Want to know the secret to doing digital well? It's surprisingly simple. Understand humans.

by Kane Simms

The irony of digital is that, before you do well at anything digital, you first need to do well at everything human.

You need to understand yourself. How is your behaviour and actions helping or hindering the company culture?

Where do you need to develop in order to create an environment for digital to thrive?

You need to understand your staff and colleagues.

What are they afraid of?

What skills are they lacking?

How can you build their confidence and empower them to grab the bull by the horns?

You need to understand your customers and your users. And you need to act in their interest first.

To do that:

You need to have next-level empathy.

You need to genuinely care about the needs of others, not your own.

You need to understand human behaviour.

You need to figure out the psychology of why.

You need to explore attitudes and the conflicting views of others. Especially the views that conflict you own.

You need to be comfortable listening, not talking.

Only then can you do something digital that actually matters. Something that works. Something that's needed. Something that serves a purpose.

Without that, you'll just be another company with a website and a Facebook page.

Kane Simm is is digital manager at Tunbridge Wells Borough Council.

Picture credit: Nasa / Flickr.