“Everything’s fast now and it’s totally unreasonable,” says comedian John Mulaney. “The world is run by computers. The world is run by robots. And sometimes they ask us if we’re a robot just because we’re trying to log in and look at our own stuff!”

Marketing teams face the opportunities (and temptations) of more channels, more content, and more technology. And thinking about how it all works together to deliver a consistent, effective customer experience can lead to more headaches.

“We had such a problem with finding assets. It could take us days to find an asset in the past, because...the file could be on multiple hard drives, and then it wasn’t in any sort of structure. Now that it’s in Widen we can find the asset immediately, within seconds.” – Marc Marsocci, The Mariner’s Museum and Park

We’re thrilled to announce CEO Matthew Gonnering has been named the overall 2019 Executive of the Year by In Business magazine. Now in its sixth year, the awards program celebrates exemplary business executives based on leadership, innovation, and company success. Gonnering and the other winners will be honored at an awards reception on February 19, 2019 at the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison.

“Expect that there will be roadblocks and there will be push-backs, but be patient with those because change is hard, and sometimes people are just reacting to the fact that it’s a change rather than the details of the change itself.” – Jane Leuchter, The Institute for Functional Medicine

Regardless of funding, revenues, or company size, one of the strongest differentiators an organization can have is its brand. But brand strength doesn't happen on its own. It's a competitive advantage that needs to be earned. It takes organizational self-reflection, focus, and discipline to create a brand that customers prefer over competitors. That’s why brand management is important. The brand must have rules placed around it to be easily upheld and presented appropriately. And it needs to be considerate to a quickly changing world with numerous cultural nuances.

Globalization and e-commerce present huge opportunities for consumer packaged goods companies. Deloitte estimates online sales of consumer packaged products will increase by 350% to $36 billion in 2018 from $8 billion as recently as 2013.

There’s no denying that we live in a digital world. From the millions of websites and apps at our disposal to the internet-connected phone in our pockets, the evidence is all around us. As consumers, the same holds true. We rely on the web for just about everything. Whether we’re shopping, researching a new product, or communicating with a business, we often turn to the convenience and practicality of digital channels.

In this day and age, we seem to have more of everything. As consumers, we have more gadgets, products, and services than we know what to do with. As businesses, we rely on more and more content than ever before to communicate with our audiences. And, then there’s the paperwork! We could fill warehouses and servers with the legal records, invoices, and operational business documents that we need to hold on to — you know, just in case.

We spent a lot of quality time together in 2018 between Widen events, customer success conversations, UX field research, and more. All of these interactions gave us a lot of great insights into how we can continue to improve our products and services this year. So, if you like what we did in 2018, you’re going to love what we have in store for 2019!

Here’s a rundown of the things we’ll do, the places we’ll go, and the experiences we’ll create together this year.