close to retirement (0 to five years) and they have a 401k, as pensions became unimaginable in modern day society and then they saw the stock market crash and their funds to even consider retiring (perhaps relinquish a position for the next generation) evaporate, indicating that retirement may no longer be attainable. We have also seen folks entering the workforce for the first time, hoping to become less dependent on others and then to get laid-off, or furloughed (gambling on a promise of a job), or just let-go (minus severance). These are individuals typically without medical insurance, rainy-day funds or a network of professional contacts that can get them engaged on interim employment while this all gets figured-out. I even hate to think about the families / individuals that decided in late 2019 that while the economy, environment was ripe for venturing out on your own, or fulfilling a lifelong dream of owning your own business and becoming independent. Then getting a federal, state or local notification that you are considered “non-essential” and need to shut down operations. The anxiety, stress and negative impact on a person’s mental health is unmeasurable.

The Numbers Game

Last week’s unemployment claims hit 6.65 million this is historic as the previous highest was the week before at 3.3 million which literally destroyed the previous record of 695 thousand in 1982. But why did I call this a numbers game, well it stems from the narrative above…what are we willing to risk? Let’s say that of the 7 million unemployed individuals there are 3 percent that now need mental health intervention (ex. suicide, alcohol, drug, gambling, domestic abuse scenarios), that’s roughly 210,000 people. As of this posting, we are currently at 5,900 deaths (USA) via COVID-19 which is not fully filtered by those with underlying ailments. Are we starting to play a balancing game…While we have direct control over forced economic shutdowns, we have limited control over the spread of the virus. But, do I approach the podium with an opening remark that says I am willing to sacrifice 210 thousand for the benefit of 5.9 thousand. Yes, this will be apples to oranges for some folks – but it will still be a burden that is inherited for years to come. The significant sacrifice will only be relevant to the impacted, with residual impact to the overall population.

Leading and Lagging Indicators – There is a whole world out there that lives by leading indicators and then another that swears by lagging indicators. Most like to know what may be in store (leading), while others are happy just confirming the known (lagging). I’m sure there are firms that have started exercising their artificial intelligence (AI), predictive analysis and neural networks against these simulations. These models may have been run and preliminary results available via published articles located deep in academia. Unfortunately, the way mainstream media news and information is disseminated and distributed, we may never see these results. If it doesn’t fit a specific narrative of the publisher, it is often passed over or massaged to meet that narrative. Years from now we may hear that an entity correctly predicted the impact on society, but hindsight is always 20/20 and it will buried in an editorial. Bottomline, we will always be the victims of emotional (society approved) themes and irrational decisions (fight or flight) commentary, which is consistently more ardent than fact based messaging.

No Easy Decisions

We were asked during our childhood to play games where we made unconscionable decisions…Would you kill “x” to save hundreds, or thousands of people?” Sometimes these were so easy to answer, you were wondering why you were even asked. But now the inverse is being asked, are you willing to sacrifice (livelihoods, savings, mental stability) of millions to save the thousands…a lot more provocative and pretty tough to quickly answer. No matter how to answer, you are damned if you do, or damned if you don’t. In conclusion, all I ask is that people think with both their hearts and their heads!!

The Continual Beatdown While Keeping Upbeat…?

I can’t be the only person that has to be experiencing this, but the unrelenting negative commentary, news, photos, predictions and even local weather are really testing the best of us. I wake-up hoping to hear that The Curve is flattening, I hope that someone mentions the economy is on the uptick, jobless claims are ramping down and even something as far fetched that positive cases have crested and are on the downward trend. However, assuming (regretfully acknowledging fact) that we (USA) are only on our second or third week of the crisis and depending on where you live and who you believe, it’s still pretty early in this saga. This puts us right back to where we were weeks ago, while you wish you could control things you can’t, you need to practice keeping Positive. Unfortunately, for some of us in the parts of the US where it’s still late Winter, or early Spring…it’s cold, rainy, sometimes snowy and often dreary outside. You may have colleagues that mention going out for a walk to keep their sanity and you wish you could do the same. However, this is just another straw on the proverbial back of the camel. So while you suck it up, wince a little at their triumphs and hope tomorrow brings a little sunshine and a moderately milder day, there is still more ahead in the tunnel of terror you will need to navigate.

I guess what I’m trying to convey is that no matter how much negative “information” you may subscribe to, or be an unwitting participant of, there is still more to be had at this moment and what you do to process it, is up to you. There are plenty of false saviors out there, such as movie stars, celebrities, influencers, musicians and other personalities that already live in artificial environments that are now providing support and/or guidance. But be aware, most are doing this out of a lack of attention, hits to the revenue stream, that has occurred since focus has been turned away from them and onto real-life situations. Let’s say I have a relative, or someone close to me suffering from the negative consequences listed above, a celebrity posting on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube post will not ease my anxiety. Yet it will get them attention and admiration, especially as they check the “right thing to do” box. I don’t fault them if they truly believe they are assisting in the crisis, but as many have witnessed over the years selfless and discrete charity has done more than posting, for the sake of posting. However, if it makes you feel upbeat to have your favorite celebrity jump into the crisis fray, then so be it and enjoy the euphoric feelings.

In Summary

At the end of the day, only you can measure positivity and its impact on you. If you wake up in the morning in a better place than you went to bed in…then all the better. However, if you wake up looking for false deities and quick fixes, I would hope you remember that we are all in this together and often reaching out over the virtual table or even phone-line will have a greater impact on your day than not, plus it creates relevant relationships going forward.

Lemonade from Lemons…

Today I was the recipient of news that my favorite local news publisher, was ceasing operations going forward. Yes, print journalism is not viable in any fashion going forward, but others have found ways to go behind a successful paywall, or leverage advertising and diversity in their content to attract a wider audience. While I enjoyed the weekly print copy in my mail, I could see items relevant to my town or school district, it was often loaded with print advertisements to make it capable of being delivered weekly. The ads would be for merchants inside and out of my neighborhood, I would quickly peruse the 15 or 20 pages to see if there was a picture or article of interest and would often find minimal content that pulled me in, thus tossing the periodical into recycling. Back in the day, there may be an editorial written by a historian of the area…but that has long passed. Now we will find a political, sponsored or vanilla piece that has as much interest as the Reddit post that I just scrolled past. But you know what will be missed by the “Print” version of these outlets…the picture in its glorious black and white, color on inky paper. I had dozens of clipped pictures / articles that I would send to relatives about the exploits of my offspring.

Ironically, I have received over the last few years a physically mailed note from my parents about an article they saw in their local newspaper related to something that may have been going on in my neighborhood. I often was torn between saving the mailing and / or wondering why I received this from them nearly seven days after I read about it online. So with a guilty complex, I would save it for a few days and then ultimately toss in that weeks recycling. Bottom line, nostalgia is only worth as much as the person receiving the material and what they envision doin with the content. That being said, I want to propose the following to the local media providers / outlets. You need to fully understand the following before transformation:

Audience: Do you know who they are (you have subscription lists, social media follows, unsolicited comments and other interactions)

Contributors: Most engaged individuals (participants, audience, family members) are posting content about the event with disregard – They have become your reporters

Analytics: Do you know what articles have had the highest page views, clickthroughs and retention based on exposure

Demographics: Do you know who prefers online versus print, you know the segmentation of your audience (ex. age, sex, location, socio-economic…etc.)

Content Preference: Who prefers Sports, Cultural, Ethnic, Religious, Philanthropic content as this can be derived from various content streams that receive the most interaction and engagement

Delivery Preference: Where did you have your highest interaction – online, published or direct via social interaction.

Contributors: Who is most likely to contribute to the content – Family members, Students, Faculty or professionally hired resources

The Next Step…

If you fully understand the above observations and the desire for the general public to receive their news in a timely manner, but with personalization, I think you know the direction I’m going. Engage, Interact, Promote Participation and you create a “crowd sourced” media aggregator and the heavy lifting of content is taken care of by your advocates, while the detailed dissemination is provided by the professionals. Revenue is derived by personalization and retained audience.

Blueprint to Follow…

Dear Customer, should I go deep or wide??

Okay, a bit of clickbait on that title but I’ll try to describe a constant gripe that I have with my small business merchants that I deal with on a daily basis. As you may have noticed in my About section, I have over 25 years in the management consulting field, specifically around Customer Relationship Management (CRM and Master Data Management (MDM). I typically, assist large corporations in the deployment of programs that advance their customer experience objectives by helping them understand how to better interact via acquired data, programs and ultimately offerings that lead to greater customer retention and revenue. But enough about me…I want to provide some observation that is truly relevant during the current economic downturn.

Going Wide

On a daily basis we deal with merchants online and locally (brick-and-mortar) and while the interaction may be quick and painless, the lost opportunity for CRM by the merchant is critical. What did I mean about “Wide” in the title…simply this is the breadth of information the merchant is willing to capture about the customer. For example, I frequent my local hardware store – Do they know I live in the neighborhood, have they seen me before, am I a professional or just a DIY guy? By capturing some of these data points, perhaps they can begin to offer additional information like unannounced sales, workshops, or inform me of a network / community of similar shoppers. But Mike, how does a small business do this? I would suggest a feedback card, or request for simple contact information (don’t be intrusive, you want participation, a postal code and email may be enough at this point) and ideally what they may be interested in to personalize the communication. This would be the start to your CRM and MDM program at the foundational level. At a bare minimum, you now have a database of customers that you can reach out to virtually, that self volunteered to be a member of your community and will be “interested” in communication from you as long as relevant.

Going Deep

I mentioned above that I frequent a local hardware store and by frequent I mean at least once a week. Therefore, I have made the (personal) decision that this will be my go-to choice for hardware accessories and services, but I don’t believe my chosen merchant even knows this. Let’s say that I keep stopping in for painting, plumbing or lumber supplies. The next level of engagement by my merchant should be to go “Deep“…what project or specific activities are you working on, providing an additional level of detail about you? The merchant can now begin a level of personalization that is above and beyond their competitors. This could be accomplished by having a survey of no more than five questions that help to identify what interests their customer has. There is a phrase in CRM called “Know Your Customer” (KYC) and many are still struggling to perfect this, because it takes work, needs an objective and often is subject to resistance by the customer. If the merchant approaches the objective with I’m here to assist you versus, I’m here to sell you something…the customer will feel a bit more at ease and be more receptive to the effort. The benefits of KYC in small business are extremely positive, you can become their trusted advisor, partner and create a long-term relationship that survives turbulent times. Once this relationship has been built, expanding outside of the comfort zone can be profitable. For my hardware store example, if they analyzed their data, they would see that I typically do the same projects based on the season. Pushing information to me just prior to that season may make me more prone to visiting the store to procure my supplies for that season.

Engaged, thank you

I think the ultimate goal for many merchants would be the migration of on-demand transactions to a subscription service. I’m going to pick on my hardware store on last time. If they successfully accomplished the above levels of engagement, they may now pursue getting the customers to “sign-up” for subscription based components. This could be as simple as…Mike always buys furnace filters, of a particular size every four months, he also buys fertilizer every three months and we noticed a particular pattern in cleaning products. I hope you see where I’m going with this, if the merchant can put the customer on a subscription and ships, or tells the customer the product is ready for pick-up, they will now have a fully engaged customer for specific items and ensure repeat purchases.

I will cover each one of these areas in depth over time, but I believe you can see the value in CRM and MDM for all merchants and more importantly while these merchants struggle to keep their clientele during tough times.

A Case for Factual Positivity…

The hourly barrage of disappointing news, statistics that highlight the negative trends which can be culled from any sample data and the dire warnings of things to come can really take its toll on you mentally if you let it. However, there is also a problem with “only” hunting for and regurgitating the positive (trying to find that silver lining), ironically you may start to imagine / embellish / inflate stories you have heard that may not actually be factual. So, what am I trying to say here…Positivity is beneficial, when it is grounded in fact and comes with a reputable audit trail. This is a lot harder to produce than the alternative. Yes, there are always people that will gravitate to the negative, salacious and / or outrageous commentary. Why, because it’s exciting and can be used to attract an interactive and boisterous audience which equals more pageviews and more clicks. Positivity is typically not going to be as “sexy” as a negativity, especially when that negative statement is rooted in controversy. We’ve all heard of the term Hot Takes and the provocative nature they are derived from.

Understanding the above, leadership needs to know their audience (I discussed this in a previous post)…will the audience listen to facts, will it be confusing to the group, does it meet the expectations of the reader? The author may want to begin the dialog with controversy / negativity / rumor just to gain their audiences attention, pique their interest and then begin to address the individual topics one-by-one with a positive spin, containing the facts that will ultimately push the negative elements to the back of their audience’s mind. However, be aware in that audience there may also be…

The Troll

Unfortunately, there has been a whole new online personality that has developed over the last few years (Internet Troll) – Those that love to poke the bear for a reaction and ultimately receive notoriety that they would not have normally had in “normal” society. They would not dare do this in public, so they will hide behind avatars, burner accounts, handles and any other user id that gives them anonymity. Once exposed, they will quickly dispose of the ID and start a new one to continue their lust for attention. While often easy to shut them down via facts and figures, they are not limited in their pursuit of a crowd. They will often say the most outrageous comments, just to see / get the reaction. Getting out in front of them is key in your communication strategy to shed positivity, where positivity is warranted.

In summary, the case for factual positivity is absolutely warranted. It provides that proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel” which helps to keep the team / organization motivated, but also aides in knocking the troll nation down a peg by hindering the notoriety and fame they are desperately seeking.

Collaboration Tools in The Spotlight…

Now that most of us have been asked / forced to work from home, collaboration tools are getting a lot of use and hopefully your organization was ahead of the move and not scrambling to deploy and adopt during a crisis.

Over the years that I’ve spent in consulting, I’ve been exposed to numerous tools, some good, some bad, but they all seemed to meet the immediate need at the moment. I witnessed the progression from messaging to full fledge collaboration (sharing, editing of files live) and with each iteration there were always hurdles and learning curves that needed to be overcome. Messaging always seemed to be fairly straightforward…type a comment or response, click send and repeat.

Then came the Calendar and Scheduling functions…a bit trickier as you need to filter between public and private entries, have access to others calendars and even the more complex ability to schedule conference rooms. However, if this capability is functioning as expected it becomes very efficient in scheduling meetings / calls and ensuring that participants are available and not double-booked. I found folks that would “block” certain hours out during the day so they weren’t swamped with back-to-back meetings, or requested for attendance during their lunch hour. This practice is highly effective when working in a global culture and when individuals forget about timezones.

Then came the more exotic and truly collaborative functionality of live / in-line editing of files (documents, spreadsheets, project plans…etc.). This often requires a lot of education and more important governance around who, what and when documents should be manipulated. There have been too many times when someone forgets they are actively updating, or worse, deleting a document. When you are working as a team on a file, you have to remember that someone else can be in that file at the same time. I’ve found that the old SharePoint method of checking-out and checking-in documents was a bit safer. However, new tools will show you when a person is in the document and what they may be updating at the moment. This often works well when your network, WiFi and connectivity are top-notch.

Here are some Pros and Cons of collaboration tools: (per my colleagues)

  • Pro:
  • Higher productivity in a team environment
  • Accountability across the team versus individual
  • Greater visibility within the team to workload and availability
  • Intuitive collaboration – Sharing of ideas with immediate feedback
  • Standardization of applications
  • Fairly easy deployment of tool(s)
  • Con:
  • Managing individual calendar more difficult (being invited to everything)
  • Collaboration governance not adhered to – Too much access is granted to files (files deleted, modified or moved)
  • Tool adoption is more complicated when someone has used another tool they are more comfortable with – Bring Your own Tool (BYOT)
  • Fear of Big Brother – Opening my calendar, or current status allows management to see what I’m doing every minute of the day

Finally, while there are numerous offerings out there with a lot of options for small to large corporations and even families or groups, you should spend some time defining your problem statement – what is it that you want to address and make more efficient. Perhaps starting small and then rolling-in more complexity will make your team adopt the tool more effectively. Either way, this is the ideal time to do your research and see how a collaboration application can help keep your team’s communication optimal.

In no particular order, here are some tools that I’ve used and / or deployed:

Communication –

General Collaboration –

In future posts I will explore the content management systems (on-premise / cloud), repositories and digital asset management systems that have linkage to the products listed above that I’ve been exposed to.

Keep Your Assets Fresh…

No, I’m not talking about daily hygiene, however there are some that should heed this recommendation. You know who you are.

What I am hoping to explain is that during a mandated “Stay at Home Advisory” via our local, state or federal government, there will never been a better time to retool, or at a bare minimum keep yourself fresh with the latest technology and professional offerings being provided (often at zero “temporary” membership fees) by many vendors. Companies are providing professional skills training and also high tech, pre-certification courses to the population in response to our current situation and we need to accept their offerings as required.

Some of the current offerings can be found at: (many more are available)

I would hope that after this period, you don’t look back and wish you spent a few hours a week, developing a new skill or polishing a skill that you may use daily, but haven’t explored the outer reaches of. There was a lot of buzz prior to the start of the year (2020) around, Artificial Intelligence, Robotic Process Automation, Cloud Computing, Predictive Analytics and numerous other cutting-edge technologies. Now that the world is taking a short pause, there is no better time to get a jumpstart on some of these concepts. Once we re-emerge from scenarios taken out of our control, why not be ahead of the competition and ready to lead the resurgence that most of us are anticipating going into 2021.

In just a matter of weeks, we will be back to long work weeks, short weekends and the limited bandwidth that never allows us to fill in the gaps within our skill set repertoire arsenal. Motivation may be waning at this point, but it’s your decision to execute or look for another excuse.