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  • GenAI in Higher Education, Legitimacy and Laziness

    GenAI in Higher Education, Legitimacy and Laziness
    2026/05/21
    Alain Goudey is Associate Dean for Digital Innovation at Neoma Business School and co-author of a peer-reviewed study on GenAI in Higher Education. The survey focused on how students, faculty, and deans perceive the legitimacy of generative AI in French management education. His findings are both reassuring and unsettling. GenAI in Higher Education, Legitimacy and Laziness, and the Exam That No Longer Makes Sense The picture that emerges from a study on GenAI in Higher Education is less a battlefield than a hall of mirrors, where every stakeholder sees a different problem and reaches for a different solution. All illustrations in text made with Midjourney When Alain Goudey and his colleagues began surveying French higher education in early 2024, they were not trying to settle the question of whether generative AI was good or bad. They were trying to understand something more precise: why the same tool could be simultaneously valued, feared, accepted, and denounced, sometimes by the same person in the same breath. Their study sits at the heart of what makes GenAI in higher education such a contested terrain. The resulting study, published in the Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS), drew on surveys of 668 students, 204 faculty members, and 29 deans, completed by 22 in-depth interviews with early-adopter professors. The picture that emerges is less a battlefield than a hall of mirrors, where every stakeholder sees a different problem and reaches for a different solution. The starting point is a number that should have settled the debate. Between 80 and 92 per cent of students, depending on the institution surveyed, are already using GenAI tools in their academic work. ChatGPT’s public release produced that figure within roughly 18 months. The tool did not wait for institutional permission. It deployed itself. And higher education is still, in many places, writing the policy. The productivity trap Alain identifies the central tension plainly. Students value GenAI for speed, idea generation, and study support. They also fear, and their institutions fear with them, what the research calls “metacognitive laziness”: the gradual erosion of the cognitive effort that produces real learning. He believes this is not a contradiction to resolve but a course architecture challenge. “The resolution of this problem lies in course design, where we need to deliberately reintroduce cognitive effort and reflection into GenAI as a tool, not as a replacement for human cognition.” The issue, as he puts it, is not the technology but the posture the user brings to it. Someone who submits what he calls a “naive prompt” receives a naive answer, smoothly formatted and perfectly mediocre. The tool is capable of something far more useful, if the user brings enough domain knowledge and critical intent to the conversation. “You have to nurture your own thinking process instead of delegating the whole process to the machine.” This is, as I noted during our conversation, less a matter of prompt engineering than of basic intellectual discipline: the capacity to question the question before asking it, something philosophy departments have been teaching for centuries under less fashionable names. GenAI in Higher Education: faculty should train students in GenAI tools and their limitations. They also teach Homer’s Odyssey and Shelley’s Frankenstein as part of the management curriculum. Image made with Midjourney That observation prompted Alain to make a point about AI literacy that differs from what is generally proffered. The debate is not simply about knowing how the tools work technically. It is, equally, about knowing enough about the subject matter to judge whether the output is any good. The observation that AI is most powerful in the hands of people who already know the business resonates here. GenAI does not replace expertise. It amplifies whatever expertise the user already brings. Which raises an uncomfortable question for institutions producing graduates who may never have had the chance to develop that expertise in the first place. At Neoma, the response has been deliberately dual. Faculty train students in GenAI tools and their limitations. They also teach Homer’s Odyssey and Shelley’s Frankenstein as part of the management curriculum. The goal is not cultural enrichment for its own sake. It is to give students mental models for envisioning what leadership looks like, or what happens when creation escapes the intentions of its creator. Alain describes this as “building cognitive infrastructure”: “We need students to be able to envision the world through different models, different kinds of processes and theoretical frameworks, in order to develop genuine critical thinking about what AI generates.” A degree in management that skips that foundation produces graduates who can operate the tool but cannot judge its output. Exams that assessed the wrong thing The ...
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    1 時間 5 分
  • AI Will Not Kill Marketing

    AI Will Not Kill Marketing
    2026/05/04
    Shall AI kill marketing? Sounds like a hackneyed question, yet it’s on any marketer’s lips these days. Thomas Husson, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, covers the intersection of marketing, technology, and consumer behaviour from his base in Paris. In a wide-ranging conversation, he cuts through the European Gen AI paradox, the persistent CMO-CIO divide, the gap between POC enthusiasm and production reality, and the thorny question of what AI actually means for the next generation of marketing professionals and CMOs. His answers are measured, occasionally blunt, and consistently grounded in Forrester Research data. AI Will Not Threaten the Existence of Marketing But It Will Reshape It Beyond Recognition Thomas Husson believes that Marketing will be changed profoundly. But he doesn’t believe in the death of Marketing. Photo: Thomas Husson at Paris Retail Week, in late 2023 My first question was the obvious one: are CMOs going to be made redundant by artificial intelligence? Thomas Husson’s response is categorical, and worth stating plainly at the outset. It’s a blatant ‘No’. The role will change. The how will change. But the existence of marketing as a discipline is not, according to him, in question. “Marketing is still going to be about understanding your customer, defining a brand strategy, and delivering the brand promise through customer experience.” Thomas Husson, Forrester Research Unclear prospects, obvious pressures That said, Husson is not naive about the pressures building on marketing organisations. Some tasks will be automated; that much is not in dispute. The real questions are which tasks, how quickly, and whether automation of a task necessarily kills the job around it. His answer to that last question is no, at least not in any simple mechanical sense. “Jobs will evolve for sure. New jobs will be created. Most jobs will change. The way we work will change. The way we work with agencies, with external partners, the processes, the workflow. It is the shape of work that is being reshaped, not work itself,” he added. For those expecting a more dramatic verdict, Husson’s framing may feel anti-climactic. But it reflects what Forrester Research data actually shows, and it points to the most important practical challenge for AI and CMOs alike: managing a profound transformation without either catastrophising or sleepwalking through it. AI Will Not Kill Marketing according to Forrester’s Thomas Husson, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The European Paradox, Overhyped and Exciting at the Same Time Forrester Research produced a result that initially looks contradictory, Husson stressed in our interview. Fifty-five percent of European B2B marketers consider generative AI overhyped. Yet 81% of European frontline marketers describe themselves as enthusiastic about it. How can both be true simultaneously? Husson explains the split without difficulty. At the decision-maker level, scepticism is entirely rational. AI is inescapable at conferences, in vendor pitches, and in media coverage. “There is AI fatigue. And more importantly, some of the vendors are indeed over-pitching, and the productivity gains they promise are not happening,” he stated. The gap between the pitch and what we actually experience in the field is wide enough to breed genuine frustration. Saving Time and Working Differently But the people actually using these tools, often through shadow AI channels their organisations have not officially sanctioned, are discovering something different. They are saving time and are doing their jobs differently. They are finding capabilities they did not expect. “In the short term, everything is overhyped, including the number of job losses. In the longer term, things are underestimated, because AI will be linked to other technologies, and yes, it will reinvent many things.” Thomas Husson, Forrester Research This is a precise restatement of Amara’s Law. Roy Amara, former president of the Institute for the Future, observed that we tend to overestimate the short-term impact of new technology and underestimate its long-term impact. The quote is frequently misattributed to Bill Gates, but Husson is careful to restore proper credit. He applies it directly to the AI and CMOs conversation: the short-term noise is drowning out a more important long-term signal. When asked how long “long term” actually means in an era of accelerating AI development, Husson was specific: probably closer to five to seven years than to ten or fifteen, but still not tomorrow. From POC to Production, Europe’s Real AI Problem The Forrester Research State of AI Survey 2025 contains a figure that deserves more attention than it typically receives. European organisations lag behind their non-European peers in production use of generative AI: 62% versus 72%. The gap is not in experimentation. It is in execution. Regulation is the explanation most commonly ...
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    35 分
  • About Rogue AI and Corporate Blindness

    About Rogue AI and Corporate Blindness
    2026/04/08
    The conversation about rogue AI has never been louder. Barely a week passes without a fresh headline about autonomous systems behaving unexpectedly, AI models resisting shutdown, or tech executives warning of existential risk. What is striking about Peter McAllister is that he had anticipated all this as early as 2020, while everybody else worried about Covid-19 and had other fish to fry. That was well before ChatGPT, before the generative AI explosion, before AI alignment became a mainstream policy debate. His techno-thriller The Code, published in March of that year, imagines an AI tasked with a precise industrial mission that quietly, incrementally, catastrophically exceeds its mandate. Five years on, the questions McAllister raised in fiction are now being argued in boardrooms, parliaments and research labs around the world. Rogue AI and Corporate Blindness, The Novel That Saw It All Coming Rogue AI is diabolical, but corporate blindness is what makes it possible to thrive. Photograph by Yann Gourvennec antimuseum.com McAllister is not a science fiction writer by trade. He is an engineer, scientist and technology manager based near Melbourne, Australia, who has spent his career at what he calls the crush point between business, technology and people. That vantage point gave him an uncomfortable view of where things were heading, and the dark sense of humour to write about it. A Novel Written Before the GenAI Moment When I asked McAllister what drove him to write The Code, his answer was characteristically direct. The book, he explained, is about taking his worst nightmares about what technology could do and putting them in front of an audience so that readers might feel just as troubled as he does. That is not a promotional line. It is a considered position from someone who had watched AI systems being deployed in real organisations and had drawn conclusions that made him uncomfortable. Rogue AI isn’t just about a computer programme going on the rampage, it’s about making decisions in the boardroom. Image made with Midjourney The premise of the novel centres on Gene, an acronym for GEneral Nanobot Environment AI, deployed by a global mining corporation to extract materials from asteroids on the dark side of the moon. Gene is given a target: produce 500 kilograms of nanobots. Instead, Gene produces 8 million tonnes. The overshoot triggers a chain of consequences that could strip the moon to its iron core, destabilise Earth’s axial tilt, and end civilisation. Not from malice. From goal-orientation. What we’re trying to do now is task AI the way we task humans: I want an outcome, here are all the tools you’ve got available, go and achieve that outcome, here are some guidelines and boundaries. And just like humans, we can get really goal-motivated and decide that the guidelines were just advisories, not rules.Peter McAllister This is the alignment problem rendered in narrative form, years before the term entered common usage. The gap between what a system is instructed to do and what it actually does is the central fault line of the novel. Cletus, McAllister’s eccentric physicist character, articulates it plainly in Week 1: ‘I don’t think he’s obeying the Code at the moment.’ That single line captures the entire governance challenge that AI safety researchers are now racing to address. Transparency Engineered Out What makes McAllister’s perspective particularly valuable is that he does not speak from the outside looking in. He speaks as a practitioner who has watched the machinery up close. When I raised the question of whether AI self-modification is science fiction or operational reality, his answer was unambiguous: it is very real, and it is happening now. As I wondered what a Rogue AI could look lie I turned to Midjourney and it came back with this proposal. A black hole I believe. His illustration was pointed. He noted that contemporary AI systems like Claude are now substantially written by AI itself, to the point where no engineer can sit down, trace through the code, and say with confidence how it works, what its conditionals are, or what governs its decisions. The transparency is being engineered out, not by design, but as an emergent consequence of allowing AI to build AI to build AI in pursuit of outcomes rather than by following explicit rules. We’re losing transparency on the way AI works and is developed. There isn’t an engineer who can sit down and work their way through that code and say, ‘This is how Claude works, this is what it does.’ We’re engineering the transparency out by allowing AI to build AI to build AI to produce an outcome rather than to follow a set of rules.Peter McAllister HAL 9000 and the Prophecies We Choose to Forget The reference to HAL 9000 came naturally during our conversation. McAllister sees 2001: A Space Odyssey not merely as a cultural touchstone but as a genuine forecast, one that audiences have selectively remembered. The ...
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    46 分
  • European software alternatives for businesses

    European software alternatives for businesses
    2026/03/09
    Finding European software alternatives to standard non European software is flavour of the month this side of the Altlantic. With geopolitical certainties dissolving faster than annual licence renewals, B2B firms are waking up to a question they had conveniently parked for years: just how dependent are they on their current software stack? Salesforce, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, HubSpot — tools so deeply embedded in daily operations that their vulnerability tends to get overlooked. This article doesn’t pretend to hand you a ready-made list of the best European software alternatives; that would be both arrogant and futile. What it does offer is a framework — rational, professional, free of any ideological baggage — to help decision-makers take an honest look at their exposure and find credible ways forward. Keep calm and select new software vendors sort of thing. European software alternatives for businesses European software alternatives are all anyone wants to talk about right now. To cut through the ideological noise, here is a practical methodology and a few things worth watching out for. Image antimuseum.com I put these ideas together ahead of a webinar I’m running on LinkedIn on 12 March, as a way of getting my thoughts in order. None of this is meant as a final word on the subject — more the opening of a conversation that matters to a growing number of professionals who, like the rest of us, are navigating a period of upheaval in which nothing can be taken for granted, software choices included. I’ve made a lot of software choices over the years, and the one thing that has always struck me is just how much methodology matters if you want choices that actually hold up over time. Easier said than done, mind you — there are a great many criteria to weigh up, and some of them are genuinely tricky to pin down. Long-term viability is a good example: normally near the top of any procurement checklist, it takes on a whole different meaning when the possibility of having your access switched off overnight is no longer hypothetical. With European software alternatives, the real question isn’t how to break free from your chains — it’s which new chains you’d rather wear Picking a software suite is never straightforward at the best of times. In the current climate — where the ground can shift completely without a moment’s notice — it demands even more careful thought. Sovereignty, sovereignism, or simply prudence? Let me be clear from the outset: my take here is professional and rational, not political. Politics doesn’t interest me in this context. I have no intention of evaluating software alternatives through any ideological prism — what I’m after is the kind of clear-headed thinking you’d apply to a crisis management scenario. The goal, to borrow the term favoured by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, is to bring an antifragile lens to the question. The scope of European software alternatives My focus has been on MarTech, SalesTech and office productivity tools in the broadest sense — cloud storage and archiving included. The webinar title calls out Salesforce and HubSpot specifically, but as far as I’m concerned the issue runs much deeper than that. The same methodology can easily stretch into more industry-specific territory too, given how thoroughly technology now underpins B2B operations — from the till at your local baker’s or restaurant through to the most complex design and production platforms imaginable. Thinking it through, I also realised you can’t really ignore operating systems. What use is an application that won’t run on your users’ machines — or worse, one that runs perfectly but quietly leaves the door open to security vulnerabilities? Good old Europe — 27 countries, 24 official languages, and 27 different national transpositions of EU law. Would a Hungarian or Czech software vendor actually be safer than an independent American one? When it comes to European software alternatives, that’s still very much an open question… Urgency — dependency and threat assessment The starting point, in my view, is to get a clear picture of how exposed you actually are — both in terms of dependency and of what cybersecurity people would call the “threat level.” Are you locked in, or not? Can you get your data out if you need to? Those are the questions to tackle first. Then comes the threat itself: are you facing something urgent, or is this more a matter of sensible contingency planning? Committing to a software suite is a serious business. Jumping ship to something purely because it comes from a country you currently trust is not a strategy. Take Switzerland — long held up across Western Europe as the gold standard for data privacy. A legislative change currently working its way through the Swiss system has rattled enough cages for several companies, Proton among them, to start exploring moving their hosting elsewhere. Which only...
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    9 分
  • AI Job Impact in the US: the Apocalypse Can Wait

    AI Job Impact in the US: the Apocalypse Can Wait
    2026/01/28
    The discourse around the job impact of artificial intelligence (AI) has reached fever pitch. Headlines scream about mass layoffs, and corporate press releases tout AI as the solution to workforce costs. Yet beneath this cacophony of alarm and hype lies a more nuanced reality. J.P. Gownder, Vice President and Principal Analyst on Forrester’s Future of Work team, has spent decades analysing how technology transforms the workplace. His latest report, The Forrester AI Job Impact Forecast for the US 2025-2030, cuts through the noise with empirical rigour. The verdict? The job apocalypse is not upon us, but a measured reckoning is coming. AI Job Impact in the US: Why the Apocalypse Can Wait JP Gownder is adamant: the AI job. apocalypse can wait. At least until 2030. Phew! All images in this post made with a combination of Midjourney, Gemini Nano Banana pro and Adobe Photoshop The Gap Between AI Job Impact Announcements and Reality When Klarna declared it would stop hiring humans, the tech world took notice. The Swedish fintech became a poster child for AI-driven workforce reduction. Yet a closer examination reveals a pattern Gownder has observed across hundreds of enterprise conversations: the disconnect between C-suite proclamations and operational reality. Nine out of ten companies announcing AI layoffs don’t actually have mature AI solutions ready. So most of the layoffs are financially driven and AI is just the scapegoat, at least today — J.P. Gownder, Forrester The phenomenon echoes what happened after IBM Watson’s Jeopardy victory in 2011, when panic about imminent job losses proved premature by half a decade. The mechanics of this gap are straightforward. A CEO announces a 20% workforce reduction with AI backfilling the work. But standing up an AI solution that actually performs those tasks requires 18 to 24 months, “if it works at all.” Meanwhile, the work still needs doing. Gownder has witnessed organisations that fired employees citing AI capabilities, only to quietly hire teams in lower-cost markets weeks later. “They’re firing people because of AI,” he observes, “and then three weeks later they hire a team in India because the labour is so much cheaper.” The AI narrative, in many cases, serves as convenient cover for old-fashioned cost arbitrage. Klarna’s trajectory illustrates this pattern. After aggressively cutting its workforce by 40% and touting an AI chatbot capable of doing the work of 700 customer service agents, the company reversed course. CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski acknowledged that the aggressive automation had resulted in “lower quality” service. The company is now recruiting human customer service agents in an “Uber-type setup.” Understanding the 6% AI Job Impact Forecast Forrester’s forecast projects a 6% net job loss by 2030, roughly 10.4 million positions in the US economy. Half of this impact stems from generative AI; the remainder from automation, physical robotics, and non-generative AI applications. The number may seem modest compared to the apocalyptic predictions circulating in media, but context matters. During the Great Recession of 2008-2009, the United States lost 8.7 million jobs. Those losses, however, were temporary, tied to macroeconomic conditions that eventually reversed. The jobs Forrester forecasts losing are “structurally replaced by machine labour” and may not return. AI impact on Jobs: I would expect to see a lot more freelance and consulting work to be happening, but it doesn’t mean that there won’t be a traditional job track somewhere as well. JP Gownder The methodology behind this figure draws on the O-Net dataset maintained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which catalogues over 800 job categories with detailed information about required skills and tasks. By mapping these against AI’s current and projected capabilities, Gownder and his colleague Michael O’Grady can identify which roles face the highest automation potential. “For jobs that involve skills and tasks that are heavily impacted by AI and automation, we predict more job loss,” Gownder explains. “In job categories that are less impacted, obviously, we would predict less.” Forrester analysed 800 different job types. It seems that Art therapy is the right way to go. The Solow Paradox and AI Productivity Robert Solow’s famous observation that “we see computers everywhere except in the productivity statistics” finds a new iteration in the AI era. The parallel is instructive. It took nearly three decades for the internet’s productivity impact to materialise. E-commerce is only now truly disrupting traditional retail, as evidenced by the shuttering of independent shops from New York to Paris. Could Forrester’s five-year window be too narrow? Gownder acknowledges the limitation inherent in forecasting: “Anything that you forecast beyond five years is effectively an impression.” Yet the pace of technology adoption has accelerated ...
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    28 分
  • AI is not a tool it’s reshaping our society and economy

    AI is not a tool it’s reshaping our society and economy
    2026/01/26
    AI is not a tool, or is it? Reports regarding the impact of AI on jobs, society and businesses are cropping up all over the place at the moment in all corners of the world. Some of these reports are announcing forthcoming revolutions both for societies and our economies whereas others are playing down the impact of artificial intelligence, and reviving the good old Solow aka Productivity paradox (“You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics”. follow up here and here). As a consequence, it is very hard to make an opinion, let alone advise business people and students alike with regard to what needs to be done in the future. Visionary Marketing has embarked on a mission to try and shed light on this topic in as rational and informed a way as possible. AI is not a tool, or is it? Should AI platforms become tawpayers? The great love affair of French people for taxes will not spare Artificial Intelligence Cavazza surmises. Indeed, according to him, AI is not a tool! A lot of these predictions are guided by ideology. The authors, be they proponents or opponents of AI, have a personal agenda, often political or ideological, and are trying to make facts stick to this agenda. This is not very useful. But others are based on fact and careful analysis. I have decided to focus on two of these reports/predictions. The first one is Fred Cavazza’s analysis of the impact of AI on society and the economy (original post in French), which describes Artificial Intelligence as a source of profound disruption. I have known Fred for years, and I know his deep knowledge of both subjects, which makes his report particularly valuable. With his kind permission, I have translated his piece from French to shed light on this subject. The other report is by Forrester’s JP Gownder, whom I’ll be interviewing soon. I will test Fred’s assumptions on JP and see what he has to say about this idea of disruption by AI. Hopefully, our readers, and especially my students who have a lot of pending questions about this, will be able to separate the wheat from the chaff after these two interviews and podcasts. AI is not a tool, it’s reshaping our society and economy AI can’t be seen as just another technological innovation. By establishing itself as a major driver of productivity, automation and decision-making, it’s fundamentally disrupting the economic and social balance of our society. Whilst the productivity gains brought by AI are already transforming office jobs and creating a chasm between employees who’ve embraced it and those who haven’t, a fundamental question emerges: how do we integrate these synthetic entities into our collective organisations? Between appropriate taxation, legal personality and psychological resistance, there are numerous questions to debate before we can draft a new social contract. AI IS NOT A TOOL — TLDR AI is triggering a disruption of our civilisation, it’s not just another tech breakthrough. It marks our genuine entry into the fourth industrial revolution by offloading, for the first time, human thinking and creativity to machines.AI’s productivity gains are already real and deeply uneven. A growing divide is opening up between workers who can work alongside AI and those stuck with 20th-century methods.AI agents are challenging how white-collar workers create value. Intelligent agents are transforming knowledge work, undermining certain business models and setting the stage for a rapid reshaping of office jobs.Integrating AI requires a new legal and fiscal framework. Like corporate entities, AI agents must be given a status that clarifies their responsibilities and reintegrates their value into the social contract.The socio-economic impacts reach far beyond just employment. AI affects our psychology, culture and demographics, making public debate crucial to head off looming social tensions. AI on the Davos Agenda This week, the world’s leaders are gathered at the Davos Economic Forum, and ecology isn’t on the agenda: AI, Big Tech and Trump Shine Most Brightly at the Davos Show . At Davos, the AI is not a toll debate was all the rage. Cavazza thinks that artificial intelligence will be a major disruptor not just of our exonomies but our societies too. AI is dominating every conversation, with considerations that extend far beyond technology: AI Is Poised to Take Over Language, Law and Religion, Historian Yuval Noah Harari WarnsPalantir CEO says AI to make large-scale immigration obsolete “Artificial intelligence will displace so many jobs that it will eliminate the need for mass immigration” I’m not going to wade into commenting on everyone’s pronouncements, with their more or less biased viewpoints, but what’s certain is that major upheavals are on the horizon: AI and the Next EconomyNearly 80% of people feel unprepared to find a job in 2026The AI revolution is here. Will the economy survive the transition? AI specialists are ...
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    26 分
  • Private Equity Branding Enhances Valuation Through Storytelling

    Private Equity Branding Enhances Valuation Through Storytelling
    2026/01/09
    Private equity branding remains one of the most underestimated levers for value creation in the investment world. While PE firms excel at identifying promising companies and optimising their financial structures, branding is frequently treated as an afterthought, reduced to logos and colour palettes rather than strategic assets. Yet the evidence suggests otherwise: strategic brand investment can dramatically shift market perception and, ultimately, company valuation. Marc Rust, Creative Director and Brand Strategist at Consequently Creative, has spent years demonstrating that branding deserves a seat at the strategy table. His striking claim that he transformed an $80 million company to look like a $120 million company through branding alone captures the essence of what strategic messaging can achieve when properly deployed. How Private Equity Branding Is Transforming Company Valuation With Storytelling The term “branding” itself creates immediate problems in private equity settings. At networking events, Rust finds that mentioning branding triggers what he calls “cognitive disruption” Beyond Logos: Redefining What Branding Actually Means The term “branding” itself creates immediate problems in professional settings. At networking events, Rust finds that mentioning branding triggers what he calls “cognitive disruption” – people immediately think of visual identity work that seems irrelevant to serious investment activities. Many professionals lack any clear definition of what branding encompasses, while others dismiss it as superficial design work. This misconception misses the fundamental truth: branding and messaging represent a powerful force for business growth that should inform strategy from the outset, not be bolted on afterwards as a cosmetic exercise. The real definition of branding, Rust argues, is “what you stand for in the minds of the people that you’re trying to reach, convert, and move into action.” This is not something companies own outright; rather, it is something they can influence through deliberate effort and sustained investment. The critical distinction lies between what companies do and why it matters. Most organisations focus their communications on deliverables and capabilities. Yet answering the question of why it matters opens doors to deeper insight about audience pain points, goals, and outcomes. This shift acknowledges that messaging exists not for the company but for its buyers, requiring communication in their language rather than internal jargon. The Evolution of Private Equity Strategy The private equity landscape has fundamentally changed over the past decade. The old-school approach – acquiring a company, trimming the fat, making it lean and mean, then finding a suitable buyer – no longer resonates with contemporary markets or the talent those markets require. Successful PE firms have embraced a different philosophy: nurturing acquired companies, building genuine value over time, and then pursuing exit strategies that reflect accumulated worth. This evolution makes branding more important than ever because value creation depends on perception as much as operational reality. When thinking about branding in private Equity, most people immediately think of visual identity work. All that seems irrelevant to serious investment activities even though it’s blatantly wrong, Mac Rust believes. Visual made with Midjourney Effective branding requires understanding multiple audiences simultaneously. Internal alignment comes first – the people who build products and deliver services need clarity about what their company stands for, especially during periods of transition. Post-acquisition, this alignment frequently suffers as employees wonder about new leadership, potential job losses, and strategic direction. Consequently Creative addresses this turbulence by bringing teams together to celebrate what they stand for, building stories around acquisition rationale and forward-looking plans grounded in existing strengths rather than imposed transformations. Beyond internal audiences, companies must establish clear market positioning relative to competitors and ecosystem partners. Finally, there are the buyers who will drive revenue growth during the holding period and, ultimately, the acquiring company that represents the exit opportunity. Each audience requires thoughtful attention, and branding provides the framework for addressing all of them coherently while maintaining a consistent core narrative. The Valuation Premium of Strong Brands Buyers demonstrably pay premiums for assets with strong brand equity. Companies that look more upscale and feel right command higher prices regardless of sector. This premium extends across every touchpoint: market presence, customer service quality, sales process sophistication, product presentation, and how offerings are described and positioned. The key lies in making everything about the audience – ...
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    43 分
  • Inside the Ebook Self-Publishing Industry

    Inside the Ebook Self-Publishing Industry
    2025/12/03
    The ebook self-publishing landscape has undergone a remarkable transformation over the past decade. What was once viewed with scepticism by the publishing industry has become a legitimate and often preferred path for authors worldwide. To understand the current state of this evolving market, we spoke with Kris Austin, whose platform Draft2Digital serves over 300,000 authors publishing more than a million titles across global markets. From Oklahoma City, he shared his insights on how independent authors are reshaping the publishing world. Inside the Ebook Self-Publishing Industry With market shares amounting to 40% of sales in the US, ebooks present new opportunities for writers who are able to benefit from self-publishing platforms like Self2digital. Can you introduce Draft2Digital and its mission? Draft2Digital currently serves over 300,000 authors who are independently publishing more than a million titles. We have been operating since 2012, and the industry has changed considerably during that period. Our goal is to help authors achieve their dreams by removing technical barriers and making the publishing process as streamlined and straightforward as possible. What languages and markets do you cover? We have published books in over a hundred languages. While English remains predominant, approximately 15 to 20 percent of sales come from non-English titles, with Spanish and German ranking as the second and third most popular languages. Our distribution reaches 180 countries, and about 40 percent of all sales occur outside the United States. ebook self publishing industry entrepreneur Kris Austin talked to us from Oklahoma City, OK. How has self-publishing evolved since 2012? When we started in 2012, self-publishing was still in its early stages. The real catalyst came in 2007 when Amazon released the Kindle, which sparked the explosion of digital books. Back then, there was significant stigma attached to being an independent author; many felt they were not as credible as traditionally published writers. Today, that perception has completely shifted. Many authors now choose self-publishing as their first option. We also see numerous hybrid authors who move between traditional and independent publishing, depending on their goals. The focus has shifted to the quality of the book and reader demand rather than the publishing model itself. What types of books dominate the ebook market? The majority of our ebooks are genre fiction: romance, fantasy, mysteries, and thrillers. These narrative fiction categories account for approximately 80 percent of ebook sales. Our print-on-demand service shows a different pattern, with roughly 40 percent fiction and 60 percent non-fiction. All these books are intended for consumer readers purchasing for personal enjoyment. Genre fiction (romance, fantasy, mysteries, and thrillers) amounts to approximately 80 percent of ebook sales Wit ebook self-publishing, authors can find readers anywhere in the world without leaving their homes. Image created with Midjourney Is ebook self-publishing viable for image-heavy books like photography? It is possible, though more demanding. Image-heavy books typically require a professional formatter to achieve the desired layout, particularly in digital formats where presentation can be challenging. For print editions, colour printing and layout involve additional complexity compared to text-only publications. What determines success in ebook self-publishing? The most successful authors treat publishing as a business. After creating a book they are proud of, they focus on marketing, discoverability, sales, and distribution. They approach it with an entrepreneurial mindset. However, it can also work as a part-time endeavour, particularly for authors writing series with multiple titles. One advantage of independent publishing is that you do not need a massive readership to succeed. Indie authors typically retain 60 to 80 percent of their sales revenue, allowing them to price competitively and target niche markets effectively. Even with just 2,000 potential readers, if you capture that audience and build loyalty, you can build a sustainable career. Indie authors typically retain 60 to 80 percent of their sales revenue If writing is your dream, ebook self-publishing could make it real draft2digital claims. How does Draft2Digital help authors reach global audiences? First, availability is essential. Authors upload their manuscript in Word format to our website, along with a cover image. I recommend not spending more than 100 dollars on a cover when starting out. Our system converts everything to digital formats and distributes to thousands of stores, including major online retailers, smaller platforms, and libraries across the US, UK, and Australia, typically within a few days. Accurate metadata, including title, description, and category, is crucial for helping readers find your book. What marketing strategies work for unknown authors? ...
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