Jennifer Davis was featured in an interview video by Display Week.
"Talent never wears out. Make weakness irrelevant." - Peter Drucker
Jennifer Davis' podcast interview with David Haynes is featured on Sixteen:Nine.
A study at Harvard, asked subjects to cut into a line of strangers waiting to make photocopies. When they asked simply if they could use the photocopier (saying “Excuse me. May I use the machine?” for instance), subjects were successful 60% of the time. However, when a reason beginning with the word “because” was added (“May I use the photocopier because I’m in a rush”), the request gained instant credibility, and compliance skyrocketed to 94%.
What’s more amazing, it didn’t seem to matter what the given reason was (“May I use the photocopier, because I need to make copies”), compliance remained at about the same level, 93%.
This is a lesson in persuasion that all of us can apply. Giving people the benefit of an explanation makes us more influential. I highly advise against giving a dumb or non-sensical reason (“I need to make copies, because I need to make copies”). I imagine that would help your cause today, but hurt your credibility long term. But giving people the courtesy of a reasonable and relevant “because” will make all the difference.
"Your job as a leader is to be right at the end of the meeting not at the beginning." - Art Gensler
Jennifer Davis' preview of what to expect at InfoComm 2016 from the June issue of Systems Contractor News.
"Helping hands are happy hands." -Timber Jim Serrill
Paying attention. Looking at the data and patterns. Facing the reality. Drawing conclusions. That is when insights happen.
English is a strange language. Of that, there is no doubt or dispute. The amalgamation and combination of various tongues and cultures have resulted in an ever-changing and nearly-impossible-to-codify language system that ranks among the most difficult to master.
I have been reminded of this recently when reflecting on the word: fearless.
There is a plaque in my office, created by a friend, that has this word written on the face. She meant it as a compliment and a reminder. She commented that she saw me as someone who fearlessly faced change, ambiguity, and challenge and created something remarkable as a result. I am deeply humbled by this description. I also know it was to serve as a reminder that I do my best when I bring my best, fearless self to the work at hand. It has been my office for a while and having it there on the shelf, in the landscape of my periphery every day, is undoubtedly serving both her purposes. I must admit, I leaves me with a bit of an imposter’s syndrome, because I know how many fears and doubts that I live with each day. And I know I am not alone and that the word itself is part of the problem and possibly the solution.
But the word “fearless,” is often used to synonymously with fear-free. “He ran fearlessly into the burning building to save the child,” the newspaper will report of the local hero. “She has a fearless brush stroke,” they will sell of an artist’s boldness. “He is fearless and just free-climbed Half Dome,” someone will remark about an athlete’s death-defying feats. But any of these people will tell you that they have doubts. They are not guaranteed success. They have fears. They are not fear-free, but rather they are overcoming their fears. What does it truly mean to be fearless?
The answer might be hidden in the word itself. The term “less” is a relative word. It implies that it is less when compared to something else. I am sure you can sting your eyes with “tearless” shampoo, but it is meant to imply a relative safety to other products on the market. We use words like seamless, matchless, baseless, careless, effortless, heartless, motionless, priceless, and thankless as if they are absolutes, but they are really descriptions of relation. You can be seemingly tireless, but still get tired. Tireless is what others observe, but the truth is far more nuanced. The comparison you might make is between yourself and others or between yourself on different days and in different situations.
In my experience, courage is not the anecdote of fear. It is action. Fear can be paralyzing, especially when combined with a vivid imagination, but the fearless face it down, give it a name, and move forward. Not recklessly, but with calculated intention, identifying and mitigating risks. To be fearless is just to strive to fear less than you did the day before and you do that with action. Before long, you are accomplishing things never before possible.
We live in strange and scary times. Unprecedented stress combined with new technologies bring the raw edges of humanity to the surface and the world stage. If there was ever a time for fearlessness, the time is now.
This article was published on LinkedIn Pulse.
"It's easier to be brave when you are not alone." -Amy Poehler, comedian, actor, best-selling author, and mother (who knows her share of terrifying situations)
As a professional woman, you’ve probably dreamed of making an impact in the community, beyond your role as an industry leader or executive. “If I only I the time,” you might have told yourself, “I’d tackle world poverty. Or start a nonprofit foundation. Or work on a cure for cancer.”
Indeed, women are the nation’s most prevalent volunteers, with more than 28 percent giving their time, compared to 22 percent of men. Part of the reason may be that women intuitively understand that their responsibilities extend beyond payroll and profits. “Women are hard-wired to be engaged in their communities,” says Dr. Val Hannemann, a psychologist in Flagstaff, Ariz. “Volunteering connects women. They share, they compare, and they adopt new strategies to make a difference in the world.”And let’s not forget, most volunteers are recruited by volunteers and so women have a tendency to invite their female networks to engage in their projects.
Yet the reality is that many women who volunteer their time work part-time or not at all. In fact, women who are primarily care-givers or homemakers can become “professional volunteers.”On the other hand, time can be a major issue for professional women, who may have less flexibility in their schedules or priorities. If you’re like a lot of working women, you’re probably already juggling family, children, and your health —in addition to a demanding job. Yet if you haven’t carved out the time to volunteer, it may be time to reconsider. Yes, making the world a better place is important for its own sake. But it’s also a critical part of your professional development strategy. Here are six reasons why you should make the time:
You’ll build your experience base
Volunteer work can play an important role in helping you get the experience you want in your career. These opportunities provide great opportunities to learn new skills, interact with mentors, and build your portfolio. And, of course, you can list volunteer opportunities on your resume and LinkedIn profile, alongside your paid work.
You’ll expand your network
The old adage, “It’s not what you know, but who you know” is true. Furthermore, it is really about who knows you. Volunteer opportunities allow you to build relationships outside your normal circle of friends and colleagues, helping you to broaden your network of folks who have had positive interactions with you and are inclined to think of you when opportunities arise.
You’ll broaden your perspective
By working with a different set of people and challenges, you’ll inevitably widen your perspective. Volunteering can pull you out of your comfort zone, forcing you to tackle new problems from different angles. It can also give you profound new perspectives that can shape both your approach to life and the way you show up on the job.
You’ll hone your leadership skills
As a volunteer, you can do things that an employee can’t. You can work outside the organization chart. You can seek out new opportunities for growth and involvement. And you can make connections between organizations. With the right volunteer opportunity, you’ll gain experience setting a vision, developing strategies, raising funds, motivating people, and reconciling conflicting perspectives—all essential leadership skills. And you’ll have the opportunity to practice those skills in a safe environment—and then apply them back at work to make yourself more visible and indispensable.
You’ll position yourself for promotion
A volunteer opportunity outside of work is a great way to demonstrate your readiness for the C-suite. By sitting on the board of a local nonprofit, managing a community-based initiative, or organizing a volunteer program for your own corporation, you’ll be required to tackle many of the same issues faced by top executives within your company. Moreover, taking on a leadership volunteer role “send(s) the signal that you aspire to leadership potential,” says leadership coach Muriel Maignan Wilkins. Indeed, taking on the right volunteer opportunity can earn you recognition as a leader—helping you to get the promotion you desire.
You’ll do good for others—and for yourself
Last, but not least, volunteering is vital to the health of our communities. You already bring so many skills to the table, and using them for the greater good makes the world a better place. At the same time, serving others gets you out of your own head and puts your own worries and problems in perspective. Research has shown that volunteering helps people feel more socially connected, wards off depression, and may even contribute to better physical health like lower blood pressure and improved memory. So, do yourself some good by doing good!
This article was published on The Glass Hammer.
The passage below was first written in 1955 by Anne Morrow Lindbergh in her book “Gift from the Sea.” They were brought to my mind recently in the horrors of this past week.
As a bit of context, Anne was born in 1906, and was married to Charles Lindbergh, was herself an aviator, acclaimed author, and mother. This would put her grandmother’s era (which she referenced below) in the late 1800s.
She writes:
“The world is rumbling and erupting in ever-widening circles around us. The tensions, conflicts, and sufferings even in the outermost circle touch us all, reverberate in all of us. We cannot avoid these vibrations.
But just how far we can implement this planetal awareness? We are asked today to feel compassionately for everyone in the world, to digest intellectually all the information spread out in the public print, and to implement in action every ethical impulse aroused by our hearts and minds. The interrelatedness of the world links us constantly with more people than our hearts can hold. Or rather – for I believe the heart is infinite – modern communication loads us with more problems than a human frame can carry. It is good, I think, for our hearts, our minds, our imaginations to be stretched, but body, nerve, endurance, and life-span are not elastic. My life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds. I cannot marry all of them, or bear them all as children, or care for them as I would my parents in illness or old age. Our grandmothers, and even – with some scrambling – our mothers, lived in a circle small enough to let them implement in action most of the impulses of their hearts and minds. We were brought up in that tradition that has now become impossible, for we have extended our circle throughout space and time.”
I can not speak for my great-great-grandmother, but I wonder if her trials and that of her immediate circle were more manageable and more actionable than what we face today, as Anne supposed. Today, we have the world's tragedies pitted against the same body, nerve, endurance, and life-span that could shoulder a lesser load, but crumble under the weight of today's news cycles and headlines. Or at least that is how I have felt this week.
In times like this, I want to go back to my immediate circle. Where actions can be taken and progress felt. Start there and fan out again, as I have strength. My compassion is strong. My conscious is pricked. My empathy is stirred. And my weakness is revealed.
"The bottom-line question is: Precisely what do you want to be famous for?" - Tom Peters
Jennifer Davis was recently interviewed on the InfoComm Today Podcast.
Jennifer Davis recently contributed her article, What Do Integrators Need to Know about DisplayPort 1.4? on the InfoComm All Voices blog.
It was a Throwback Thursday on Facebook, and the picture that popped up was of my daughter’s seventh birthday.
That year, the jewelry and accessory store Charming Charlie’s had opened in a local shopping center and had captured her imagination. I swear she could hear angels singing when she walked into the store that a friend dubbed the “IKEA of jewelry,” for its low prices, overwhelming product selection, and color-coded simplicity.
So that year, my daughter made an unusual request. She wanted to hold her birthday party at Charming Charlie’s. This is not a birthday party location. They have no seating. No party rooms. No catering packages. It is a retail store. I tried to talk her out of it, but when she was persistent, I thought I’d call the local manager and see about possibilities.
The manager was enthusiastic (although not sure how it would all work), and we started planning the event. She set up a small table in a corner of the store to organize. I limited the guest list and invited some girlfriends to be grownup chaperones. We planned a scavenger hunt around the store, a fashion show (where the girls picked accessories after getting different prompts like “fashion designer” or “your mom”), and we took a lot of pictures.
The girls had fun spending their small gift cards before we headed across the parking lot to a restaurant where dessert was served and “Happy Birthday” was sung.
And the whole experience taught me something about retail and GenZ (which is the emerging generation of my children).
• Shopping is an experience. Retail is a place: My daughter did not understand at all why a retail location couldn’t be an amusement park. She was entertained there and liked the shopping experience so much, she wanted to do it with friends and call it a party. To her, Charming Charlie’s represented an experience. I think that is the future of brand retail. Not just to move product in a location (and trust me, the company benefitted from our party being there that day), but to create a lasting experience and build the brand.
• Shopping is personal and expresses the shopper. Retail is impersonal and reflects the brand: Sure, she is a strong-willed 7-year-old, but my daughter thought the store was there to serve her and her friends. The shopping experience she wanted was a social one. And with some creative maneuvering, that is what we achieved. The store, in fact, was not built for her. And certainly not built for her birthday party. But the shopping experience we orchestrated absolutely was.
Today’s options for shopping and product procurement have never been broader. There are stores you can go to, websites you can visit, apps you can browse, styles you can pin, there are stylists you can hire, pop-up stores to discover, showrooms to browse, appointments with designers to make, and programs you can subscribe to. The choices are endless, and we expect more to come once Uber and Lyft drivers or drones start making package deliveries.
This creates opportunities in retail that cross beyond the brick-and-mortar stores to the full range of customer engagement that is possible. This also creates opportunities for the retail stores to become more experiential, more visual, more engaging--the kind of experience that you can’t have online or on social media.
Perhaps it won’t be long before retailers start offering birthday parties, bridal showers, and other milestone events.
This article was published on CMO.com.
Jennifer Davis will be attending the Women of InfoComm Network Breakfast on June 9th at 7:30AM in Las Vegas. This is an inspiring community of men and women who are committed to supporting and empowering women who work in the technology and AV industry.
To join the discussion about the challenges that women in the AV industry face, identify areas of support, and exchange ideas, please register for the breakfast.
If you are a start-up, how do you talk about your business? Are you building a company? Hatching a company? Founding a company? Planting a business? Disrupting an industry? What does this say about where you are focusing your time and energy?
If you are in a more established company, what language do you use? Are you growing a company? Managing a company? Leading a company? Transforming a company? Leading a turn-around? Scaling a company? Leading a team? Building a sustainable business? Are you creating wealth for shareholders?
If you are exiting a company or business, how do you describe that? Are you divesting? Are you stepping back? Are you stepping away? Are you implanting an exit plan? Are you just not showing up anymore?
The words you use matter. Think about how you describe your business and what that says about you.
Left to Right: Paul Apen, Chief Strategy Officer at E Ink Corporation, Greg McNeil, Vice President at Flex, Jennifer Davis, Chief Marketing Officer at Planar/Leyard International, Steve Squires, Chief Executive Officer at Quantum Materials Corporations, Al Green, Chief Executive Officer at Kent Displays, and Sri Peruvemba, Head of Marketing at SID
At SID's Display Week 2016 in San Francisco last week, Jennifer Davis took part on the panel of an Exclusive CMO Forum where industry experts shed light on market trends, solutions for supply chain challenges, industry best practices- and much more.
