September, 2011 |

Leading Tech

Posted on 2011/09/27 by admin2011/09/28

You can lead a company to market, but you can’t always make it think. Founder and CEO leadership are hot topics this month as we see Steve Jobs stepping down as Apple’s CEO and HP appointing their CEO of the week. It is arguable that Jobs resurrected Apple from failed leadership and that HP lost its Way due to the same disease. Leadership — be it the valiant general in combat or a CEO on the battle field of the technology markets — is a very real substance and one unevenly distributed. All organizations are groups of people who either run in random directions and thus impede progress, or who head in one direction and cause change to occur. Leadership is pointing everybody in the same direction. However, the degree of leadership required and the goals set by CEOs varies wildly from industry to industry. The CEO of an iron … Continue reading →

New and Improved

Posted on 2011/09/20 by admin2011/09/20

New And Improved is a wonderful slogan for soap. Not so much for enterprise software. Yet in the past year I have helped two major software companies with their go-to-market messaging for what was essentially New And Improved versions of their existing products. Noticing this brace of businesses had the unfortunate effect of forcing me to think about the essence of New And Improved market outreach — when and why it makes sense, when and how it doesn’t. When we examine the technology adoption lifecycle and the wave-extension variant thereof, we realize that much of technology marketing involves New And Improved products. We’re just smart enough not to call them such. In technology marketing, we see several forms of New And Improved products. One is new versions of existing products that have moderate improvements or extensions to the core expected product. Others extend functionality to make the product more competitive, … Continue reading →

Intangible Targeting

Posted on 2011/09/13 by admin2017/10/07

The only thing worse than television shows about food are newspaper reviews about music. Food and tunes are pleasant assaults on our senses, using hearing, smell and taste buds to entice us. Rob a customer of those essential inputs, and the experience is no longer complete. Yes, Food Network pot roasts on your 52″ screen look yummy, but the lack of aroma fails to launch you from your Lazy Boy and to the supermarket in search of dead cow. Likewise a printed review of the new CD from an alleged rising star does little to illuminate if you want him croaking from your dashboard during drive time. Intangibles are the toughest thing to sell (as my mumble-mumble-mumble years in consulting have taught me). Selling things that lack substance — physical, worldly shapes and colors — requires associating the product with what people already know and have experienced. When Steve Jobs … Continue reading →