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Content Evolution

Content Evolution is a federation of professional service companies. Chartered as a limited liability company in the State of North Carolina, Content Evolution LLC has been in business since 2002.

Content Evolution is based on a unique no-fee business model for federation members.  Companies or professionals remain independent yet practice together under the Content Evolution umbrella of trust and mutual benefit. Members have relevant expertise in voice-of-people and market research both qualitative and quantitative, business modeling and strategy, branding, and customer and organization experience and design of presence.

Content Evolution directly and through its members have done work for some of the largest and most valuable brands in the world and interesting new start ups, including 1200.AREO, Armstrong, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Cognizant, Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, EnlightenNext, Gartner, Georgia-Pacific, IBM, Indian School of Business (ISB), International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Kyocera, Lenovo, Michigan State University, Microsoft, NASA, NBC Universal, NEC, Open Future Institute, Qualcomm, Restart Partners, Root Capital, SENS Foundation, Stars & Stripes, Storyvine, Tanjo.ai, Toshiba, University of South Carolina Moore School of Business, University Consortium for Executive Education (UNICON), U.S. National Parks Service, Visible Value, and Whirlpool.

Content Evolution as a name and represented by the organization logo, means: Content, as in “content of your character” as an organization, protected and nurtured during work together (as represented by the red brackets of the logo), and as an exponent and proponent force causing this core content of organization being to intentionally and purposefully evolve.

Content Evolution was founded by Kevin Clark, first Brand Steward of ThinkPad notebook computers (originally IBM, today Lenovo), and Director emeritus Brand and Values Experience, IBM (see biography).

Content Evolution also has the world’s first blended human and machine learning agent Board of Advisors, https://www.contentevolution.net/leadership/  Trusted advisors appear as color photos, and black & white photos represent people that have inspired Content Evolution founder Kevin Clark since childhood through adulthood.

History

The origin of Content Evolution starts with the founder and current Federation Leader & President, Kevin Clark. His early career begins as a professional communicator on-air with NPR affiliate KWGS-FM during college and on early graduation from the University of Tulsa, starts a 30-year career with IBM. After more than a decade in public affairs and corporate communications, he switches to planning and strategy roles, and joins the business unit pioneering early use cases for IBM and the Internet, moving away from proprietary standards to embracing open standards. This explains why Content Evolution has it roots in research and strategy.

Clark then moves into a branding and evangelism role for IBM PC Company for ThinkPad notebook computers. While serving as the first named Brand Steward for IBM ThinkPad notebook computers, Clark starts pioneering customer experience strategies and practices that are also at the foundation of Content Evolution activities today. He becomes a second-line manager with customer experience, customer satisfaction, market intelligence and research, strategy and business planning, and web communications and direct marketing reporting to his directorate.

Clark undertakes plans to go back to graduate school that are deflected by increasing urgency to find a buyer and spin-out IBM’s Personal Systems Group businesses, including the PC Company (today Lenovo), Printer Systems (today Ricoh), and Retail Store Solutions (today Toshiba).

A compromise is reached with IBM management and Clark is given permission to publish his germinating doctoral thesis as a book instead of returning to the academy. As writing begins and in anticipation of publishing, Content Evolution is formed and recognized by the State of North Carolina as a limited liability company (LLC) on February 28, 2002.

The book Brandscendence: Three Essential Elements of Enduring Brands is published by Dearborn/Kaplan in 2004. Copies of this book are tracked to the libraries of major business schools and universities around the world, and the private collections of many branding and marketing organizations and professionals. With rights returned to the author by Kaplan publishing, during early 2022 selected chapters of the book are re-released in recognition of the 20^th anniversary of Content Evolution’s formation and available on the Content Evolution website: http://contentevolution.net

Clark is also the protagonist in a case about his work with the IBM PC Company management team to create and embrace the first behavioral segmentation research and model for the personal computer industry. The case is taught in business schools around the world and was authored as a Duke Fuqua School of Business Case Study by Dr. John Lynch at Duke at the time, today a distinguished professor of marketing at the University of Colorado at Boulder Leeds School of Business.

Content Evolution Practices and Federation Member Companies

Content Evolution SenseMapping practice team: https://sensemapping.world

Content Evolution Member Companies

Audiobrain

Australian Online Research

Awakening Value

Bartelme & Associates

Brandifference

Canopy Gap

Catalyst Branding

Choiceflows

Commonweal

DesignKaz

Flexcel Network

Grant McCracken

Human Centered Design Network of Japan

Humanity Inc

Jack Hayes Business Plans

Jamai Wallis Blivin

Kristin Little Research

Kwologic Design

Ming Advisory

Numerator

PlatformUX

Position the Future

Quality Online Research

SocialTech.ai

Storyvine

Strategic Horizons

Stratton + Strategy

Synecticsworld

ThinkNext Design

UserWorks

Visible Value

World Meetings Plus

Kevin Clark Biography

Kevin Clark is an award-winning business and brand strategist, serial author and entrepreneur, and alpine skier. He is Federation Leader and President of Content Evolution, CEO of Choiceflows Inc., CEO of platformUX, a founding member of the SenseMapping practice team, and is Director emeritus for IBM Brand and Values Experience. Tens of billions of dollars in intangible and brand value have been created and managed by Kevin. He is a recurring pioneer and innovation catalyst. Kevin advises leaders on the wants and needs of clients and customers at the intersection of emerging social and technology trends. Kevin holds several board positions both fiduciary and advisory.

Content Evolution is a federation of companies working with clients worldwide to practice listening and leading – and purposefully connecting organization intention with customer and stakeholder attention. As Chairman and CEO of Choiceflows Kevin works with voice-of-people research pioneers for “advancing decisions” with embodied research and policy briefs for companies around the world. In additional to Choiceflows, Kevin serves on the board of directors of 1200.aero an aviation data company, is a Senior Adviser to TANJO.ai machine learning, is a Senior Strategy Advisor to guided video platform Storyvine, and to Unmdl as a marketplace for online community and technical college courses. Kevin lectures regularly in customer selection and market insights at Duke University Fuqua School of Business, the University of Colorado Leeds Business School, Yale School of Management, Rochester University Simon Graduate School of Business, and is a named Adams Advisor for entrepreneurship at the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Kevin is Director emeritus, Brand and Values Experience, IBM Corporate – global IBM Brand Experience Community Leader – and the first Brand Steward for ThinkPad notebook computers, today Lenovo. IBM is the most valuable business-to-business brand in the world valued at $72 billion in 2014 by Interbrand. Kevin is co-creator of the IBM client experience design program widely in use today; co-creator of the IBM Business Partner program; leader of the ThinkNext and Innovation Discovery processes.  Kevin is former Director of Business Strategy and Brand Management for the IBM Personal Systems Group, and a senior member of the IBM Market Management Executive Committee (MMEC), member of the IBM Marketing Intelligence Leadership Committee (MIL) and has been a senior instructor for the IBM Marketing Management Institute.

Kevin is an adviser to the Atlantic Council GeoTech Center, serves on the leadership team and Programs Committee for the People Centered Internet co-founded by Internet inventor Vint Cerf, is an International Advisor to Human Centered Design Network of Japan (HCD-net), and is a founding member of the Relationship Economy eXpedition (REX).

Kevin has been an IBM advisor to and served on the steering committee of MIT Media Lab, and received the Brand Leadership Excellence Award from the World Brand Congress in 2009, received career recognition and the NASA Astronaut’s Office Award in 2005 and then an award from IBM as an influential executive advocate for NASA and United Space Alliance (USA) in 2006.

Kevin is the author of Brandscendence: Three Essential Elements of Enduring Brands published by Kaplan/Dearborn in 2004. He is the author of USE: User Strategic Experience describing the powerful intersection of business model innovation and customer experience design (Content Evolution position paper, 2013). He is a contributing author to The Handbook of Strategic Public Relations and Integrated Marketing Communications with the chapter “Relationship Transformation: Shifting Media Boundaries” (2012). He is co-author of the keynote article “Unleashing the Power of Design Thinking” for the summer 2008 issue of Design Management Review and appearing as a chapter in Design Thinking: Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience and Brand Value published by Alworth Press, 2010.  He is author of “Engaging and Adaptive: Beyond Ease of Use” (2009) and “Collaborative Innovation and Human Interaction” (2011) published by Human Computing Interaction International and Springer.  He is co-author of “IBM’s Think Strategy: melding business and brand strategy,” appearing in the spring 2004 issue of Strategy and Leadership magazine, co-author of “Experience Design that Drives Consideration” for the Winter 2006 issue of Design Management Review, and “How IBM Innovates” for the April 2006 issue cover story for PDMA Visions. His paper with Dr. Kazuhiko Yamazaki “Culture-Centered Design and Digital Transformation” is delivered at the International Human Systems Integration (IHSI) Conference during the first quarter of 2019 published by Springer. “Designing Presence” with Dr. Kazuhiko Yamazaki is the keynote article on page seven of the book of proceedings and delivered at the International Conference on Human Interaction & Emerging Technologies: Artificial Intelligence & Future Applications (IHIET-AI) in 2020 published by Springer. “Designing from the Inside Out” receives a Best Paper Award from the 2021 Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE) Conference by Kevin Clark (lead author), Dr. Stacey Baer, Todd Hoskins, James Kwolyk, and Dr. Kazuhiko Yamazaki, with proceedings published by Springer.

Kevin is a graduate of the University of Tulsa with a Bachelor of Science Degree from the School of Communications with minors in business and philosophy and is a member of the Mortar Board National Honor Society. He has certifications from IBM Management School, IBM Senior Leadership Management School, IBM Strategic Leadership Forum at Harvard Business School, Spiral Dynamics Integral Technologies, IBM MBA Fundamentals, IBM Communications Leadership Institute, and Creating World Class Capabilities from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.