A***MUST READ***Resource for UK Technology research and analysis

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

popurls blue edition

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

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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and if you know your history…..

 

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

A new definition of marketing

Oh dear God. A new definition of marketing.

Its taken 30 years, and folks are up in arms. The UK Chartered Institute of Marketing’s (CIM) new (draft) definition of marketing definitely swaps brevity for verbosity; and I am not convinced.

Old: ‘The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.’

New: ‘The strategic business function that creates value by stimulating, facilitating and fulfilling customer demand. It does this by building brands, nurturing innovation, developing relationships, creating good customer service and communicating benefits. By operating customer-centrically, marketing brings positive return on investment, satisfies shareholders and stake-holders from business and the community, and contributes to positive behavioural change and a sustainable business future.’

Hmmmmm. Not sure either? Tell you what, wanna read the 3000 treaty that is supporting (justifying) the change. Thought not.

Its called ‘Tomorrow’s Word: Re-evaluating the Role of Marketing’. Apparently (according to the treaty) whilst marketing has become more sophisticated, ‘its status with the customer and the rest of the business has never been lower’. Rubbish.

The reason why marketing gets a bad name is because ‘professors’ and bodies like the CIM insist in over complicating the discipline, being verbose, and circling the basics. Here’s my primary problem. Just count how many ideas are in the new definition alone. There’s at least a dozen. And does the wording deal with marketing as a function or a process, or both?

If you want to go deep – write a manifesto. If you want to write a definition (does the world really need a definition, is it possible that one size doesn’t fit all?) – keep it sweet.

Here is the US Marketing Society’s definition, ‘The creation of customer demand, which is the only sustainable form of growth in business.’

The definition from the American Marketing Association (AMA), the US equivalent to the CIM, reads: ‘Marketing is an organisational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organisation and its stakeholders.’

That’s seems better.

OMG! as the CIM plans its tour of the UK to canvass opinion on the proposed change among its membership, I can safely say “that’s a tour bus I’m glad I’m not on.”

And while a definition is sought like some kind of holy grail, I’ll just try and keep doing what I think is right – with my own personal definition of marketing:

• Making products and services remarkable
• Thinking about marketing as not about the art of tricking people into buying stuff they don’t need, but about spreading ideas that people love
• Always trying to do stuff that is anticipated, personal and relevant

And most importantly, remembering that even if I think I’m in charge, I’m not. The customer makes up the rules (and definitions) and can change them when she wants, as quickly as she wants.

Filed under: Business, CIM, Ideas and Riffs, News, Planning, Strategy, ideas, marketing , , Chartered Institute of Marketing, definition, marketing, News, Strategy, Tomorrow’s Word: Re-evaluating the Role of Marketing'