ICYMI: Age of Frictionless Customer Experience, Surviving a Startup Coup

Howdy! Here’s this week’s ICYMI (In Case You Missed It) roundup. Head ’em up, move ’em out.

Quick, Give Me the Headlines:

If your company is not already jumping through hoops to create frictionless customer service by merging speed and convenience, you’re going to want to start. Companies such as Amazon and Lyft utilize the concept, successfully shifting the idea from a novelty to a requirement. Channeling my inner Napoleon Dynamite by saying “Thanks a LOT! Gosh …”
“Be stubborn on the mission and be flexible on the details” — Ravi Vadrevu. Check out this must read: Surviving a Startup Coup: Entrepreneur Spotlight on Ravi Vadrevu
Domo arigato, Mr. Robotic-o process automation. It’s almost here. Just add cognitive AI enhancement and you’ve got yourself a party
Docurated deepened Salesforce partnership with new Federated Search. Put ‘er there, partner
Ch-ch-changes! iOS 11 is coming in hot with a new “Today” section in the Apple App store, possibly providing more visibility to your app and brand. Get to planning
Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft. It seems to be the Marcia Brady of the tech world and doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Microsoft presented latest releases to align with goal to “reinvent personal productivity”
I laughed way too hard at this headline: Enterprise Search: The Red-Headed Stepchild of the Workplace. Miles Kehoe digs into why it’s so bad and how to fix the issue
Marketers: reach your customers via these community-based content marketing channels (*cough* Wikipedia, Medium, Reddit, comment sections, Quora and niche forums)
I wasn’t sure how I felt about this article until I read it thoroughly. Martyn Perks argues governance does not belong in the modern digital workplace
Last week Forrester unveiled its "Vendor Landscape: Digital Experience Service Providers, 2017" to dive into this growing area. Kaya Ismail has the inside scoop on how DX Service providers differentiate and how they sometimes blend together (too much marketing speak anyone?)

Events

I think I see five fancy events over yonder. Giddy up!

Sept. 4 — Chief Data and Analytics Officer Melbourne
Sept. 14 — Chief Strategy Officer Summit Sydney
Sept. 18 — Gartner Digital Workplace Summit London 2017
Sept. 27 — 15th Annual Pharmaceutical IT Congress - London
Nov. 13 — CMSWire's DX Summit Chicago 2017

Featured Resources

The jig is up! Here are this week’s featured resources for your reading pleasure:

I'm not sure why I felt so compelled to chose a “Western” theme for this week’s article, but it’s been a lot of fun. Thanks for riding into the sunset with me. Kick some butt this week, ok? Metaphorically speaking, of course.