The Working Traveller 

The Working Traveller (previously Your Lifestyle Business), is a blog and brand dedicated to helping (50+) nomadic solopreneurs build a business, travel the world and live their best life!

Founder

Jo Barnes Online

Jo Barnes Online, was my personal blog before transitioning to The Working Traveller (previously Your Lifestyle Business) in 2019. All the content can now be found on The Working Traveller site, on my youtube channel, in my podcast or in the weekly newsletter.

The Social Networking Academy

Voted The No 1 Social Media Product Online - IM Report Card

The Social Networking Academy was a results focused, online Social Media training academy for Entrepreneurs, Digital Product Creators, Authors, Coaches, Social Media Coaches, Managers & Consultants, Social Media Trainers, Experts, Public Figures & Businesses wanting to seriously increase their customers and revenue through Social Media and Online Marketing.

People who used the information explained in The Social Networking Academy training videos state that the information was extremely concise and easy to put into action. Others state that this was one of the best investments they have made in their online businesses. 

What was included in The SNA;

90 Day Coaching Program
The Social Media Library incl training on;
Facebook
Pinterest
Google+
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn
Social Media Superbrand Course
Drag & Drop Facebook Landing Page Templates
Contest App
Timeline Graphic Creator
Bi-Weekly Live Coaching Calls
Members Only Facebook Group
and much much more....

Creator

Free Fan Page Templates

My Free Fan Page Templates were the very start of my online adventure! 

State of the Art Drag & Drop Software to create Facebook Landing Pages, Contests and Timeline Graphics in minutes!

With over 40 Background Templates for the Landing Pages and Contest Apps, over 50 Timeline Cover backgrounds, 500 Social Media Icons, download buttons etc, you could either utilise our done for you templates or create your own from scratch.

We also had easy drag & drop widgets to add images, text, social media buttons, slideshare presentations, optin forms, contact forms, videos.

Unfortunately after pumping thousands of dollars and hours into this product, I got rapidly out-gunned and out-marketed by entrepreneurs and developers with much deeper pockets! 

I was happy to have helped as many as I did build email lists and an audience using the templates on facebook at the time.

Founder & Creator

For the last 13+ years I’ve been building online lifestyle businesses while traveling the globe.

Currently based in Phuket, Thailand, I left the UK with my family in 2010 with minimal savings and a couple of credit cards.

Since then we’ve visited and lived in 40+ countries and have launched, grown and sold multiple location independent businesses.

Here’s a quick timeline;

2010 – Started online biz, built email list to around 10k, generated $30-$40k selling a Facebook course
2011 – Launched The Social Networking Academy, generated $117k in 7 days during launch
2012 – 2014 – Grew email list & income to 5 fig months via membership site, affiliate marketing, social media courses & coaching.
2015 – Started on Amazon, sold over $1million in products in the first 12 months.
2016-2020 – Built Amazon biz to over $3 million a year in sales (around 20% net profit). Sold early 2020.
2019 – Started Your Lifestyle Business Blog as a bit of a side hobby to share past 10 years experiences. Currently generating $10k/month in affiliate sales & sponsorships. 
2023 - Launched our new YLB 90 Day Goal Setting Planner on Amazon & The Solopreneur Success Formula - a 3.5 hour video course sharing my 13+ years experience with new strategies to start & grow a location independent business in your 50’s & beyond.

If you want to learn how to start & grow your own lifestyle business, travel the world and live your best life, here’s some resources to help you; (Links in the Featured section)

1. Join ‘Unretirement’ for weekly tips.

The only newsletter you’ll need to help you create physical and financial freedom and get the very best out of life!

2. Take The Solopreneur Success Formula Course. 

In just 3.5 hours you’ll learn which business model suits your personality, how to pick a niche you can’t wait to immerse yourself in, how to create a brand story that resonates with your target market, how to build an engaged audience and email list, how to create products that sell and how to obliterate self doubt and imposter syndrome (that plagues us all!)

3. Check out the Your Lifestyle Business Blog

Over 450 articles and guides on how to start your lifestyle business, online money making ideas, how to get started in every imaginable online business model, how to become a digital nomad and travel the world, how to move overseas and more!

I can’t wait to help you start & grow your location independent business and maybe meet under a waterfall one day!

Contact me here - jo@yourlifestylebusiness.com
Or find me here for travel inspiration - https://www.instagram.com/jobarnesonline/

Jo Barnes

Fernando Academia Jr., CDMP, PCM

C&S Cabinets

Full Stack Marketer

Concertina Team

CIIT College of Arts and Technology Inc.

Instructor

Netcore Cloud

Customer Success Manager

TL;DR Digital Marketing

President & CEO

Brand30

Member

BorderBuddy

MoEngage Inc.

Autogrow

Marketing Strategist

Growth Blazers

Full Stack Marketer | Digital Marketing Instructor | Speaker/Trainer

Over the last decade, I’ve worked across FinTech, E-commerce, and SaaS, helping businesses unlock the power of digital marketing and MarTech.

In 2020, I realized that the strategies and successes I’ve helped others achieve could be applied to my own ventures, allowing me to assist even more businesses in my own way.

I took action.

I joined masterminds and business groups, executed campaigns firsthand, and consulted as a marketing strategist and customer success expert. Through these experiences, I’ve built a growing community of professionals eager to learn and apply the strategies I’ve developed.

Now, I’m preparing to launch my newsletter, Future-Forward Marketing, where I’ll be sharing actionable insights that have fueled my success.

My mission: To help you master the complexities of MarTech and digital marketing, turning them into powerful growth engines.

My results:

→ 10+ years of experience driving growth in FinTech, E-commerce, and SaaS
→ Managed multimillion-dollar portfolios, ensuring high retention and growth
→ Educator at CIIT Philippines, empowering the next generation of digital marketers
→ Preparing to launch Future-Forward Marketing, a newsletter packed with actionable insights and strategies

If you’re looking to build a robust, data-driven marketing strategy, I’m here to help.

Fernando Academia Jr., CDMP, PCM, CSSWB

I’m happy to share that I’ve completed my Executive MBA at Asian Institute of Management!

Fernando Academia Jr, EMBA, CDMP, PCM

Marketing Technology and Digital Transformation Leader | Building SukiNomics | 15+ Years helping eCommerce/SaaS/FinTech scale with MarTech & Strategy

Last year, I watched an enterprise burn through a massive budget on a platform their organization couldn't digest.

The technology was perfect.
World-class vendor.
Proven at scale.
Executive champion.
Unlimited budget.
External consultants.
Everything textbooks say you need.

Six months later? Dead.

Not because the platform failed. Because the organization couldn't absorb it.

After 15 years implementing marketing technology across Southeast Asia, I've seen this pattern destroy more transformations than any technical failure:

Organizations have an absorption capacity. Exceed it, and everything fails.

Think of your organization as having a digestive system for change. Feed it too much, too fast, and it rejects everything. Even the good stuff.

I learned this lesson repeatedly across enterprises serving millions of customers.

Major platform implementations failed not because the technology was wrong. 

They failed because they required:
- Workflows that didn't exist
- Skills nobody had developed
- Cultural shifts nobody prepared for
- Integration patterns that weren't documented
- Governance models that weren't designed

This painful education led me to develop a MarTech Maturity Framework that measures absorption capacity across four dimensions:

*Integration Debt: How many manual handoffs exist between systems?
*Data Debt: How fragmented is your customer information?
*Process Debt: How many workflows still run on spreadsheets?
*Vendor Debt: How much overlap exists between tools?

The rule is simple: Score below 60% on any dimension, and new technology multiplies problems instead of solving them.

One client scored 85% on technical capability but 35% on process maturity. We spent six months fixing processes before touching technology. Result? 22x ROI improvement using mostly existing tools.

Vendors will never tell you this.
Consultants won't admit it.

But here's reality:
Most organizations can successfully absorb about 30% of what vendors promise.

Not because vendors lie.
Because organizations overestimate their readiness.

You wouldn't run a marathon without training. Yet companies attempt digital transformation without building organizational fitness first.

The solution isn't moving slower. It's building absorption capacity systematically. Strengthen your foundation before adding weight.

Your Absorption Reality Check:
- How many transformation initiatives has your organization "completed" versus actually adopted?
- What percentage of your tech stack features do teams actually use?
- How many platforms solved one problem but created three new ones?

If you're uncomfortable with the answers, you're not alone.

Want to dive deeper? I've just published below a comprehensive analysis combining insights from Oxford Saïd Business School's latest research with real-world implementation patterns across telecommunications, fintech, and digital platforms.

#DigitalTransformation #MarTech #AITransformation #ChangeManagement #OrganizationalChange

View newsletter: Future-Forward Marketing

Insights from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford's latest webinar on intelligent systems, validated through 15+ years implementing enterprise 

Open article: From Oxford to Operations: 10 Critical Lessons on Leading AI Transformation That Actually Works by Fernando Academia Jr, EMBA, CDMP, PCM • 9 min read

From Oxford to Operations: 10 Critical Lessons on Leading AI Transformation That Actually Works

Your marketing team has more tools than ever. They're using less than a third of them.

Every modern marketing organization runs on four foundational systems:

→ CDP (Customer Data Platform): Your single source of truth for customer data. Unifies profiles across every touchpoint.
→ DAM (Digital Asset Management): Your single source of truth for brand content. Eliminates hours wasted searching for the right assets.
→ MAP (Marketing Automation Platform): Your engine for scalable engagement. Delivers the right message at the right time.
→ CXM (Customer Experience Management): Your orchestration layer for the entire customer journey. Connects acquisition to advocacy.

Together these four markets exceed $50 billion.

The growth trajectory is strong. 
The utilization rate is not.

McKinsey found not one of 50+ senior marketing leaders could clearly articulate their martech ROI. The problem is not the technology. It is how we buy and deploy it.

Three insights that separate winners from laggards:

→ First-party data readiness is now a competitive moat. Those without unified customer data are scrambling as third-party cookies disappear.

→ AI integration is table stakes, not differentiation. The real advantage comes from AI working across all four pillars, not in isolated point solutions.

→ Fewer tools with deeper integration beats more tools with shallow adoption. Organizations with composable architectures deploy new capabilities 80% faster.

The winners in 2026 are not the ones with the biggest martech budgets. They are the ones who can actually measure what that budget delivers.

Full analysis with 2025 market data and strategic recommendations below:

TLDR The Core Four martech stack (CDP, DAM, MAP, CXM) now exceeds $50 billion in combined market value, with CXM and CDP showing the fastest growth th

Open article: The Core Four martech stack in 2025: A $50B+ ecosystem reshaping customer engagement by Fernando Academia Jr, EMBA, CDMP, PCM • 10 min read

The Core Four martech stack in 2025: A $50B+ ecosystem reshaping customer engagement

The expectations of executive leadership are shifting. In #digitaltransformation, the C-suite can no longer lead through decks, dashboards, and delegation alone.

I saw this firsthand during a week-long executive program at UCD Smurfit in Dublin. We analyzed why GE Digital failed while Airbnb succeeded. We visited Pinterest, HubSpot, and Google.

One pattern emerged across every case: the gap between technology capability and organizational capability. That gap closes only when executives get close to the work.

The Magazine Luiza transformation in Brazil shows what this looks like.

When Frederico Trajano became CEO in 2016, he faced a choice. Follow the Silicon Valley playbook of burning cash for growth, or find another way.

He chose neither separation nor delegation. He personally incubated a technology unit of 55 engineers, eventually growing to 850. He housed them in a secluded corner of headquarters with one instruction: build digital tools for both online and offline businesses with total focus on the end user.

The result was a 7,900% stock price increase over four years. The company transformed from a traditional retailer into a tech company.

The Thinkers50 Transformation Playbook captures the key insight. If a technology unit is left to fend for itself inside a larger organization, it will get rejected.

It needs to be separated and incubated by the CSuite, who should give it opportunities to get initial credibility through small wins.

This is why executive sponsorship is the connective tissue in digital transformation.

Harvard Business School research calls this the “use of self.” Leaders model future behaviors early in the process. They visibly tackle new challenges outside their comfort zone. This serves as a template for others to follow.

In #MarTech, the same principle applies. You cannot lead a CDP implementation from a quarterly business review. You cannot transform customer experience through filtered reports.

HubSpot  CEO Yamini Rangan  recently shared what works instead:

Do gemba walks. Sit with your team. Watch how the work happens. See where the friction is.

Triangulate feedback. Listen directly to customers, partners, and employees.

Experiment with #AI yourself. Write prompts. Share what you learn. You cannot #lead transformation if you are not learning the tools shaping it.

Communicate relentlessly. Share what is known, what is unknown, and how decisions are made.

As Rangan puts it, the best C-suite leaders today lead by doing. They provide clear direction and then protect the space for teams to execute.

Sources: 
- Thales Teixeira, Leandro Guissoni, and Frederico Trajano, An Unlikely Case of Successful Digital Transformation, The Transformation Playbook, Brightline Initiative/Thinkers50.
- Ryan L. Raffaelli, Leading Organizational Change, Harvard Business School Core Curriculum, 2017.
- UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School Digital Transformation Executive Program, Dublin, 2025.

A candid, documentary-style photograph from the side of a conductor's podium. A single hand, cufflink visible on a suit sleeve, holds a baton steady in mid-air, commanding attention. The conductor’s body is partially visible but anonymous. The background orchestra is a wash of indistinct shapes and warm stage lights, representing diverse, fragmented elements waiting to be aligned. Shallow depth of field. The mood is authoritative and singular.

I spent years building marketing technology stacks.
→ Dashboards everywhere.
→ Attribution models running in parallel.
→ Customer data flowing into platforms that never talked to each other.

I thought more tools meant more insight. I was wrong.

Just wrapped the Customer-Centric Innovation, Disruption & Metrics program through FGV EAESP in São Paulo as part of the Global Network for Advanced Management SNOC.

Here is what shifted.

Most marketing teams obsess over firm-centric metrics.
• Cost per acquisition
• Campaign ROAS

These answer one question: What is best for us?

Customer-centric thinking asks: What is best for them?

𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐦-𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 uses Porter's value chain. It optimizes internal operations.

𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫-𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 uses the Customer Value Chain.

It maps what customers actually do:
→ realizing a need
→ comparing options
→ purchasing
→ using
→ disposing.

Some activities create value. Some erode it. Some capture it.

When you understand this chain, you see where competitors can decouple your relationship with customers.

Measurement has the same blind spot.

NPS captures a summary judgment at the end. But satisfaction fluctuates across the journey. If you measure only at the end, you miss where you win and where you lose.

Customer Lifetime Value is similar.

Most teams calculate one aggregate number. But Acquisition CLV and Existing Customer LTV require different data, different time horizons, different actions.

The question is not what does your data say. The question is what do your customers want that you are not giving them.

But here is the harder truth.
You cannot answer that question from inside your team.

The customer value chain cuts across every business unit. Product. Sales. Operations. Finance. IT.

Each team holds a piece of the picture.
None holds the whole thing.

This means more conversations have to happen.
Contexts have to be understood across teams that rarely sit in the same room.
Silos have to break.

Silos do not break by accident.
They break when someone decides to break them.
That takes audacity.

It takes audacity to walk into another team's meeting and say: I need your context because my data is incomplete without it.

It takes audacity to propose unified measurement when every team defends their own dashboards.

→ No CDP will force humans to share context.
→ Technology connects systems.
→ People connect meaning.

Three shifts I am taking back:

First, map the customer value chain before adding any new tool.

Second, measure satisfaction at each stage of the journey, not just at the end.

Third, initiate the conversations that are not happening. Break the silos with audacity, not just integration roadmaps.

Tools are means.
Customers are the end.
Courage is the bridge.

The work continues.

#MarTech #CustomerCentricity #DigitalTransformation #ExecutiveEducation #GrowthStrategy

I’ve watched the same pattern destroy implementations across fintech, government, ecommerce, healthtech, and SMEs—and it’s not what you think.

Over the past 15 years working with enterprise clients on martech implementations, member management systems, and #digitaltransformation projects, I’ve reviewed my notes and found one consistent thread:

80% of #martech implementations fail to deliver their promised value—and the failure point is almost never the technology.

𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐞𝐝.

The data backs this up:
• 97% of mid-sized enterprises reported a martech failure that negatively affected customer relationships in the last 12 months .
• 72% fail from lack of post-launch monitoring .

Across every sector I’ve worked in—from government agencies managing constituent data to healthtech companies orchestrating patient journeys—the pattern is identical.

The Core Four stack (CDP, DAM, MAP, CXM) gets approved at the executive level, then delegated to mid-level leaders who lack the authority to make it work.

Here’s what I’ve observed goes missing:
→ No one mandates data sharing between Sales and #Marketing.
→ No one resolves the turf war between Acquisition and Retention teams.
→ No one reallocates headcount from legacy system maintenance.
→ No one absorbs the political cost of standardizing processes across business units.
→ No one owns the compliance risk of unified customer data.
→ No one protects the 18-36 month transformation timeline against quarterly pressure.

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧’𝐭 𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬—𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲’𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞-𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲.

When Gartner surveyed marketing leaders, they found that successful implementations have one thing in common: active C-suite involvement in vendor selection, change management, and continuous oversight.

This isn’t about blame.

It’s about recognizing that the Core Four requires a different kind of leadership engagement than traditional software purchases.

Read on below to understand what real executive sponsorship requires—and why the gap between leaders and laggards widens every quarter you wait.

The Core Four martech stack is not a technology decision. It is an organizational design decision. And that is why it keeps failing without executive 

Open article: The Core Four: Why your Martech Stack is an Organizational Problem by Fernando Academia Jr, EMBA, CDMP, PCM • 4 min read

The Core Four: Why your Martech Stack is an Organizational Problem

A vendor presented to a client recently.

• Impressive capabilities.
• Network analysis.
• Topic mapping.
• Video analysis at scale.
• Distribution intelligence most brands never see.

Then came the line that stayed with me:

"𝑊𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑜𝑙𝑠 𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑠. 𝑊𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑔𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑠."

No capability transfer.
Every insight is paid work.
Baseline reports take weeks.
Crisis analysis is measured in days.

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐰. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥.

→ I've seen this pattern across enterprise clients.
→ They bring in specialists for critical capabilities.
→ The work is excellent.

But years later, the organization owns nothing. Every question still requires an external engagement.

The vendor isn't doing anything wrong. They built a business around expertise that's hard to replicate.

The question is whether that serves your long-term position.

There's a framework I keep coming back to:
Build, Borrow, or Buy.

Most organizations default to "borrow" without realizing it. Procurement treats it as a vendor decision. But it's actually a capability decision. And capability decisions compound over time.

I wrote a longer piece on this, including:
→ How the dependency pattern forms over 5 years
→ The Gartner data showing utilization dropped from 58% to 33%
→ A decision framework for when to rent vs. build vs. buy
→ Why the first question should be "do we already have this?"

Link in comments.

The capability question isn't about this vendor or that vendor. It's about whether your organization is accumulating strategic assets or just paying for access.

Worth asking before the next renewal.

#MarTech #MarketingTechnology #DigitalTransformation

Why "Build vs. Buy" is a strategic decision, not a procurement decision The Conversation That Keeps Repeating A vendor presented to a client recently.

Open article: The Capability Question Nobody Wants to Answer by Fernando Academia Jr, EMBA, CDMP, PCM • 5 min read

The Capability Question Nobody Wants to Answer

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