Mayunk J.

This is a classic conundrum, and I think the life of a marketer is spent trying to surf with one leg on each of these planks. As marketers, our job is to show customers the art of the possible so it is not unusual that often our messaging is not what the customers care about, yet. It is about a shared vision of new outcomes. That said, our products are only as good as the pain points they address here and now. Customer feedback is critical to keep us honest and relevant. One way I have tried to navigate this is by finding more opportunities to listen to customers, and then trying to find the throughline between their feedback and the visionary marketing message. Sometimes, it means we adjust our hypotheticals to account for the real world.

User experience and security are always at odds, but they don't have to be. With careful planning, communication, and handholding, it is possible to introduce endpoint management in a way that is respectful of employee concerns and flexibility, while protecting company assets against modern threats. The level of controls will depend on not only business needs, but also each segment of user type, ownership of devices, and location of users, among other factors.

Ideally, MDM should be as transparent as possible for end users. A crucial step is making it clear to them why you're doing it, which is to improve the security aspect. Once you have that buy-in, use infographics, flyers, and videos to prevent any surprises and show them what the new workflow will look like. What worked well for us is QR codes around the premises, which took them to the descriptive assets. Over time, our solution became transparent to the point that except for the enrollment screen where we ask the user to sign-on, the rest of it was pretty much intuitive and running in the background. There was little to no user action needed.

Consider the balance between inclusivity and "too many cooks" when creating the virtual teams. Far too often, missed deadlines may be a result of waiting on feedback from several stakeholders. Especially in large matrix organizations, a clear RACI and ability to set expectations ("please provide feedback no later than X date") is critical to success.

Where possible, use the product yourself. In our hyper-specialized roles, it is surprisingly rare to find internal folks that have experienced the end-to-end workflow of things they've built. This may not always be practical, but whenever I've been able to do it, it gave me an appreciation for minor annoyances or something non-intuitive that creates a blocker.

In addition to acting on feedback, communicating this back to the user community is perhaps as important. We received more quantity and higher quality feedback whenever we had folks that kept the community updated on the status, plans, and actions-taken. It builds a culture of trust and shared ownership between users and creators.