December 4, 2008 • 7:29 pm 1
If you are a tech marketer (and lets face it, you probably are if you are reading this), or even better a software marketer, you should read Judith Hurwitz’s Top 11 predictions for the software industry.
Filed under: IT, IT Planning, Research, Strategy, marketing, technology , marketing, Software, technology
November 12, 2008 • 9:20 am 1
David Jackson, the MD of Clicktools has posted about a conference on customer experience organised by the Henley Centre for Customer Management. Quoting David directly;
Henley’s research into the perfect customer experience identified the top three attributes that drive satisfaction for both B2B and B2C.
For B2C the three are:
- How helpful the organisation (ie its people) is.
- How the organisation minimises the time consumers have to spend on a transaction.
- The organisation’s ability to recognise the customer – i.e. knows about them.
For B2B , what matters is:
- The extent of personal contact
- Flexibility in dealing with the customer
- Demonstrating an implicit understanding of their needs
In summary; you can have all the technology you need, but when push comes to shove, it’s still people that make the difference.
This is great stuff.
I wasn’t there, but I wonder if I may add a spin to David’s summary – just to be clear this isn’t an either/or situation:
You can have all the technology you need, but when push comes to shove, it must be integrated with people, business processes, systems and solutions to really enhance customer experiences. Truly integrated customer experiences, across channels, are a pre-requisite for solving customer problems.
David’s blog home on e-consultancy is here.
Filed under: B2B, BBC, Business, Customer Experience, Customer service, IT, IT Planning, Software, Strategy, Web, marketing, technology , B2B, B2C, Clicktools, Customer Experience, David Jakson, Henley Centre for Customer Management, People, systems integration, technology
November 10, 2008 • 6:25 pm 0
There is a new resource for UK technology news and views that you should not miss if you are a marketer working in the UK Software and Services market, or indeed if your company operates in the UK. It is provided by esteemed analysts Richard Holway and Anthony Miller.
TechMarketView’s flagship product is UKHotViews, a source of informed opinion and comment on the events, issues and players that really matter.
The feed is here or you can subscribe to get a daily email by clicking here. Just head to the top right and inserting your email address.
This is one of those rare resources that you should read every day, without fail.
Filed under: Analyst, Business, Computer, Computing, IT, News, Research, Strategy, technology , Analyst, Anthony Miller, AR, IT, IT services, News and Views, Research, Richard Holway, Software, technology, UK, UK Hot Views
November 6, 2008 • 11:04 pm 2
What have I been doing? It turns out there is a phrase for it, and it’s been around a while.
“HiPPO’s rule the world when it comes to creating customer experiences. And that’s a bad thing. No matter what you think the optimal customer experience should be on the website it is quite likely that you walk into a meeting room, or office, and regardless of your competence the HiPPO decides what goes on the site.” Courtesy Avinash Kaushik
HiPPO stands for: the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion.
Thankfully there is some great technology making HiPPO’s extinct. Multi-variable testing tools & platforms like Interwoven’s Optimost will continue to make a big difference in the remainder of 2008 and in 2009.
Filed under: Analytics, Business, Conversion, Design, IT, Measurement, Media, Software, Strategy, Testing, Usability, digital, marketing, technology , Customer Experience, HIPPO, marketing, multi-variable testing, optimisation, Optimost, technology, web design
May 16, 2008 • 8:40 pm 0
Have you seen popurls® blue edition – sister site of popurls.com? The site was created to provide the latest and best Enterprise IT news and content.
Worth a look.
Filed under: Business, IT, Media, News, technology , blue edition, Enterprise IT, popurls
November 14, 2007 • 11:39 am 0
Silicon.com has come up trumps with its Agenda Setters for 2007. Take a look at the List and see who’s on it. Alternatively take a peek at the break downs by Business Leaders, Technologists, Entrepreneurs, and Media Movers.And for the real trend followers there is the Achievers 2000-07 trackback (which charts the top performers over the last 7 years) and a review of the Panel who was sitting in judgement.
————————————————————————–
Extra Stuff from Silicon.com
The world’s 50 most innovative companies BusinessWeek
The world’s 100 most powerful women Forbes.com
Chron 500 – The San Francisco Bay Area’s top public companies San Francisco Chronicle
100 fastest growing tech companies Business 2.0
Filed under: Analyst, Awards, B2B, BBC, Business, Computing, Entrepreneur, IT, Influence, Measurement, Research, Web, Web2.0, marketing, startups, web 2.0 , , Agenda Setters, Business Leaders, Entrepreneurs, innovation, Media Movers, Silicon.com, Technologists
November 1, 2007 • 3:20 pm 0
After two weeks flirting in the warmth of Africa’s shadow in Fuerteventura’s mid-Atlantic location, normal service resumes here at the RawStylus blog.
After plowing through a mountain of email, and general catching up, I read this in the UK Financial Times and felt that no serious blog that discusses marketing in the context of high technology could be complete without a link and comment.
Some Fifty years ago this month, Julius Blank, Victor Grinich, Jean Hoerni, Eugene Kleiner, Jay Last, Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce and Sheldon Roberts formed Fairchild Semiconductor, the company that was to perfect the manufacturing process for silicon chips and invent the integrated circuit. If you have not heard of the ‘treacherous eight’ read on. These guys founded Silicon Valley.
Yes, stuff like the net, social networking, mashups and email are rightly heralded today – and will have a huge impact on our industry – but the perfection of the manufacturing process for silicon chips and the integrated circuit has been greater than them all put together (for now).
Filed under: Business, Computer, Computing, Design, Fairchild Semiconductor, IT, News, Strategy, startups , , Fairchild Semiconductor, Financial Times, manufacturing process, silicon chips
August 10, 2007 • 9:53 am 1
See how you compare with the UK’s IT and Business Decision makers in these Silicon.com surveys.
Do you think a business blog can be a good way for companies to communicate with their customers?
View Results
What is the biggest expenses claim you’ve ever made?
View Results
When you are on holiday, how often do you check your work email?
View Results
How long have you been with your current mobile phone provider?
View Results
How do you interact most often with your boss?
View Results
How many emails on average do you get in your inbox per day?
View Results
How would you describe your normal stress level at work?
View Results
Who is in charge of IT risk management within your organisation?
View Results
Would you be happy to go through biometric security checks in airports?
View Results
Have you ever visited a virtual world?
View Results
How much time in the office do you spend using social networking sites each week?
View Results
By 2015, your working week will be…
View Results
How often do you work from home?
View Results
Are you worried about potential health risks associated with using wi-fi?
View Results
Filed under: Blog, Blogging, Business, Computer, Computing, Direct Email, Email, IT, Measurement, Mobile, Research, Social Media, Virtual Worlds, WIFI, blogs, marketing, wi-fi
July 6, 2007 • 8:35 am 1
I got an invite to a webinar today. I get a lot of these. Tech vendors LOVE their webinars.
I’ve read the title of the invite twice. Twice. Slooooooowly.
“TWO WORLDS COLLIDE: Combining PPM and ALM, from the PMO Perspective” *
Now I’ve worked in technology marketing all my working life. I get technology.
But the use of two, three, four letter acronyms is getting beyond a joke. Either that or I am getting too old and need to be put out to pasture.
P.S. The invite went into the deleted items before I could be bothered to read the title a third time. And I am usually a patient lad.
* Hint. Drop the TLAs. Prospective clients might actually be interested in what you do – if they can get through your complex messaging and hyperbole.
Filed under: Advertising, B2B, Computing, Direct Email, Direct Mail, Events, IT, Ideas and Riffs, Strategy, copywriting, ideas, marketing
June 12, 2007 • 11:58 am 0
As Web usability testing enters its 14th year, it’s worth asking how early results have held up to recent user research.
10 years ago, Jakob Nielsen wrote an article on the changes in Web usability from 1994 to 1997. A few of his original findings were no longer valid a mere 3 years after they were issued. But most of the 1994 guidelines hold true in 1997 — and they’re still correct today.
As Neilsen explains, considering how primitive websites were in 1994, it’s striking that most of these initial usability guidelines remain valid for today’s sites. It’s even more impressive when you consider that the Web currently has 120M sites, and his very first study tested only 5 sites with 3 users. This tiny, exploratory study’s outstanding outcome and endurance is testament to the power of qualitative usability methodology.
Filed under: Blog, Blogging, Design, Direct Email, Direct Mail, Email, IT, Ideas and Riffs, Measurement, Online, Planning, SEO, SEO / SEM, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media, Strategy, Usability, Web, Web2.0, blogs, copywriting, ideas, marketing, web 2.0
June 8, 2007 • 11:19 pm 0
Tim Smit is a social entrepreneur behind The Lost Gardens of Heligan and the Eden Project. But despite his sway toward projects completely unrelated to I.T he has a idiosyncratic management style that I think is worth remarking on.
At the beginning of the Eden Project, rumour has it that his chairman asked him one Friday afternoon to write-up his management plan – his management ‘blueprint’. Having listened to various interviews about Smit, I think this was a ‘traditional’ task that wasn’t particularly enjoyed by Smit. But the result of this particular request was a piece of work called ‘Monkey Business’.
Why the term ‘Monkey Business’? Well he called it that because he was under the impression that traditional management ideas and management practice is all about shifting the monkey off your back onto someone else’s.
I think ALL business can take a leaf out of Smit’s approach to management – Monkey Business has certainly left a positive impression on me.
I.T is an industry that is littered with ‘text book’ approaches to both sales and marketing. Really these approaches however are really ‘rule books’, or ‘engagement strategies’ for the upper echelons of management to ‘control’ their staff to achieve the desired result. I’d go as far to say that big I.T firms actually need to ‘program’ their staff to behave in a particular way, to grow. Central control and matrix management are testiment to this. Personally I’ve always felt that this is a great shame. There is no doubt creativity is stifled and big (good) ideas are lost because they don’t get the attention they deserve.
So Tim Smit does things differently. Very differently.
You might think his approach is wacky, inneffiecient, wrong even. But I’d encourage you to think about his ideas and approach from a logical perspective – for a moment forget about how you are ‘programmed’ to behave in your corporate world. Its clear he get results perhaps a smidgen of his brilliance might rub off on all of us.
Smit encourages every member of a team to meet, interview and access prospective employees. That means for example that a Financial Director may meet up to 10 members of staff during an interview process. A wild waste of corporate time and money? Maybe. It depends on your perspective. But Smit wants people to work with people that they like first and foremost. Moreover applicants for most jobs are asked to perform in front of him and the team interviewing them : 10 minutes of music, dance, juggling, storytelling. Why? He wants to work with extroverts not afraid of injecting their own ideas into their work. The result? I doubt creativity amongst Smit’s team is missing. In addition imagine the feeling of achievement an interviewee gets when they are offered a job after this process. Indeed imagine knowing that everyone of your team members wants you there.
Apparently interviews can take up to two days to complete – but Smit is amazed how acute the panel’s judgment is. The second day’s judgement, that is, after the interviewers have had a chance to sleep on their initial recommendation, is rarely wrong he says. No impulsive recruitment where Smit is concerned. And if you make the grade, you’ll be subject to more monkey business rules.
Eden Project people are told they have to prepare a meal for 20 of their co-workers once a year, for the joy of joining in and widening of the work experience. In addition they have to read a book they wouldn’t have otherwise thought of reading and tell their co-workers about it. They have to see a foreign film in the same spirit. Is communication a problem in your company?
But it’s when it comes to decision-taking that Tim Smit says and does things that other managers are really likely to bridle at. Particularly your stereo-typical I.T manager, or your sales or marketing guy in an I.T firm.
Try not to take important decisions in the daytime, he says. Outside our nine-to-five existence, we change personality a little bit. In the dark, over a meal, blessed by wine, that’s when the best instinctive decisions are made. That’s when an organisation makes the best ones, too he says.
Whether you can run big I.T enterprises with these ‘monkey business’ management rules, I don’t know. But I sure think someone ought to try.
I’m certain that smaller business CAN be run this way. And if I am honest, I firmly agree with Seth Godin that small is the new big anyway.
Filed under: 2.0, B2B, Customer service, IT, Ideas and Riffs, Planning, Strategy, ideas, marketing
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March 14, 2008 • 10:42 pm 0
Please help
Sport Relief
(I should apologise for bringing you here by illicit categorisation and tagging, but I won’t. You might have wasted just 10 seconds. Hopefully you will make the choice to change someone’s world in less than a minute).
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