Curated Variety of CTAM Presenters and Industry Innovators
Tap into some additional bright minds influencing our industry today by listening to our podcast, Thinking Out Loud.
Author: Kartik Hosanagar
John C. Hower Professor of Technology and Digital Business Professor of Marketing
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Speaker at 
Topics: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Algorithms, Data
Through the technology embedded in almost every major tech platform and every web-enabled device, algorithms and the artificial intelligence that underlies them make a staggering number of everyday decisions for us, from what products we buy, to where we decide to eat, to how we consume our news, to whom we date, and how we find a job.
In his new book, Kartik Hosanagar surveys the brave new world of algorithmic decision-making and reveals the potentially dangerous biases they can give rise to as they increasingly run our lives. He makes the compelling case that we need to arm ourselves with a better, deeper, more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon of algorithmic thinking.
How to Wow: 68 Effortless Ways to Make Every Customer Experience Amazing
Author: Adrian Swinscoe
Customer Experience Advisor and Forbes Contributor
Speaker at
Topics: Customer Experience, Customer Retention and Acquisition, Competitive Differentiation
Don’t let your business fall behind, look inside and take your customer experience to the next level using these 68 strategies that will show you how to stand out from your competitors, whatever your business.
Full of practical tips, inspiring insights and interviews with a wide range of leaders and entrepreneurs, How to Wow reveals all you need to deliver a world-class customer experience. Covering both the customer and business side of the equation, you’ll learn how to attract new customers, design a leading customer experience and quickly resolve a wide range of problems, plus much more.
The Signals Are Talking: Why Today’s Fringe is Tomorrow’s Mainstream
Author: Amy Webb
Founder, Future Today Institute
Speaker at
Topics: Trends vs. Mainstream, Future-Thinking, Forward-Thinking
The Signals Are Talking reveals a systemic way of evaluating new ideas bubbling up on the horizon-distinguishing what is a real trend from the merely trendy. This book helps us hear which signals are talking sense, and which are simply nonsense, so that we might know today what developments-especially those seemingly random ideas at the fringe as they converge and begin to move toward the mainstream that have long-term consequence for tomorrow. Most importantly, Webb persuasively shows that the future isn’t something that happens to us passively. Instead, she allows us to see ahead so that we may forecast what’s to come-challenging us to create our own preferred futures.
The Content Trap: A Strategist’s Guide to Digital Change
Author: Bharat Anand
Henry R. Byers Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School
Speaker at
Topics: Content, Marketing and Digital Strategy, Marketing Myths
Companies everywhere face two major challenges today: getting noticed and getting paid. To confront these obstacles, Bharat Anand examines a range of businesses around the world, from The New York Times to The Economist, from Chinese Internet giant Tencent to Scandinavian digital trailblazer Schibsted, and from talent management to the future of education. Drawing on these stories and on the latest research in economics, strategy, and marketing, this refreshingly engaging book reveals important lessons, smashes celebrated myths, and reorients strategy.
The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google
Author: Scott Galloway
Professor of Marketing
Leonard N. Stern School of Business
New York University
Topics: Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Company Profiles, Strategies
In the same irreverent style that has made Scott Galloway one of the world’s most celebrated business professors, Galloway deconstructs the strategies of the Four that lurk beneath their shiny veneers. He shows how they manipulate the fundamental emotional needs that have driven us since our ancestors lived in caves, at a speed and scope others can’t match. And he reveals how you can apply the lessons of their ascent to your own business or career. Whether you want to compete with them, do business with them, or simply live in the world they dominate, you need to understand the Four.
How Cool Brands Stay Hot: Branding to Generation Y & Z
Author: Joeri Van Den Bergh
Co-Founder and NextGen Expert
InSites Consulting
Speaker at
Topics: NextGen, Gen Y, Gen Z, Millennials, Generational Marketing, Consumer Psychology, Consumer Behavior, Advertising, Branding
How Cool Brands Stay Hot reveals what drives Generation Y and how you can reach them. Based on five years of intensive new youth research by InSites Consulting, it provides insights into the consumer psychology and behavior of ‘the Millennials’. It will help you to connect with this generation of consumers by understanding their likes and dislikes, and how you can make your advertising, marketing and branding relevant to them.
Digital Disruption: Unleashing the Next Wave of Innovation
Author: James McQuivey
Vice President, Principal Analyst
Forester Research
Speaker at
Topics: Digital Strategies, Disruption, New Platforms, Competitive Evolution, Digital Experiences
You always knew digital was going to change things, but you didn’t realize how close to home it would hit. In every industry, digital competitors are taking advantage of new platforms, tools, and relationships to undercut competitors, get closer to customers, and disrupt the usual ways of doing business. The only way to compete is to evolve.
Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction
Author: Derek Thompson
Senior Editor at The Atlantic
Salon
Speaker at and 
Topics: Hits, Product Development, Mainstream, Trends
The process of creating, designing or composing a hit is by no means an exact science, whether it’s a work of visual art, an exciting new product or a catchy tune. With so many different social and cultural factors involved, it’s tough to predict what exactly will generate positive responses.
But this book summary can help, showing some important characteristics of hits and outline some strategies that help a product stand out. Once you know more about what makes a hit, you’ll be one step closer to breaking into the mainstream.
Contagious: Why Things Catch On
Author: Jonah Berger
Author and Associate Professor of Marketing
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Speaker at
Topics: Trends, Hits, Popular Products, “Go Viral”, Word of Mouth, Social Transition
Contagious combines groundbreaking research with powerful stories revealing the secret science behind word-of-mouth and social transmission. Discover how six basic principles drive all sorts of things to become contagious, from consumer products and policy initiatives to workplace rumors and YouTube videos. If you’ve wondered why certain stories get shared, e-mails get forwarded, or videos go viral, Contagious explains why, and shows how to leverage these concepts to craft contagious content. This book provides a set of specific, actionable techniques for helping information spread—for designing messages, advertisements, and information that people will share.
Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business
Co-Author: Frances X. Frei
UPS Foundation Professor of Service Management
Harvard Business School
Speaker at
Topics: Customer experience, Customer Service, Competitive Advantage
Most companies treat service as a low-priority business operation, keeping it out of the spotlight until a customer complains. Then service gets to make a brief appearance – for as long as it takes to calm the customer down and fix whatever foul-up jeopardized the relationship. In Uncommon Service, Frances Frei and Anne Morriss show how, in a volatile economy where the old rules of strategic advantage no longer hold true, service must become a competitive weapon, not a damage-control function. That means weaving service tightly into every core decision your company makes.
Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley
Author: Antonio Garcia Martinez
Silicon Valley Veteran including a Former Advisor to Twitter, Product Manager for Facebook, CEO/founder of AdGrok, and a Strategist for Goldman Sachs.
Topics: Silicon Valley, Social Media, Data Tracking, Monetization, Digital “privacy”
This scathing tell-all memoir unravels the chaotic evolution of social media and online marketing and reveals how it is invading our lives and shaping our future. Weighing in on everything from startups and credit derivatives to Big Brother and data tracking, social media monetization and digital “privacy,” García Martínez shares his scathing observations and outrageous antics, taking us on a humorous, subversive tour of the fascinatingly insular tech industry. Chaos Monkeys lays bare the hijinks, trade secrets, and power plays of the visionaries, grunts, sociopaths, opportunists, accidental tourists, and money cowboys who are revolutionizing our world. The question is, will we survive?