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    Technology Marketing

    The Logged and Tagged Workforce.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Last winter I worked on an assignment for two of the world’s biggest brands (pat on back); one an ad agency, the other a software company.  And I used the following quote from Larry Ellison to help make my point about the logged and tagged workforce:                                                 

    “If you want to go faster and you want a
    system that is more reliable, you have to
    be willing to spend less.”

    Larry Ellison, Oracle, 9/10

    Because of technology and the powerful corporate drive to improve shareholder value, the once invaluable knowledge worker is more easily replaced in American business.  Those owners of corporate history, those who understand, live and propagate the culture, those who have seen good times and bad, are no longer a company’s strength. Their work product, however, still lives at these companies. Behind the fire wall. 

    Why?  Because if you have a log-in at a company and your work is tagged (searchable); any goober behind the firewall can come along and access it. Your replacement. A freelancer. An intern.

    Salesforce.com, perhaps the most successful enterprise software product of our time, is based upon the logged and tagged workplace. And it’s brilliant. It is not only a repository for all company sales data, it is a platform for the “logged in” to work more efficiently.

    This is no screed against technology. Or against two-tier pay levels. No poo-pooing of freelance nation here.  This is progress and we have to learn to manipulate it to our advantage. My recently graduated daughter has two jobs. One, at a low-ish annual wage, is for the benefits and experience. The other, at a restaurant, is for beer money. Were she really working the new economy and the logged and tagged workforce, she might have 3 jobs. And make more and in less time.

    These are exciting times. We need to see trends like the “logged and tagged workforce” and exploit them before our neighbors.  Have at it people! Peace.

    My Spanking by David Poque.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    David Poque, a technology columnist for The New York Times, is a very interesting character.  He’s a thoughtful, important and market-moving purveyor of what’s hot and what’s not.  Sometimes his columns are a bit like a PC Mag review, but mostly they’re a fun Anthony Bourdain-like travelogue through the tasty streets of technology.

    I have seen Mr. Poque on public television and he has a subtle nervousness about him on camera that doesn’t come across in print… so if I were my mother and in an advice-giving mood I suggest he stay in print.  Interestingly, Mr. Poque’s public and private personas are a tad different.  I posted about one of his columns once with a differing point of view and it really rubbed him. (I advocated not providing in-box instructions with new products to save paper.) His angry and personal comment on my blog surprised — telling me there is a bit more to Mr. Pogue than meets the eye.  (A side that might be fun to read outside of the NYT guardrails.)

    My prediction:  Mr. Poque will either leave The New York Times within the next 3 years and create his own branded site or AOL will make him an offer he can’t refuse.  Yahoo could, but they have a lazy eye.  Peace.

    Google’s All You Can Eat Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Google’s “culture of technological obesity” reared its really big head yesterday and the company in early 2012 will be getting into the hardware business — following its intention announced yesterday to buy Motorola Mobility.  We’re not talking a nail salon breaking out pumice stones and getting into the foot care business, were talking about a software company buying manufacturing plants, accountants to manage depreciation, thousands of other-continent employees, and then playing the materials engineering,  just-in-time game.  No Beta release here.  No limited invites here.  (I don’t know how Apple does it, frankly.)

    This is one bold, bold move. And there’s no reason it shouldn’t work.  There are hundreds of reasons it shouldn’t work, but no one reason.  The justice department had better staff up me droogies.

    Unless someone comes along and proves that mobile computing causes brain or pituitary cancer, mobile computing is here to stay and with one company owning the OS, device, search and funding (advertising), it feels like quite the monopoly.  And don’t think Larry Page doesn’t have his eye on Sprint or Metro PCS. Google can eat. And eat. And think. And plan. And spend. This is going to be one wild planet-changing ride! If there was a global, publically traded law firm, I’d say buy stock today. Peace!

    Fishing With Hooks and No Line.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    After reading a Sony Vaio laptop ad this morning I clicked on the QR code.  These little goodies are the rage, and rightly so, but many marketers haven’t quite figured them out yet.  The worst attempts send people to the company homepage or a Facebook page.  The best provide a trail of proof for the ad claim that moves the consumer closer to purchase – taking the ad logic and selling premise and extending it.  Somewhere in the middle are marketers who provide lists of additional information, either in text or clickables.  Sony’s effort fell in the middle. Their QR code mobile landing site offers a video that is still loading, some nice product specs, price variations, special offers, way under the fold a smart showcase of the illuminated key board feature, a claim about flying from NY to Rome on one charge, powered by Microsoft Windows 7, and something about a kitchen sink.

    Ad agencies all complain that their business models and profitability have changed.  The fact is, the things they sell have changed and they’ve been slow to adapt.  This QR code exercise points out how many new things agencies get to make – beyond ads – to enhance the client selling experience and make more money. Happy, happy.

    Using a fishing metaphor, ad agencies are focused on the hook — lo, they celebrate the hook — but they forget the line, pole, boat, and fish keeper. (The Vaio video is still loading.)

    In my posts about Twitch Point Planning I write of the need to use transmedia or cross media twitches to move customers closer to purchase. That is the absolute best purpose of a QR code. Yet many are lazily using the code simply to move consumers closer to information. Disorganized information at that.  Still loading.  Peace!

    HP. Where’s your tagline?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    “Make it matter” is the new tagline for HP.  I posted about it in June when the line broke.  Creating value in a commodity market is tricky. It can’t be done haphazardly.  Finding hard and fast value planks are the key – then they must be banged home.  Not with just one ad, with many.  Over long periods of time and for the foreseeable future.  It’s easy to go off piste with a value program, however.

    HP’s Make it Matter campaign appears to be a create value campaign, yet today I read a promotional ad “Buy 2 ink cartridges get one free” and that is not a great expression of making it matter.  Not that saving money isn’t important.  The ad does not include the new tagline.  It does have a highlighted call to action with the URL hp.com/getmore.

    Retail and image together are hard to do well. Retail is about how many sales hit the ledge on a given day. It’s shark time.  Image on the other hand is about changing attitudes that predispose people to buy. Done well, and image ad can create action, though it tends to be long haul stuff.

    HP has enough money to have two campaigns. But I’m just not feeling it. I’m feeling uncertainty here. Once the snow globe gets a good shake – there are lots of things new at HP and its agency – all will settle down. Knock-knock. Peace!  

     

     

     

     

    Dumbed Down Utility.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Today The New York Times had a cover story on geolocation dating services. If you’re looking for a date and have a smart phone these new apps tell you who is nearby and available. Text, text, plan, plan and you can grab a drink with little social awkwardness. The services are Grindr, Bendr, OKCupid Locals, and How About We.

    I was a doofus at bars as a young ‘un and couldn’t walk up to interesting girls with a good rap. For someone in the selling business it was a skill I needed to work on. Had I an app for that, would I have learned the skill faster? 

    Here’s my take, socially inept kids hide in their cell phones. Heads down, active in the ether, they appear to be busy. Some kids feign being on the phone to look popular so they can troll for interaction, they hope will come their way. Not good. Unless these are kids who might never make it out of the house to begin with. I suspect that these geolocation apps will soon come with “sorry” buttons so users don’t have to deal with ending these pseudo dates.  Rather than look someone in the eye and say “Thanks for meeting with me but…” the daters will simply hit sorry and the app will ping the date is over. (I can just hear these unique ping tones, ringing across the bars of NYC in 2012.)  The human behaviorists and sociologists are going to have a field day with this stuff.

    We need to move beyond a dumbed down utility with apps and think about skill enablement and development. Peace is not an app. (Or is it?)

    Microsoft Office 365 Crack.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Microsoft is a pretty amazing company. Its roots are in operating systems with its second version (Windows) transforming personal computing. Blah blah, I know. But the real invention was taking very complicated technology instructions and creating a user interface that enabled regular people to navigate it, using the open and closed window as a metaphor.

    (Their new mobile operating system should be called Tiles, but that’s a story for another day.)

    In the 90s, Microsoft only hired the smartest people on earth.  It gave Mensa style logic quizzes to all prospects, figuring if  you populated your company with Harvards, how could you lose. And it worked for a while.

    But as the company evolved the Harvards — and please, I love Harvard, no offense meant — began to develop more and more products, the products became hugely over-built and complicated. Microsoft’s second most famous product “Word” has 88 features, or there about, with most people using only 12.  And that was okay because what you didn’t know didn’t hurt you.  But as the company moved into communications servers, SharePoint and other software ditties in the productivity world, usability became quite a chore. And a major impediment. If  it didn’t come with corporate training it wasn’t intuitive enough to pass the mass appeal test.

    Microsoft’s new cloud product called Office 365 is quite robust and has the ability to change the business world.  It’s the best of all MSFT products for the enterprise. The kind of stuff small businesses only dream about. But it’s overly complicated. It needs a beginner slope. A beginner product for small business that, like crack, will create addiction.  If they crack the code on a usable version of Office 365, a big if, Microsoft may just double its revenue. Peace!

     

    Yahoo! And Yippee.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I half disagree with Marissa Mayer, Yahoo!’s new CEO,  about Yahoo’s challenge.  When asked the question “Does Yahoo needs to define whether it is a technology company or a media company?” she responded “It’s not the right questions.  The most important thing is to give end users something valuable, inspiring and delightful that makes them want to come to Yahoo! every day.”  With that part of her answer I completely agree. But the way to get there — is to become content-focused.  In the NYT article Ms. Mayer’s quote came from, an eMarketer analyst suggested that Yahoo doesn’t own the operating system or the device and that there may not be enough room in the market for a 4th mobile platform. (I hate the “P” word, you can drive a truck through it.) Whatever he meant by platform, my take is there will certainly be enough room in the mobile world for a great content provider.

    Ms. Mayer accurately feels that mobile is a growth zone for Yahoo!. If she provides content that is mobile ready, not technology ready – she will grow. Technology-enabled (other people’s technology) content is her north star. Any apps or start-ups that result are gravy.

    This gem just needs a little cleaning off. 700 million people can’t be wrong. Peace!

     

    The Digital Triangle. The Perfect Start-up Womb.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    The digital triangle, located in NYC, bears three distinct corners.  DUMBO in Brooklyn. SOHO in Manhattan. Union Square, also in Manhattan.

    DUMBO is where the coders are.  A youthful tech workforce who live digitally-centric lives, they are smart and have engineer-friendly minds. (A lot of gamer consoles burn out in DUMBO.) It’s a little men and boy heavy.  Union Square is where the money is.  Where the incubators are.  It’s where the DUMBO denizens with entrepreneurial spirit visit with their hands out.  It’s close to NYU and also has a lovely, youthful energy. Parking is expensive in Union Square but the smart money walks the streets.  SOHO is what makes the digital triangle different.  It is where designers, the truly creative and exceptionally beautiful like to call home. They don’t live there really, just work, shop and hang. If you can’t get inspired in SOHO with all its art, nubes, soft tacos, fashion, and vibe, you can’t get inspired.  All these neighborhoods are a subway or bike ride apart and feed off of each other. It is a perfect storm for start-ups.  

    Unlike Sand Hill Road (money), its surrounding neighborhoods of Menlo Park, Palo Alto, etc. (tech engineers) and San Francisco (ad people) the Digital Triangle is close but not really connected. The west coast likes campuses. It works but not like the digital triangle. As technology’s pull increases and more and more of the economy is tied to digital commerce, NYC will grow in importance globally and will become a tech capital with no peer. Just ask Fred Wilson. Peace.

    Microsoft Strong.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    God forgive me but I’m going to disagree with Robert Scoble, my technology pundit hero. I do not think Microsoft should be split in two: one side about the enterprise and software, the other consumers and devices.  

    Mr. Scoble’s logic, and it seems some Wall Street finaciers agree, suggests the business side is “crushing” it (thanks Techmeme), while the device business growing modestly at 4%. Split the company, they say, and let consumer people handle the devices and business people handle the enterprise. I say bullshit. Together there is way much more to learn. And business and marketing is all about learning. Together there will be tensions that are hurtful, yet hopefully transitional. Brothers and sisters argue but they care about the family. And if the tensions are insurmountable, there is always mother (CEO).

    Microsoft has so much cash, so much penetration, and enough smart people that it can continue to innovate and make an occasional misstep.  Como se Kin?  And though Microsoft’s brand diaspora is a problem, it is getting better and is certainly fixable.  Mother?

    Microsoft is a living organism. It feeds itself while feeding upon itself, yet it is still better as one. With all deference to Mr. Scoble and the financiers and lawyers, the latter motivated by a pay day, let’s not break apart the machine that is crushing it.

    Peace.

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