In 1926, Henry Ford instituted a controversial shift change at his growing automotive empire: the weekend. To the ire of many other manufacturers, Ford closed shop on Saturdays, giving his workers the new-fangled ritual of two days off a week. His move was the high point of a short-lived historic experiment. Remember the weekend, when men and women valiantly tried to keep work and home separate, equal and unadulterated?

Now, of course, we work anywhere, and most of the time. Work is in our pocket, spilling into homes, weekends, vacations and bedrooms. Nearly 40 percent of mobile workers with PDAs now wake up at night at times to check them, at least occasionally, according to a quarterly survey of mobile enterprise workers by iPass.

Does this blurring of boundaries signify an easy return to a pre-industrial past, when we lived over the store or on the farm? Are we sliding seamlessly back into integrated lives? No. For most of human history, work and home were blended due to the restriction of experience. Geographic distance and the rhythms of sun and season limited the circumference of our work and home lives. Trade, like war, ceased at sunset. Entire lives centered on the same corner of earth.

Today we multitask in nanoseconds on a global scale, moving restlessly in thought and body across the planet. Forty percent of offices lie vacant on any given day, according to Deloitte. Bankers shift their hours to the midnight darkness of each monetary mess. We rarely speak of anything being “too far away” anymore. “Long weeks within a single community are unusual; a full day within a single neighborhood is becoming rare,” writes sociologist Kenneth Gergen in The Saturated Self. The @Work State of Mind arises from an expansion of experience.

What is the impact of these extraordinary changes? Surely, we are light-footed and nimble-minded. And yet always-on work forces us to constantly negotiate what we are doing, individually and collectively. Who changes the diaper when both spouses return from work exhausted? How do you sync a team spread across six time zones and three alternative work arrangements? Throughout the day, the average worker switches tasks on average every three minutes; half the time, they are interrupting themselves, according to studies by Gloria Mark, a professor of Informatics at the University of California Irvine. Perhaps this is why the @Work study reveals that among today’s decision-makers, a sense of accomplishment correlates with an ability to separate work and personal life. Without at least a few borderlines, we cannot find terra firma in an unshackled world.

A constant negotiation of attention is our foremost challenge. At heart, paying attention well is a matter of judicious boundary making. Focus, or “orienting” in science parlance, is akin to a spotlight of the mind, allowing us to filter what’s secondary and go deep into thought. Awareness opens our sensory floodgates, making us sensitive to our wider surroundings. Finally, executive attention fuels our abilities to plan, prioritize and weigh conflicting data. Attention isn’t singular, scientists are now discovering. It’s a multifaceted skill set that is a secret to thriving in an always-on era. How we attend shapes how we rest, play, create, manage, communicate and love.

Hopping from task to task, juggling interruptions, layering time is our default work style, although research conclusively shows that we cannot multitask very well. Beyond simple tasks such as folding laundry and watching television, we are often slow, prone to error and intellectually half-asleep when we multitask. And those who do it the most tend to do it most poorly, according to a 2009 study by Stanford University scientist Clifford Nass. The habit trains them to be “suckers for irrelevancy,” says Nass. Skimming, surfing, task switching are crucial “literacies” of this new age. But they must be balanced by time for deep focus, analysis, reflection and—dare I say it? —calm. @Work needn’t be a monotone state of mind.

Remember the weekend? It varied the pace of life, placing a boundary around something worthwhile. Put in place to protect people from the burden of never-ending work, over time the weekend, nevertheless, came to exemplify the rigidity of the boundary-centric Industrial Age. Now liberated from the confines of space and time, will we be remembered by future generations as the people who forgot the art of the limit?

Maggie Jackson is an award-winning columnist and author of Distracted

A keen understanding from every b2b agency into how these devices are used across the business world will pay dividends in audience engagement and client ROI. We have been researching the effect that such mobilisation of technology has had on the business world in our recent @Work State of Mind report, and the findings highlight an appetite to use mobile tech to its fullest among key business decision makers. 84% of those polled felt better prepared to make decisions because of the freedom it gives them to work anywhere and at anytime.

Every creative agency should look to utilise this willingness to blur the line between personal and professional to develop campaigns solely built for mobile and social communication platforms. Not only will this strategy grow engagement in a world increasingly hostile to brand messaging, but it will help push the boundaries in the global b2b industry and establish each b2b agency as a leading force in the sector.

The iPod was introduced in 2001, the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad in 2010. I love the evolution of the products. And the new iPad 3 delivers phenomenal technological advancements including 2048-by-1536 resolution, 44 percent greater color saturation and 3.1 million pixels all powered by the new A5X chip. However, I can’t help but wonder what the next new product will be. I can’t help but wonder what this iconic company will introduce, and I can’t wait to see how it will impact the world economy from manufacturing to sales and marketing.

More intriguing, I wonder how Apple will keep the legacy of Mr. Jobs alive. The stock price is still there. In fact, with the iPad 3, Apple broke the $600-per-share mark, and sales are stronger than ever (3 million tablets sold as of print), but how long will it stay there? Will Apple deliver on Jobs’ wish to be a company that is continuously inventing, continuously evolving—and will the company that lives on Infinite Loop live up to his wishes and live on into infinity?

Why am I so curious and eager to see what’s next? Maybe Apple has spoiled me. But I bet I’m not the only one anticipating what’s really next. Yes, a lot of us have learned to wait to experience the new product before we comment (and, as it turns out, I wrote this post on my iPad 2 the same day the new iPad was made available to the public). I don’t need to wait and experience the new product. Virtually all of us knew that the 4G product would be amazing. I’m sure I’ll like the next iteration of the iPad once I get my hands on one, but really, what’s next?

Why do we care so much about Apple’s next new technology? Because only once or twice in a generation does a company, a culture, a movement come along that changes the world, improves humanity and impacts the world’s economy. And as a marketer, I am eager to see how it will impact the marketing landscape.

I listened to the announcement and watched the unveiling of the new iPad, and I saw the immediate impact it had on three other company’s stock prices (their suppliers). This started me thinking about the impact that this company has on my world and my profession, but then I realized the impact that it has on the entire world’s economy—suppliers, shippers, app developers, e-commerce, the music and movie industries, and manufacturers (of everything: headsets, phone cases, chip makers, processors, glass, etc.).

Further, I recall the Jobs biography written by Walter Isaacson and how a child in a developing country picked up an iPad and inherently knew how to use it, even after having never interacted with such technology before. I can’t wait to see what Apple does for the advancement and education of today’s youth. I know it’s coming as I’ve seen the announcement about Apple, textbooks and universities (Apple and NYU are expected to make a statement this month).

So, Tim Cook, we are waiting. I missed it at the unveiling of the new iPad, I missed Jobs saying, “Oh, and one more thing …” I hope you continue the trajectory of this incredible American company, but most of all I hope you keep the tradition of surprising and delighting us and keep saying “one more thing …”

Keith Turco is president of gyro New York

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

On Feb. 27, I received a handwritten thank you note from the Tiffany’s sales associates who assisted me with my purchase. It’s not uncommon to receive a thank you from Tiffany’s given its reputation for service, but in the same pile of mail was a handwritten thank you from my florist. The florist’s note was the first I’d received after years of doing business with them.

Minutes later, I received a phone call from Pete, the manager of the Lorien Hotel and Spa, inviting my wife and me for a return trip—free of charge—as a result of some service issues we had experienced during our stay. Pete realized that those misfires disrupted an important customer experience (see my note above about “continual travel” and “well deserved”) and offered to make it right.

Significantly impressed with the three simultaneous acts of kindness, I thought to myself that maybe there is a silver lining to the recession. Maybe companies have been reminded that customers are, in fact, important to their success.

A customer is defined as an individual, not a segment that scores the highest on a propensity model or an occupation with a “desirable socioeconomic profile.” A person with feelings and beliefs who has had an experience with a brand, a company representative, a product or service, might be most likely to decide to buy it again, or tell a friend, or both, if that experience was a good one.

In a new study published by Accenture titled The New Realties of “Dating” in the Digital Age, 85 percent of consumers who posted a comment about a negative online experience switched providers. And these consumers are getting harder to please. Customer service expectations have been increasing consistently over the last four years, with 44 percent of consumers saying their expectations are slightly or much higher than the previous year, compared to only 31 percent in 2008.

The study also identifies five potential blind spots over the course of the provider-customer relationship that could predispose customers to switch providers:

*Nice to Meet You – Missing the chance to set the right expectations at the onset of the relationship.
*You Don’t Know Me Anymore – Missing subtler changes that matter in customers’ need for special treatment or reward.
*Cheating Heart – Overlooking signs customers are itching to switch.
*Are You Listening – Failure to offer consumers opportunities to engage with a provider.
*Trinkets Won’t Save Me – Relying on point solutions to satisfy and keep customers.

The “cheating heart” effect points to companies over emphasis on retention, which may cause them to miss important shifts in buying behavior that could signal a future switch in vendors. Thankfully, my florist carefully monitors my purchase patterns and reminds me of purchases I make at certain times of the year (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.), creating a win-win for both of us.

As the researchers note, failure to notice these subtle changes in behavior puts the company at risk for eventually losing the customer. For example, 27 percent of respondents mentioned that they had stayed with their bank/financial services provider but have added another provider (a partial switch), a foot out the door that eventually leads to customer attrition.

So remember to treat your customer as you would a loved one, with respect, kindness and an occasional gift to smooth over any misgivings. If you don’t, that cheating heart might just leave you.

Mark Johnson, CEO of Loyalty 360, in an interview identifying the top loyalty trends for 2011 stated, “Loyalty will focus more on emotions than on rational, incentive-based initiatives. Behavioral economists tell us that economic decision-making is 70 percent emotional and 30 percent rational, which is why incentive-based loyalty programs that tend to be rational do not work well. It’s the emotional side of the decision-making process that creates connected, passionate, engaged customers.“

The thank you cards and the phone call I received were specific to me and my experience. They weren’t form letters generated by a transactional or CRM system, based on my purchase. The notes were handwritten by the people who assisted me and mentioned the specific purchases I made with them.

They were relevant to me, left an impression and got me talking about the experience. I didn’t receive bonus points or special discounts. Instead, I got a response from someone who appreciated my business and cared enough about my experience to reach out to me on a personal and emotional level, which is how you can create connected, engaged customers and prevent “a cheating heart.”

Scott Gillum leads gyro’s Channel Marketing practice and is president of gyro Washington, D.C.

Follow Scott on Twitter @SGillum.

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

Take a look and try them out:
1. Make your Google+ identity part of your online properties and campaigns. Now that it influences search results, it’s a gift that keeps on giving.

2. Put your +1 button everywhere. It not only enables quick engagement that’s visible through your customers’ social graphs, but it also gives you measurement capability. Perhaps most important, it allows you to “store” user engagement around an event or campaign long after the event itself has ended.

3. Leverage Google Hangouts. Take a look at ChefHangout.com, a company whose entire business model is to use Google Hangouts to sell cooking classes online. A professional chef teaches the classes, and students can even choose the cuisine they want to learn about. It’s a clever idea that leverages Google’s massive infrastructure investment to deliver a great service to a potentially global market at very low cost.

4. Keep your pages fresh with quality content instead of quantity.

5. Social media is social only if people engage. Ask for interactions.

6. Use lots of rich media. Google+ is a good environment for that.

7. Don’t think of social and mobile as a medium, but as a bridge between offline and online. A customer is looking at your billboard. What happens when the customer points his mobile phone at it? When someone sees your product online, that person will want to know what her friends think of it. Are you enabling that feature?

8. Overall, get mobile. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Half of the United States has a smartphone, but 80 percent of businesses don’t have a mobile presence. A custom website or landing page is great, but even something as simple as a listing in Google Maps, or the ability to click a phone number to call you, can be useful and welcome.

For many more insights from the keynote, you can see the full webcast here.

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

On one hand, the phones themselves can practically do everything short of making a double espresso (although if I downloaded the right app, my new Samsung might do that for me, too). The technology has advanced astonishingly fast—the svelte and alluring cell phone that seduced me a mere two years ago came to feel like a clunky and not-so-smart artifact I couldn’t wait to dump—and there’s no sign that it will slow down anytime soon. Shall I instant-message that new bistro for a reservation? No problem! How about high-res cameras front and back? Sure, when I shoot the Grand Canyon I want a close-up of my eyeball at the same time! Sudoku on demand? I’m on game 51 at the “Challenging” level! The frosting on this scrumptious digital cake is that I can even make phone calls—although texting is usually faster.

On the other hand, despite their ever-expanding spate of features and capabilities, cell phones—or more precisely and remarkably, smartphones—already seem to risk becoming commodities. The product life cycle of many models can be measured in weeks, at a time when more than 87 million Americans now own smartphones, according to a comScore report issued in November. The carriers themselves—Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile at the top of the heap—face an equally daunting challenge: How to beat their competitors with offers just good enough, just simple enough to entice and retain customers?

The extent of all this churn might well cause Charles Dickens, if he were reporting for CNET, to summarize the state of the cell phone industry in 2011 quite tellingly: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …”

In her remarkable book, Resonate, CEO and educator Nancy Duarte notes that “if two products have the same features, the one that appeals to an emotional need will be chosen.” In a recent online discussion of retail promotion strategy, Carol Spieckerman, president of NewMarketBuilders, commented that “when everyone has access to the same raw materials, sourcing, supply chain efficiencies, and democratized design, brand is really the ONLY difference.” [emphasis in original]

As a hardcore loyalist of cell phone carrier “X” for 15 years, I embodied the twin stars of Duarte’s and Spieckerman’s points. I couldn’t wait to trade up, and I eagerly scoured the company’s website for details on the various smartphone features. But that all changed when I hit the nearby corporate retail store.

Indifference reigned, and the store wasn’t even busy. The rep assigned to me pointed vaguely to a wall display. I asked about the data plan for all four members in our family plan. “Lemme go check,” he said.  Meanwhile, I tried a demo phone but couldn’t access the Internet. “Yeah,” the rep said when he returned.  “Customers mess ’em up, and our techs have to reset them.”

“Would that be possible to do today?” I asked. No, apparently not until late on Sunday.

“OK,” I said. “But I’m ready to buy four new phones and contracts today if I can try them out.”

“Gotcha,” he replied, then paused. “Thanks for coming in,” he added, as he turned away.

With the rep nowhere in sight, I left the store 10 minutes later and, after some thought, ended up in a competitor’s store down the street. I didn’t simply want a new smartphone, I realized; I wanted a brand whose ambassadors would share my excitement. If I were an IT manager aiming to equip my colleagues with mobile devices to help them win in the field, the process would have differed, but the desire would have been exactly the same. Let’s make some cool stuff happen!

As it turned out, my needs were met on the second try. A responsive sales rep understood and shared my delight with the new capabilities a smartphone would provide; by that simple human connection—by making a mash-up of gee-whiz technical features into somethinghumanly relevant—the rep made me a new brand ambassador.

We’ll see if that feeling lasts; for now, I’m enjoying my new phone. One might expect that intense competition in an industry would raise the level of customer service; however, the forces of commoditization may be hitting cell phone carriers much as they have the airlines, eroding investment in almost any aspect of the post-purchase brand experience. Brand loyalty? Lifetime customers? Whatever.

If that’s the case, then being a cell phone carrier nowadays must truly be brutal—especially if you work on the retail side.

by Pete Healy
Vice President – Account Planning

Follow Pete on Twitter @PeteHealy

Staff who believe in the brand, product or service they are marketing can become or act as “brand advocates.” It therefore makes absolute sense for businesses to take advantage of this opportunity. There are no additional marketing costs, and the staff effectively market a brand or service to a wider yet targeted audience of their friends and family. Office dynamics can help by creating the right breeding ground for brand advocates. But how do you create this?

Internal communications.

Digital has had a revolutionary impact on the ease with which people now communicate and no less in internal communications. Social networks present a realm of endless possibilities for employers to provide places where staff can discuss their work and how it inspires them, spreading a positive message to the rest of the company. Creating staff-only social network pages is a major step toward cultivating brand advocates, and it’s something that many companies forget when setting up pages for clients or fans.

gyro’s Facebook page, for example, is a place where internal communications and personal employee messaging combine, enabling staff to feel truly involved with the company whilst also providing a place for internal communications to be less corporate.

One such gyro communications scheme epitomises what can be done through this platform. As gyro rebranded itself last year, employee buy-in for the new ethos of the company was essential. Creativity is intrinsic in everything we do, and so we challenged staff to be creative with the new brand ID, incorporating their own personal images within it, offering an overseas trip to another office as the prize. Not only did this approach offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for an employee to travel, but it also let different global offices feel connected and motivated as part of one community. An overwhelming response saw employees from all 18 global offices uploading countless inspiring works that our Facebook community discussed and judged.

The use of digital was the driving force behind this competition, letting the creativity present in the marketing industry not only flourish and spread but also promote integration and company buy-in across gyro’s global network. Employees bonded over their work, becoming motivated as part of one community, despite living on different sides of the globe. This is something not possible without digital technologies. Moreover, employees became empowered by their work and the clients for whom they produce such work. These employees quickly became brand advocates, extolling the virtues of both their agency and their clients.

What other digital channels can marketing agencies use to create brand advocates? In an extension of social networks, blogs have become increasingly popular in many industries, not the least of which is marketing. An outlet previously reserved for those in senior roles (often limited to CEOs), blogs are a great way of giving employees at all levels the chance to air their views on anything from topical events to the latest office Christmas party. This transparency and inclusion can serve to make employees feel empowered and integral to a business far more than social networks can, where single contributions are often devalued by the deluge of comments. Encouraging comment through company blogs is a key stage in creating a dedicated workforce.

Dedication comes when employees feel like they actively contribute to the business, and blogging for a company is an apropos way of achieving this goal.

And what about apps? They’re often overlooked, but businesses are using apps to communicate with their customers, so why shouldn’t there be a corporate app for internal communications that can be delivered straight to employees’ mobile devices? Such a tool could be an attractive alternative to blanket company emails on topics suitable for a more sociable and less formal platform. Employees would be able to engage with their employer on their own terms, as app content is consumed when and where the user sees fit. This permission-based interaction constructively grows the employee-employer relationship. An internal communications app just makes sense.

Digital also can be used to promote, support and raise awareness of initiatives that staff may not be aware of. For example, gyro works with Business In The Community (BITC), an organisation that gives businesses and their staff the chance to volunteer for good causes on Give and Gain day. Such activities promote well-being and goodwill amongst staff, and so are well publicised through digital internal communication channels to encourage staff buy-in and involvement.

Involving and inspiring employees are the main goals of internal communications. It enhances productivity and can produce those all-important brand advocates who can turn a good campaign idea for a client into a great one, while also promoting that client amongst their social circles. Digital technologies can play an integral part in this, giving staff the chance to socialise online, develop working relationships and inspire each other. Integrating current communication programs with digital tactics can spread the company message throughout the entire business via all formats, be they Twitter, the blogosphere or apps.

Remember, a company is no longer a specific place or office building. It is made up of the thoughts and ideas of its employees, and so creating a positive working dynamic that utilises this source of creativity is integral to a successful business.

by Patrick Danaher
Director of Marketing
Cross posted at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

Follow Patrick on Twitter @PatrickDanaher.

Well, Best Buy and Research In Motion’s tablet may have the answer: price point. And while this strategy may be meeting with some backlash today, on Black Friday when Best Buy offered a 16-GB and 32-GB PlayBook for $199.99 and $299.99, respectively, those tablets flew off the shelves.

In addition, Amazon’s family of Kindle product sales has quadrupled from a year ago. The new $200 Kindle Fire announced eight weeks ago has helped Amazon boost sales, and the Fire is a top-selling product.

So, the question at hand is, is a price point of $199 the magic number to move the sale of a tablet within a middle-income buyer’s reach? According to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, this may be the case.

Pew Research reports that “about half, 51 percent, of (current) tablet users have graduated from college, compared with 28 percent of all U.S. adults; 62 percent are fully employed, compared with 44 percent of the population overall. They are nearly twice as likely as U.S. adults overall to have a household income of at least $75,000 per year (53 percent versus 28 percent).” And, most intriguing of all, “the largest share of tablet users, 46 percent, are in their 30s and 40s, compared with 35 percent of the population overall.” These numbers suggest that a lot of potential sales of tablets are out there for the right combination of brand credibility, functionality and price.

Implications for marketers …

This holiday season is being called the year of the tablet. Expectations for tablet sales are running very high. In fact, ChangeWave surveyed 3,043 North American consumers Nov. 1-13 (2011) about their consumer electronics purchasing plans in the next 90 days. The results showed that 14 percent planned to buy a tablet in the next three months. Of those, 65 percent planned to get an Apple iPad 2 and 22 percent planned to buy an Amazon Kindle Fire. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab was a distant third with 4 percent of respondents.

So, the good news is that in early 2012, we are likely to have more potential customers we can reach with marketing communications on their tablets. The bad news? We are likely to have more potential customers we can reach with marketing communications on their tablets. More devices mean more operating platforms, which means more expense to develop and deliver marketing programs. Just as marketers have been grappling with mobile platforms, 2012 looks to be the start of multiple tablet platforms as well.

by Carolyn Ladd
Vice President Account Planning and Digital Strategy

Cross posted at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

As a B-to-B advertiser, not every program has advertisements for the types of things I’m used to talking or thinking about. But there is one type of program I can rely on for some hot business-on-business action: sporting events. And with Premier League Soccer and NFL seasons in full swing — not to mention a couple of televised Rugby World Cup games — I’ve borne witness to some pretty serious B-to-B advertising. And it didn’t even suck.

In fact, some of it has been damned humanly relevant. Take this spot, for example.

This was put together for Lincoln Financial by gyro New York, and it does a great job using a consumer hook as a pull-through to connect to the business audience.

What’s that, you say? Your business brand doesn’t have a consumer aspect like Lincoln Financial does? Read on!

B-to-B: Now for people!

Some B-to-B marketers will balk at the idea of spending a big chunk of what are sometimes very limited budgets on a TV spot. I mean, who’s going to see it? People? We’re not interested in talking to people. And they’re at home, nowhere near their desks. It would be just like throwing money away!

To those marketers, I respectfully say, I have no respect for you.

That’s not true. I actually have lots of respect for you.

But you are wrong.

And some important business brands would agree with me. I won’t mention any names, since some of them are my clients and others are competitors to accounts gyro serves (ahem!). But I will say there is some extraordinary business-focused advertising going on while the blue- and white-collar decision-makers of the world are going collarless (and perhaps even pants-less).

As we’ve learned from The @Work State of Mind, business decision-makers are, in fact, people. And business decisions aren’t being made exclusively in the office anymore. It turns out that the same operations manager who loves getting sales sheets also loves to sit in front of a magic screen and watch big dudes run into one another. And when that’s not happening, he just might think about logistics, chemicals or helicopter parts.

Social Media in Live HD

Engaging someone’s business brain while she or he is off duty isn’t just a CYA move. It can ignite actions in a way that business-hour communications cannot. These days, brands are relying heavily on social sharing to increase their reach. And people like to share when they’re having fun. That’s probably why people are more likely to share work-related stuff while off-hours. They see a spot about chemicals, it tickles them, and they tweet about it. And this shouldn’t surprise anyone, since most people are looking at multiple screens at once, be they TV, mobile device or computer.

And that’s not counting all the regular, non-decision-makers who might see your spot and send it to good old Uncle Bill and his giant manufacturing company. So if you want your brand to be a hit socially, maybe a good place to start is on the television.

Broadcast doesn’t make sense for every brand, but there’s no longer any reason to dismiss advertising on TV or radio as an option for B-to-B. If the goal is messaging that resonates with humans, why not get to your audience when they’re clutching a remote control and screaming at players who cannot hear them — in other words, acting very, very human.

When the term Cyber Monday first came into currency just six years ago, the Internet and the world of e-commerce were vastly different places. For starters, Cyber Monday is no longer just at the office. The phenomenon started at a time when relatively few of us had true high-speed Internet access, and almost all of those who did had it at only the office. By the time home DSL and cable modems became more widely adopted, Cyber Monday already was an institution embraced by retailers and accompanied by discounts and promotions that consumers expected and even demanded.

However, our online lives are no longer connected by a wire. With hundreds of millions of smartphones in use worldwide, e-commerce is not dependent on the combination of office hours and time-when-the-boss-isn’t-looking moments. We’re online practically 24/7. I can shop while I’m in the carpool drop-off line. You can compare prices sitting in the doctor’s waiting room. Anybody can order the latest 50-inch plasma TV while riding on an elevator. I can even explain to my wife why we need that.

In short: Cyber Monday is predicted to be a big wave, but it’s just a part of the rising tide.

These always-on consumers throughout the world are likely to be doing their cybershopping whenever and wherever it suits them. In fact, the use of mobile devices can enhance traditional retail. As Black Friday shoppers use their smartphones to confirm store hours and in-store specials, they’re effectively expanding the “one-day event” backwards through the weekend.

They’ll use their bar code readers to compare prices and make sure they’re looking at the latest models. While checking in with their geolocation app, they’ll be influenced by the shopping decisions and suggestions of their friends. And as they stand in line at the checkout, many are certain to double-check that big online store one last time to see if their goods are available with free shipping.

What this means to marketers, whether their brands ultimately are dependent on straight e-commerce or not, is that the store, the company site and all associated social media channels need to be optimized for mobile browsers. Your mobile apps must be up to date. Most critical is that your offers, your specials and your promotions have to be easy to find and understand in the context of a four-inch handheld screen.

Get ready for 30 Cyber Mondays in a row.

by Frank Garamy
Vice President, Technical Planning

Cross-posted at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network