How to Weave Digital and Analog Into a Seamless Experience

Author: Casey Gale       

Every company is now a technology and media company, according to Anders Sorman-Nilsson, founder of strategic consulting firm Thinque. Even in the experience-based meetings industry, companies should focus on providing quality content and using technology to “develop and see the patterns in terms of their customers’ preferences,” Sorman-Nilsson says in the latest video for The Intersection, presented by PCMA and PSAV.

Today’s technology allows data analysts to focus on the individual, rather than a demographic, allowing businesses to tailor content for specific clients. While the constantly shifting digital landscape is exciting for this reason, Sorman-Nilsson warns in the video that businesses should not abandon the analog world completely in favor of the digital world.

“We shouldn’t chuck away the analog baby with the digital bathwater,” he explains. “I do believe that because of our digital devices, because of our wearable technology, because of artificial intelligence, in many ways, we as consumers and as customers, our rational, information-focused minds are becoming digitized and mobilized, but our hearts are very much still analog, emotional, and traditional.”

Sorman-Nilsson points out that many deals still take place over a game of golf or at a bar — something that cannot be digitally replaced. “We can distribute great digital content on behalf of our customers and our clients. But we have to also make sure that the analog experience, the face-to-face, the transformational aspect of a great convention also remain part of the future,” he says in the video.

It may sound difficult to strike the balance between digital and analog, there is a way for the two to coexist, according to Sorman-Nilsson — something he calls “digilog.” Sorman-Nilsson says that leadership teams should identify the strengths and weaknesses of both analog and digital communication within their industry to “decide very deliberately and very strategically about which touch points [they] may want to amplify in both.”

TIPS FOR DIGITALLY COMMUNICATING WITH YOUR AUDIENCE
1. It’s not just content you are producing: It has to have context for it to have meaning to your audience.

2. Virtual meetings have a place in the mix, but deals are still made in bars and on the golf course.

3. Understanding your customer will teach you to not waste messages on platforms or in media that they are not using.

4. Digital disruption is here to stay: What are you doing to benefit from it?

Watch the latest video from The Intersection.

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