Ctrl Alt Delete

Ctrl Alt Delete, Mitch Joel, Business Plus, 2013

Digital technology and the Internet have changed American business from top to bottom (what else is new?). What can you, or your company, do to survive in this new landscape? This book gives some answers.

If your company doesn't already have a social media presence, forget about hiring some college kids to create one, while the rest of the company continues with its 20th century mentality. The entire company has to embrace social media, starting with the CEO. Most companies assume that they know who their customers are. Do some research, and find out for sure.

There are ways to measure, for instance, who visits your website, what pages they click on, and how long they stay. If your company is not already up to its eyeballs in analyzing such data, you are missing out on a lot of potentially useful information.

When you are talking to your customers, ask them how they stay connected. It's not a case of web or mobile or tablets being most important, but whatever screen the customer is using now. How can you make your customer's lives easier?

This book also looks at how individuals can thrive in this new landscape. It is very rare for a person to, for instance, grow up wanting to get into marketing, and then spend their entire career in marketing. It's even more unlikely for it to happen at one company. You career path is going to resemble a squiggly line. Embrace the squiggle.

As much as possible, get rid of cubicles and internal walls at your company. Encourage collaboration between different parts of your company. Such collaboration may create the new must have "killer app." The office itself is becoming less of a requirement, as it is now possible for a person's "office" to be anywhere they can use their laptop, tablet or smart phone.

Many books have been written about the new digital world. This one belongs high on the list. It is easy to read, and is full of information for employers and employees.