Welcome back friends to our podcast, unlocking your world of creativity. We've been talking with creative practitioners all over the world about how they get inspired and how they organize their ideas. And most of all, how they gain the confidence and the connections to launch their creative work into the world. And if you've been thinking about this concept of digital transformation, customer orientation, and making the customer first, we are going to take that from concept to reality today with our guest Chris Hood.

Chris is a digital strategist, podcaster, and thought leader.  He is head of business development, business innovation, and strategy with the Google cloud. With a highly creative background 

Chris's Website

Chris on YouTube

@chrishood on Instagram

in the media entertainment industries with people like Fox and Disney and Universal. In many circles, he is on the leading edge of the concept of digital transformation.

Today as we talk about digital transformation, he defines it as the process by which organizations have to change their technology to keep up with the demands that consumers have. 

He also reminds us to look at it as more than just improving customer service and that it's real customer orientation. Brought about by the continuous evolution of technology.

As technology trends change, businesses have to be able to adapt to them in almost real-time 

And so, digital transformation is best understood as, if a consumer wants to use a certain type of technology, the business better be ready to support that technology.

To understand this concept, he reckons that we start with what is the customer expectation and experience that an individual like us is looking for.  He simply refers to this as the outside-in perspective. Start on the outside, understand what the customers want and then work your way to the inside to figure out what technologies and services, and products you need to build to satisfy those expectations

We asked him to highlight his day-to-day creativity deliverables, especially from his role as head of business, innovation, and strategy at Google.

• Where we arrive at the deliverables for creativity being the art of the possible. Giving the customer convenience and endless possibilities there has to e innovation.  
• This calls for a lot of teamwork to improve the customer's journey. He soundly guides us and lets us know that it's everybody's responsibility at every organization to solve every problem. 
• And organizations have to be able to accept and embrace that. They have to admit that everyone within that organization is responsible for ideas, creativity, innovation, business, and partnerships.
•  And so he encourages organizations to build and embrace that culture.

He started working at a movie theater and has seen how technology has evolved. Which definitely has been an influence throughout his career as a creative of how you reach people who are passionate about something. 

In conclusion as a creative himself writing a fantasy adventure novel, he described the creative process as a learning process too. Highlighting the importance of continuously growing, evolving, and learning individuals, outside our organizations and careers. Reminding us that that's the only way that we're going to be able to keep up with the things that are changing around us.

Chris Hood website: chrishood.com

Mark Stinson

Copyright 2024 Mark Stinson

Well, welcome back friends to our podcast, unlocking your world of creativity. We've been talking with creative practitioners all over the world about how they get inspired and how they organize their ideas. And most of all, how they gain the confidence and the connections to launch their creative work out into the world. And if you've been thinking about this concept of digital transformation, customer orientation, and making the customer first, we're gonna take that from concept to reality today with our guest Chris Hood, Chris, welcome to the program.

Hello. Thank you. Great to be here.

That's great to have you as a digital strategist podcaster thought leader, and he is head of business development, business innovation, and strategy with the Google cloud. So, Chris, you're really on the, I guess leading the front edge of this concept of digital transformation. How can we look at it more than just kind of improving customer service that it's a real customer orientation?

Well, I think the starting point is to try to define what exactly is digital transformation. And quite honestly, there are a lot of opinions about what that really means, but I try to simplify it in this way. Digital transformation is the process by which organizations have to change their technology to keep up with the demands that consumers have. So if you think about this, a new phone comes out, and all of the consumers go and grab that new phone. And they now expect that, Hey, I want to interact with my favorite brands and customer service, whatever it is using that new phone and the company may or may not be able to support it. now 10 years ago, or so this was much more important because we were seeing a shift to mobile and a lot of organizations and businesses weren't in that mobile mindset of delivering their products and services by a connected device.

Now, today, I think everybody has a phone in their hands. Everybody is connected in some way. And so it's a lot easier to get to the brands and the services that you want to in the way that you want to, but that evolution of technology is continuous. And so if it's not a new phone, it's going to be a new something. If we think about like connected cars now and automated cars or, even our refrigerators at some level are connected today, that type of technology as its trends and changes, businesses have to be able to adapt to it in almost real-time. And so digital transformation is best understood as if a consumer wants to use a certain type of technology, the business better is ready to support that technology. And like I said, it's a continuous evolution because technology is going to continuously evolve.

Wow, absolutely. And you've really emphasized in your, writing, in your work, this idea of the experience, you know, help us wrap our hands around that, because again, user experience, customer experience, we throw these terms around, but how are you making this on a practical level to literally improve the way let's just use your analogy, picking up the phone and engaging in interacting with a brand company or service.

So I think the starting point is also to understand, and this might sound really weird, but who is the consumer? A lot of organizations that I talked to and I actually just recently talked to somebody and they said, Hey, we're a B2B company. Okay. Okay. But at the end of that somewhere else, there's still a consumer. There's still a customer. So I would argue that a lot of organizations are shifting their mindset from B2B to B2C. And if nothing else, it's B2B2C and that business has to understand what the customer or the consumer wants, even if they're selling it to another business because if they're not interested in it, they're not gonna buy it. That's the bottom line. So if we take this mindset of what is that customer experience again, I agree with you. It's a term we throw out.

But let's start there. Let's start with what is the customer expectation and experience that an individual like us is looking for. I often refer to this as the outside-in perspective. I wanna start on the outside, understand what our customers want and then work our way to the inside to figure out what technologies and services, and products even that we need to build to satisfy those expectations. And if you think about it in this very simple context, you have an expectation right now to go to your grocery store, buy a bunch of groceries and go up to the terminal and swipe your ATM to pay for it. Now, believe it or not. I was just at a restaurant a couple of days ago. It's a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant and on the wall, it says cash only. I had no cash

Welcome to 2022.

Right? My expectation is, is I have a credit card or a debit card. I have a card or I have a phone apple pay, you know, whatever pay you to want. And I can go in and use that to pay for what I want. That is my expectation. And if I can't, the odds are we're going to move our business somewhere else. That will do it. And so if you are like in the case of cash, only if you're not providing the service that you expect, so same grocery store analysis. If you walked into the grocery store today and they said, we're sorry, we no longer take debit cards. What are you going to think? And, we have to start at that place. For everything we have to start with, what does the customer expect to have? Now let's go and build it. And too often businesses say, we know what our customers want. We're gonna build it. And then, sort of like the field of dreams, analogy, build it and they will come. It just doesn't work that way anymore. you have to understand

That outside-in perspective. Well, that is a backdrop, you are head of business, innovation, and strategy at Google, paint us the picture of you sort of applying your day-to-day creativity in that kind of role. What are your deliverables if you will?

Well, the deliverables for creativity are the art of the possible it's the what's next. So I'll continue with our grocery store example. Let's just say that you are driving your car home from work and as you're driving, because you have a smart car and it's connected to your device it knows that, Hey, you like ice cream, and all of a sudden it says, you know what, we're driving past the grocery store. And we know that that grocery store has your favorite flavor of ice cream in stock, been in Jerry's caramel Sutra for me. And Hey, here's a coupon for you would you like us to place the order ahead of time? And there's gonna be curbside pickup and you can just drive by and pick it up and go home. And we've already scheduled your favorite TV show. So you can get home, sit down, watch your favorite show that has been pre-recorded or streaming, and is set up for you waiting to press play when you walk in the door and you can enjoy your ice cream on the couch while watching your favorite show, right?

That entire journey from leaving the office to getting home and sitting on the couch with my favorite ice cream and watching my favorite show is a connected journey. And there are multiple pieces to that. There's the grocery store, there's the car. There's maybe a coupon system. There's the TV and streaming service that you're using. There are maybe maps because it knows where the local grocery store is. And so on. And so on. When we talk about customer service in a generic sense, we are typically talking about the singular experience of a singular company and product with a singular individual. We rarely are talking about the connected journey from the moment I leave to the moment I get home. And that is my individual personal journey. And today I might have to use 5, 6, or 7 different apps to create that journey or along that journey, none of them are actually connected. They're all individualistic events. And, so what I try to do is say, why can't we connect all of that? And again, this is just one example.

No, it is a great one.

It gives you some insight as to what, and how we do it

It shows I guess when you have that mindset of that connected journey. And I wanted to ask you, how you instill, you know, some people call it a culture of innovation. It's not just an individual thinker and contributor saying, Hey, you know what we could do, but rather this team thinking or this overall corporate sense that we need to improve that journey, how could we as creative practitioners bring that to our organizations?

Yeah. Well, the first thing is, is that the organization has to be able to accept and embrace it, right? There are a lot of organizations that say, oh, there's our innovation team, or there's our design team, or there's our customer experience team, our marketing team, whatever that's on them to go solve. In reality, it's everybody's responsibility at every organization to solve every problem. But businesses often don't think that way, if you have a hundred employees and will keep the numbers easy if you have a hundred employees and you say "you, your responsibility is to come up with all the great ideas and we're going to ignore the other 99 people who work here," who are passionate about why they work, where they work, you're losing out basically on 99% of your opportunities to find new revenue and be successful. And so first the company has to accept that every single person within that organization is responsible for ideas and creativity and innovation, business, and partnerships. And if you can do that, then the next step is to say, okay, now that we've enabled it, how do we encourage it? How do we make it thrive? How do we actually take action on it? As opposed to, oh, we're just saying that everybody has the capability, but we're not actually doing anything with it,

Right. It sounds good in the employee manual, but you're talking about some classic walls and silos. I mean the R and D versus the manufacturing, the sales, and the marketing and the market research versus the, I mean, you know, there's kind of these buckets and everybody says, you know what we ought to do. You know, what would really help quote the customer, which probably means their customer and their day? But, it sounds like there is a way to permeate this throughout whether it's a company or nonprofit, you know, whatever kind of enterprise it might be.

Oh yeah, yeah. But again, it starts with building that culture. You have to embrace it. So to your point, you know, the concept of, Hey, you know, what would really help? And you've got a thousand of those people around the company saying the exact same thing. I'm sure some people are listening. And I know I've been in this position before where I've worked for a company and I've said, oh my gosh, I've got a great idea. And I think our customers would love it. And here it is. And one of two things happen, your manager says, yeah, I love that idea. And then takes it and uses it as their own idea. Or they say, no, no, no, no, you just work on this. That's not your responsibility. And, thank you very much. And then what happens? They go and hire a consulting firm to come in.

And the consultant comes in, sits down with everybody, and says, Hey, I think I have a great idea for you and shares the exact same idea. And I'm like, I just said that last week. And they're like, yeah, but this guy's brilliance, you know, it's like, what's going on. That's a cultural problem. That's nothing else. That's a cultural problem where the organization is not supporting its employees and not encouraging that those ideas are valid And when that happens, you get discouraged employees who don't then want to speak up, they're threatened by any number of scenarios. And you're, dampening the overall, stability and everything else within that organization. So it's really critical for executives top down to say, no, this is how we're going to run the business, and then stick with it.

Yes. Well, you mentioned some of your past experiences in other companies, you've been in the median entertainment industries with people like Fox and Disney, and universal. And I thought we'd talked to the listeners who are content creators for a moment. I mean, everything has changed about the way we consume content. And we all have said that, and we know that, but somehow getting down to the individual filmmaker, the singer-songwriter, the author, you know, the TV producers who say, we need to change the way we distribute because of this change in the way content is being concerned. What, have you seen evolve and where do you think we're at in that area?

Yeah, I mean, not only has how we produce content changed but how we watch the content or read content, and listen to, content, like a podcast has changed the way we access it. I mean, it's all changed. So if you think about even something like the movie theaters used to be, that was the only place to go see movies. Now I'm actually watching trailers at a movie theater for a streaming service. So they're trying to even push people to stream while sitting there enjoying popcorn at a theater. And I think that's going to continually evolve. We're seeing the emergence of shorter micro pieces of content. You know you used to be able to sit down and watch a news station for an hour and enjoy it. Now, a lot of that is opinions and, and entertainment as opposed to legitimate news. And the news is reduced down to a 30-second clip. TikTok in services like that is where we're getting news, you know, as opposed to cable the music industry has completely evolved instead of going through your traditional publishing and record deals, you can use services like Spotify and publish your own music and attach ADs to it and get followers and get paid for that.

So you've got people who are in their bedrooms producing stuff because it's something they're passionate about. The age of YouTube has completely changed how we look at content creation and content consumption. So it goes back to what we talked about earlier. We have these new expectations and new needs to find content that we are aligned with and watch it in ways that we want to and businesses have to be able to keep up with that expectation and it continuously evolves and it will continue to evolve.

You mentioned the movie theaters and I wanted to touch on some of your personal experiences. It's always interesting how our careers get shaped by some of these early jobs. I was the paper boy. I was the DJ at the local station. You were at the movie theater, literally taking the tickets and ushering people in and serving that popcorn. How, did that influence sort of your early thinking about these creative passions and practices?

Well, one thing it did, is it removed me from eating popcorn for a long time. I started working at a movie theater, you know late eighties loved it. I absolutely loved it. And if I compare my experience of even just going to see a movie back in the eighties, early nineties, compared to today, it's so drastically different. I mean, we had no concept of reserve seating back then. and you would stand in line to watch, Indiana Jones as an example, and the lines would be around the block and you had to get there three hours, four hours before the movie started so that you could get the prime seating, that experience, and that social interaction of engaging with other people who are fans of the film with you at that moment was so special.

And we've lost that. That's one thing that technology has done it's separated us somewhat from fandom. Now, fandom is still there. You, can watch things like star wars and know, that ComicCon is still rampant. Even with COVID, you're still going to have a fandom in some form or another, but it's been lost primarily because of technology. And so I've seen that happen, but over my career, the concept of that social experience and in entertainment and bringing people together around the television you know, those philosophies, I think still play in some level today. And it's definitely been an influence throughout my career on how you reach people who are passionate about something and it doesn't have to be entertainment. It doesn't have to be music or video games or movies. It could be, that I'm passionate about Starbucks.

I'm passionate about that coffee. And I would argue that one of the reasons Starbucks is so successful is because of this social connection that they've built around, sitting with friends and drinking a cup of coffee. And I think again, that conceptual community and passion, everybody is looking for in all walks of life, with everything they engage with. That's why ultimately, why we engage with things. You look at influencers across social media, they're they get followers because of their passion and then being able to share that passion with others. And, so there's a, a lot of things that haven't changed, from that original stand in line for four hours and sit with a bunch of people that you don't know to cheer for your favorite movie, to influencers who are fashion about something and YouTube, hits going through the roof because you've got a million followers interested in something you have to say, yes, still content still distributing that content still passionate and fans just different platforms.

That's right. Well, as long as we're talking about creativity, we can't skip over your own creative passions and your own creative work in writing a fantasy adventure novel. So in all this business transformation, and innovation, you're, you're still finding time to write and soon I hope cross our fingers. We're gonna be publishing the novel soon.

Yeah. Cross our fingers.

Yeah. You know, writing is hard

Yeah.

Writing is hard and, it's definitely hard to you know, get things published. And, I'm trying to go down a, a more traditional path as opposed to self-publishing, there's a lot of opportunities out there to do self-publishing and get it you know, exposure and get it on platforms like Amazon. I mean, anybody can do it really, but, to spend that time and energy and try to get it, you know, through a traditional channel and, have people read something that you've created. I love the idea. Believe it, or not five years ago when I actually started writing this I had never thought about writing a book. It wasn't even on the top 10 things of like, things I wanna do in my life, like, oh, write a book. Like I literally woke up one day and said, Hey, I've got this idea.

Maybe it's a book. Maybe it's a series and why not? Let's try it. And I had no idea what I was doing. and I had no idea what the process was going to be like or what the art of writing is or what the science of storytelling is. I feel like I've always been a great storyteller all the way back to when I was at the movies and loving movies and watching stories unfold, and even being in drama class during high school and things like that, like, okay, I get the concept of storytelling and I do it all the time in my professional career, but then to actually understand the science behind that and bring it together into a book that is interesting and makes sense. Wow. I sure did not realize what I was getting into at the time.

It's so interesting. You described this creative process as a learning process too. You know, you have so much mastery and skill and success in your career, and yet you say, I think I'll write a book and we're just totally, a piece of clay sitting at the typewriter at this point.

Yeah, I think it's important to continuously grow and evolve and learn ourselves. Right. That's really the only way that we're going to be able to keep up with the things that are changing around us. And we know that both culture and technology are changing, evolving, constantly. And so I think it's critical for people to be able to continuously learn and improve themselves. You know, where I spend my time might not necessarily be where people think I had an interesting conversation with my leadership team at work when they said, Hey, you know, what's something that you would like to grow in? And I'm like, well, nothing at work. I'd rather learn a skill that is for me personally, you know, something outside of work. So, you know, others might be like, yeah, I wanna grow a specific skill. That's going to help me in my career, or I, I want to learn how to surf or something.? For me, yeah. I, I, it was definitely personal. It was definitely a skill set that I thought, you know, would be interesting. that again, like I said I really didn't grasp the amount of time that was gonna take, but I went with it, and I think that's something everybody should do

Well. And you dive in, you stay with it. Well, yeah, Chris can't thank you enough for sharing both your insights and your experience.

Absolutely.

I really enjoyed the conversation. How do we stay connected with you? Where do we find you and read more about your work,

The easiest place to do that would be at my website, Chrishood.com. And then on, there are all of my social links, my blog, you can read stuff. A way to stay in touch with the progress of my book. Yeah. Everything is there.

Yeah. Well, listeners definitely connect with Chris because the blogs are good and they're not just about, innovation and transformation every day. There are some cool topics that I think, kind of bring to light some of the creative things. We're all working on in the various areas of our lives and careers. Well, my guest had been Chris hood, he's head of business innovation and strategy at Google and with the Google cloud. And he shared with us a lot of insights on business transformation, digital transformation, but also his own creative process. And we've learned a lot from that. So again, thanks for being on the program, Chris,

Thank you.

And listeners come back for our next episode. We'll continue our around-the-world travels. We've stopped off in Southern California today, but we'll be going around the world, talking with creative practitioners, about how they get inspired, how they organize these ideas, and most of all, how they gain the confidence and the connections to launch their work out into the world. So until next time, I'm Mark Stinson and we're unlocking your world of creativity. See you soon.