Liza Adams

As we spent our Christmas and New Year holidays in the Philippines visiting with family and friends, from the pristine and quiet beaches of Puerto Galera to the hustle and bustle of Metro Manila, I couldn’t help but notice how similar and, at the same time, how different the Philippine and American cultures are.

Then my next thought was how technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and deep learning need to account for similarities and differences across geographies, people, cultures, and societies. Not a trivial undertaking and if we choose to ignore or consider less important can potentially have sustained impacts on economies, morality, humanity, and more. In the martech (marketing technology) world, some have discussed the opportunity to combine data science with social science, and it requires the human element. IBM refers to this need for humans and machines to work together as augmented intelligence or intelligence augmented (IA, not to be confused with AI meaning artificial intelligence). Rather than replacing human intelligence, augmented intelligence capitalize on the combination of algorithms, machine learning, and data science to inform human decision-making abilities. In other words, the human element can’t be forgotten.

Augmenting Knowledge of Less Predictable Human Elements with AI

Throughout my marketing career, I’ve always worked for multinational companies serving customers all over the world. That, plus me being an immigrant, has made me extra sensitive and passionate about deeply understanding different target segments, especially people’s motivations, challenges, desires, fears, preferences, beliefs, biases, passions, attitudes, values, and the reasons for these differences.

Segment characteristics like firmographics (e.g., industry, revenue, number of employees, headquarters location) and demographics (e.g., age, gender, household income, years of education, race) tend to be easier to analyze and action. However, digging deep into sociographics (e.g., values, beliefs, culture) and reflecting it as an integral part of sales and marketing efforts are much more complex but I would argue are, ultimately, more interesting and have more profound impacts.

As more companies globalize their businesses and go through or enable digital transformation, the need to automate, predict, and act on-demand has become critical to ensure a fast and agile business. As they say, transform or die, right? It’s happening in all facets of the business—manufacturing, product development, engineering, inventory, e-commerce, finance, supply chain, sales and marketing, logistics, and more. However, we run the risk of compromising deep consideration of sociographic elements for speed and agility. One can imagine a much better outcome when we apply human intelligence about peoples’ values and beliefs in conjunction with AI.

Deeper Understanding of Sociographics

Just for fun and to offer real life examples to analyze, I’d like to share with you some sociographics about the Filipino culture. I’m Filipino American. I was born and raised in Manila and have been living in the US for the past 35 years. I’ve been fortunate to have opportunities to visit friends and family for vacations (as I just did recently) and have dropped by occasionally when I’m in Asia for work.

Let’s think about how AI can help and how we may need to augment AI with human intelligence about less predictable, unique, or even irrational segment behaviors to determine the best ways to market, sell, and serve. Some of these examples might have more relevance to B2C companies and others to B2B companies. However, even B2B companies can benefit from deeply understanding the ultimate end users’ behaviors—it’s about understanding not just our customers but also our customers’ customers.

1.    Malling is Cultural. Online shopping in the Philippines can and does present some challenges, from slow or no Internet access to traffic congestion with the ever increasing number of vehicles on already crowded streets of Manila. The traffic makes executing a concept like Amazon Prime nearly impossible given that even emergency vehicles have a tough time navigating through the dense traffic. There’s no space for other vehicles to move to make way for ambulances, police cars, and fire trucks. Package delivery would probably take more like a week or more. But these aren’t necessarily the reasons why malls are flourishing and more malls are being built.

You wouldn’t think you’re in a developing nation when entering these mega malls. Some are multi-story buildings interconnected by overpasses built over busy roads, occupying five or six square blocks. And rest assured that you’ll find stores for most well-known global retail brands.

Malls are not just for shopping in the Philippines. Malls are a place for family and friends to gather. With air conditioning, they’re also a place where people escape the heat. Because of the heavy, everyday traffic in Metro Manila, malls have become a one-stop destination for literally everything. Yes, everything! (Running errands would be a full-time job and quite stressful if you had to go to different places to buy different things.) You can shop for shoes and furniture, buy drill bits, eat lunch, enjoy a movie, entertain the kids at a play zone, relax with a foot massage, grab groceries for the week, mail packages, pay bills, stroll along a rooftop garden, and watch amateur singers showcase their talents using demo karaoke machines (some of whom end up on YouTube and become YouTube sensations!). Worried about missing church on Sunday if you go to the mall? No problem, there are malls with churches complete with cry areas for the kids and multiple scheduled masses. That’s the ultimate in malling!

Think about the big data analytics at play here. We can collect so much data for different products and services plus a variety of behaviors and patterns, all in one mall complex. A marketer’s dream! It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Think about the integrated marketing and omnichannel experience as people go from one store to another and also interact via mobile and web.

Someone who ignores or fails to recognize this cultural phenomenon can miss out and leave a lot on the table! AI can only go so far without this human intelligence.

2.    A Round-the-Clock Society. The Philippines ranks fourth in the number of English speakers with 90 million people who know how to speak English. Excluding English-speaking countries like the US and the UK, the Philippines ranks sixth (behind Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland) where professionals are most proficient in English. In fact, because of the many dialects in the Philippines, you can say that English is the currency in the country, even among the locals.

The Filipinos’ fluency in English, close affinity to western culture, more patient trait which comes in handy in dealing with irate customers, and high problem-solving skills have contributed to the rise of value-added BPO (Business Process Outsourcing), such as contact centers, in the Philippines. Although people work graveyard hours, the industry offers lucrative opportunities and is an economic lifeline for many, employing more than a million people. People also benefit from not having to deal with rush hour traffic hence improving their quality of life. (How bad is the traffic in Metro Manila? It was ranked as having the “worst traffic on Earth,” based on a global evaluation conducted by Waze, a GPS-based navigation app. Filipinos don’t talk distance when traveling, they talk time. It may take 30 mins to go 3 km in parts of Metro Manila!)

24-hour fast food places have cropped up everywhere (not just at major highway exits) to cater to this growing segment of the market. When we arrived in Manila at 2 am on December 23rd, we drove by 24-hour Jollibee and McDonald’s with long lines and wall-to-wall people. As lunchtime shifts, so does happy hour. Booze start flowing at 6 am!

All sorts of business ideas come to mind when operating in a round-the-clock society. Pretty much everything that people typically do during the day may need to be done at night—from mailing things, to buying groceries, to picking up dry cleaning, and more. Imagine the role that AI and automation can play here given less resources available at night. But first, someone needs to deeply understand this way of living which is unique to certain parts of the world.

Ironically, AI is a double-edged sword as it can potentially threaten this industry, replacing people with machines and the use of chatbots. So the country is taking steps to complement the employees’ good command of the English language with training on data mining, analytics, and machine learning. This is yet another dynamic to watch closely to determine how it may affect a round-the-clock society.

3.    Important Role of Status Symbols. Considered a third world nation, the Philippines suffers from a wide divide between the rich and the poor, with a miniscule middle class. People have gravitated towards status symbols to elevate others’ perception of their value and improve their self esteem, even for just a few fleeting moments.

As a result, preference towards wearing branded items like Nike, Gucci, Lacoste, and others abound. Starbucks is a place to see and be seen. Despite the meager wages, barely enough to feed their families, some people spend money on expensive coffee, not necessarily for great tasting coffee, but for the feeling of social acceptance and greater self worth.

People avoid extended sun exposure to keep from getting darker. On hot sunny days, you’d think that it’s raining outside because so many walk around with their umbrellas open. There’s a general perception or misconception that people with dark skin hail from poor farming families in the provinces. As a result, the popularity of skin whitening products has skyrocketed. Seeing beaches lined with sun worshipping Causasians next to locals sitting in the shade under coconut trees is quite comical. In a society that considers light skin to be more beautiful than dark, companies often feature mestizo and mestiza (part Filipino and part Caucasian) models, actors, and actresses on TV commercials, online ads, billboards, magazine covers, and movies.

It’s not easy to predict what may become a status symbol. But it starts with the realization that status symbols are an important part of the buying process and may, in fact, be the primary deciding factor.

Human intelligence about status symbols coupled with AI can create powerful brands, presence, and experiences in the market.

4.    Hospitable and Service-Oriented People. The Filipinos’ passion for providing exceptional customer service is partly cultural and partly economic. The family is the nucleus of the social structure and includes the immediate family, extended family, godparents, and close family friends. New friends instantly feel part of the family as it is common for people to welcome new friends into their homes, share meals, and enjoy each other’s company. There are words to show respect for the people within the structure like Ate (older sister) and Kuya (older brother). Even close friends are referred to as Ate or Kuya, or Tita (Aunt) or Tito (Uncle). The sign of respect extends to the business world calling customers and supervisors as Sir or Madam/Mam and are often greeted with a smile.

Products, particularly imported goods, are expensive but services are cheap. Check out this promotion for a 70-minute, full body massage for 199 Philippine pesos. That’s $4!

The law of supply and demand is at work here. There are more people available to work than there are job opportunities. In the service industry (e.g., retail sales, salons and spas, entertainment, domestic helpers, etc.), people do their best to provide the best possible service to attract new customers, retain customers, and keep their jobs.

At a retail store, I had four sales ladies helping me find the right t-shirt size. You’d think I was buying hundreds of shirts. An employee at a fast food restaurant politely stopped me when I got up to put away my tray and throw trash in the bin myself. He told me his job is to do that for me. People may not be able to afford air conditioning, a washer and dryer, or a hot water heater, but they have a nanny, maid, and driver. Comfort, convenience, and time savings are achieved through cheap labor and not through machines, automation, and self-service.

One needs to carefully assess the effects of introducing automation and AI in the services industry as it can have significant economic and social implications, especially in a country already plagued with more available workers than jobs.

5.    Nomadic Creatures. Many of the things we’ve already discussed are great proof points for why Filipinos are nomadic creatures: family orientation, high literacy rates and highly educated people, desire for a much better life and increased self worth, economic struggles, and lack of work opportunities.

Education in the Philippines is of paramount importance. It’s been described as “indispensable, a national legacy passed from one generation to the next.” Everyone deeply appreciates hard work in school and academic excellence. Medals are awarded, Top 10s (list of 10 kids with the highest grades in class) start in elementary school, Summa and Magna Cum Laudes are glorified, “topnotchers” in board and bar exams with their scores are full-page news, and parents speak proudly of their children’s accomplishments.

However, many find themselves unemployed or underemployed even with a college degree. Educated individuals in this situation are among the first to emigrate to find work. Additionally, the Philippine labor cost is among the lowest in Southeast Asia which makes Filipinos easy targets for overseas work. It is not uncommon to have families supported by a parent, spouse, sibling, or close relative working overseas. This puts immense pressure on tight-knit Filipino families but it is, oftentimes, what is necessary to sustain the family. Eventually, some are able to bring their entire family with them abroad. Here’s the top 10 list of countries where Filipinos migrate permanently, led by the US with greater than 3.1 million Filipino residents.

As we stood in line at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport to check-in for our flight back to the US, the area was packed with Filipinos going everywhere—San Francisco, Riyadh, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Abu Dhabi, Toronto, Melbourne, Tokyo, Kuwait City, London, etc. You’ll find many working in the healthcare, technology, aviation, hospitality, education, entertainment, and various service industries globally.

The impact of a highly nomadic society is far reaching, creating tentacles of brand awareness, advocacy, and loyalty (or the opposite) in more countries than originally intended, as an example. It is also a unique use case for businesses enabling real-time collaboration and communications, as well as electronic funds transfer. That human intelligence applied to assess this unique dynamic and the decision to pursue expansion then create an opportunity for AI to help introduce and scale the business in other parts of the world.

6.    Proud to be Filipino. Filipinos are proud people—proud of their people, heritage, and country. They’re especially proud of successful people recognized internationally for their accomplishments: Manny Pacquiao (world boxing champion), Arnel Pineda (lead singer of Journey), Cheryl Diaz Meyer (Pulitzer Prize winner), Dr. Eduardo San Juan (NASA engineer who designed the moon buggy used by Apollo astronauts), Lea Salonga (Tony award winner for Miss Saigon and singing voices of Princess Jasmine and Mulan), Cristeta Comerford (White House Executive Chef), Pia Wurtzbach (Miss Universe 2015), Sean Reyes (Utah Attorney General), Monique Lhuillier (Hollywood fashion designer), Peter Valdes (co-founder of Tivoli Systems Inc., an IBM company), Liz Masakayan (1988 US Olympian in volleyball), Dr. Jose Natalio Rodriguez (inventor of the leprosy control program), Robert Lopez (Tony award winner, writer of Let It Go from the movie Frozen), and so many more.

Filipinos draw inspiration from these people, giving them hope that they can be more and accomplish more. But what’s more interesting is what happens when these successful Filipinos are featured on a world stage.

The crime rate dropped to zero in Metro Manila during the 12 rounds that Manny Pacquiao fought Floyd Mayweather, Jr. in 2015. Everyone, including criminals, tuned into the heavily advertised, pay-per-view fight. The author of the article Manny Pacquaio Fights for the Filipino points out that nothing connects Filipinos worldwide like Manny Pacquiao, “For Filipino Americans, it’s a battle for recognition, for identity in a culture where, for the mainstream, Asians tend to fade into a monochromatic racialized other.” Last year, Filipinos across the country stopped their normal routine to watch the Miss Universe pageant, hosted by the Philippines after more than two decades. Many beauty salons closed for the day. Beauty pageants are a cultural obsession.

From knowing not to schedule a live webinar during these times to predicting other potential impacts (e.g., street closures for parades, declaration of a national holiday, big rallies, jammed mobile networks, major stock market fluctuations, etc.) of these proud Filipino moments requires human intelligence. Complementing that with data-driven AI can transform how business is conducted to make the most out of these important micro instances, be-there-be-useful or avert.

Key Takeaways

None of these is rocket science but it’s worth reminding ourselves of the following:

• AI is not intended to replace all human intelligence but to enhance and assist it.

• Powerful sales and marketing stem from deeply understanding firmographics, demographics, and sociographics of customer segments.

• Human intelligence can be better leveraged for knowledge of sociographic characteristics like values, beliefs, culture, biases, attitudes, particularly unpredictable, unique, and irrational behaviors.

• Marrying the human element with AI not only helps with winning business in different cultures but also creates opportunities to personalize and make products and services more relevant.

• In this digital transformation age, we can best affect change globally when humans and machines work together.

If you found this article helpful, please click the thumbs up icon below and let me know! Please feel free to share in the comments your thoughts, other examples of how machines and humans can work together, and potential impacts and implications. I also invite you to read my article on a separate but related marketing topic of telling a more human story, Humanize how we Market Technology as Technology Relies Less on Humans.

When key questions like the following are hard to answer, the culprit is often the lack of a well-thought-out and well-understood strategy.

• Who are we and what is our business all about?
• Which markets should we pursue? In what sequence?
• What types of customers should we target and how?
• How should we allocate resources to get the most bang for the buck?

These are big, complex questions that need a thoughtful approach, backup data, different perspectives, and thorough discussions to answer. I continue to marvel at how much time is spent debating the answers to these questions without some kind of structured thinking and guardrails to facilitate the process. Many debates fall prey to endless loops, misalignment, wasted time, frustration, and tense relationships because people aren’t given the forum to consider other perspectives and data. Worse yet, with misalignment, each person makes his/her own assumption about what the strategy is.

As leaders, we need to be hyper-aware when the organization begins to flail in execution due to lack of clarity or absence of strategy. It is incumbent upon us to guide our teams out of this mode by converging on a strategy and communicating it effectively.

Keys to Strategy Development and Alignment

To help avoid that painful ad-hoc process with mediocre or no results, it’s worth considering a more structured approach and forum to get to the answers. Although the answers are important, equally or even more important are the following:

• Using a facilitated process, tools, data, and pre-work to drive the right discussion.
• Having the right people together in a risk-free environment to openly discuss, debate, and converge towards the answers.
• Gaining alignment to articulate and cascade what the strategy is and explain why the strategy is what it is.
• Testing and validating the strategy.
• Being ok to change the strategy based on validation results, changes in assumptions, and shifts in market conditions.

I can easily write an article for each bullet above. But for the purposes of this article, I’ll primarily share tools to help break up complex problems into bite-sized chunks to evaluate and debate potential answers, and ultimately choose and align around the right answers. Vehicles or tools like grids, quadrants and pyramids should be familiar to many of you. But if you’re like most, including me, when you’re in the middle of a strategic discussion where there’s misalignment and emotions are flying high, tools to help evaluate answers and drive towards alignment probably aren’t the first things that come to mind. So this should serve as a reminder, at the very least.

Grids

I personally love using grids to evaluate multiple potential answers across a wide range of criteria. In the example in Figure 1 below, the grid shows potential business definitions for a company. In other words, it’s used to figure out what a company is all about. In which area will the company differentiate and defend to the death? The business definition provides the foundation for how the company operates. Where, when, how, and how much a company spends will be different depending on how it defines its business.

In the grid, each of the potential business definition options are evaluated against a set of criteria: leverage competencies, market fit, resource fit, and shareholder value. Using a forced ranking approach, each business definition gets a score when evaluated against each criterion. For example, the business definition of network simplification leverages the company’s core competencies the most and scalability leverages it the least. Then the scores are tallied for each of the definitions across the criteria to determine the best answer.

Figure 1. Grid to Evaluate Potential Business Definitions

Before ranking, the group needs to identify the potential business definition candidates and the criteria, as well as agree on what each of those mean. For each business definition, the group should characterize the target segments/customers, products, channels, resources required, etc. The same applies for criteria. Does market fit mean size of the market? Rapid market growth? Ability to compete? Combination? For core competencies, what does the list of core competencies look like? Regardless of the criteria, the group needs to understand what each criterion means so everyone has the same basis for evaluation.

Much of the debate happens when applying the forced-ranked scores. Two people might have completely opposing views on which definition leverages competencies most and least. So that discussion is critical for the group to make decisions about the ranking. Ultimately, with the seven potential options, it’s less important for the group to get the 3 correctly. But it’s critical to get alignment on the 7 and 1. In other words, finding the most and least important business definitions are more important than nailing down the ranking for the gray area in the middle.

Throughout the discussion, the team might also discuss and decide that the criteria should not be weighted equally, so weights can be used in that scenario. Playing around with the weights might also present different results and interesting discussions.

In the end, the team needs to gut check the mathematical answer as a result of the process. Does the answer feel right or is there something amiss? Oftentimes, it’s a combo of the mathematical answer, gut check, and data/validation.

Quads

A 2×2 quad gives us the opportunity to analyze across two dimensions and gradients within each dimension. In the Needs vs Buying Criteria quadrant example in Figure 2, it works to determine what types of customers to target based on the customers’ needs (simple vs. complex) and how they buy (price sensitive vs. willing to pay for added value).

It shows that this particular business would target customers that have complex requirements and are willing to pay for added value (upper right). The company would only respond opportunistically to customers with simple requirements and are price sensitive, which can most likely be addressed by more competitors with off-the-shelf products where there’s not as much differentiation and margins are low (lower left). The upper left quadrant is equally interesting in that the company needs to address how to show its value and get customers with complex requirements to pay for that value. And for those customers with simple requirements who are willing to pay for value (lower right), what are some of the value-added services that can be offered (e.g., expedited delivery intervals, online ordering and billing, customized reporting, consulting services, etc.) For each of the quadrants, we should be able to identify the customers, potential revenue, GTM strategy, and marketing strategy.

And the corresponding 4-Ps 2×2 chart in Figure 2 shows a sample high-level execution plan.

Figure 2. Buying Criteria vs Needs and 4-Ps Quadrants

Pyramids

There are so many different uses for the classic pyramid. The pyramid sample in Figure 3 is used to determine the go-to-market strategy for the business based on goals for various target segments of the market. The benefit of this approach is that all functional groups have visibility into the key focus areas. And it allows for discussion about how the groups will work together to best address the needs of the target segments. It also helps highlight key requirements and dependencies to achieve the goals.

Figure 3. Pyramid to Determine GTM Strategy and Approaches for Target Segments

As part of the goals and strategy discussion, the team needs to converge on the strategy for each tier based on the goals (e.g., revenue, sales, market share). The strategy might be retain, grow, harvest, innovate, or pause/exit.

Let’s use the top tier of the pyramid example above to determine go-to-market execution approaches based on the strategy. There might be 100 or so top named accounts where there’s a specific revenue goal that the company wants to achieve with a strategy of retention and customer stakeholder relationship expansion to improve stickiness. The various functional groups need to determine what that strategy means for their group and work together with other functional groups to achieve the goals.

The product team might have to focus on a developing solutions with customizable options and/or key innovations to support the needs of this segment. Sales might need to think about identifying new contacts and planning to build relationships with customer groups that it has not traditionally targeted like the business units, marketing, strategy, or finance to support new revenue generation value propositions. There may or may not be a role for the channel in this tier, given the direct and high-touch approach required. Marketing may need to focus on helping sales identify new contacts, digitally surrounding these new contacts, and engage these contacts with relevant content. Account-based marketing approaches may be a natural fit here. Finally, the support team might offer personalized support services with dedicated support resources in every aspect of the customer lifecycle and better service level agreements. A similar approach can then be applied for the pyramid’s mid-tier vertical markets and bottom-tier volume business.

As the teams develop their respective GTM approaches, there needs to be collaboration across to understand required resources and key dependencies from each group. During that discussion, the teams should be open to a give-and-take and potentially modify approaches as needed. For example, the teams might need to prioritize or take a phased approach across the board to accommodate resource limitations in product development.

Although these approaches are fairly intuitive, in practice, it can be quite challenging to commit to having a strategic discussion; capturing the output of that discussion in a conceptual framework using tools like those discussed above; and using those principles to drive tactical decisions and execution, while remaining agile and attuned to corrective feedback from customers and the field. However, it’s pain now or much bigger pain later. It’s well worth the time and effort to put in the upfront strategy work to avoid potential downstream implications on productivity, employee morale, market competitiveness, overall customer satisfaction, company revenues, and more.

Much of the strategy work nowadays revolves around transforming towards a digital business. An article I wrote, Leading a Digital Business: What Wasn’t OK is Now a Must, also offers other tips in strategy development and leadership in a digital business.

Debate, Align, and Onboard

In the end, it’s less about vehicles or tools such as grids, quads, or pyramids. Tools help facilitate a process. What are most important are a healthy debate that happens when the right people bring and listen to different perspectives, the understanding and alignment around what needs to be done, and the communication to gain buy-in throughout the organization for execution.

Getting the rest of the organization onboard requires more than just cascading the decisions. It means communicating 1) the process to get to the decisions, 2) participants in the process (hopefully showing that someone on their team has represented their views), 3) the decisions, and 4) the rationale for the decisions. Also share that as things change, which they will, the organization can more easily go back to the tools and notes from the discussions to re-evaluate and make modifications.

Having a clear understanding of the strategy across the organization builds confidence in people to make the hundreds of day-to-day decisions to align with company strategy. When every decision doesn’t have to come to you as the leader, then that’s a good sign that you have alignment and people are empowered.

Remember, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

If you found this article helpful, please click the thumbs up icon below and let me know! Also, please feel free to share in the comments your thoughts, other strategy alignment approaches that you’ve seen work (and not work), lessons learned, and success stories.

Last year was the first time I shared my personal story more openly with others, including some people at work. I’m not sure what compelled me to do so. And I’m really not sure what drove me to write this article and post it on social media, which still seems quite crazy to me as I sit here and type. But when we’re passionate about something, the potential positive outcomes seem to outweigh vulnerabilities and apprehension we might have about pursuing it. So here we go…

Poor and Humble Beginnings

That’s me with one of my brothers growing up in the Philippines in the 70s. (My youngest brother wasn’t born yet.) So cute (back then)! We were born to educated, professional, hard working parents. Mom was a CPA and Dad a lawyer. Mom quit her accounting job to stay home and take care of us. All was good while Dad worked, then he lost his corporate job and we never quite recovered.

Dad became a criminal attorney, a public defender, an advocate for the poor and wrongly accused. He didn’t have high-power and wealthy clients. Oftentimes, he got paid with bags of rice, corn, bananas, sugar cane, veggies, homemade desserts, eggs, chickens, goats, or a big hug and the sincerest thank you. Sometimes, he refused payment and even gave his clients bus fare to go home to their families from the courthouse. This was his career. He was not rich. But he was rich in compassion. He gave the vulnerable hope and a sense of dignity and self-respect.

We were poor for a big chunk of my childhood. We cooked food with firewood, pumped our own water for bathing and cleaning, and washed clothes by hand. At our lowest point, we didn’t know from where our next meal would come. Sometimes all we had was rice, coconut candy, and water. I recall having a pet chicken named Charlie (if my memory serves me right). When I came home from school one day, to my surprise and delight, we were having fried chicken, a rare treat. But I quickly grew suspicious and with just one look at my mother, I knew that it was my Charlie on my plate.

Worrying about how we could continue to go to school was the toughest. I don’t wish it on anyone, especially children. My parents instilled in us that helping others, hard work, and getting good grades are necessary to get a shot at a good life. Yes, just a shot, because doing all of these things doesn’t guarantee a good life, as Mom and Dad knew all too well.

I went to a good school but my parents no longer had the money to send three kids to school after Dad lost his job and couldn’t find work for a long time. It was devastating. Being inadequately educated was never an option for any of us. To help, my only recourse was to do my best to end the school year at the top of my class because my tuition would be waived for the next school year. And whatever little money we had would be enough to send my brothers to school. The pressure I put on myself was intense, especially as a 12-year-old in high school. Getting 100% was the goal on every single test. 98% or 99% was unacceptable. There were many tears as the thought of not being #1 in class and the consequences were unimaginable.

A Ray of Hope

But then a ray of hope came. Mom saw an ad for a foreign exchange student program and she asked my uncle in the U.S. for help in sponsoring me. Without hesitation, he offered financial help for my education. He is one of the most generous and selfless people I know. But we all knew what it meant—breaking up the family and us not seeing each other for a long time. My parents had many sleepless nights and shed many tears. It was the toughest decision they’ve ever had to make and they made it with me. Ultimately, Mom and Dad’s selflessness and rational thinking won out. They knew that getting an education in the U.S. was best for me, the family, and our collective future. It was our only hope for a better life. They decided to let their firstborn and only daughter go.

I had dreamed about coming to America and had visions of grandeur based on what I saw on TV—tall shiny buildings, lavish homes, beautiful people, gorgeous clothes, food buffets, four-lane highways like the ones I saw on the TV show CHiPs, and big yellow school buses. Yes, I wanted to ride a big, yellow school bus so badly!

I was excited but the thought of not seeing my family was gut wrenching. Regardless of how I felt at any given moment, I knew what I had to do and I did it. I was 14 years old when I kissed my family goodbye and boarded a flight bound for Los Angeles from Manila, carrying my brown Philippine passport and my favorite doll. Life began to change for me and my family from that day forward.

Welcome to America, Land of Opportunity

I now say that from the instant I landed at LAX, this country welcomed, raised, and provided opportunities for a child it knew very little about. I was welcomed by my wonderful American foster family in Michigan, who to this day I lovingly call Mom, Dad, Bro, and Sis. I was also given an opportunity to attend a Girls in Engineering summer program for high schoolers at Michigan Technological University, which I give much credit to me eventually pursuing a degree in engineering.

As a freshman, at the age of 16, at the University of Missouri – Rolla (now Missouri University of Science & Technology) and throughout college, I received acceptance, encouragement, and support from amazing friends and family. It wasn’t just about getting through my challenging engineering classes, it was also about helping me fit in socially as a younger college student still trying to assimilate into a new culture. So many things could have gone awry at this most formidable and impressionable time but I was surrounded by these smart, well-grounded girls, many of whom are now successfully balancing their careers with family life. We were sisters. They inspired me and made everything easier. By the way, don’t hold our big hair against us. It was the 80s!

Upon graduation, I was hired as an entry-level engineer by the then VP of Engineering of a telecomunications company, WilTel (eventually became part of MCI Worldcom and now Verizon). He interviewed me on Career Day at the university, saw potential despite my lack of any kind of relevant work experience. My resume at that stage consisted of two not overly impressive jobs: babysitter and part-time receptionist. But thanks to a reputable school, decent grades, community service, and an interview that apparently showcased my eagerness to work hard and learn, those were enough for him to take a gamble. I was given a real corporate job right out of college at age 20. I was invited to join the company’s Engineering Rotation Program where I learned the business as part of three different groups: Provisioning & Maintenance, Field Operations, and Sales Engineering. On top of that, I was now working in a tall, shiny building on the 25th floor!

I was a child, far away from my family, and in a big new world. The people of this country not only gave me a shot, they guided and supported me along the way. Little did they know, they were helping not just an eager Filipino kid, but her family, and (hopefully) many more children.

Blessed with Awesome People in My Career

Last year, after over two decades since I started working at WilTel, we had a company reunion in Tulsa, OK. Here’s a photo of many of the people that took a chance on me and gave me a solid start in my career. It was as if no time had passed, except for our wrinkles, a few more pounds, and some gray or missing hairs. I cherished that time with my former colleagues, early mentors, and the risk-taking man who hired me, Russ Ray. We were all smiles and we truly enjoyed the company of friends as we walked down memory lane and reminisced of the good ol’ days.

Fast forward to more recent times, my family in the Philippines is doing well. Although it took twelve years from the time I left there before I saw them again, I see them more often now (but still not often enough). I sometimes even have opportunities for surprise drop-by’s in Manila when I’m traveling for work in Asia. They have also visited us here in the U.S. for weeks at a time. Facebook, FaceTime, text, and messenger certainly help us stay connected.

I now have a family (hubby, daughter, son, and a puppy) of my own that I adore and a great career as a marketing executive in the technology industry. I’m currently working at Brocade, a Silicon Valley-based networking company, with amazing human beings and one of the best Marketing teams I’ve ever been a part of. This team, led by our fearless leader Christine Heckart, challenges status quo, works hard to drive growth for the business, as well as provides opportunities and takes good care of people. Even when we need to make tough decisions about people, as any manager must during corporate transformations, it’s always done with compassion. This team does all it can for the 3Ps: profit, planet, and people. No, we’re not chefs. (Thank goodness or we’d risk starvation!) This is our Marketing leadership team at our cooking team building event in San Jose, CA.

There are other equally great companies and people between my stints at WilTel and Brocade. I have learned, have progressed in my career, and have become a better leader, worker, friend, mother, wife, and person overall because of them. Unfortunately, I don’t have photos of them to share here but you can read about their awesomeness in my article, The Best Gifts are Priceless and Should be Regifted… Really.

My journey, even here in America, hasn’t been easy, just like the journeys of so many others. And I know that many others with far tougher journeys have also persevered. Throughout this journey, even when I felt like I was being rejected from something good, as they say, I was actually being redirected towards something better. All true. I wouldn’t change a thing. For this, I am grateful.

The Cycle Continues

So I share this with you not knowing all the reasons why. Perhaps it’s the burning desire to pay it forward and express gratitude to this country and its people. Maybe it’s a combination of that and the hope that people will come together someday in what seemingly is becoming a frighteningly divided America. Or, it could be because of my little boy.

Three years ago, we adopted a 2-year-old baby boy from an orphanage in the Philippines. He’s a beautiful child inside and out with the biggest personality, loving demeanor, and an extraordinary zest for life. Seeing the world through his eyes is an everyday gift. Looking back, if we could’ve brought home more children from the orphanage that day, we would’ve.

True to its very core, America once again welcomed an immigrant child with open arms and is helping us raise him. His story is still unfolding and there are many chapters left to be written for him. Knowing my son, he will give back to this country and the world many times over.

America, I am eternally grateful and indebted to you. I will never forget my roots, the path I took, and the special people along the way who got me to where I am today. Let’s keep the cycle going together, one child (immigrant or not) at a time, with acceptance, encouragement, guidance, love, support, and inspiration.

Let’s help the children understand, gain perspective, and empathize with the tough life that many have all around the world. We must not be afraid to let them experience hard work, disappointment, rejection, and failure, as it is with these experiences that they learn the most. Empathy, compassion, and gratitude may be some of the most difficult human qualities to ingrain given the better opportunities, technology innovation, and instant gratification that are prevalent in our society into which children are born today. But I believe that these same things allow the children to experience the world, interact and engage, as well as impact other people’s lives in more, different, and better ways. May we always have a special place in our hearts and minds for the children, channel their energy in the right direction, and encourage them to keep it going. It’s our moral and social responsibility to do so to help heal, unite, and make the world a better place.

I thank you for giving me a few minutes of your time and, as always, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Or just a thumbs up or share if you’re in with us to help continue the cycle.

This article was originally published on Brocade.com.

With Broadcom’s recent acquisition of my company, Brocade, I find myself reflecting on the enormous transformation journey that our Marketing tribe has traveled even while our business was helping customers transform themselves. In my 20+ years in the technology industry, this is by far the biggest transformation — the evolution towards a digital business typified by the rapid pace of innovation, on-demand products and services, personalization, automation and intelligent systems, ecosystems, and new business models. There is no book on best practices (yet). Key learnings happen every day. Ecosystems are forming, storming, and norming. How we work and work together are changing. New leadership principles, some counter to traditional thinking, emerge and, in true digital form, are quickly iterated.

As leaders, we have no choice but to embrace the changing dynamics, lead the change, and raise these challenges as banners that people want to follow. Better yet, we want others to lead alongside and inspire crowds to join on the journey.

For me, three key leadership principles have bubbled to the top, working well for our Marketing teams at Brocade. I won’t claim flawless execution by these principles, far from it. But in my opinion, we achieved more and went further than we would have imagined had these not been our culture. Most certainly, the importance of these leadership principles have been amplified in the evolution towards a digital business:

• Think big, start small, move fast
• Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good
• Allow ourselves to fail fast

Think Big, Start Small, Move Fast

Think Big, Start Small, Move Fast is about vision, strategy, and execution.

• Think Big – Change is difficult, but moving to a digital business forces our hand to change and challenge status quo. As leaders, we set and articulate a vision that inspires and amazes our teams, peers, stakeholders, partners, and customers to change. They want, and will drive, change because they are excited and believe in the vision.
• Start Small – This is part of strategy. It’s about envisioning the end point, projecting how to get from here to there, and take the first steps. For many, it will be complex. It will take time. And it won’t take the most direct path of least resistance. Therefore, it behooves us to lean into the first steps and allow ourselves to zig or zag along the way as market dynamics change.
• Move Fast – Breaking it down into small steps allows us to start, execute, and quickly get a few key successes and learnings under our belt. Before we know it, we have accomplished enough baby steps to call it a giant leap forward.

Don’t Let Perfect be the Enemy of the Good

This isn’t about cutting corners. This is about recognizing that things change quickly; no one has the end all, be all answer; and industry dynamics have created this rare opportunity for us to share ideas without significant penalties. If we wait until something is “perfect,” we face at least two major issues: 1) there is no agreed-upon checklist that describes perfect, and 2) we’d be watching the market pass us by as we play an unending game of catch-up.

This principle is particularly important in establishing thought leadership in the market. Quite ironically, despite the intense drive to succeed quickly, it’s a forgiving environment that welcomes fresh ideas even when they’re not fully baked and are full of holes. The market thrives on this – taking an idea and building upon it with others. There is much less glory in coming up with the perfect idea all on your own nowadays. In fact, even if it turns out to be a flawed idea, there’s value in knowing what things we should eliminate to get closer to the right answer; which takes us to the next leadership principle.

Allow Ourselves to Fail Fast

We need to create an environment where people feel safe to try new and different things, where failure is seen as progression towards achieving success. We don’t need to do everything in our power to see if it will work or not. We just need to quickly recognize or even predict that something will fail, learn from it, and move on to the next. The faster we fail, the faster we succeed.

This is why I love the idea of creating hypotheses and doing some quick tests to prove or disprove them. We’ve used this quite a bit at Brocade in creating and testing provocative statements and thought leadership stories. Small pilot programs fall in the same category as working with advisory board customers, providing unbiased good, bad, and ugly feedback without undue judgment.

Although some people may inherently live by these principles already, I would call it rare. For many, this is counter to what we’ve learned throughout our careers. Very few have heard that it’s ok to fail. Or that perfect isn’t necessarily good. Or taking baby steps and figuring things out along the way is acceptable. From my experience, it’s worth communicating and reinforcing. Say it. Write it. Share it. Live it. Then lather, rinse, repeat.

Also listen to my podcast interview where I went into more depth about these leadership principles

If you enjoyed the post, please click the thumbs up icon below and let me know! And feel free to share in the comments your thoughts and other leadership principles that have emerged or have become more important in this digital transformation.

This article was originally published on Brocade.com.

Today, technology requires increasingly less from humans, less human intervention and direction. Think automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, controllers and orchestrators, robotics, application-awareness, policy-based capabilities, virtualization, programmable devices including chipsets, intent-based networking, IoT-related (Internet of Things-related) technologies, and so much more. How should the way we market technology change given this dynamic?

How we market technology needs to be more human as technology needs less from humans.

Deliver What Customers Need, Not What They Expect

As humans, we’re conditioned to expect certain behaviors from those with whom we interact. Customers expect vendors to market and sell their products. They expect vendors to discuss how great their products are, what’s different about their products compared with the competition, and what they’re doing to even further improve these products. They don’t expect vendors to discuss business outcomes and human impacts.

I recall a GTM (Go To Market) workshop that I led for a business unit at a CSP (Communication Service Provider) customer in Asia. At the end of the workshop, the head of the business unit said to me, “We got what we needed, but not what we expected.” Unsure of what he meant, I asked him to explain further.

He said that he expected us to give them an overview of our products, capabilities, and roadmap related to SDN, NFV, automation, virtualization, fabrics, and security. But instead, he was pleasantly surprised that we showed him our keen interest in helping his business be successful. We discussed ideas for potential revenue-generating services that they can offer, key learnings and best practices from other CSP offerings, what segments to target, how to position and message the value to end users, and what the potential business and financial impacts might be. He and his team got what they needed. I’ve shared in my article Four Fictions About Developing Virtualized Managed Services, some of the topics we discussed in the GTM workshop.

It ended up being the highest form of praise. We were invited back; introduced to new stakeholders at higher levels; earned the right to talk about our enabling technologies, products, and a POC (Proof of Concept); as well as asked to help them with their GTM strategy later on.

Capture Hearts and Minds, Then Wallets Will Follow

As an industry, we’ve done a much better job marketing what IoT technologies make possible in smart city use cases. Many thanks to city, municipal, and other government entities that shine the spotlight on the greater human challenges and issues. It’s much more interesting and inspiring when we talk about how technology is used or will be used to:

• Optimize energy consumption and waste collection
• Control pollution and traffic
• Improve public transportation and parking systems
• Enhance the use of electric cars and bike sharing
• Control and manage flooding
• Bridge the digital divide, and more

The stories become more compelling when we couple the greater vision with results and savings to the cities and users, as referenced in this article about the top smart cities in the world: Barcelona, Copenhagen, Singapore, London, Seoul, and Helsinki.

As someone with young children and a fan of family entertainment and movies, this The Jim Henson Company video about how technology makes stories come alive in more magical ways is one of my favorites.

Customers need to know less about technology when the technology inherently does so much more of what customers used to have to do. They can be less smart about networks as networks become smarter.

We can readily see the storytelling why-how-what sequence in action. If we capture the customers’ hearts and minds first by telling inspiring stories about why people should care (impact on the world, businesses, and users), then the wallets can follow more easily as we talk about the how (way it solves problems and brings about change) and what (technologies and products needed).

• Why – Traditional hand-manipulated puppets can now move into the digital space while performing and interacting with each other simultaneously to create a scene. Think about the impact on family entertainment, children’s learning progression, and imaginative play. This is what is possible. This inspires.
• How – There’s an enormous amount of data that needs to move around to make this happen. Technology reduces transfer time of digital data from cameras to storage in under 30 minutes from eight hours, speeds how artist machines connect to storage, and provides more efficient ways to connect storage systems.
• What – The Brocade switch fabric is the product. Only at this point in the story does the product become more relevant.

The notion that customers make decisions emotionally yet research logically should be at the forefront of technology marketing, now more than ever. Customers should hear more about what technology can help them do, what it makes possible, and less about the technology itself. In fact, solely focusing on technological benefits for task-level activities could be threatening to certain job functions and roles.

In previous industry inflection points, orders of magnitude in technology improvements (e.g., highest port densities, any service on any port, smallest footprint, lowest power consumption etc.) were sufficient to drive the necessary change and business success. Today, it’s not just about performance or technology, it’s a business model evolution that relies on simplicity, agility, business outcomes (e.g., monetization), and realization of a grander vision for humanity.

The rules of marketing haven’t changed. We still need to market to and connect with humans. It’s a human engagement. But what has changed is the customers’ heightened sensitivity to more human messages that focus on the why and not just the what, as we go through this digital transformation.

I would love to hear your thoughts and other ideas for marketing in this digital transformation phase.