Cristina Aleixendri Munoz (bound4blue) – Bringing Sustainability To The Shipping Industry

Cristina Aleixendri Munoz is the COO and Co-founder of bound4blue, a Spanish company which is actively working to make the shipping industry more sustainable and eco-friendly.

Forbes 30 under 30 recognized Cristina as one of the most promising young professionals and included her in its 2019 European list.

The shipping industry is one of the highest consumers of natural resources. According to bound4blue, the cargo vessels are currently consuming up to 4 tons of fuel per hour which can represent up to 80% of their operating costs. The industry is also producing an unsustainable amount of pollutant emissions.

The goal of bound4blue is to cut-off fuel consumption to make maritime transport more efficient and sustainable. To this end, the team at bound4blue has designed an innovative foldable wingsail which uses available and free wind power as complementary propulsion for vessels.

bound4blue – Our vision for maritime transport from bound4blue on Vimeo.

It’s a wonderful solution: elegant by design with superior efficiency.

I was curious to know more about Cristina’s work so I invited her to answer a few questions.

Here is the interview:

1. Your company is about providing organizations with clean and sustainable solutions.

When did sustainability become one of your interests?

I would love to say that I have been interested in sustainability since I was really young. The truth is that, although I thought I was aware of it, I must admit that I was “sustainable blinded” until I co-founded bound4blue in 2014.

During all these years I have had the opportunity to meet amazing companies that are also giving a solution to global problems that protect the environment while assuring the financial viability and impacting positively on our society. bound4blue has opened my eyes to my own blindness and made me consider things I had not previously considered before.

Today, we can find solutions to address the global challenges we face. Sustainability is not only part of bound4blue’s DNA but is nowadays also part of my life.

2. What challenges did you encounter while building the wingsail system?

bound4blue offers a state-of-the-art technology based on the ancient concept of sailing but using 21st-century technology. The main challenge has been taking existing technology in an advanced form and adapting it to merchant shipping requirements.

It took us a lot of time to design folding and unfolding mechanisms which would strike an optimum balance between its price and the simplicity of the manufacturing process, without compromising safety.

Security was one of the main concerns we had and the main issue we have overcome. We have designed a safe wingsail in harsh weather conditions and power failure. In the event of full power loss, the wingsail is able to fold without power thanks to the systems used to fold/unfold it. Also, the wingsail operational maximum load is selected according to the vessel performances and the expected sailing areas. The system ensures that the maximum operational load is not surpassed by controlling wingsail angle of attack and/or folding the wingsail with our automated control system.

3. Share with us your vision of the future.

I read a few days ago that, in order to sustain our current lifestyles, three planets would be required by 2050. Clearly, we do not have 3 planets to make it. All the choices we make every day have an impact on our planet and we need to vastly increase our efforts and take action now to achieve a more sustainable future.

[bctt tweet=”Cristina Aleixendri Munoz @bound4blue: All the choices we make every day have an impact on our planet and we need to vastly increase our efforts and take action now to achieve a more sustainable future.” username=”brand_minds”]

It is not yet clear what our sustainable future will look like. Fortunately, people are starting to be more aware of issues surrounding sustainability and are becoming more conscious. I am very optimistic that things will change for the better.

With all the technologies available (and with more continuously appearing) we can do what has never been done before and push humanity forward, helping us achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.

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Who is Jeffrey Rogers?

Dear attendees, fans and supporters of BRAND MINDS, we have wonderful news!

Our panel of amazing speakers required an equally amazing host. After an extensive and thorough search, we are hereby delighted to announce that this year’s edition of BRAND MINDS will be hosted by Jeffrey Rogers.

TOP MODERATOR at SINGULARITY UNIVERSITY

Singular University is a global learning and innovation community using exponential technologies to tackle the world’s biggest challenges and build a better future for all.

Jeffrey Rogers is the Director of Faculty & Facilitator Development at Singular University.

Since 2017, he has been a top moderator of the Singularity University Executive Program and International Summit.

He also frequently speaks and leads workshops globally on future thinking, creative problem solving & leadership.

Recently he was appointed a guest lecturer and workshop facilitator at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, the Empowerment Summit in Lausanne, and the Stanford d.School.

SOCIAL SCIENTIST

A social scientist by training, Jeffrey has a knack for future-thinking.

He deeply believes in the transformative potential of emerging technologies as tools to de-risk experimentation, accelerate learning and create change.

CONNECTING FORTUNE 500 PROFESSIONALS

Jeffrey believes that better conversations and better collaborative experiences are key to creating better outcomes and a better world.

As a top facilitator at Singularity University, he regularly connects dots, ideas & people for Fortune 500 companies.

It’s wonderful to see Jeffrey speak about interesting topics such as future-thinking, the challenges our world faces today and how to address them.

Why is Jeffrey Rogers the best host for the 2019 edition of BRAND MINDS?

Because his beliefs perfectly reflect the life and work of our speakers.

Here is how:

1. Learn to think exponentially

Jeffrey Rogers states that we are living in an exponential world of accelerating change.

According to Moore’s Law, technological growth doubles every two years since the late 1960s leading to exponential changes which we can see today.

Technology has infused and changed every aspect of our lives. In this world, says Jeffrey, each tomorrow will be radically different than its respective yesterday.

We need to learn to think exponentially as a habit of mind. When we design new tools, we need to think it through. We need to take a step back and picture the consequences of bringing these tools into our world, both intended and unintended. We need to realize that when we design new tools, we are actually designing the tools that will design us.

Yuval Noah Harari is the ultimate representative of exponential thinking. His insights into the future of mankind reveal concepts and ideas such as the hacking of humans, digital dictatorship and life without death.

2. Every challenge is an opportunity

For many of us, our world might feel a lot to deal with, overwhelming at times and difficult to adapt to. This world brings a challenge at the human level, the organizational level and the society level. The solution is not to run away and hide; the solution is to adapt and take every challenge as an opportunity.

Not giving up when life gets hard is Grant Cardone’s life story. Through hard work, constant learning and setting goals, and in a short period of time, he became one of the world’s top sales training expert.

When Guy Kawasaki received the task of growing Apple’s community, he realized it was a challenge. He took it and turned it into an excellent opportunity to influence and inspire the said community thus becoming Apple’s Chief Evangelist.

Why do people behave in a certain way? What are the psychological motivations behind people’s behaviour? These are some of the questions which have set Robert Cialdini on the path to discovering the principles of human behaviour. These principles come together to form Cialdini’s Theory of Influence.

3. Breaking away from linear thinking

In the face of today’s innovations and changes, we have two options: to live forever in bewilderment or learn to think differently. Needless to say, Jeffrey supports the latter.

The first step towards thinking in a new and different way is to break away from linear thinking. In our evolution as a species, linear thinking was the foundation on which humans thrived and evolved.

In this age and era, linear thinking is leading us to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run. We need to look at known issues from a new and fresh perspective.

Dr Brené Brown applied this principle in her work. She looked at leadership through a new and surprising set of lenses: courage, vulnerability and shame. Thanks to her extensive research today’s leaders have improved leadership skills and abilities.

Professor Hitendra Wadhwa has noticed a common problem exhibited by overachievers in the business environment. He too is a supporter of different thinking which allowed him to find the best solution for this particular problem: reconciling business and personal values through personal and pro-social leadership.

We are happy to welcome Jeffrey Rogers into the BRAND MINDS family and we value his contribution to our event as the host of the 2019 edition!

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Ecoalf – Because There Is No Planet B

Ecoalf is a Spanish company which turns plastic sea waste into high-quality fashion products.

It was founded in 2010 by Javier Goyeneche after the birth of his son, Alfredo (the ALF in Ecoalf comes from Alfredo). Javier started Ecoalf after he became increasingly frustrated with the excessive use of the world’s natural resources.

Read my interview with Javier Goyeneche: Turning Plastic Sea Waste Into Fashion

Ecoalf is a sustainable fashion brand from A to Z. The company created Sea Yarn, a new 100% recycled filament which is made of the plastic bottle collection found at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

As Javier highlights in our interview, Ecoalf is not about recycling grandma’s old blanket into a backpack; it’s about innovation and design.

Mission and Vision

Ecoalf’s vision is a world where natural resources are not used in a careless way. Its mission is to create the first generation of recycled products with the same quality and design as the best non-recycled.

The company is founded on three principles: compromise, coherence and transparency. Its DNA is based on sustainability, innovation and sustainable design.

In the majority of processes, Ecoalf uses mechanical recycling – the most sustainable form of recycling.

In terms of energy consumption and CO2 emissions, the production of a recycled material thread has a much lower impact compared with conventional thread.

Here are the parameters which Ecoalf uses when determining a material’s sustainability:

• Energy consumption/CO2 emissions;
• Use of water;
• Use of the ground;
• Use of chemical products;
• Relationship with biodiversity;
• Production of solid residues.

Ecoalf’s designing team creates clothing fashion lines for women, men and children, footwear (flip-flops and sneakers) and accessories (backpack).

What recycled materials does Ecoalf use to create new products?

1. Recycled plastic bottles retrieved from the ocean by fishermen;
2. Recycled nylon (fabric scraps, fishing nets from the oceans and carpets);
3. Recycled cotton;
4. Recycled wool;
5. Recycled used tires;
6. Post-consumer coffee grounds.

Here are the results of Ecoalf’s innovative recycling process:

• More than 80 million tonnes of plastic bottles recycled so far;
• 135 grams of discarded fishing nets = 1 meter of Ecoalf fabric;
• 1 Ecoalf t-shirt made from recycled cotton saves 2500 litres of water;
• Recycling nets means 27% less consumption of natural resources and a 28% reduction of greenhouse gases emissions;
• Every 1000 kg of Ecoalf fabric reduces the equivalent CO2 emissions of a car driving 9800 km;
• Production of 1000 kg of fabric saves the equivalent of 955 kg of crude oil;
• It took 2 years of research and development to come up with an innovative process by which to turn used tyres into flip-flops as tyres contain metals, antioxidants and fabric pieces.

Partnerships

Ecoalf believes in creation through transformation. The company partnered with major brands that share the same commitment to the Zero Waste philosophy.

Here are some of them:

Starbucks
Starbucks partnered with Ecoalf to create exclusive products made with recycled coffee grounds.

Swatch
Ecoalf developed an exclusive collection made with 100% recycled fabrics to dress Swatch employees. The company used 40.807 recycled plastic bottles and post-consumer cotton which saved over 30 million litres of water.

will-i-am and Coca-Cola
Ecoalf joined will-i-am and Coca-Cola to launch an exclusive and limited collection of Ekocycle garments made with Ecoalf fabrics at Harrods.

Gwyneth Paltrow
The Spanish company and the famous actress successfully designed a vest and backpack.

Apple
Ecoalf designed for Apple a special collection of stylish and eco-conscious accessories.

Awards and Recognition

Ecoalf has received numerous awards and accolades in recognition of its amazing work. Here are some of them:

Recognized by PETA

Ecoalf received the PETA Award for its 100% VEGAN Collection FELDER FELDER.

A Certified B Corporation®

Ecoalf is the first fashion brand in Spain to become a Certified B Corporation. There are 2,441 Certified B Corporations in the world with 1 unifying goal – to redefine success in business. B Corporations inspire all businesses to compete not only to be the best in the world but be the best for the world.

El Confidencial-KPMG Award for the best Initiatives in Eco-efficiency.

Land Rover Award in the category of “Technology and innovation”.

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5G and The 4th Industrial Revolution

5G is the next generation of mobile internet connectivity. Experts say 5G connectivity not only means outstanding network reliability but also a major change of how we live and work – the 4th Industrial Revolution.

The connectivity benefits of 5G will make businesses more efficient and give consumers access to more information faster than ever before. Super-connected autonomous cars, smart communities, industrial IoT, immersive education—they all will rely on 5G.

Verizon

How is 5G superior to our current 4G connectivity?

Here are the most important features and benefits of 5G:

• Increased Speed: 5G is approximately 20 times faster than 4G;
• Increased Download speed: 5G offers a minimum peak download of 20 Gb/s while 4G pokes along at only 1 Gb/s;
• Lower Latency: 5G provides below 1-ms latency compared with 30 – 70 ms for 4G.

Superior speed and increased download speed mean IoT will finally be made possible and smart cities will emerge.

Lower latency makes 5G-enabled technology highly suitable for critical applications that require rapid responsiveness, such as remote vehicle control.

5G isn’t just another iteration of wireless innovation.

Ronan Dunne, Executive Vice President and Group President, Verizon Wireless

Is 5G setting the world on the path to the 4th Industrial Revolution?

5G represents a massive upscale of network technology. It will provide data transfer rates many times faster than a blink of an eye, high bandwidth and greater opportunities for connectivity and reliability.

But according to Ronan Dunne, 5G doesn’t upgrade incrementally, but exponentially which supports the advent of the 4th industrial revolution.

5G will improve many industries and make new developments possible like the following:

• Social VR;
• AR in sports;
• Smart cities applications;
• Connected cars.

Social VR is The Next VR development

No matter the latest tech developments in regards to medium or tools, what we humans look for is interaction with others. This is the case for VR also. According to Verizon, 78% of survey respondents who have used VR said they wanted to interact with other people in the virtual environment. That’s why social VR is a new development in VR in recent years.

Social VR is when users create or visit virtual environments in the company of friends, hang out in clubs, get together at parties or at the movies. 5G will help make the VR experience feel more and more real; it will usher in a world where VR becomes our primary communication system.

AR for sports – Making sports experiences more fun for younger audiences

The average fan’s age is over 40 and major sports leagues are looking for ways to attract, engage and retain younger audiences. 5G promises to take sports experiences to a whole new level and make it more exciting for fans in their twenties or younger.

The goal of all major sports leagues is to have people buy tickets and come to the stadiums. 5G-enabled AR might just be the solution.

From AR games during timeouts, participation in game quizzes and polls to AR portals which will allow fans to virtually walk into the locker rooms, on the field or into a player interview.

5G will also prove useful for improving how the audience is experiencing real-time sports matches:

The high bandwidth of 5G will also allow fans to upload their view of the game so they can switch between feeds from the cameras in the stadium to feeds from the fans point of view.

Verizon

It’s all about providing a personalized experience of the game and a personalized way to watch the game.

Smart cities – Smart society

5G has the power to lead our cities into the future. In this future, our cities will develop economically; they will be environmentally sustainable and will rise on the foundations of competitiveness, economic progress and security, social cohesion and innovation.

These smart cities will be seeds from which the smart society will bloom. A society that improves the quality of life for residents, businesses and visitors altogether.

5G could impact almost every aspect of city operations and service delivery: power and water grids, trash collection, transit, public health and education, pollution and disaster management.

Smart cities benefits:

• Smart traffic management;
• Smart grids;
• Smart homes;
• Smart healthcare and security;
• Smart transportation.

Connected cars are already here

What is a connected car?

A connected car is a car which is equipped with internet access and a wireless local area network.

Car connectivity has developed in two directions: vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) connectivity and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) connectivity.

V2V means vehicles communicating with others on the roads so drivers are made aware of the location of the other participants within traffic, their destination and speed. The benefits of this type of connectivity are many: advanced warning of traffic build-up, opportunities for drivers to adapt their driving etc. All benefits converge to a safer traffic environment and faster journey.

V2X means everything on the roads is connected: vehicles are connected with each other but also with traffic lights, the roads themselves, lampposts etc. Everything is fitted with sensors which will collect data on everything: the traffic, the condition of the roads, weather, air quality, parking spaces, etc. The collected data can be used to: automatically change the timing of traffic lights to speed up or slow down in order to avoid or reduce congestion, identify roads in need of repair etc.

[bctt tweet=”To make the 4th Industrial Revolution possible, 4G is simply not enough, but 5G has what it takes.” username=”brand_minds”]

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sources:

verizon.com/about/our-company/5g/what-5g

verizon.com/about/our-company/fourth-industrial-revolution/social-vr-new-way-form-relationships

verizon.com/about/our-company/fourth-industrial-revolution/5g-changing-future-sports

verizon.com/about/our-company/fourth-industrial-revolution/powering-fourth-industrial-revolution-5g

5g.co.uk/guides/5g-and-the-connected-car/

BRAND MINDS Conference – A Life-Changing Experience

Are you looking for a life-changing experience? Come to the BRAND MINDS Conference!

You might say

Oh, I am not going to believe you because you are biased. Everything about BRAND MINDS is amazing in your eyes.

You are totally correct! I am proud of our conference and I’m sure the rest of the BRAND MINDS team feels the same.

Our conference is the result of a 12-month hard work. Starting with the selection of the best keynote speakers of the moment, to planning the entire logistics process, communication strategy and each detail that is meant to enhance the participant’s experience – everything is designed in great detail to ensure you have the best conference experience yet.

[bctt tweet=”BRAND MINDS: Everything is designed in great detail to ensure you have the best conference experience yet.” username=”brand_minds”]

Here is why BRAND MINDS is a life-changing experience:

Growing With Each Edition

Our conference has been growing with each edition. The attendees have increased in number year after year: from 300 in 2015 to 3000 in 2018.

The 2019 BRAND MINDS conference will host over 4200 attendees.

We have a lot of surprises prepared for these amazing world-changers and we’re looking forward to welcoming them.

Committed Partners

Our partners are leading companies in their respective fields and share our commitment to organize the best conference of the year.

They provide for BRAND MINDS attendees high-quality experiences in between speakers sessions, raising the bar with each edition.

Our conference wouldn’t be the same without them!

Valuable Insights – No Fluff Content

Don’t you hate it when you attend a conference and realize you could have found better use of your time? No valuable content, nothing you haven’t heard before. It’s so disappointing!

We receive positive feedback following every edition of BRAND MINDS. Many of the attendees share the same story: they tell us how they walk into the venue with high expectations and return home at the end of the event having their expectations met and even exceeded.

No fluff content at BRAND MINDS!

We are aiming for the most valuable content. At the end of the day, our attendees leave with actionable insights, latest trends and overall a life-enriching experience.

Life-Changing Experience

We’re not saying this just to impress you.

Following the 2017 edition of BRAND MINDS, one of our attendees made a bold move: he closed his ongoing business at the time and started a new one which turned out to be highly successful. Later on, he told us he was able to switch gears and follow a different path thanks to the inspiration he had received while attending BRAND MINDS.

This is what BRAND MINDS is all about: changing lives for the better!

Relevant and Insightful Speakers

BRAND MINDS is a business-focused conference. Business is about entrepreneurship, leadership, vision, courage and life-long personal development.

Therefore we carefully select our speakers to make sure they all provide relevant knowledge into each facet of any entrepreneur’s life.

Check the speakers of our 2019 edition and judge for yourself!

Fresh and Talented Speakers

We know all successful conferences rely on the star power of their speakers. But we are not like any other conferences. Inspiration lies in diversity and sometimes the less travelled road leads to a surprising discovery.

Yes, we strive to bring on stage widely-known speakers: Gary Vaynerchuk, Seth Godin, Grant Cardone, Brene Brown, Guy Kawasaki and so on.

But our work also consists of finding fresh and talented speakers who are just getting started. That was the case of our 2018 speaker – Shed Simove.

Many raised their eyebrows in disbelief because they didn’t know who he was. Well, let me tell you – they certainly know him now!

Shed rocked the stage and made a lasting impression on everyone at the conference: attendees, camera crew members, volunteers and technical staff. He wasn’t a risk, he was our ace in the sleeve.

Here is Raluca Kisescu, Brand Consultant talking about Shed’s speech:

If any of our speakers are unknown to you, tell yourself this:

I don’t know them but if they have been selected by the BRAND MINDS team to speak at their conference then they must be worth the spotlight and my time.

And last but not least:

The Live Experience Is The Best Experience

Reading Seth Godin’s book is great, but nothing compares to seeing him live, on stage, delivering his speech. Sitting just a few steps away from him, you can feel his passion, laugh at his witty comments or think about his words deeply and purposefully.

It’s an amazingly engaging experience that you just can’t get anywhere else.

These are my arguments for BRAND MINDS being a life-changing experience.

But don’t take my word for it.

Come to BRAND MINDS and see for yourself!

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Marius Istrate (UiPath) – Success Is Being Open By Default

UiPath is one of the leading enterprise Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software companies in the world.

The company is currently valued at $3 billion and has been recently included by CB Insights in its Global Unicorn Club and AI 100, a list showcasing the 100 most promising private artificial intelligence (AI) companies in the world.

UiPath’s mission is to help companies develop an agile digital workforce that enables them to eliminate repetitive business efforts and improve operational quality.

With offices all over the world today, UiPath was founded by two brilliant Romanian engineers driven by an enduring ambition to build the best technology they possibly could.

To discover the company’s secret for success, I invited Mihai Istrate, Chief People Officer at UiPath to answer a few questions.

Question: In Comparably’s 2018 Culture Awards, UiPath ranked 6th for Happiest Companies. How do you achieve that? Who has the most important role in driving employee happiness and engagement?

Answer: UiPath’s success is strongly linked to the way it was built: as a global, diverse and inclusive company from day one. Everyone has a role in driving employee engagement because we challenge each other and we hold each other accountable for maintaining an „open by default” culture and a pleasant work environment.

A ranking cannot tell you how much effort goes into this, unfortunately: happiness at work means a lot of effort invested in listening to one another, learning from one another across borders and across departments.

[bctt tweet=”Marius Istrate @UiPath: Happiness at work means a lot of effort invested in listening to one another, learning from one another across borders and across departments.” username=”brand_minds”]

We currently have 31 offices in 19 countries, which all bring along their own culture. You achieve happiness by being inclusive and challenging people to be empathetic and listening to each other out.

Q: Building a strong community is paramount for long-term business success. What is UiPath’s approach to this subject?

UiPath has always been community driven: even the early pieces of software we developed were released publicly and we rejoiced in the community’s feedback.

It is through our community of developers that we managed to sign the first customer and understand the fit between the product we had developed, UiPath’s Robotic Process Automation (RPA) platform, and a growing market projected to reach $1.7 billion in revenue this year.

Today UiPath is 2500 people strong, but with a community of 250,000 developers behind, 25% of whom have graduated at least 1 course in our online Academy. This instils a feeling of great responsibility in our team, but, again, it is critical for holding us accountable for the quality of our work.

Q: How do you and other UiPath leaders connect your employees with your company’s mission?

We know that over-communicating and living the values, such as leading by example, are the key things to do to help everyone in our organization connect the dots and understand where we’re heading.

UiPath has expanded tremendously over the past three years, both in terms of headcount and as market positioning, becoming the leader of the global RPA market, and one of the fastest growing enterprise software companies in history.

As we grow, we are working towards keeping the organization structured in a simple and lean way. This is not to say that we have 100% achieved this: it is work in progress and there is still a long way to go. But, as we progress towards that goal, we ask our leaders, for instance: „Do you feel like you have communicated enough on the topic of psychological safety within your teams?” And if they haven’t, we challenge them to simplify their organizational structure.

Psychological safety is paramount if we are to achieve what we’ve set out to do, which is deploying a robot on every human worker’s computer.

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Read our previous Success Stories:

Travelling gamification,

Building the homes of the future,

Creating custom software,

Turning plastic sea waste into fashion,

Writing code to change the world,

Enhance your art experience with tech

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8 Marketing Trends Every Marketer Should Know About (1 of 2)

In recent years, marketers have come across various marketing trends and movements.

In this article, I talk about 8 marketing trends:

1. slow marketing,
2. people-based marketing,
3. emotional marketing,
4. empathy-based marketing,
5. neuromarketing,
6. mindful marketing,
7. omnichannel marketing
8. content shock.

So many marketing trends! You may be familiar with some of them while the others are unknown.

If you feel a bit confused, don’t worry, you are not alone! When I came across the first one, I made a note on my smartphone to remember to learn more about it. Then I came across the second, then the third. By the fourth term, it dawned on me:

If I feel I need to bring myself up to speed with all these marketing trends, I’m probably not alone. It would help me and my fellow marketers more if I brought them all together into one article!

This is a two-part article.

Allow our platform to send you notifications to make sure you read part 2 by clicking on the red bell in the corner of the page.

So let’s dive in!

1. Slow Marketing – A philosophy and a process

I read about slow marketing on Ann Handley’s blog. A quick search on Google showed that the first article on slow marketing was written back in 2012 by Tad Hargrave.

Slow Marketing is a movement and a philosophy and much to its name, it is taking its time to become mainstream.

In Tad Hargrave’s opinion, the slow marketing movement is this:

• It takes time to build relationships with your customers; as a marketer, you need to acknowledge it and take it slow;
• Take your time to plan for the long run instead of the now – long-term versus short-term;
• Instead of pressuring your clients to make a buying decision, give them time to figure out if they are the perfect fit;
• Listen before you jump into the conversations, take your time to know your customers.

Ann Handley finds a new meaning to the ASAP acronym. She suggests we should replace As Soon As Possible with As slow As Possible (AsAP).

Here is how she defines AsAP:

As slow As Possible means slowing down at the best moments to deliver the best possible results.

Ann Handley

While Tad defines slow marketing as a philosophy, Ann takes a different approach.

She advocates for balancing the fast pace of today’s marketing with slowing down moments:

• Decide when to slow down and when to go fast;
• Take your time to find your focus;
• Slow down when you need to take in knowledge and understand it (about your customers, about your industry or market);
• Speed up when you need to produce something important;
• It’s about having a lasting impact on others.

2. People-based Marketing – Delivering experiences to people, not devices

What is people-based marketing?

It’s a topic of interest for many marketers like you and me (this question is on Quora) and also for large brands like Facebook.

People move seamlessly between devices: they search for products on a desktop and purchase online on their smartphone.

The customer journey doesn’t follow a straight line anymore; it registers many ups and downs. It’s becoming increasingly harder to reach “the right person, at the right place, at the right time, with the right message”.

Facebook sees people-based marketing as a solution to this problem. As an advertiser, Facebook switched from cookie-based advertising which distorts campaign results to people-based marketing which allows for better measurement and planning.

With people-based data and tools, marketers are able to tie actions directly to real people wherever they may be and close the measurement gaps that exist with traditional cookie-based measurement—which doesn’t capture the full consumer journey.

Facebook

3. Emotional Marketing – Inspire, act and tell a story

Consumers make buying decisions based on emotions, not information or hard facts.

The emotional marketing studies how to arouse emotions in people to induce them to buy a particular product/service.

Brands that have a complete understanding of their customers’ range of emotions are successful. Putting together the emotional profile of their customers base is the foundation upon which brands build campaigns with maximum impact.

Emotional marketing refers to marketing and advertising efforts that primarily use emotion to make your audience notice, remember, share, and buy. Emotional marketing typically taps into a singular emotion, like happiness, sadness, anger, or fear, to elicit a consumer response.

Hubspot

Brands turn to emotional marketing when their goal is to inspire people to act, to create a movement/community or to tell a story.

As with our friends and loved ones, we connect with those brands which show to us they are aware of our struggles, our aspirations and goals, our problems.

We connect with and support brands which lift us up through their messages. Why? Because they make us feel good about ourselves.

Dove is among the savviest brands leveraging emotional marketing in its campaigns.

4. Empathy-based Marketing – Connecting and building trust

Empathy-based marketing is about connecting and building trust with your customers.

Empathy is feeling the same as the other person.

Empathy-based marketing is about walking in your customer’s shoes to understand their experience and how we can better help them get what they want. You don’t want to think like the customer. You want to BE the customer.

Markempa.com

Empathy happens when two people talk to each other. Through words and body language, they show they understand what the other is going through.

Show your customers you understand them by providing active listening.

Empathy-based marketing is about presenting your customers with solutions to their problems. It’s about helping them by providing valuable and useful content.

This article continues with part 2.

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Sustainable Pensions For A Sustainable Future

This article is about choosing a sustainable pension to contribute to a sustainable future.

Do you care about our planet? Are you advocating for sustainability?

There are many actions you can take to support sustainability and make sure we as a society and our planet have a cleaner, better future. You can move around town by bike instead of driving your car. You can mount solar panels on your house to cut down on your electricity bill.

If you believe these options are not for you and you are looking for something different, here it is – the sustainable pension.

What is a sustainable pension?

Irrespective of your pension provider, all pension plans work the same: your money goes into different stocks and bonds which help companies develop and grow. Therefore your pension savings have a big impact on the future: both as an individual and as a society.

Do you know where your pension money is going?

Have you ever thought about the companies which receive your money? Do you know who they are? What are they producing? Is their business model harmful to the planet?

Here are the main benefits of choosing a sustainable pension:

• You have control over which companies receive your money;
• You can avoid investments in harmful companies (producing fossil fuels, weapons or tobacco etc);
• You can invest in companies producing green energy, new technologies, medicine and health care solutions.
• You can choose companies with a high standard for ethics and responsible business practices.

Choose a sustainable pension to ensure the future is sustainable

Denmark has some of the world’s largest pensions savings so where the Danish place their money matters for their country and the world at large.

The problem is all Danish pension funds invest in coal, oil and gas. The Danish want to avoid catastrophic climate change as a society so choosing sustainable pensions is one way to achieve their goal.

Matter – Let your savings make a difference

Matter is the entrepreneurial initiative of two Danish visionaries – Niels Fibæk-Jensen and Emil Stigsgaard Fuglsang. They are the co-founders of Matter Pension and are supported by a team of five colleagues. Forbes 30 under 30 included Niels Fibæk-Jensen in its 2019 Europe list.

Matter & Skandia – partnership for sustainable pensions

The company is not a pension company; the initiative is a partnership with Skandia, a Danish pension provider.

Matter acts as a lead-generator for Skandia; it assists Skandia in analyzing and screening the investment portfolios associated with the savings of Matter customers.

We believe that pensions should be invested in making a positive social and environmental difference in order to build a world, we actually want to retire in.

Niels Fibæk-Jensen, cofounder at Matter Pension

How the Matter & Skandia partnership works

Screening criteria

The team at Matter has defined a list of criteria based on international UN agreements on areas such as human rights, climate and environment.

Based on this list, they exclude harmful companies that produce weapons, tobacco and fossil fuels, companies that do not respect human rights or are known to be involved in corruption.

They include companies that produce climate and environmentally friendly technologies, medicine and health care solutions.

Working together

Matter screens the investments, while Skandia is responsible for managing the assets and pursuing the highest possible return.

Conclusion

Sustainable pensions are a great way to ensure our future is better for our planet and our grandchildren.

It’s an innovative, long-term solution to the current climate change challenge.

It is also an incentive for today’s global business environment to start transitioning towards business models that are ethical, sustainable, have a positive impact on the workforce, society and planet at large.

Looking for a room to rent? This platform helps you out!

Moving to a new place is stressful and looking for the right room to rent is mostly the reason why.

This platform comes to the rescue: it’s free and easy to use, matching tenants with landlords and tenants with roommates.

The platform is called Badi and is the product of Carlos Pierre Trias de Bes, a Spanish young man, recently included in the 2019 Europe Forbes 30 under 30.

Badi is a mid to long term room rental marketplace.

According to statistics, by 2030 the world’s population is projected to rise by more than 1 billion, bringing the total to over 8 billion people.

Demand for rental space is going to outstrip supply. Badi is prepared to match demand and supply effectively and efficiently with the help of machine learning.

Mission

Badi is committed to making city-living accessible for everyone and everywhere by connecting people with shared spaces.

How it works:

• Register on the platform with your Facebook account;
• The platform uses the API of the social network to understand your tastes and hobbies;
• Publish a room, look for rent or a roommate by filtering the candidates on various criteria;
• When offer meets demand, the two parties have the automatic option of chatting privately;
• Arrange the appointment for visiting the rental space.

Benefits:

• Fewer frictions for both landlords and tenants;
• Safe payments – Receive/pay the first month’s rent via a secure in-app transaction to guarantee the reservation of your room;
• Stop the endless flat visits;
• Strict cancellation policy to avoid any unwanted surprises.

Locations

Countries where Badi is currently available:

UK, Spain, Hungary, Belgium, Italy, Czechia, France.

Badi in numbers:

• Founding year: 2015
• Founder: Carlos Pierre Trias de Bes
• Headquarters: Barcelona, Spain
• Number of employees: 65
• Funding status: Early Stage Venture
• The total amount of funding: $44.9M over 5 rounds, the latest was funding was raised on Jan 10, 2019, from a Series B round
• Number of investors: 11
• 2018 Badi app statistics: 6000 matches per day, over 1 million users, 120k rooms listed.

Top 3 Most Inspiring Women of The Moment

In my previous article, I talked about the women running 9 powerful businesses in Europe and how their leadership improved their companies and society overall.

In this article, I talk about three amazing and wonderful women. They’re among the MOST INSPIRING WOMEN of the moment and each of them has changed the world in a BIG way.

Here is HOW:

Top 3 Most Inspiring Women

OPRAH WINFREY – Connecting deeply with others

Although she is one of the most wealthy and influent women of our times, Oprah was born into poverty. She had a hard and difficult childhood: because her mother didn’t have enough money to buy her clothes, she would sometimes go to school dressed in a potato sack. Her mother didn’t provide care and her father was absent. It was her grandmother who saved her by placing her on the right path: education.

Thanks to her love for education, Oprah managed to overcome her hardships and become a successful woman.

Learn more: Oprah – The little girl in a potato sack who became a world-changer

Oprah is a people-person by definition. She has an innate ability to connect with and speak to people from all walks of life. She is a master of the art of interviewing.

Her secret? Making her guests feel perfectly at ease while talking about emotionally-charged topics. Who wants to open up and be vulnerable?! It’s hard enough to do it in front of your family or friends let alone strangers. With Oprah, you don’t feel like you’re talking to a stranger. You feel like you are talking to a person who is genuinely interested in your troubles or hardships.

In the past decades, Oprah has built a media empire. The Oprah Winfrey Show is the highest rated talk show of all time. She is the Chairwoman and CEO of Harpo Productions, a multimedia production company and Oprah Winfrey Network, her own pay television channel. Her net worth is currently standing at $2.6 billion.

Oprah has received numerous awards. Among the most prestigious is the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama; also she received honorary doctorate degrees from Duke and Harvard University.

Today, she is an inspiration for over 15.000.000 people from all around the world.

Let’s build connections instead of walls

The world would be a better place if we all learned what Oprah is teaching us. We are all the same. It is in our power to connect with each other. It only takes genuine interest and empathy in the other person.

What if we put our smartphone away when our partner talked to us? Devote all our attention to them and really listen?

How would our lives change if we built connections instead of walls?

How would society improve if we achieved strength by being vulnerable?

A world like that is possible.

Let’s start with the person in the mirror.

MELINDA GATES – Empowering women, reshaping societies

Melinda Gates says that words like rich and poor don’t define who we are as human beings.

She rejects the American way of dividing the world into first-world countries and third-world countries because it robs the people living there of their humanity.

“Humanity in the abstract will never inspire you in the same way as human beings you meet,” she says.

Since starting Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2001, Melinda has been travelling with her husband to countries in Africa and meeting with people in villages and small towns because all lives have equal value.

That is the vision Melinda and her husband are working towards. And a way to achieve this vision is by empowering the poorest, especially women and girls because women and girls have a unique power to reshape societies.

She believes we are finally creating the scientific and technological tools to turn the world into a brotherhood and a sisterhood.

When you invest in a woman’s health and empowerment, it has a ripple effect, helping families, communities, and countries achieve long-lasting benefits.

Melinda Gates

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is reported to be the largest private foundation in the world, holding $50.7 billion in assets.

The primary goals of the foundation are, globally, to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and, in the U.S., to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology.

For her services to philanthropy and international development, she received various recognitions and awards among which the honorary Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

In 2017 she was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal 2016 of the United Nations Association of Germany (DGVN), Berlin-Brandenburg, “for outstanding services to peace and international understanding” in the historic Berlin Town Hall.

Building a sisterhood by empowering ourselves and the women around us

As women, we struggle with so much in our everyday lives.

Just because we are women the world seems entitled to tell us how we should look and behave, how to dress, that we should fit a certain beauty standard to be successful in life.

The same goes for our professional lives. When a man is working hard to climb up the corporate ladder and advance his career, everyone calls him ambitious. When a woman is doing the same, she is called cold-hearted and career-focused. An assertive man comes off as confident and worthy. An assertive woman is called dominant, bossy and not nice. It’s workplace gender bias and it is toxic.

On top of that, there are hardly any women in the world who haven’t experienced a #metoo situation of any kind.

Before we expect the world to change, let’s change the way we see ourselves and each other.

Enough with the toxic thoughts that you are not good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough!

Stop being ashamed of who you are!

Build your confidence and then help the woman next door build hers.

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON – A successful life is a thriving life

In 2007 Arianna Huffington was working tirelessly in her role as editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post. One day she collapsed, hit her head and broke her cheekbone on the way down. The reason was not that she had a brain tumour or a heart disease. As she later realized, she suffered from burnout, exhaustion and sleep deprivation. Essentially she suffered the consequences of leading a toxic lifestyle. It was a painful wake-up call but she understood the message. She decided she would no longer subject her body to this level of stress. But to achieve that she had to change her life around.

What is a good life? What is success? These are some of the questions that Arianna began asking herself at that moment. She came to realize that our society defined success by two metrics: money and power. But just as you cannot sit on a two-legged chair, you cannot view success as only money and power. At some point, you will lose balance and fall off.

Arianna believes in adding a third metric to the definition of success: thrive.

To thrive means to take care of our wellbeing, to take care of our health, body and mind, to get the required amount of nighttime sleep.

Arianna Huffington co-founded The Huffington Post in 2005 and served as its editor-in-chief until 2016 when she stepped down from her role.

She is now dedicated to growing her new company, Thrive Global, a platform focused on health and wellness information. 

In 2012, Arianna Huffington became a LinkedIn Influencer, writing about success and sharing professional insights for 8 million followers.

In 2016, she was named to Oprah Winfrey’s SuperSoul100 list of visionaries and influential leaders and received an honorary degree from Colby College in Waterville, Maine.

She has an estimated net worth of $50 million.

Less Wonder Woman, more self-care and joy

Oh, it’s so easy for women to go down the path to exhaustion! We undertake so many tasks on a daily basis, at work and at home. We do everything for everyone! We cater to everyone’s needs but our own.

We are juggling multiple and often conflicting roles – super mom, super wife, super daughter, super sister, super friend, super career woman, super homemaker, super colleague, super employee. It’s called Wonder Woman Syndrome. It stems from low self-esteem and self-worth and leads to sleep deprivation, anxiety, depression, eating disorders and eventually burnout.

Arianna advocates for making small changes with the purpose of improving your life. How about charging your phone during the night in a room outside your bedroom? Checking your emails only after you had breakfast, talked to your husband over the morning coffee and drove your kids to school?

These changes are very small but they will improve your life immensely.

And when women thrive, societies thrive.

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9 Women Running Powerful Businesses In Europe

In recent years, reports from notable sources have found that women are driving businesses to global success.

Here’s why:

• Women have a positive impact on their colleagues and the workplace overall;
• Women give 10% more than their male colleagues leading to increased productivity;
• When teams include at least one female member, their collective IQ raises higher than teams who are all-male;
• Also in the case of organizations with more women in the workplace, employees feel a greater psychological safety, increased confidence, efficiency and openness to experimentation;
• When employees feel better about themselves, their teams and their employer, it shows: 66% increase on invested capital, 42% increase on sales return, 53% increased return on equity;
• In 2017, Rocio Lorenzo, a management consultant and diversity researcher found that organisations with women in management are more innovative;
• And last but not least, when more women join the workforce, wages rise by 10%, including for men.

Women executives and CEOs are leading the global business environment to success by employing great leadership skills, creativity, courage and long-term vision.

Here are 9 women running powerful businesses in Europe:

1. Claudia Nemat – Board Member Deutsche Telekom AG (Germany)

Claudia Nemat has been a member of Deutsche Telekom’s Board of Management since 2011. She has been at the helm of Technology and Innovation since January 2017.

A physicist by training, Mrs Nemat focuses on digital transformation, the impact of new technologies such as artificial intelligence on business models, our work and lives, complex stakeholder management, and leading global teams.

Thanks to her leadership, Germany is the first country in Europe to upgrade to 5G. Deutsche Telekom has deployed its first 5G antennas in downtown Berlin and is preparing for the first 5G-capable smartphones.

2. Daria Loi – Principal Engineer at Intel Corporation (Italy)

Daria Loi is a senior technical leader with over 20 years of experience. She has a passion for mixing design strategy with agile UX research & innovation to enrich people’s everyday life.

In her current role as Principal Engineer at Intel Corporation, she focuses on Artificial Intelligence. Throughout her career, as a user experience researcher and strategist, she contributed to a range of domains such as ambient and affective computing, smart spaces, multimodal experiences, PC and TV products, and tangible user interfaces.

3. Ana Patricia Botin – Executive Chairman of Santander Group (Spain)

Ana Patricia Botin is an experienced banker holding various roles within the industry for almost 40 years.

The banking industry is famously slow to change therefore vulnerable to tech disruption. As Executive Chairman of Santander Group, Mrs Botin is changing industry standards. Ever since her appointment in 2014, she has been leading the cultural, commercial and technological transformation of the Group, focusing on boosting customer trust and loyalty.

Under her leadership, Santander has committed to acting responsibly on behalf of its employees, customers, shareholders and the communities where it operates.

An illustration of the above-mentioned commitment is Santander’s Women Business Leaders’ Mentoring Programme. In October 2018, the bank launched its Women Business Leaders’ Mentoring Programme to deliver a mentoring scheme for the next generation of fast-growth female entrepreneurs.

4. Elvira Nabiullina – Head of the Central Bank of Russia (Russia)

Elvira Nabiullina was appointed Head of the Central Bank of Russia in 2013, thus becoming the first Russian woman in G8.

She took on the difficult task to stop the ruble’s slide and avoid a recession during Ukraine’s political crisis.

Under her leadership in turbulent times, Russia’s financial system stabilized which lead to a boost in foreign-investor confidence.

[bctt tweet=”Women executives and CEOs are leading the global business environment to success by employing great leadership skills, creativity, courage and long-term vision.” username=”brand_minds”]

5. Virginie Morgon – CEO of Eurazeo (France)

Eurazeo is a multinational publicly-listed private equity firm based in Paris, France.

Virginie Morgon joined Eurazeo’s Executive Board in 2008 and became CEO in 2018. During the past decade, she has accelerated the firm’s diversification and growth across investment strategies and geographies.

She is responsible for transforming Eurazeo into a multi-strategy international investment firm able to support companies across size and scale, from venture capital to large cap. She is one of the most powerful women in Wall Street currently managing over 17 billion euros.

As a founding member of the Women’s Forum for Economy & Society, Mrs Morgon is a vocal advocate for diversity in leadership and global equality.

6. Stina Ehrensvard – Yubico CEO & Founder (Suedia)

Yubico is the leading contributor to the FIDO U2F/2 open authentication standard; its technology is trusted by the top internet brands, including Google, Facebook, and Salesforce, and by millions of users in 160 countries.

Stina Ehrensvard is a visionary IT entrepreneur with proven track records of creating and bringing new technology innovations to global markets.

Mrs Ehrensvard co-founded Yubico in 2007; she is the co-inventor of the YubiKey, the authentication device.

7. Gillian Tans – CEO of Booking.com (Netherlands)

Gillian Tans was appointed CEO of Booking.com in April 2016.

She began her career in hotel marketing and observed early on how inefficient the practices at the time were. She saw the immense potential for the internet to fundamentally change consumers’ access to information.

Mrs Tans joined Booking in 2002 when the company was just a startup, employing a small team of twelve people.

She is not afraid to try new things; as a result of her brave leadership, her team is conducting more than 1,000 tests a day on booking.com with the purpose of improving customers’ experience.

Discover our Top 3 Most Inspiring Women Of The Moment, how they change the world and how we can contribute to improving our lives by following their example. 

8. Güler Sabanci – Chairperson of Sabanci Holding (Turkey)

Sabanci Holding is the second-largest industrial and financial conglomerate in Turkey, involved in banking, automobiles, food and tobacco, tourism, and chemicals.

Güler Sabanci is the first woman to run Sabanci Holding, her family business, which was started by her grandfather in the 1930s.

She was named Chairperson and Managing Director of Sabancı Holding in 2004. Güler Sabancı is the first female member of TUSIAD, Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association, as well as the first and only female member of the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT).

Sitting at the crossroad between tradition and modernity, Mrs Sabanci leads not only her companies but also the Turkish society.

Her leadership is founded on courage, confidence and commitment to raising the status of women in Turkey.

9. Anita Krohn Traaseth – CEO of Innovation Norway (Norway)

Innovation Norway is the Norwegian Government’s official instrument for innovation and development of Norwegian enterprises and industry.

Named the Sheryl Sandberg of Norway, Anita Krohn Traaseth was appointed CEO of Innovation Norway in 2014. She leads more than 700 people in offices in more than 30 countries across the world.

With more than 20 years of experience from the private and public sector, Mrs Traaseth’s key strengths are change leadership, strategic planning, team involvement and execution.

In 2014 she published the book Good enough for the ‘Bastards’: Courage – Vulnerability – Credibility. Confessions of a Female Leader. Although a highly successful business leader in Norway and the former Managing Director of Hewlett Packard Norway, Anita’s career journey was far from easy. The book tells the story of Anita’s success: not taking no for an answer. 

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sources: forbes.com, deutschland.de, santander.com, vanityfair.fr, linkedin.com, yubico.com, medium.com, iedp.com, lifeinnorway.net

Anna Lowe (Smartify) – Using Tech To Enhance The Way We Experience Art

Art and technology – an odd association at first glance. Is it possible to use tech to enhance the way we experience art? Let’s find out!

In recent years, tech has received a bad reputation for being disruptive, luring our attention away from our jobs or daily activities, driving us to spend hours inside their platforms.

But how we use tech is entirely up to us. Tech is merely a tool. It’s our responsibility to use tech as a means of reaching positive goals.

That’s exactly what Anna Lowe and her team had in mind when they began building the Smartify platform.

Anna is CoFounder at Smartify, a global platform for art described by the New Scientist as “the Shazam and Spotify of art”.

She was recently included by Forbes 30 under 30 in their 2019 list of the most creative Europeans putting technology to good use.

I contacted Anna and invited her to share her story with us.

1. What is the story behind Smartify? How did it all start?

Smartify grew out of four friends’ enjoyment of visiting museums and encountering art. Discovering and sharing amazing stories behind artworks remains at the heart of our mission as a global technology company.

Over the last 10 years, the rise of digital products and services has seen traditional industries being positively disrupted. Netflix and Amazon Prime did this in the movies industry, Spotify for music, Uber and Lyft for private transport and many others.

Amidst this change, the world of museums and galleries has remained largely unchanged and content consumption continues to rely on outdated means that fail to meet user expectations in the digital era.

Our ambition is to re-frame the use of smartphones as engagement rather than a distraction.

[bctt tweet=”Anna Lowe @_smartify: Our ambition is to re-frame the use of smartphones as engagement rather than a distraction.” username=”brand_minds”]

 

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We are proud to announce @_smartify is now live at the @emstathens, The National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, Greece. A national institution focused on collecting and exhibiting contemporary Greek and international art. Make sure to download the app and scan the art on your next visit! : Dimitri Bloukas

A post shared by Scan the art, get the story (@_smartify) on Jan 11, 2019 at 8:00am PST

2. What is the social impact of Smartify?

Smartify is a free app that allows you to scan and identify artworks, access rich interpretation and build a personal art collection in some of the world’s best museums and galleries.

Smartify is used by diverse groups including young people and those who may not feel comfortable in a traditional museum environment. For example, the app is developed with accessibility in mind. People with low vision can tap the artwork text to have it read out loud. The app also has a high-level zoom to help people who cannot get close to the artworks.

Smartify also has a mission to help build new audiences and revenue streams.

3. Smartify shows that technology and art can work together perfectly. Tell us about some of the challenges you had to overcome to reach your goal.

There are many challenges when starting a company ranging from getting initial customers to raising investment and growing the team.

Working with museums and arts organisations one of the biggest challenges has been the slow time-frames for decision making within the museum vs. the fast pace of a start-up.

Patience and good communication skills have helped us grow and collaborate effectively.

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