Jun Vicente, @giuvicente, Unsplash
by Lisa Boylan, current association, published by ASAE: Association Leadership Center
Brian Solis delivers the keynote speech ASAE Technology Discovery Conferencee In Washington, D.C. To set the stage for everyone, Associates Now interviewed Brian before his presentation to get his thoughts on the new digital world.
Best-selling author, digital anthropologist and futurist Brian Solis believes that disruption could be a gift. On the positive side: it creates a timeless consumer segment that leads the way.
There is a different, inclusive generational category that has nothing to do with birth year span or the stereotypes and baggage they often carry, such as baby boomers or millennials. Instead, meet a generation of fiction. Created by Salesforce’s global innovation evangelist Brian Solis, Generation N refers to a new type of customer that could be forever changed by the pandemic.
Generation N is digital-first and cross-generational, so whether consumers are 25 or 55, they will have similar interests, behaviors and desires when they use their favorite apps or online services.
“The reason it’s so deep is that it’s a huge force in the market,” said Solis, next week’s keynote speaker. ASAE Technology Exploration Conference. “Previously it might have been a fraction of age-based, but now it’s a full-blown imperative.”
The benefits of disruption
In the past two years, everything has been disrupted. “It’s so profound, it leaves a somatic mark on each of us, a visceral emotional bookmark that we’ll hold forever,” Solis said. But people persevered, and in some cases didn’t even know it.
Solis sees the destruction as a gift. “As the market evolves, disruption becomes inevitable,” he said. “It’s a historical phenomenon called creative destruction. The old gives way to the new.” Research backs it up: According to McKinsey’s ‘accelerated’ research, 75% of U.S. consumers have tried a different store, website or brand, and most will stick with these new brands post-pandemic.
“The core of Gen N is essentially the core of today’s business,” Solis said. “The digital-first world is a hybrid world—a world of consciousness, from communications to the services the association provides its members, to marketing—everything needs to be reimagined for this new world.”
Put “S” in copperCustomer Experience
A paradigm shift is perspective. “Technology is no longer an issue,” Solis said. “The presence of technology actually makes things not only more human, but special — even magical.” Now it comes down to how people want to deploy the technology. Due to the pandemic, the No. 1 move that businesses are investing in today is customer experience (CX).
CX can be a technology that improves the customer experience, or it can be completely reimagined. “Let’s add an apostrophe to the customer experience,” Solis said. “Let’s remind ourselves that this is the customer’s experience.”
It starts with understanding what customers value, what they don’t value, and what they get elsewhere. The goal should be to design better experiences that benefit customers. Because if they don’t have a great experience, they’ll remember, Solis said.
