emerge interactive

Jonathon Hensley is co-founder and CEO of Emerge, a digital product consulting firm that works with companies to improve operational agility and customer experience. For more than two decades, Jonathon has helped startups, Fortune 100 brands, technology leaders, large regional health networks, non-profit organizations and more, transform their businesses by turning strategy, user needs and new technologies into valuable digital products and services. Jonathon writes and speaks about his experiences and insights from his career, and regularly hosts in-depth interviews with business leaders and industry insiders. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and two boys.

Originally from Silicon Valley, Jonathon got into the digital product space inspired by the incredible people developing new technologies all around him and the possibilities they unlocked. This fueled his curiosity to understand how technology transforms the ways in which people live and work.

That curiosity continues to drive him today, as he works to help businesses harness technology. His work focuses on helping leaders define the value they want to create in a succinct and tangible way; where to focus, why, and what it will take to achieve that outcome. His favorite part is going beyond the idea and mapping how you bring together people, data, and processes so that clients can succeed.

After the interview…

• Get Jonathon’s ebook Alignment https://www.emergeinteractive.com/podcast
• Visit Emerge Interactive http://emergeinteractive.com
• Follow Emerge Interactive on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Emerge Interactive
• Follow Emerge Interactive on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/emerge-interactive
• Follow Jonathon Hensley on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathonhensley
• Schedule a free strategic review with Jonathon today https://calendly.com/jonathon-hensley/consultation

TIMESTAMPS

• 1:10 Jonathon’s #1 leadership tip
• 2:30 how Jonathon helps business leaders leverage technology to engage customers and support employees
• 4:00 examples of unique applications of technology (for example, shifting a website’s role from a “brochure” to a “product”)
• 7:40 key functions for a website in 2020
• 11:20 learning from failure and breaking down alignment (individual alignment, team alignment, organizational alignment, and market alignment)
• 17:15 realignment strategy
• 23:15 common struggles with alignment (not investing in customer feedback, not managing expectations with internal teams, siloed knowledge, and skipping steps)
• 28:55 creating an effective customer feedback loop
• 31:25 resolving conflicts between priorities of business units
• 36:15 servant leadership
• 37:50 why leaders need to become trilingual in business, design, and technology
• 40:30 Jonathon’s upcoming projects

Our Guest

Jonathon Hensley is CEO of Emerge Interactive, a digital experience company, where he works with clients to transform business strategies, user needs and new technologies into valuable products and experiences.

An accomplished writer and speaker, Jonathon has lectured on topics such as the connected consumer’s impact on business, creating value through data-driven experiences, and user-centric approaches to innovation. In 2012 he was recognized in the Portland Business Journal’s “40 under 40” as one of Portland’s emerging professional and community leaders.

Under Jonathon’s stewardship Emerge Interactive has committed to a simple philosophy: The relationship between Emerge and its clients should exist to create real and lasting value. To change the conversation. To move people to action. To inspire and motivate a team to focus on what matters.

Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest:

2:55: Emerge Interactive is a digital experience company which focuses on high-value digital experience on new opportunities and solving high-value user experience challenges. A lot of companies are struggling with digital modernization and there is a void in the marketplace of firms with expertise and experience to solve these challenges -- this is the void which Emerge Interactive fills. Mobile First is an extension of this as this podcast is a platform which aims to dig into what’s happening on this front.

4:52: With 20 years of experience in helping clients create digital experiences, the main friction area which Jonathon sees in not having a co-creative approach in companies is the fact that many businesses do not start as a digital business. The challenge is coming in with just one set of expertise and integrating digital to be part of the core.

6:00: Co-creation is the idea of going beyond collaboration. Instead of working as separate team, you have to work as a single team unified with a common purpose. Co-creation is a methodology to support this. You combine the expertise of people across the business and the experiences of your customers and bring these all to the forefront of the process to quickly and effectively get to the most important needs of the business.  

2:55: Emerge Interactive is a digital experience company which focuses on high-value digital experience on new opportunities and solving high-value user experience challenges. A lot of companies are struggling with digital modernization and there is a void in the marketplace of firms with expertise and experience to solve these challenges -- this is the void which Emerge Interactive fills. Mobile First is an extension of this as this podcast is a platform which aims to dig into what’s happening on this front.

4:52: With 20 years of experience in helping clients create digital experiences, the main friction area which Jonathon sees in not having a co-creative approach in companies is the fact that many businesses do not start as a digital business. The challenge is coming in with just one set of expertise and integrating digital to be part of the core.

6:00: Co-creation is the idea of going beyond collaboration. Instead of working as separate team, you have to work as a single team unified with a common purpose. Co-creation is a methodology to support this. You combine the expertise of people across the business and the experiences of your customers and bring these all to the forefront of the process to quickly and effectively get to the most important needs of the business.  

8:43: Some of the Jonathon’s takeaways from our first 50 episodes are:

• The spot-on idea that an employee experience is an enabler to the customer experience. Internal transformation can be very difficult but nothing can be more powerful in delivering an amazing customer experience.
• The reaffirmation that ideas are powerful but what it really comes down to is the ability to execute. This is the make or break in an organization.
• The ability to build great teams is fundamental to success. Get the right people on the right seats with the right expertise to get you where you need to be as a business.
• The uniform understanding with our guests that it is critical for businesses to understand their data. Thinking of data as service -- looking at how they move from upstream and downstream -- through the organization is becoming essential.

14:41: Jonathon shares what we can expect from the show moving forward: guests bringing in perspective, best in class tactics, strategies which are taking place, and how they are driving change and innovation in their organization. Beyond sharing experiences and insights, we will unpack to everyone what co-creation is to solve all the problems out there which we are trying to solve.

20:14: Inspired by our guests’ reiteration of the importance of having a great vision and an actionable plan to get there, Jonathon shares that they are working on a product vision and planning checklist which listeners can use as a great resource. On top of this, they will also be releasing an eBook specific on how to make a business case for your mobile initiative in understanding what problems and friction points you are solving for and what kind of impact it will have in the organization.