#i think a lot about how there could be different views on younger bots born from vs instead of the allspark...even outside of this au | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-energon-hole · 6 years

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Oh! Oh! How about TFP bots headcannons about them and their human s/o rising their hybrid sparkling (let's pretend biology works that way)? Like, their reaction when they heard the lil' bitlets' first words and sruff?

((A/N So this Headcanon request, I took it and I ran away with it-

Basically, I ran under the idea that Cybertronians can merge and create life kind of like Asari can from Mass Effect- it is a child that is both Cybertronian and Human, but the species is Cybertronian just to keep things simple. I also ran with the idea that all the Cybertronians were carriers, just to keep reader in a gender neutral status.

Basically, I like dhow these turned out, even if it took me forever to write them!~))

Optimus Prime

-Optimus likes to consider himself a rather emotionally distant partner, and he generally prefers it to stay this way due to his place in both the war against Megatron and in Cybertronian Society as a leader. He would feel so awful if his enemies or those who oppose him used you as a bargaining chip against him- sometimes those thoughts keep him awake at night as you sleep soundly on his chest without any worry about the closeness and bond the two of you share. His emotional distance seems to lower as his inhibitions seem to fail him when the genetic merge happens- as he has brought in a new life form that is created based off of both yours and his genetic material… your child. The Sparkling is so beautiful that when he gazes upon the young one’s face, he is reminded of why he fights and what he must do to preserve all life- even if will cost him his own life. No matter how hard he tries, he cannot bring himself to be distant from you, or his beautiful baby sparkling.

-You have to come to terms with you may not live long enough to see this child grow and become a full Cybertronian bot, you will at most, be able to witness the little bitlet grow to be in its second frame form- when it is finally able to begin growing into its much bigger form. It was sad, but also heartwarming to leave a piece of yourself to always be with Optimus- even when you have long passed and are unable to be the comfort he needs in this dark and cruel universe when everything seems to be stacked against him. He, too, is grateful that this union has created something he can cherish till the end of his days (even if he projects he will not outlive you).

-Watching the small squishy thing begin to form its outer armor was rather amazing, a formation of its harder exoskeleton as the protoform began to harden to protect the sparkling as Ratchet put it bluntly to you when you asked him the questions about the change. Ratchet also informed you it wouldn’t be much longer than a human earth year that the small things will begin to look more like an individual and form the first pieces of its outer frame, rather than just be a small lump of grey protoform- this change also comes with the formation of the voice box and the growth of its small t-cog and other vital organs. He also said before long you wouldn’t have to feed the sparkling through a bottle anymore and it will be perfectly capable of consuming and processing regular energon very soon- You can’t say you are looking forward to that change happening in the near future.

Arcee

-When you heard the news that Arcee was sparked with a new creation that was based off of both yours and her genetic makeup, to say you were ecstatic was an understatement, in fact if memory serves you ended up crying (which just upset Arcee as she would start to leak if you started to leak). Jack was at first apprehensive about Arcee being a mother, but seeing how well you both took the news- and the fact you were appointing him as a guardian (God Father) of the child, made him change his mind pretty fast. You would have to ask Arcee later how the bond made her spark, when you two have fooled around quite a lot before she was conceived- it was probably different for Cybertronians than it was for humans.

-You would absolutely fawn over the newborn sparkling after it was born- wrapping it up in nests of blankets and pillows when you would hang out in the main room of the base, holding it gently and reading childhood stories (even though Arcee said it might not understand that stuff right now), and even falling sleep with it at night while Arcee was out late on patrol or taking Jack home for the night. Arcee doesn’t mind so much, all the doting and cuddling you do, because before long the little bitlet will be too big for you to wrap up and hold and cuddle- and honestly she enjoy seeing this maternal side of you, it reminds her of why she let the merge happen in the first place. You were always so warm and kind- even if sometimes you try to hide it and be tough in the face of their war, she prefers this softer side, let her worry about the decepticons- you just worry about you and your new child together.

-Everyone in the base would always roll their eyes, and Ratchet would even get a little miffed and huffy, when you claimed you could hear words in the babbling and cooing of your small child. “That’s not possible the vocal unit hasn’t even developed yet” and “its sweet you think you can hear English words but I doubt the little one can even comprehend language at this point.” You don’t care though, you are proud of your little one for trying to mimic your words and voice even if they can’t do it or don’t understand it- maybe it��s the human genetic factor or something else, but it makes you proud how determined they are to speak and be heard.

Starscream

-He would never admit it out loud, but he was a little nervous about raising the new spark that was inside of him- not that he was incapable, as he was capable of anything! No, it was going to be easy raising a little bitlet, he was nervous about what the little thing would look and act like and sure it was going to be a cybertronian inside and out, hybrids just have some odd quirks he has heard about. Certainly he has seen hybrid Cybertronians before- but never ones with these organic humans. He just really hopes it turns out to be more like him, no offense to you and your personality- but you cannot out beat his looks and personality! They can always use many more Energon Seekers on their side anyway, and he wouldn’t admit it to anyone but you- the one thing that puts his mind at ease and excites him is when he gets to teach the new young life how to fly. It was the one thing that made him feel free when the pressures of life stack against him, and he absolutely couldn’t wait to share that with his little sweet spark.

-You did not have much experience with younger children, but even then how much would your experience with human children help you raise one of Cybertronian decent. Damn, thinking about it, your child is going to be about three stories taller than you- it is going to be an adjustment to say the least. You were excited to help raise this new life with your partner Starscream, and it also helps to have Knockout in your corner too- even if the doc is compiling a list of frame colors that would be compliment a new seeker. From your small understanding, the sparkling will not have an outer frame for a very long time. You were most excited to just hold it in your arms while you have the chance before it grows too big to be held in your much smaller arms- and cuddling with it would be it holding you…Yeah, your experience with human children won’t help in a situation like that.

-Once the young one is born, you feel a need to protect it from all the danger aboard the nemesis- not that you don’t trust some of the other decepticons, but you just don’t trust some of the other decepticons. Of course Knockout is trustworthy, you were just worried about bots like Megatron and Soundwave- certainly they would never do anything to hurt the small life, you just did not want your child to be subjected to bargaining and leverage against yourself or Starscream or even the Autobots. You find that most days you just stay locked in yours and Starscream’s room to avoid confrontation from other bots, and that if they need something from you they can come get you personally- you rarely ever seek them out unless it’s an emergency. You hope you aren’t smothering your new child, but really, how careful can you be aboard a ship full of bots that care about nothing but self-preservation and this ideology of doctorial leadership? At least in the confines of this room there is nothing to worry about, between you and Starscream, this new life is going to be safe and well cared for.

Soundwave

-Merging with Soundwave was enough of an experience to make you feel ecstatic, but the news that it has created a new life was enough to make you almost faint from happiness. To everyone else looking into this situation, they think Soundwave is underwhelmed about the news and remain as stony and hard as ever, but you know him better than that. You can read that he is excited and nervous- excited to rear a child with someone he finds most precious in this world, nervous as to how he is going to keep the child safe and out of the troughs of the war that is being fought around them. He has lost so many mini-cons, so many pieces of him have fallen apart and were destroyed by his bitter enemies and those who just seek his position amongst the Decepticon Ranks- he would not allow the destruction of his beloved and his long awaited sparkling.

-You asked Soundwave so many questions, enough to fill a book, too bad you didn’t notice that he stopped responding to you a very long time ago and just silently listened to you gush about human children and what it’s like to raise one. He finds it endearing that you were this happy about this whole situation, and he felt some of those insecurities he held melt away. He was afraid, for some reason, you might not accept the sparkling because it was going to be a Cybertronian- he can now see his view was flawed. He took you as his mate for a reason, and this was one of the reasons why, you always were proving him wrong- you were clearly superior to those around you. He was glad it was your DNA being merged with his to create something unique, as this sparkling is proof of both yours and his intelligence.

-You loved the little life as soon as it was placed into your arms for the first time, as soon as you were staring into those bright blue alien eyes- that was when you truly thought you knew what love was. You were there when Soundwave would feed the little bitlet, and you were there when its protoform began to harden, and you were there when it had to go through invasive upgrades and uncomfortable medical procedures. It was easy to see how easily accepted your alien child was- just as it was easy to see how accepted you were by both it and Soundwave. He appreciated you always being there, especially when he wasn’t allowed to let his sparkling interfere with his important work for the Decepticon cause. He will work even harder to build that better world for him and his small family.

#Transformers Prime #Long Post #Optimus Prime #Arcee #Starscream #Soundwave #Headcanon #Cute #Sensitive #M!Preg

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mylasalleblogthing-blog · 7 years

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How Did ESports Affect My Life

E-Sports: An opportunity of living a dream

It was an innocent elementary day when I first saw a computer in which my parents bought from my dear school. Of course I know what it was at that time, what I didn’t know is that it could be a source of fun, enjoyment in which I was still seeking up to this day.

Until the day that I didn’t notice the enjoyment I have is turning into something competitive. I was just having fun that I didn’t have any idea on how my skill was compared to the others.

I was there before it was called E-sports. Small competitions at our local computer shops. I don’t usually go to those places as I had a computer at home where I always play, it’s just that by chance I saw it as an opportunity to really play against the person who you could interact with physically.

Me and my friends formed a team of 5 players to join the competition. At first, we just thought that we just want to have some fun, that’s why it really surprised us that we won that competition.

That feeling of having fun while competing really marked in my memory. After that competition, we also joined several small and big ones in which we only lose once. But with that defeat, it reminded as that we need to get better and practice even more as there are people out there who are better than us.

Our journey was short as we have no plans of going big since we also had our own dreams that we want to focus on. We had that time before that’s why we were able to compete in different competitions.

Now that E-sports have become a huge scene and is considered as an official sport. I always thought that back then, what if we continued on, will we be successful like them?

Although it’s too late to go back and change the path that I am taking, the competitive days reminded me that just like those days, life is a competition, it’s either you win or you lose, when you lose, it’s not the end, it only means that you have to get better to win over that challenge, and once you win, find another competition. Some said that for you to win, you’ll have to lose a lot, in which I believe since experience is the best teacher after all.

For me, being an E-sports player is living the dream. You’re having fun while making money and fame, what more do you want? The big reason why people find it hard to be one is that being an E-sports player is a hit or miss opportunity. You’ll have to sacrifice a lot if you want to be successful in this scene. It’s like a gamble, either you go big or go home.

This kind of thought also pushed me to change my decision to drive away the path of being an E-sports player as I also noticed that sometimes, when you go competitive, you’ll also lose the enjoyment of the game. Your mind is set on winning, not to having fun. I decided that I just wanted to play for fun, but it’s not bad to be competitive sometimes as it could be a really great experience and you could learn a lot that you’ll never know you could use in how you deal with the real life.

Christian Talon

Done with the Daily Routine

Back in 2014 when I have yet to know what E-Sports were, I was just a normal kid who had a normal life, but lacked anything eventful happening from day to day. I would study for most of the day, watch TV, eat, sleep, and repeat, all day, every day. I had no solid motivation, and each day seemed as repetitive as the last.

One day I was scrolling through YouTube and I came across a highlight clip of kennyS, a competitive CSGO player who is presently playing for G2 E-Sports, but at that time playing for Titan E-Sports. I was amazed at how he was able to dominate the game with quick reactions and game knowledge in a way that he would carry his team through the whole game. This was the moment that led me into the world of E-Sports.

After knowing more about the game, I asked my parents if I could get a copy of the game, since it was around P450 at that time. They were really hesitant about it, since they were afraid that it would affect my studies, but after a term of showing them how badly I wanted it (grinding for it with my grades in school), they finally agreed to let me buy a copy of the game.

E-Sports, from that point on, has had a big impact in my life. On one hand, I had to study even harder to be able to maintain my grades and then play after. It wasn’t just casual gaming to me, since I was very competitive in nature, I always strived to do all I can so that I can be all that I can. I would spend hours watching VODS, tutorials, reading patch notes, watching streams, so I could be a better player.

Through E-Sports, I’ve learned a lot of things. I’ve learned how to manage my time correctly so I can juggle academics with games, which was hard at first, but a little self-restraint got me through it. I have also met other people, who later on became my close friends through E-Sports. To others, the game becomes repetitive after a while, but to me it’s quite the opposite. Every game is a new game with different situations, new things to learn, more people to meet, and a whole new experience every time you dive deep into the world of E-Sports.

Aron Joshua Tan

You Think Gaming is Your Ally

I was born into it, molded by it. Growing up with peers building computers in a yearly basis, where your playdates and daycares are inside computer shops. I never viewed it as a vice, it was our equivalent for toys when we were younger. As the years go by, games has come and go, but so far only two games had the capacity to grew with me.

Having computers at your disposal, the possibilities for gaming is almost endless. Dota was the most hyped game before, its game that has no story, the graphics isn’t near the top, and the gameplay is repetitive. But I loved it, every free time I had would be spent finding online matches in garena, practicing in bots, or playing with random strangers in our computer shops. It grew to the point that you know each other without even having a proper introduction. But I never went competitive with it, I viewed it as a hobby that I just grew with and enjoy.

The second game is League of Legends, and it is safe to say that it would be the game that defined majority of my years. I started playing with it when dota started dying and its successor dota 2 didn’t find the click with me. Playing league started as a rush to complete all the characters, having the opportunity to play with your friends all summer long with a single game made me love the game more. As times passed by, with continuous playing, an unknown computer shop decided to hold a tournament, we were thrilled to join, we planned and practiced for it, but in the end, only two of us showed up. Instead of going home bummed with 3 of our friends leaving as hanging, the other competitors were friendly enough to schedule a 3v3 with us before they started to start the tournament officially, and that marked my introduction to the competitive scene.

We made new and better friends, we also started to learn the competitive scene in our city, and we were quickly adopted into their circle of friends and team. My competitive journey was fun, there were times that we had to commute to places hours away just to join grassroots tournaments. Those hours of commitment paid off since we always take the 1st and 2nd place spot in every tournaments. Because of that, I got to places I never thought I would visit, I met people from different places in the city, sometimes other provinces without setting my foot on their ground. My network of friends grew bigger and bigger every time I play, my social skills and interactions also improved from meeting a diverse group of people. I never did it (joining tournaments) for the money and prices, I did it for the love of the game, it might be easy to say since I was lucky enough to find people welcoming and friendly that had same love for the game as me.

But my journey into the competitive scene ended once college started. My lack of knowledge and team in a foreign place (at that time) grounded me into flying to different places to join tournaments. My previous team had to find a replacement for me since I can’t play with them anymore. I didn’t find it as a consequence of me moving, since I never placed the game in front of things that are more important for me. My friends back in Santiago continued to dominate the competitive scene in their area that it reached the point where they continued to win grassroots tournaments and got banned from others to give a chance for other teams to experience winning. I still continue to play the game casually, but my time playing with them is almost close to none. I still would always have that longing to go back to playing games that has a lot of weight into it, the adrenaline jerking moments as you win, the hour long discussions about the meta, the practices that cost more than the prices, and the celebrations with do when we win.

Liam Rey Chua

My Experience in Gaming

Usually I don’t play multiplayer games and mostly stick to games that have are single player because for one I don’t have to play against and two I don’t like game that require internet to play games The second reason comes from the fact that the internet is slow with almost everyone at least playing some sort of multiplayer game.

The single player game that I am interested usually interested in involve nation building and strategy with game like Civilization 4 ,Europa Universalis 4,and Stellaris and total war franchise which are all Turn based Strategy games . From my observation these type are not all that popular as I see very little people playing these game and the fact that most of the games never heard of them with example of Stellaris and Europa Universalis 4 . This is reasons why I don’t have lots of people to play against.

Games that these are not at all represented in E-Sports which are mostly filled with fps and moba. This the reason why i can say that am not interested in E-Sports and has little or no effect on my life.

Jose Roxas

Gaming is Life

Games are what drove me to become what I currently am. Back when people didn't even know what esports was, I was already playing games, from the early age of 5 my brother and sister would lend me their gameboy to play with it. From then on, I was asking our parents to get what is currently the latest gaming device or console, since computers weren't known for its games yet. Money gotten from allowances would be spent on games on that consoles but since those games only revolved on "AI" per se, they eventually just wither from my likings.

At the time we got a computer, I was still a fan of the consoles and the like but when I saw my brother playing something on the computer, I wondered what those were. My brother and cousins would go to computer shops and play, I would go with them to watch. The first games I saw them play were base building games (red alert, Generals, age of empires, starcraft, etc.), these were the games that can play with other people all at once. I was drawn to such games since they gave the thrill of actually fighting against a lot of other people. Since then, games like such come and go until the start of MOBAs.

At one of the base building games, warcraft had the capability to let people create their own game maps aside from the said base building, from here one of the ever growing games was born, that is DOTA. This was one of the games that actually can teach you about teamwork as this was a battle arena where your team will fight against another team. My brother got me into this since he wanted someone he can real time cooperate with while in game. As I played the game, I would come to love it.

As said earlier, this game will teach you teamwork but more on adaptability. People will communicate with you to work out strategies as the game goes on but will still rely on themselves when the need arises. Though in gaming, people will most likely become toxic as well as induce aggressive tendencies due to own or allies' stupidity.

Arlan Gomez

Good Luck, Have Fun

Ever since I was a kid, I always love to play games more than anything whether it is on a console or on a computer. Whenever I play there is always a risk of getting caught and be scolded by my parents.

Playing with my sibling always a competition. If it is a single-player game, it will be who will finish it first or who got the high score. If multiplayer game then we always fight each other. The consequence is that loser needs to obey the winner.

In elementary I start being addicted to Dota, I will spend the whole day just playing it. I play with school mates. We are in our own houses when we play. Those times I am doing it just for fun.

Now, this where it becomes competitive. I transfer school and there's a lot of students playing Dota in the school I transfer and there's a lot of computer shops around the school. So, I play with my classmates every time we were dismissed. We compete for who will treat us something. At those times, we were thinking how we could get easy money and that is why we started to make a small competition between sections. There is no entrance fee or specific price. The price will be determined by the money bet by two teams.

Those are the games we could not forget. Till now we could remember how we played those games, who let us lose, how we won an impossible game. We would talk and make fun of it. For us adding money involved in games adds the thrill of the playing it knowing that you might lose something and that makes it exciting.

Playing and being addicted to a lot of games taught me many things like giving attention to small details, learning new words, teamwork, being focused and alert, balancing time, and last is not to give up with something because of a failure. Without these games, I don't think I could achieve learning these things easily.

For me in life is like a game we could win or lose, succeed or fail. If we fail then learn from it but no matter what happens we should enjoy what we are doing.

Lorenz Canuto

Esports is Here

ESports is one of the fastest emerging sports in the world. Gaming on the other hand, specifically video games is one of the fastest growing industries of the world right now. With technology becoming more and more accessible to people are the world, including one of the most important innovations of the 20th century, the Internet, which has reached billions of people around the world in the last decade, ESports as a hobby and career has become more and more popular each year.

Personally, I have played and watched ESports games myself. There are some games that I play and enjoy also which I have played competitively fighting for the ranking system. However, I never played officially in a tournament. Esports is fun and addicting at times. It could feel like a real sport like how I practice hard almost everyday to train myself to become better at playing Football and playing in tournaments beating the opponent to win.

A lot of people would argue that ESports cannot be considered a sport. However, the next Olympics is aiming to add ESports due to the massive popularity that it has. Hate it or not, ESports is still sports. By definition it is much in the same way chess or poker are considered sports. However, the virtual environment and lack of physical activity could make it considered as mind sports.

ESports is here and it seems like it will keep on staying here. There is so much support for it and it’s getting more and more popular these days. Playing ESports is becoming more of a norm instead of something bad for your children as the older generation of parents thought about it. However, too much of anything is bad no matter how good it can be for you. I am glad that ESports is getting the right publicity it deserves.

Cyrus A. Vatandoost Kakhki

Untitled

E-Sports has been introduced to me as a competitive platform where you can test your skills on a certain game with either friends or people who will soon be friends. Games like League of Legends has peaked my interest due to an overwhelming amount of high school friends playing it.

For a more competitive and serious game like CS:GO, it has improved my tolerance with teammates who are either bad at the game or a rather bad personality. It also increased my focus and reflexes due to taking these matches/games more serious than a casual game would offer.

All in all, it might have negative effects where I would go to the point of degrading my bad teammates but the positive effects outweigh these behavior when I relax myself and thus win the game.

Maria Alexandra Ureta

Before ESports Happened

The first video game I played was Pokemon: Crystal Version on a GAMEBOY Advance. Of course, I was not the only virtual pokemon trainer. My friends and I competed on who would get the strongest or most pokemons. Eventually, the gaming industry grew, with new games, multiplayer features, and gaming consoles; and we grew along with them. From Pokemon to Battle Realms then from Battle Realms to Warcraft. Video games became so popular that tournaments were held with prizes for winners. Competitive gaming became a thing for gamers and sooner or later competitive gaming was called E-Sports.

By definition, E-Sports is a form of competition that is facilitated by video games; the input of players and teams as well as the output of the eSports system are mediated by human-computer interfaces. It can be online or offline depending on the organizers’ decisions.

Back then, the first time I participated in an E-Sports tournament, I was nervous. The ambiance was entirely different to the internet cafes that I played in. There were people watching, announcers shoutcasting, and players discussing strategies. It was nerve-racking to think that there were expectations from the crowd, especially if some of them know who you are and how good you can be.

Some may argue that E-Sports are not sports. But viewing the storytelling I just did, the same story can be said by athletes (not video games but physical sports). Some E-Sports players wake up early in the morning to practice their gaming, just like athletes do for warm-ups and training.

Before E-Sports happened, people just wanted to beat their friends and have bragging rights. But today, not only do players want to be the best in their neighborhood but also the best in their country.

Czeide Dydriene C. Avanzado

Well Played

The year was 1997, the first real instance of E-sports drawing in over 2,000 participants was Red Annihilation’s “Quake” tournament. Players fought for a Ferrari previously owned by the game’s lead developer, John Carmack. Since then, a variety of games that promoted both teamwork and/or competition started to rise in trend. From Real-time strategies like Starcraft, to Multiplayer online battle arenas like DOTA or League of Legends or just fighting games like Tekken and Street fighter. All of these lead to what we know now as E-sports.

The first real instance of E-sports I’ve experienced was Pokemon. The moment when I found a friend, get our gameboys out and had a Pokemon battle was the first closest thing I’ve experienced to E-sports. The thrill of uncertainty, not knowing whether or not you’ll emerge victorious. The first bitter taste of defeat and the hours and hours I’ve spent after, grinding and leveling my pokemon. The sweet, sweet moment of victory, almost like ecstasy, but then also knowing there are more who can easily defeat you. These are the things that come to mind when I think of video games as a competition.

A few years after I’ve started playing video games, I started playing fighting games like Tekken and Street Fighter. I would always get beaten by my uncle or cousin but my dad would let me win sometimes, so I learned from my defeats but winning gave me more of a reason to continue playing. Soon after that I started playing League of legends. The thrill of meeting other players, forming a temporary bond or camaraderie, testing my mettle against opponents and Trash talking. All of these appeal to the competitive nature of humans. Forming bonds between formidable foes and trusted allies, pushing ourselves to become better time after time, pushing the boundaries of not only our skills but also the mechanics of the game, changing and shaping the way they are made to further accommodate future competition. E-sports provided an avenue for all of these but most importantly, it provided a home for those who couldn’t run, jump, swim, kick, punch or swing better, faster or stronger than the other kids. E-sports became more than just a sport, it became a culture that breeds passion, competition, teamwork, dedication and camaraderie through video games.

Karl Mamuyac

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martechadvisor-blog · 7 years

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Interview with Nick Worth, CMO at Selligent

Nick discusses the need to connect insight and engagement, the current challenge with the weightage on email and exploring the next frontier in CX. Born and raised in Washington DC, this CMO stays loyal to the baseball and hockey teams The Nationals and The Capitals. Now in London, he lives by the mantra, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” To relax, he enjoys walking his dog in the English countryside while listening to a podcast

Ginger Conlon:

Hello and welcome to MarTech Advisor’s executive interview series. I'm Ginger Conlon, a Contributing Editor with MarTech Advisor and joining me today is Nick Worth who is CMO of Selligent. Welcome Nick.

Nick Worth:

Thanks Ginger.

Q: Ginger Conlon:

So glad you're here with us today. We are going to talk about trends and opportunities with omnichannel customer engagement. But before we do that I would love for you to briefly introduce Selligent. Tell us a little bit about what Selligent is and what's its unique value proposition.

A: Nick Worth:

Sure. Selligent is a one to one omnichannel marketing platform that empowers marketers to engage with consumers using relevant insights. So, what's different about what we do is we put our focus on having the consumer at the center of everything, center of the data model, the targeting, the journey building, the contextual engagement and ultimately the reporting and analytics. So, we build it all around the consumer not the channel.

Q: Ginger Conlon:

Excellent, that's where the consumer should be right, at the center. So, let's talk about omnichannel customer engagement. Of course, interacting with customers across channels presents a host of opportunities and some more obvious than others, so, what is one opportunity that you see some marketers overlooking with omnichannel customer engagement that has the biggest potential impact if they harness that opportunity and how can customer engagement technology help them do that?

A: Nick Worth:

I think one of the biggest challenges out there is that marketers are often separating the insight gathering process from the execution process and those two things are living apart, for a bunch of good reasons, but they are apart and I think that makes it difficult to leverage the insights in the way that you can most effectively take advantage of them. So, what you want to do, in our view is, take that insight and do something with it, even if it's not a huge insight, even if it's only a single insight, build something better with that and then iterate out from there and by connecting insight and engagement together, you have an opportunity to build progressively more effective engagement over time rather than having separate systems that don't necessarily link up as effectively as you might want.

Q: Ginger Conlon:

So, actually that leads into my next question which is, every technology and every tactic has those opportunity but also has their share of challenges. Any other challenges that you're seeing along with the connecting the dots that marketers can make some changes and overcome?

A: Nick Worth:

Well, the biggest challenge we consistently see is with data. I think once upon a time there wasn't enough data, now it sometimes feels like there's too much data and that data is often in faraway places, channel data for different channels might be housed separately. Sometimes our clients are caught up in massive corporate data integration processes that slow down and don't deliver the results that anyone wanted, instead of enabling more effective engagement it ends up slowing it down.

So, I think, it's really a question of saying, well, data is wonderful but actionable data is what you really want, you want to be able to do something with it, not just store it and move it around. So, I think if your goal is, as we think it should be, a unified customer profile because that's really the heart of getting to an effective communication strategy, you've got to

figure out a way to house that data together in a way that you can actually make some use of it and really think about the consumer in that 360-degree way

Q: Ginger Conlon:

Yeah, absolutely, definitely a big issue with data, which brings me to all the things that you can do with that data using omnichannel customer engagement technologies, So, you can do everything from contextual personalization to behavioral targeting to campaign management, where do you see marketers underutilizing these technologies where if they harness it a little bit more in that area it would really make a big impact?

A: Nick Worth:

I think that you mentioned the most important one in my mind which is contextual personalization. I think not only do we have the opportunity to do that, I think consumers more and more expect us to be able to know where they are and what they're doing. I think maybe the parents or grandparents of today's consumer get freaked out by ad retargeting, banners that follow them around the internet, but I think most of today's consumers have the opposite reaction on things like that. They say, well, why are you targeting me, I already made the purchase and you should know that I made the purchase and why isn't the data working the way that I think it should work, so to speak, what's your problem Mr. Brand, why aren't you treating me more respectfully and I think contextual personalization is a great example.

Why don't you know that I'm in the store when I'm receiving this message? Why don't you know that it's raining and I have no interest in sunscreen today? Why don't you know this stuff? Why don't you know more about me? So, I think that's a big gap. I think the second thing is kind of an outgrowth of that which is, the most effective omnichannel marketing is leveraging three different kinds of data, all that traditional, transactional data, so, that's one, two is the contextual stuff that we've been talking about and I think the other piece is the kind of behavioral data which is often that recency data, what have they been surfing? What areas of the website has that consumer been looking at? They might have last bought a crib from you 18 months ago but today they're in market for a TV, they don't want to hear about a crib for a kid who's now walking around and sleeping in a big bed, they want more information about electronics because they finally have time to watch some video again and they want to buy a television. So, I think it's by combining that stuff together in an intelligent way, in a useful way that you really can plug a gap in the way that you think about addressing consumers.

Ginger Conlon:

Absolutely and then you can say, do you want some Barney videos with that TV?

Nick Worth:

Absolutely!

Q: Ginger Conlon:

So, that leads me to my next question which is about customer experience. So, as you said, customers’ expectations today, especially younger consumers, are for that targeted experience and omnichannel customer engagement is really one way to make sure that customers are having that great experience that they expect. Where do you see customer engagement technologies really helping the most in terms of delivering that great customer experience?

A: Nick Worth:

Well, I think what you see today is a lot of pushing stuff out, primarily through email, often through mobile channels as well

I think the real opportunity in consumer experience is to drive conversation, is to drive dialogue and that's to meet sort of the next frontier and we're all collectively as an industry struggling to really deliver on that

I think what will potentially unlock that eventually is more widespread adoption by brands of what we think as message tech where you start to see messaging apps as the way that people begin to communicate with brands, where they're asking questions in China or South Korea, you're seeing customer service driven by chat bots on messaging platforms, rather than through email or through SMS or some of the channels that we're using here in the West, and I think that's where you can begin to see what every marketer should want which is a genuine exchange, a back and forth as it were with that consumer talking about the experience that they’re having. We're not there yet, those API’s are not open to us for the most part yet but I think they will be and I think that we’ll be driven to those platforms for everything because I think that's where consumer adoption is ultimately going to end up, it's on those messaging platforms.

Q: Ginger Conlon:

Yeah, absolutely. So, let's dive into the details a little bit and talk about process. So, one of the best things about technologies is that they help improve the efficiencies of what marketers are trying to accomplish. So, where are you seeing marketers really getting the most out of improving their processes in using these types of technologies and where do you see them faltering where you could provide some advice on how they could use the tools better?

A: Nick Worth:

Well, let me take the second thing first. I think the challenge for me right now is the weight that we all place on email. We mostly say omnichannel and what we really, really mean is email plus and we do it that way for a good reason, email has such a proven ROI, it's such a workhorse, it drives such extraordinary lifetime value and we understand why marketers use it so much because it delivers real results. I think what you often see though is, you have a brand with an email program and then they've got a special projects team working on some mobile initiative of some sort or another and not really having that same long-term commitment to the channel, and it's a special project, and a special project in a marketing department is a bad thing because that's something that's going to die when it's finished and not go forward.

I sometimes wonder whether what marketers are waiting for is parity, they’re waiting for mobile to become as important as email and I'm not sure that's the right way to think about it. I think maybe the right way to think about the channels is in a sense as your children, you love them all the same but you don't treat them all the same and you don't expect the same things from all of them, doesn't decrease your love, you love them all but they're not the same and they shouldn’t be treated the same and it would be disrespectful as a parent, bad parenting, to treat your children the same, the same with your channels. You need to give them each what they deserve in, of course, ultimately the family works best when all the children are together and talking and communicating and there's a flow of conversation across all of them. So, I think that's really a huge opportunity for us in terms of thinking about the channels as a group but not a group of equals just a group of some things that are important but not the same.

Q: Ginger Conlon:

Right, I love the analogy, that's terrific. So, let's wrap up with a look forward. What are you excited about in two areas, one, in the market is there a new tool or technology or trend out there that's on its way or happening right now that you're excited about and in terms of Selligent, anything new coming out that we should be on the watch for?

A: Nick Worth:

Well, I think the thing that I've been interested in following right now is the Amazon Go experiment. Because Amazon Go brings a closed loop marketing cycle into a brick and mortar environment which will be very hard for other companies, perhaps only Wal-Mart will be able to replicate what Amazon's doing because of the amount of investment that's required from an owned perspective, but if they are in fact Amazon is successful in driving consumer adoption of using mobile technology, having customers use their phones in a retail environment I think that has profound implications for relationship marketers over the long term because it means that in a traditional retail environment you could get that closed loop and a closed loop is the holy grail for all of us and then you could begin to see marketing programs changing based on a much richer set of data over time. So, I'm very interested to see how that unfolds.

In terms of Selligent going forward, I think one of the opportunities for us, one of our advantages we feel is our database and how it works, how open it is to different data feeds, how it brings data together in supporting a unified customer model but I don't think we're really satisfied that it's good enough, as good as we think it is already. We're looking at enhancing the data layer to make data flow in and out of the tool more easily to make sure that we are doing things in real time all the time because we think that's so important, if you're going to bring together all the different data streams whether they be contextual, behavioral or transactional. So, data is the greatest threat and the greatest opportunity at the same time, so, anything we can do to make it easier for marketers to really leverage it properly we think is something that's going to be really important.

Ginger Conlon:

Excellent. Well, Nick, thank you so much for joining us today.

Nick Worth:

My pleasure Ginger, thank you for having me.

Ginger Conlon:

Thanks so much for being here and I want to thank everyone who joined us on the video and say, Nick and I also talked about the skills that you need to succeed in marketing today, so, I hope you will check out that video as well and thanks again for being here.

This article was first appeared on MarTech Advisor

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