Octopus Digital Strategy
100 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 7 years ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingWelcome to Octopus. This series is an exploration of digital strategy, its place within the broader marketing ecosystem and the people who have made it their career. It is designed to help prospective digital strategists get started in the industry and chart a roadmap for their careers with insights and perspectives from those that have worked in this space and helped shape it.
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Episodes
Episode 104: Time To Say Goodbye
April 30, 2017 14:54 - 3 minutes - 5.31 MB“What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies”. Jack Kerouac always had a way to capture a moment. And this is the moment, at the 2-year mark, to say goodbye.
Episode 103: Keeping It Real
April 23, 2017 17:15 - 4 minutes - 6.84 MBWhy do people buy? They believe that what you are selling is going to fulfill their need. And that's the key word...believe. For them to believe this fact, they have to trust. And in an industry based on artifice, to instil trust, nothing matters more than authenticity.
Episode 102: The Digital Strategist As Integrator
April 16, 2017 23:20 - 5 minutes - 8.49 MBWe have previously discussed the emerging opportunities and threats presented by automation and artificial intelligence. Make no mistake, they are going to have a profound effect on our industry and society. But all is not lost. As we have previously outlined, the digital strategist is poised to thrive in this age of upheaval, and one of the key roles they will fulfill is the role of the integrator.
Episode 101: The Client Advocate
April 09, 2017 21:00 - 4 minutes - 6.21 MBYou sit in the eye of the storm, pulled in a hundred different directions. How do you stay focused on the right outcomes? How do you turn the chaos and energy to your advantage? You do it by remembering who you work for. You do it by being the client advocate.
Episode 100: The Truths We Hold To Be Self Evident
April 01, 2017 15:19 - 9 minutes - 13.9 MBBeing a strategist is about delivering outcomes predicated on understanding and driving human behaviours and actions. It is about understanding who your audience is, how they think, what they want, and delivering a message that motivates them to take the actions you want. Yes, in order to do so, you need to understand how to align and manipulate digital tools to deliver the right experience to the right person at the right time. But at the heart of this is an understanding of people in all o...
Episode 99: Building Consensus
March 26, 2017 17:25 - 4 minutes - 6.35 MBConsensus can be a dirty word. It implies compromise. Compromise invites committee thinking. And committee thinking is associated with safe and uninteresting solutions. But without consensus, we can't deliver a digital strategy. How do we achieve consensus while remaining daring and innovative?
Episode 98: Strategy In The Age Of Media Crisis
March 19, 2017 18:24 - 6 minutes - 9.31 MBDigital media is having a moment, one that if not aggressively addressed will turn into a full blown crisis of confidence. Procter & Gamble CMO Marc Pritchard caused a sensation when he called on digital media providers to become transparent in the face of "crappy advertising accompanied by even crappier viewing experiences". Major advertisers, including the UK government, the Guardian and Havas have frozen all Google and YouTube advertising in the UK. What on earth is happening, how did we ...
Episode 97: Self Awareness Is A Beautiful Thing
March 13, 2017 16:53 - 3 minutes - 5.7 MBThe Ancient Greeks wrote that you should know thyself. But self awareness is a seemingly rare trait. We rush to talk, to get our opinion across without thinking about the impact on how we are perceived. Why is self awareness so important, why is it so rare, and how can we become more self aware?
Episode 96: Why Are Soft Skills So Hard?
March 05, 2017 15:19 - 3 minutes - 5.93 MBOverlooked, sidelined and dismissed, soft skills are considered less important than hard technical skills and experience. But as you grow your career, they become ever more important. What are soft skills, why are they not considered important when you first start your career, and why do they become more important as you grow?
Episode 95: The Things Left Undone
February 25, 2017 20:19 - 5 minutes - 7.62 MBWhen you're in the middle of the scrum, with a thousand requests coming at you at the same time, how do you prioritize? How do you deliver to expectations? How do you maintain the quality of your thinking and output? How do you stay sane?
Episode 94: Leading As A Digital Strategist
February 19, 2017 13:55 - 4 minutes - 6.5 MBThe strategist sits at the heart of the organization; is it any wonder your colleagues look to you for leadership? What are the traits that make a strategist a good leader, and how do you best provide that leadership as a strategist?
Episode 93: The Work
February 12, 2017 23:50 - 5 minutes - 8.17 MBIt's a nebulous and subjective thing. Who decides what great work looks like, and why? What's more, we aren't creative directors. We are digital strategists. Our work isn't designed to inspire, amuse or move. Our work is designed to perform. So before you launch, and until you have results that validate your strategy, how can you know if your work is great?
Episode 92: Digital Strategic Frameworks
February 05, 2017 20:55 - 4 minutes - 6.29 MBBringing order to chaos. Simplicity to complexity. Vision to practicality. The strategist is there to align stakeholders, solve problems and achieve ambitious objectives. But doing so is not a straightforward task. Not unless you have a strategic framework to depend on.
Episode 91: A Great Story Well Told
January 29, 2017 22:05 - 6 minutes - 9.03 MBThe spoken word. It connects in ways that the written does not. Maybe that is why the podcast, an old delivery platform that many thought was past its prime, is enjoying such a revival. The podcast allows us to tell stories, provide context and connect on a human level, and it holds a very important place in the role of an integrated digital strategy.
Episode 90: The Need For Speed
January 22, 2017 19:40 - 4 minutes - 6.77 MBYou have an aggressive annual objective. You need an innovative strategy to achieve it. But each week you take on developing your strategy represents 2% of your year, and sets you that much further behind your goal. You now have a steeper hill to climb, and in less time. How do you square the requirement to spend an appropriate amount of time researching and planning, with the need for speed?
Episode 89: The Digital Strategist As Visionary
January 15, 2017 20:11 - 5 minutes - 7.71 MB‘If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea’. Writer, poet and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s beautifully articulated perspective on motivating people gives us insight into the role of the visionary. But what does it mean to be one, why is it important to be a visionary and why is the strategist the right person to take on that role?
Episode 88: The Long And Winding Road
January 09, 2017 00:04 - 5 minutes - 7.73 MBStrategy is not about immediate impact, but rather about long term achievement of ambitious objectives. It doesn't constantly change; if it did then it wouldn't be strategy. So once the strategy is set, and the implementation begins, is there a role for the strategist? I believe the strategist is critical for the successful execution of a strategy once it launches because they fulfill 3 key roles.
Episode 87: Challenge Everything
January 02, 2017 06:00 - 4 minutes - 6.75 MB"I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think". This quote from Socrates, articulated over 2,000 years ago, sits at the heart of the teaching method he created, the Socratic Method. This debate driven approach to challenging ideas and finding common ground is as valid today in the context of the work of the strategist as it was in the classical age.
Episode 86: Team Of Rivals
December 26, 2016 20:28 - 5 minutes - 7.67 MB"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe". Abraham Lincoln served as the 16th President of the United States until his assassination in 1865. During his time as President, he led the nation through one of the most traumatic experiences in its history, the Civil War. A deeply astute politician, Lincoln was a frontiersman and self-trained lawyer, and is a man from whom we can draw three key lessons to make us better strategists.
Episode 85: I, Robot
December 18, 2016 18:56 - 5 minutes - 7.99 MBArtificial intelligence. Machine learning. Cognitive computing. The robots are coming, and they are going to have a profound impact on our industry. But don't despair. Don't give up. Don't rage against the machine. Prepare yourself for their arrival, because the age of automation needs the strategist more than ever.
Episode 84: Beyond Understanding
December 11, 2016 20:39 - 5 minutes - 8.18 MBBill Clinton once famously said ‘I feel your pain’. Not ‘I understand‘ or ‘I see‘, but ‘I feel‘. Empathy. It’s the difference between being an observer and an active participant. And in our data first world, it is often overlooked. But without empathy, we can’t execute on our vision. Without empathy we can’t lead. Without empathy our campaigns won’t work. Without empathy, we can’t be strategists.
Episode 83: The Mystic
December 04, 2016 22:01 - 5 minutes - 8.4 MB'If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?' Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi was a 13th Century poet, scholar and Sufi mystic whose writings continue to inspire across cultures and languages, making him the best selling poet in the United States. Rumi's teachings are guided by the concept of Tawhid, or the union with the Beloved, and that the path for achieving this was through music, poetry and dance. Within these teachings are universal truths that allow us, as strate...
Episode 82: The Blue Ocean
November 26, 2016 18:38 - 5 minutes - 7.76 MBIn 1997, Apple unveiled its ‘Think Different’ campaign, marking its re-emergence as a powerhouse in the industry. The idea of being different is not only compelling, it’s important. In a crowded marketplace, you can do what everyone else is doing, or you can apply the concepts of the Blue Ocean Strategy and create your own market. These concepts matter today in the practice of digital strategy, and will matter ever more as the space becomes more crowded and competitive.
Episode 81: The Veil Of Ignorance
November 20, 2016 19:35 - 5 minutes - 7.34 MBHow do you figure out a path if you don't know the destination? What about if you have no idea about the resources at your disposal to get there? This is not a fanciful or hypothetical question, but a challenge that we are faced with often as strategists. When you have too little information, it can be tempting to walk away from the situation. Rather than do that, try seeing the challenge for what it really is, an opportunity, and apply a guiding approach to pierce the veil of ignorance and ...
Episode 80: The 4 Principles To Thrive In Change
November 12, 2016 21:32 - 6 minutes - 9.9 MBAnxiety. Despair. Paralysis. Rapid and dramatic change can be dizzying and debilitating. But it need not be. If we prepare ourselves appropriately, and approached pragmatically, change can be empowering and transformative. Here's how to thrive in a changing environment.
Episode 79: Strategy Is More Than A Collection Of Tactics
November 07, 2016 03:08 - 5 minutes - 8.31 MBIt's a common problem in digital marketing. We jump straight to execution without first developing the strategy. For many that work in this space, strategy is nothing more than a collection of tactics. Why is this sentiment so prevalent, how does it impact our work, and what is the benefit of treating strategy as more than a collection of tactics?
Episode 78: Applying Porter's 5 Forces To Digital Strategy
October 30, 2016 20:29 - 7 minutes - 10.1 MBToo often, when we think of our work in digital marketing, we consider it purely through the lens of the technology we are working with. In doing so, we forget the strategic frameworks that have been applied in planning for decades. How relevant are these frameworks to the work of the digital strategist, and how do they apply? To answer that question, let's look at one of the most interesting, Porter's 5 Forces.
Episode 77: Winning In Difficult Situations
October 23, 2016 19:27 - 5 minutes - 8.24 MBSome weeks it feels like all we do is fight fires. This can be exhausting and demoralizing. But worse that that, it can serve to cause us to take our eyes off our goals, lose perspective, and make decisions that might alleviate the short term pain, but work to undermine the long term strategic objective. Here's how to win in difficult situations.
Episode 76: The Digital Strategist As Renaissance Man
October 16, 2016 19:31 - 7 minutes - 10.8 MBIn 1633, Galileo Galilei was convicted of and imprisoned for heresy by the Roman Inquisition for arguing that the planets revolve around the Sun, rather than around the Earth. Astronomer, physicist, philosopher and mathematician, Galileo, along with Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and other polymaths came to characterize an era of discovery, creativity and progress, often in the face of intense resistance. They were men of the Renaissance, and as digital strategists, we should look to them a...
Episode 75: The Prince
October 09, 2016 19:28 - 7 minutes - 10.7 MBTo be called Machiavellian is to be considered unscrupulous, immoral and deceitful. This is a man that wrote that 'since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved', and 'if an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared'. Machiavelli did not see people as inherently good, but wrote that 'of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain'. Bu...
Episode 73: Herding Cats
September 25, 2016 21:23 - 5 minutes - 7.99 MBIndependent. Contrarian. Brilliant. Difficult. Nimble. Aloof. The digital strategist may be a multi-disciplinary octopus, but in our everyday skins, we can also resemble our feline friends. We like to work alone and on our own schedule. We don't like to follow the direction of others. We can come off as arrogant. We sometimes chase shiny objects. So how do you keep a team of strategists focused on working together, working within a broader team and delivering the best work that they can?
Episode 74: The Multicultural Strategist
September 18, 2016 05:10 - 21 minutes - 30.3 MBMatteo is the Senior Officer of Digital Communications and Audience Engagement at the International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere region. In this role, he is responsible for uniting the Communications and Development departments in order to create a comprehensive digital strategy that both ensures IPPF/WHR's enhanced presence in social media and strengthens the organization's online fundraising efforts. Prior to joining IPPF/WHR, Matteo spent more than eight years buildin...
Episode 72: Hiring Digital Strategists
September 10, 2016 18:23 - 7 minutes - 10.4 MBFinding the right digital strategist to join your team is hard. Not only are you hiring in a competitive marketplace, it is incredibly difficult to evaluate the skills of individuals in this space. The word ‘strategist’ is overused to the point that it is almost meaningless. In any given interview for this role, I could find myself speaking with a salesperson or a technologist. And the interview itself is an odd kabuki dance where it often feels like the participants are masking their true s...
Episode 71: Should I Stay Or Should I Go
September 05, 2016 21:01 - 5 minutes - 8.26 MBYou've had a bad day. Your project isn't delivering. Your colleagues are grumpy. The client is being unreasonable. Your manager is disinterested. And when the phone rings, there's a recruiter on the other end of the line, painting a vision of opportunity elsewhere. How do you know when to ignore the call of greener pastures and when to move on?
Episode 70: From Inception To Action
September 04, 2016 19:22 - 5 minutes - 8.45 MBIt's the most common complaint about digital strategists. We swoop in, ask some questions, dictate direction and then leave it to others to implement. All too often, it's a fair description of how many choose to conduct themselves. But without collective ownership of the strategy, it is unlikely to ever get implemented correctly, if at all. Without implementation, we can never prove the value of our ideas. And the way to get things implemented is through the mental sleight of hand called Inc...
Episode 69: Do You Feel Like A Fraud?
August 27, 2016 16:42 - 6 minutes - 8.76 MBYou're halfway through your presentation and you feel good. Your audience is receptive, their body language positive and engaged. All except one person. He's sitting with his arms crossed, defensive and with a troubled expression on his face. Suddenly, his expression changes, he leaps out of his chair and pointing at you, calls out 'wait a second...he's a fraud!'. Maybe this hasn't happened to you. It has yet to happen to me. And yet, it amazes me how often I feel like this is going to happ...
Episode 68: Taking The Leap
August 22, 2016 00:12 - 5 minutes - 8.24 MBOur parents graduated, entered the workforce in their twenties, and stayed with the same organization, often in a similar field for the entirety of their careers. They were also often able to comfortably afford their own homes in their early twenties, but hey, it was a different time. Everything has since changed. The security that previous generations experienced in their work no longer exists. We live in a time of anxiety and change like we have never seen before. Technology has disrupted...
Episode 67: Sun Tzu
August 14, 2016 13:41 - 6 minutes - 9.66 MB“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Preparation. It's at the heart of the Art of War. The idea that knowledge is power, that careful and cold-eyed examination of your relative strengths and weaknesses and those of your competitors are what have made this a critic...
Episode 66: The Marketing Strategist
August 07, 2016 23:08 - 4 minutes - 6.7 MBGeneral Douglas MacArthur once famously said that ‘old soldiers never die; they just fade away’. Is it time for the digital strategist to just fade away? Have we reached the point of maturity and integration in our industry that there is no longer a need for our role? Should we now simply be considered as marketing strategists?
Episode 65: Ulysses
July 30, 2016 14:30 - 6 minutes - 8.9 MB"The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on". Ulysses S. Grant was an uncomplicated, plain-speaking man who had an exceptional career. The most acclaimed Union general of the American Civil War who went on to win election twice as the President of the United States, Grant's early career was one characterized by failure that could have led to a lifetime of historical obscurity had it happened...
Episode 64: Embrace The Chaos
July 25, 2016 00:47 - 4 minutes - 6.49 MB“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.” If you need to be in control at all times, don’t choose this career. If you think all decisions should be based solely on logic, don’t choose this career. If you fear change, don’t choose this career.
Episode 63: Hypothesis Driven Strategy
July 17, 2016 16:38 - 5 minutes - 8.08 MBIn his book, Blink, The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell argues that spontaneous decisions are as good as, or even better than, carefully planned and considered ones. Does this fly in the face of the role of the strategist?
Episode 62: Home For A Rest
July 10, 2016 23:25 - 4 minutes - 6.2 MBOurs is a competitive and complex industry. To stay ahead of the pace, indeed, to set the pace, we need to constantly learn, constantly think, constantly be challenged. We need to integrate our work and lives. But sometimes, it all comes to a crashing halt if we don't stop, rest and recharge.
Episode 61: Interviewing For A Strategic Role
July 04, 2016 09:49 - 5 minutes - 7.62 MBWhether moving into a strategic role, or to the next role as a strategist, you will have to navigate a number of interviews. In any given month, I am lucky enough to interview a lot of people for a wide variety of roles within our organization. I always look for the same traits and am consistently baffled when people don't exhibit them. What do you need to know, to prepare, and to articulate in order to ace the interview?
Episode 60: Fireproofing Your Digital Strategy Career
June 26, 2016 14:39 - 4 minutes - 7.25 MBClosing the barn door after the horse has bolted. Buying fire insurance while your house is burning. Googling 'how to move to Canada' after your compatriots have voted poorly. After a calamity has happened is the worst time to prepare for it. So what is the best way to fireproof your digital strategy career?
Episode 59: The Fallacy Of The Lone Wolf
June 12, 2016 19:44 - 4 minutes - 6.2 MBThe idea of being the lone wolf is an attractive one for the strategist. As generalists whose skills are in high demand, it is easy to feel like a singular talent whose best path would be as a sole contributor. This idea is a mistake. We have actively explored the fact that the skill set we bring and cultivate as strategists is an unusual combination of digital expertise and business acumen. In an industry of specialists, we are the generalists that pull the various elements together. We co...
Episode 58: The Stoic Strategist
June 12, 2016 19:41 - 4 minutes - 6.16 MB'You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength'. Almost 2,000 years ago, the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote his masterpiece, Meditations, 'a literary monument to a philosophy of service and duty, describing how to find and preserve equanimity in the midst of conflict by following nature as a source of guidance and inspiration'. I believe that the philosophy he espoused, stoicism, is one that is perfectly in tune with the role of the strat...
Episode 57: The Power Of Brevity
June 06, 2016 00:15 - 3 minutes - 5.16 MB'I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead'. Mark Twain would have been writing about digital practitioners had he written that today. How many times have we sat through interminable presentations with 140 slides of data, minutely dissecting every point, speculating endlessly on the causes of fluctuations in performance? For people who work in communications, we sometimes find it hard to communicate. Why is that? Why can't we be direct? Why can't we get to t...
Episode 56: In Defence Of Being Difficult
May 29, 2016 13:58 - 5 minutes - 7.34 MB‘The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”’. Contrast that quote by Jack Kerouac with the direction we are given in our everyday work lives to comply. Comply with process...
Episode 55: Don't Be A Strategist
May 23, 2016 14:19 - 4 minutes - 6.43 MBWriting in Quartz, Kevin Delaney recently stated that he doesn’t “think anyone should have the word strategy in their job title”. Needless to say, I beg to differ. But what is the basis of the argument he articulates? What is the case for the prosecution?