No matter where this holiday season finds you, here’s hoping you’re encountering peace amidst the hustle and bustle of wrapping up another year end. We hope also that you can muster a bit of gratitude for all that transpired in 2019, whether your expectations were knocked wildly out of the park or if you swung and missed a few too many times.
Gratitude and Recognizing Individualism is Key
The holiday season is one that brings our individuality to the forefront. While we gather for family events and office parties or get out into the streets to do some holiday shopping, we find ourselves among people. And, just like in customer engagement and loyalty marketing, we soon realize that just because we are in the center of a group, each person has individual needs, preferences and expectations. While some might feel connected and relevant, others might identify with being ignored, even undervalued.
We’re getting a bit Zen here because we realize that when reaching to become the global voice of customer loyalty, we are in an interesting position of serving all who participate in this corner of the marketing world, but also doing our best to meeting individual needs. Just like you’ll read here, machine learning has taken us a step closer to marketing to customers on an individual basis, but we’re not quite there yet.
Journalism is important; did we need this reminder?
Sharing content from a practitioner’s point-of-view with a standard to remain unbiased and to exercise independent thinking is our “means to an end”. There are five types of acknowledged journalistic style and, in the course of the year, we practice each and every one: investigative, news, reviews, columns and feature writing.
That leads us to the core of our trade, the skillset that matters. We are practitioners, students, researchers, all of that, but down deep we are writers.
Writing is considered by many to be nearly a lost form of art. It’s a process that can be challenging at times, mostly due to its “recursive” nature. In other words, you think and plan, draft, write, revise, edit, and maybe tear it all up to start again from scratch.
There must be easier ways to make a living, but there’s one quote that keeps us energized and focused: “Journalism is the first draft of history”.
The quote is attributed to Philip Leslie Graham who served as publisher and later co-owner of The Washington Post. His wife, Katharine Graham, later became the first female publisher of a major American newspaper in the 20th century. As it turns out, the phrase "first rough draft of history" is generally attributed to Graham, but its origins can be traced back to Alan Barth, an editor at the Post who coined this phrase during the 1940s.
Some statements endure the test of time. As we cover the news, stories and trends that define customer loyalty marketing today and share our access to the brightest minds in the business leading both brands and technology / service providers, we are indeed writing the first draft of tomorrow’s best seller about customer loyalty.
Best Wishes into the next Decade
This is a community effort and the community is growing. Stick with us, stay informed, and ensure that you are part of the professional community that transforms the customer marketing industry, one day at a time. Season’s Greetings, Happy Holidays, and All the Best for a Prosperous New Year!