Robert Plant, master of reinvention 

Brand reinvention sounds like a lofty, even noble concept. But adapting your brand to changing market conditions and customer behaviors is hard. Just ask Blockbuster (dead in the water) or The New York Times (fighting for its future). If you are a company faced with the daunting challenge of brand reinvention, a 66-year-old rock-and-roll singer has a few lessons for you. Robert Plant, once the living symbol of youthful hedonism during his days with Led Zeppelin, has successfully reinvented himself. As his body and voice have aged, his audience has changed, and the music industry has been upended, he is now receiving the best reviews of his career and selling strong as a solo artist. Here is his formula for success:

Photo Credit Joi Ito/Flickr

If you had looked in my purse in 1999, you would have been able to predict the iPhone. Inside, I had the following items: cell phone, address book, palm pilot, digital camera, pedometer, lipstick, computer, keys. Seven out of eight of those items have now converged, thanks to the smart phone. 

Sometimes the simplest change can unleash the potential of your work force. A case in point is learning how to talk openly with each other at BeyondCurious. After taking a hard look at ourselves during a challenging period, we recently implemented an approach for more open communication that we call "straight talk." Straight talk is not a euphemism for providing occasional performance feedback; it's a simple but powerful way of thinking that encompasses candid communication across the organization at all times. I believe straight talk can help your company become more efficient and effective, as it has with BeyondCurious.

New technologies are helping retailers increase customer engagement, support staff performance, and bring data richness to in-store customer analytics. For example: have you ever wondered what areas of your store get the most foot traffic? Do you wish you could push relevant promotions and recommendations to customers based on their purchase history while in your store? Or have you ever wanted to beam instructions to a sales associate suddenly faced with an unhappy VIP client? 

At BeyondCurious, we live on the cloud. Literally. As an innovation consultancy, we work with leading brands helping them solve complex business problems with digital solutions. Yet, we have no servers, no local applications. Everything in our business is cloud based – providing global access to information and enabling us to scale rapidly as we grow.

Excellent client relationships are the foundation of a successful consultancy. But relationship management isn’t always easy. In fact, developing relationships and keeping them strong, even when there are bumps in the road, is one of the hardest skills to learn. 

Redg Snodgrass and Kyle Ellicott on the emerging business of wearable tech 

The second annual Glazed conference is set to take place June 3-4 in San Francisco at the Regency Center. I spoke to Wearble World and Glazed Conference founders Redg Snodgrass and Kyle Ellicott about the burgeoning wearable economy, and their thoughts on what it will take for the wearable era to truly come into its own. 

Apps get a lot of press and attention. But new technologies are about to change mobile as we know it.