Google is Google because of its lucrative advertising business--and that business works by letting advertisers target users based on what they do on the web. On Wednesday, Google announced what some observers have framed as a major shift in that setup: The company's Chrome browser will soon stop tracking individual users across different websites in order to serve them ads. While the change does allow the web giant and its advertising customers to continue tracking users to a certain extent, this appears to be a significant step away from Google's traditional model. David Temkin, Google's director of product management for ads privacy and trust, described the decision as a move to address growing concerns about digital privacy. "People shouldn't have to accept being tracked across the web in order to get the benefits of relevant advertising," he wrote in a blog post announcing the change. "And advertisers don't need to track individual consumers across the web to get the performance benefits of digital advertising."

In this week's issue of the Mélange, we'll discuss why it's important to focus on the underlying humanity when stepping up our customer experience efforts, will explain why we'll all want to befriend the new marketing data scientist in the office (if we can find one!), will talk about how to ensure we're getting the most out of our marketing automation platform and will give you the inside scoop on how you can win TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS' worth of consulting, courtesy of the fine folks right here at Perkuto. Got something we should include in next week's issue or consider for a standalone post? Want your business to create better customer experiences so that you can surprise and delight your customers and enjoy all of the benefits that come as a result? Refocus on what's most important, suggests Bruce Temkin in DestinationCRM, which is our collective humanity. While it's tempting to look at business "through a lens or technology or process" Temkin warns, "those are just conduits to the ultimate objective: people." Only by focusing on people's innate needs and behaviors will you'll be able to create meaningful connections.

One cold, dreary afternoon in 2014, Jordan Temkin took his drone to Chautauqua Park in Boulder, Colorado. He put on a pair of goggles that filled his view with the live video feed from the drone's tiny camera. He'd built the drone frame from scratch using a 3D printer, finishing it with parts he'd bought online. It took about a month for it to take off straight. Eventually, it could hover around his backyard, so one day he took it to the park and began gingerly flying around. You can still find the video feed of this first flight on YouTube. Temkin flies slowly and carefully at first, meandering around the asphalt path. But before long, he flies the drone up, over and then around a rocky peak before diving toward the ground and pulling up a split second before disaster. At one point, Temkin appears in the video, sitting on the asphalt path as the drone loops around. "It really felt like I was flying," he said.