Digital Context 2.0 – It’s Time for the “Real” Digital Revolution


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"Digital Context 2.0: Seven Lessons in Business Strategy, Consumer Behavior, and the Internet of Things" is your guide to marketing in the "Internet of Things" world. Using insights from over 2,000 participants (and counting) in a project known as The Collaboratives, this book provides seven lessons for how to market in the age of the "always connected" customer.

Digital Context 2.0

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It seems with each coming day that there is a new “smart” item, whether it’s a phone, watch, home, or even toothbrush. Consumers are becoming more comfortable with an increasing number of gadgets that measure, predict, analyze, and ship, but is your business ready? You may have social media, Big Data, and a blog, but do you have what it takes to make the next step in the Digital Revolution?

What Digital Context 2.0 Is About

Digital Context 2.0 is about helping the business world make the necessary shift (in the book’s view) from “the old way of doing things” (heavily relying on customer demographics, interruptive advertising, trying to manufacture need instead of catering to it, etc.) to marketing in the world of “The Internet of Things” (IoT). The book argues like Nir Eyal does in “Hooked”, that businesses who fit into their customer’s lives instead of trying to squeeze in (like a commercial in a YouTube playlist) will make it. In particular, the book argues that business owners and marketers need to better understand the psychology of their consumer and not just their digital footprints. .They need to understand how and why a customer is using their product so they can develop and maintain customers.

Understanding the how and why of consumers isn’t easy because it is changing faster than business owners can keep pace.

To provide an example, imagine a business person who listens to a Spotify playlist of calming music while at work then comes home to play a YouTube playlist of rock while cooking and watching the kids. This is the reality of the consumer.

Understanding a customer’s use of a product in a world increasing with technology is the missing key, according to Digital Context 2.0. It isn’t enough to create a cool app, new social media channel, or gadget. Every business has to find a way to reach customers in a new way, one shaped by the particular “mode” and “job” that the customer needs or wants to fulfill.

Dave Norton is the founder and Principal of Stone Mantel, a marketing research agency and consulting firm which he founded in 2005. He is also the Principal and Lead Strategist for The Collaboratives, a digital innovation and business research company that provided the expertise and insights for Digital Context 2.0.

What Was Best About This Book

The best part of Digital Context 2.0 is that it goes further than almost any other marketing book out there to cover what business need to confront in the tech-driven future. Digital Context 2.0 offers a deep understanding of consumer psychology, driven by its research of a large spread of consumers in The Collaboratives project. This information is crucial if your business wants to stay ahead of the game when marketing in the “Age of the Consumer”.

What Could Have Been Done Differently

The downside of Digital Context 2.0 is that it focuses on the broad, overarching principles that a business needs to follow. In other words, the book will tell you why a business needs to understand how a customer uses your product. The book will even provide an example of a business (usually a famous company) that is using that principle.

What the book won’t tell you are the intermediate steps it will take to get there. That, understandably, is up to you.

Why Read This Book

Read Digital Context 2.0 if you need help marketing or want to refine a product that is tech-based or oriented (app, website, service, etc.) The book offers a commonsense approach that demonstrates a deep understanding of consumer psychology that isn’t covered in other marketing advice books. If you’re a fan of “Small Data”, this book combines the insights from that book with the psychology of the book by Nir Eyal entitled “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products”. Instead of habits, though, this book focuses on how these habits are used in the “Internet of Things” world.

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Charles Franklin Charles Franklin is a Book Reviewer for Small Business Trends. He has a background as a professional reviewer, and is also a content provider and customer relations professional.

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