San Francisco Seminar 2009 – Day 5
Channel Strategy, Media Optimization, and Customer Experience in Practice
Introduction and Context
The final day of the 2009 seminar took participants into the heart of Silicon Valley—not through technology, but through the people, methods, and mindsets that make the region unique. While the previous days had focused on retail, customer behavior, and multichannel strategies, Day VI focused on what lies behind all of this: the anatomy of innovation.
Through presentations by Randy Haykin, BizWorld founder Tim Draper, research material from BI, the 1-800-Flowers case, the Navico presentation, and Schwartz’s reflections on creativity, participants gained an entirely different perspective: digital transformation does not begin with systems, but with people, experimentation, and culture.
It also became clear that even large companies—such as J.C. Penney, Macy’s, and Williams-Sonoma—succeed only when they understand the logic on which Silicon Valley is built: rapid testing, extreme feedback loops, the willingness to abandon their own ideas, and a total orientation toward learning rather than control.
Day VI therefore became a kind of “final lens”:
A meeting point between the challenges of retail and the solutions emerging from Silicon Valley.
Program Overview
The day was structured around four academic blocks:
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Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Silicon Valley
Based on the BI document Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Silicon Valley and Randy Haykin’s presentation (March 16, 2009), which described the values, driving forces, and methodologies underlying the region’s innovation ecosystem.
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1-800-Flowers Case: From Flower Delivery to Technology Company
Two case studies you uploaded show how a highly traditional company underwent a digital metamorphosis in which customer insight, experimentation, and personalization became core principles.
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David Schwartz: Creativity, Experimentation, and Uncertainty
The Schwartz document from March 16, 2009 analyzes what actually makes some environments creative—and why large organizations struggle to replicate them.
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BI – Navico: Practical Digital Transformation in a Global Company
My own presentation, partner, was the perfect conclusion: a concrete case from Norwegian business showing how a digital platform can be built within a complex organization, long before “digital transformation” became a buzzword.
Key Academic Themes
1. From Multichannel to True Cross-Channel
Both 1-800-Flowers and ING demonstrated how the transition from isolated channels to a seamless customer journey changed the entire business logic.
Customers started online, continued by phone or mobile, and completed the purchase in a physical store—without thinking about channel boundaries.
For the companies, this meant that the organization had to reflect the reality of its customers: data, processes, and customer insight had to flow freely across channels.
2. Media Optimization and Measurement
A recurring theme was how digital marketing created entirely new opportunities to test, measure, and adjust messaging in real time.
1-800-Flowers combined traditional email marketing with search advertising, banners, and social media—and could measure the impact at every stage of the customer journey.
ING used CRM and behavioral data to tailor communication to each customer profile.
3. The Interaction Between Brand and Customer Experience
While earlier models separated brand building from sales, both cases showed that these are now merging. The digital customer experience is the brand.
Therefore, digital transformation was not just about technology—it was about trust, timing, and relevance.
Case Studies
Case 1: 1-800-Flowers.com – “Every Connection Counts”
As a pioneer in e-commerce, 1-800-Flowers began taking orders by phone as early as the 1980s.
By the 2000s, the company had grown into one of the best-known e-commerce brands in the United States, but it faced new challenges: customers expected a seamless experience across phone, online, and in-store channels.
The solution was to fully integrate all channels.
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Customer data was shared in real time across customer service, stores, and the web.
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Mobile applications made it possible to send flowers “on the go.”
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The CRM system connected loyalty programs with personalized email and SMS.
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Campaigns were tested against real-time data to optimize results.
The result was an experience in which customers encountered the same warmth and service—regardless of whether they placed their order by phone, online, or in a store.
This was captured in the company’s slogan:
“Every connection counts.”
1-800-Flowers.com became a textbook example of how data, people, and technology could work together to create a seamless experience while maintaining a human touch.
Case 2: ING – Digitalization with a human face
ING showed how the financial sector could learn from retail digitalization.
Where traditional banks were hierarchical and product-driven, ING focused on user experience, simplicity and trust.
Through data-driven insights and digital channels, ING was able to:
tailor messages to the customer's life situation,
reduce the complexity of product offerings,
offer full transparency in price and terms,
and build trust through simple, direct communication.
The company shifted its focus from “banking as a product” to “banking as a service.” They developed a language and visual expression that reflected the customer experience: accessible, friendly, and human.
"Digital banking is not about machines. It's about people using them."
Reflections and Discussion:
Both cases showed that technology alone does not create value—it must be combined with culture, insight, and organizational capabilities.
The discussion focused on how Norwegian businesses could learn from these examples:
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Be willing to experiment with different channels.
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Bring data together into a single, unified customer view.
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Shift performance metrics from internal efficiency to the actual user experience.
It became clear that the competition of the future would not be about price, but about relevance and relationships.
International Perspectives
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United States: Data-driven innovation and customer experience at the center.
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Europe: More regulated, but with growing adoption of digital CRM solutions.
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Norway: Strong technology capabilities, but a need for better integration across channels and professional disciplines.
What Do We Take Home?
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Cross-channel is about people, not systems.
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Integration requires shared goals, not just shared technology.
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Analysis without action does not create value.
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Digital experiences must be personal, warm, and trustworthy.
Relevance Today
More than 15 years later, the lessons from 1-800-Flowers and ING remain just as relevant. Today, we talk about “omnichannel” and “customer data platforms,” but the principle is the same: put the user at the center.
Those who succeed are still the ones who combine technology with an understanding of human behavior and emotional drivers.
“Technology evolves rapidly—but people change slowly.”
Peder Inge Furseth
Peder Inge Furseth was a key academic driving force behind the San Francisco seminars and played an important role in making the encounter with Silicon Valley relevant to Norwegian and European organizations. Through his role as a professor at BI Norwegian Business School and as academic director of the program, he helped participants place the presentations within a broader context—one in which technology, innovation, business development, and people had to be understood together.
In San Francisco, participants met entrepreneurs, researchers, technology leaders, and investors from some of the world’s most innovative environments. Furseth’s strength was his ability to connect these experiences with practical challenges and opportunities facing Norwegian organizations. He helped translate Silicon Valley’s ideas and ways of working into a
Nordic context where collaboration, trust, and long-term value creation play a central role.
Throughout the seminar series, he served as an important bridge between research, business, and technology. For many participants, he therefore became more than an academic leader—he was also a mentor who inspired them to think differently about innovation, digitalization, and commercialization.
Learn more about Peder Inge Furseth here
From Studies and Seminars to Today’s Knowledge Hub
The studies, seminars, and academic trips documented on this page form part of the knowledge base behind The Invisible Capital. Topics such as customers, technology, innovation, digitalization, and value creation have been part of this journey for several decades — while these fields have continued to evolve.
At The Invisible Capital, we continue exploring these questions through dedicated knowledge series. Here, earlier theory, research, and experience are connected with newer knowledge, emerging technologies, and today’s challenges facing people and organizations.
Innovation
Innovation is not just about new ideas. Value is created when knowledge, technology, and ideas are developed into products, services, processes, organizational forms, and business models that are actually put into use. The series on innovation traces the field from Schumpeter to modern innovation research and explores incremental, radical, disruptive, open, and user-driven innovation.
→ Explore the Innovation series
The Customer
The customer is not simply the recipient of what an organization produces. In a competitive market, the customer is a decisive factor in whether an organization actually succeeds in creating value. The series on the customer explores customer orientation, customer insight, customer experience, satisfaction, loyalty, trust, and the human interactions that shape the customer relationship.
→ Explore the Customer series
Value Creation
What does it really mean to create value — and who creates it? The Value Creation series moves from economic theory and influential thinkers to a broader understanding of how people, knowledge and skills, institutions, organizations, and the public sector contribute to value creation.
→ Explore the Value Creation series
Digitalization
Digitalization has evolved from individual technologies into a fundamental part of how organizations operate and create value. The Digitalization from A to Z series traces this evolution through the internet, the web, e-commerce, search, UX, social media, mobile, omnichannel, cloud, data, platforms, and digital transformation — leading up to today’s AI-first era.
→ Explore the Digitalization from A to Z series
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence represents the next chapter in the digital evolution. In our dedicated AI knowledge hub, we explore how artificial intelligence works, how AI finds and uses information, how it evaluates sources and websites, and what this development could mean for people, organizations, and value creation.
→ Explore the articles on Artificial Intelligence
Recommended Reading
Where Good Ideas Come From
Steven Johnson explores how innovation and creativity emerge through collaboration, networks, experimentation, and open knowledge environments. The book shows how great ideas develop gradually over time—through people, technology, and environments that encourage learning and innovation.
