Book Review: UnMarketing

Posted by on December 21, 2010 No comments

I recently read UnMarketing, Stop Marketing. Start Engaging By Scott Stratten. The book is easy to read and the tone is very close to having a live conversation with the author. Which makes sense as he writes that he dictated the book using speech to text software!

Marketing is not a task

Marketing is not a department

Marketing is not a job

Marketing happens every time you engage (or not) with your past, present, and potential customers.

The above is quoted right from the introduction. I think it gives you a great feel of what Mr. Stratten is writing about.

In this book Scott Stratten clearly outlines why the old school spray and pray method of one way communications from your business to your customers or prospects is dead.

Historically, we have always been predisposed to purchase products or services either from people we directly trust, or secondly on the recommendation of someone else that we already know and trust. This is what  we commonly call word of mouth.

Throughout the text, Mr. Stratten argues that with the  introduction and rise of the tools we loosely call social media, which includes channels such as  Facebook,  blogs and Twitter, we are in fact expanding the circle of these relationships of people we know and trust, and by inference this expands the circle of relationships that we can leverage when choosing brands. This concept is echoed by other research (i.e. Edelman, Harvard Business Review December 2010) that demonstrates loyalty to a brand is more likely built on advocacy and bonding, rather than the traditionally depicted sales funnel touch points.

In the authors words, there is a trust gap that as businesses we must close between our prospects and ourselves. And closing this gap is the key, in the authors words;

if you believe business is built on relationships, make building them your business.

If I have one complaint about the book, is that Mr. Stratten uses himself as an example for many of the ideas he writes about, and if you read Scott’s blog, or follow him on twitter, you know that Scott is a passionate, unique and talented individual in this new world of social marketing. I know that I am not Scott Stratten, and I know that most likely you are not either. So our mileage may vary.

For the smaller business, this book is an excellent example of how you can improve the bond and advocacy between your brand and your customers. It is engaging, humorous, and uses great storytelling to demonstrate a concept that many business owners and entrepreneurs may be uncertain about.

Technology’s Cowboy Culture

Posted by on November 9, 2010 No comments

Cowboy Culture

I have worked in organizations that had rigorous operational controls, and those that had, well. None.

For the organizations with zero operational controls, I have always called them a Cowboy Culture.Meaning the wild, wild west of organizations fueled on Red Bull and last minute emergencies.

I have often argued that for organizational success, improving the operational part of your  business (even for software startups) can pay huge dividends.

It now seems that some research targeting software development organizations is witnessing the same thing.

Researchers Shanling Li, Jennifer Shang, Sandra A. Slaughter in the INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH Journal Vol. 21, No. 3, September 2010 write (Parenthesis mine);

Unexpectedly, our results reveal that higher OP (Operations) capability increases software firm survival more than higher MK (Marketing) and RD (Research & Development) capabilities.

The rigor of ensuring that operational excellence is taking place in your organization crosses all functional boundaries. Operational excellence provides the foundation to look at the metrics across all organizational silo’s.

If we look at software development organizations – usually founded by superb engineers, it can be easy to look at engineering excellence. Overlooking everything else. As leaders we need to open up our minds look across our organizations, not within the function we are most comfortable with.

Are Marketing and R&D not important?

Of course they are! But like our human cardiovascular  system, the processes and controls that we use to guide and monitor our business are a key point in the building and health of that business.

As a leader, technology leaders included, take a break from the ‘tech’. Look operationally at each and every internal business process. Look carefully where improvements can be made.

As the above article states;

Our findings suggest that the firms that persist and survive over the long term in the dynamic software industry are able to capitalize on their competitive actions because of their greater capabilities, and particularly OP capabilities.

Photo Credit Kevin Zollmanvia flickr

Your Website, and Your Competitors

Posted by on October 13, 2010 No comments

A short post, if you are an executive in the small to medium business space, I urge you to read; What your Website tells your Competitors is what it tells Everybody in your Industry including your Prospects as well as Yourself (via the Order Of Magnitude CEO’s blog)

“Why should I tell my secrets on my website, a number of competitors will see it?”

Read that article for the correct answer.

Should 'Social Media' Matter to the SME?

Posted by on October 12, 2010 No comments

‘Social Media’

Now that is a term that confuses, frightens, angers and generally irritates that hell out of too many people. (And I don’t blame you for any of those feelings.)

But let me pose a question that you should try think about in your business.

The Background

An American traveling to Toronto arrived by Canada’s Porter Airlines. This chap was seriously impressed with Porters’ service and sent out a note via Twitter how great that service was. (For full size image click here)

Social Media

But?

But here is the thing. I was not being fair when I opened this up with just the words ‘an American’.

That ‘American’ was Mr. Peter Shankman. If you don’t know of Mr. Shankman, he publishes a very popular newsletter titled Help A Reporter Out or HARO, that connects journalists with possibles sources for articles they are writing. That newsletter, (at least the last I heard) has about a hundred thousand readers. Oh and Twitter? as of this writing just over ninety-one thousand people follow Mr. Shankman there.

The SMB Takeaway

Mr. Shankman had a great experience with Porter airlines and chose to let close to 100,000 people know of it. On its own? great (and free!) word of mouth advertising.

But what if Mr. Shankman has been seriously ticked off by your business?

Would you even know if someone told one hundred thousand other people that your business or service  sucks?

Would you even have a clue that a possibly momentous event just happened?

Answer that question. And ask yourself if maybe you should be listening.

As I stated in the opening sentence, I don’t blame you for the confusion or frustration that the term ‘social media’ can give rise to. But sometimes? Ignorance is not bliss.

Are You Asking Questions?

Posted by on October 7, 2010 No comments

A nice article titled; The electronic health record meets the iPad from IT World Canada.

The articles demonstrates how Mr. Dale Potter, chief information officer at the Ottawa Hospital improved IT services at the hospital exponentially.

There is one key quotation that I want to point out regarding Mr. Potter’s work;

….. asked physicians how much of the information they needed in their work was available …

Look at the very first word in that quotation.

Asked

Asking questions.

How often does your IT Leadership actually do that? Or do they try to be prescriptive without asking those questions first?

The SMB Takeaway

Ask questions and then truly listen. Only then can you begin thinking of solutions or alternatives. It won’t always be easy.

Ask Questions

Photo Credit Leo Reynolds via flickr

On IT Resistance To Change

Posted by on October 5, 2010 1 comment

I met a consultant a few days ago that provides SME organizations with implementation assistance in the CRM (customer Relationship Management) space.

In his career,  he saw the writing on the wall and had migrated his skills from dealing solely with on premises software (where you shell out money for servers, software licenses and then try to glue it all together in your office) to tools supplied as a SaaS, or hosted  model.

In our talk he made a comment that I found all too indicative of many IT organizations in the small to medium enterprise. I can’t remember the exact words, so I am paraphrasing a bit here;

.. in larger SME businesses, the most resistance to the SaaS model is their IT departments, it is as if the IT folks need to be able to hug a server..

That is – unfortunately sad….

Because when any part of your business starts thinking in silos, it  leads a business to operate in silos too. That goes for your IT Leadership as well.

In the Small to Medium Enterprise, your IT Leadership must be thinking beyond hugging servers. Beyond the silo of what they prefer, or what they like.

As Philip Papadopoulos of the Papadopoulos Group mentioned to me on twitter;

IT should always be pro-active, approach the business with ways to solve their problems meet their goals

Strategy, Goals &  IT

If your IT Leadership feel that unless they are hugging a server they are really not doing their job, then there is some internal IT change that needs to be taking place.

Your business technology must support your organizational strategies and your business goals. And that can include the tactical decisions you make to support those goals.

Mark McDonald at Gartner writes; (emphasis mine)

The strategist has a point in that new technologies and service models are changing the foundation and underpinnings for IT. The move from IT functions, to solutions and now to services reflects a major change in the way IT works that will require CIOs and leaders to prepare.

The SMB Takeaway

In some cases ‘hugging a server’ may be the recommended solution for a business requirement. But for your technology team to refuse to look at the way technology is changing, and to refuse to look at the ways that this changing technology will impact costs or growth, then they are not doing their job.

Simply but, there is no right answer for every business or situation. But you won’t ever get a right answer in your business technology if you aren’t even asking the questions.

An update, December 2011: The consultant I mentioned here, Nik Panter was prescient, the term server huggers is being used in this same context by the popular press and IT research firms such as Forrester Research.

#FollowFriday 10/01/2010: Eric D. Brown

Posted by on October 1, 2010 1 comment

For this October 1st 2010, My #FollowFriday is Mr. Eric D.Brown (actually, soon to be Philosophiae Doctor Brown) and @EricDBrown on Twitter

Eric also blogs at Technology, Strategy, People & Projects and offers great insights into both the world of business technology, and leadership for business.

As an example, from a post titled; What’s wrong with today’s IT?

Most IT groups have become blinded by process, procedure, technology that they’ve forgotten their main role – make the business run better.

Via twitter, or his blog, if you are student of IT Leadership, I highly recommend!

Have a great Weekend!

Systems, Support Process

Posted by on September 29, 2010 1 comment

In the technology part of our businesses, words – and I mean simple words can be be confusing.

How about the word system?

First there are the definitions that we know from a standard dictionary.

Then there is the word System in the context  of  Systems Theory, which states that while individual parts may be independent, they also are interacting, therefor problems in one input can affect other outputs further down the value chain. (Which is a lot of the basis behind Theory of Constraints process modeling)

And finally, a common usage in business technology; a System being the computer server, storage, and/or software that provides a particular resource. As an example we talk of an E-Mail System, or ERP System.

All of these uses of the word are completely in line with the definitions that we have in our trusty dictionary, but what will get your technology projects, investments and communications into trouble is the over use of the word system in relation to the business process that your system is trying to help.

I found an excellent article by Bob Lewis titled; Business change methodology gaps. The article is written about business change, but one quote demonstrates how often we abuse the word system when used in relation to technology supported business process changes;

Most organizations are still stuck thinking in terms of system deployments rather than process changes. Don’t believe me? How many companies title their projects something like <System Name> Implementation? When the project title misses the point, how likely is it the organizational change will be on target?

Do your sales staff give a damn about a CRM System?

No – they don’t.

Your sales staff have issues ranging from managing communications to effectively managing the pipeline. They need a business process that alleviates the pain points in managing their communications and improve that pipeline management.

Managing those communications or pipeline issues requires looking at the business process. And asking how that process can be improved. And then leading the change for that process.

Once the process is looked at and understood, and a new process designed, can technology help? Certainly.

Technology can then help you standardize or automate parts of that business process.

The SMB Takeaway

I believe it is time that we seriously reduce our use of the word System when it comes to any corporate IT enabled project, change or initiative.

As Mr. Lewis states, lets call it what it is. It is business process. It may be process changes. But calling it a System just confuses the issue.

IT, Age, and Skills Training

Posted by on September 27, 2010 No comments

I was honored to be interviewed by Dave Webb for ComputerWorld Canada in this piece titled; IT doesn’t handle aging well (registration required)

The interview covered my dislike for how the technology field tends to throw out skills and buy new ones, rather than educate or train;

“We do have a bad reputation (in IT) as body shops, looking for two years’ experience in a six-month-old technology,”

And from a second interviewee, Lori Keith;

“without exception, classmates from the IT field were there on their own nickel”

Other industries don’t do this – why IT?

#FollowFriday 24-09-2010 Mike Myatt

Posted by on September 24, 2010 2 comments

If you use Twitter at all, you are already aware that there is a trend that occurs every Friday where you call out a recommendation about an individual. And more importantly why you find that individual to be someone you recommend other people investigate and follow.

I confess that I never participated, simply because in most cases these #FollowFriday (or #FF) shout outs are really short on details of the true why that I would find value in that recommendation. Then Gini Dietrich (@GiniDietrich on Twitter) slapped me around and pointed out that this blog works for an expanded why I do a recommended Follow Friday.

So in greater than 140 characters, for today – My #FollowFriday recommendation is Mike Myatt. (@MikeMyatt)

As Chief Strategy Office at N2Growth, I was reading Mike’s blog before I was active on Twitter myself. So it was logical to look him up on Twitter when I joined.

Mike writes about Leadership. And he writes it in a direct, common sense, and participatory approach that kicks ‘buzzwords’ to the garbage can.

To quote one recent blog post;

..but I don’t care whether someone agrees or disagrees with me. In fact, in most cases I actually prefer to have my thinking challenged

And since challenge, and learning, is what my life is all about – I can’t trump that!

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