tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50089644301959943242024-03-12T19:51:03.358-07:00FountainheadInsights into B2B SaaS, Product Marketing, Industry Analysis.Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.comBlogger259125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-91841883506160665592023-12-18T12:52:00.000-08:002023-12-18T12:54:58.776-08:00Data-Driven B2B Marketing Themes for 2024<p>During 2023 there was the obvious rise of using AI (and other forms of LLMs) to assist marketing’s efficiency and effectiveness. However, most of the uses of AI I’ve seen were in the areas of (a) content generation, and (b) CS and chatbots. </p><p>Entering 2024, I’m hoping that we see deeper use of AI/ML to enhance the marketing domains of understanding customers, enriching marketing datasets, and better analysis of customer journeys.</p><p>In short, I believe – and hope to see – the following B2B marketing trends progress… and hope that B2B Marketing leaders begin to invest in the following: </p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Use of Mass-Customization in Marketing</li><li>Turn to Data-Driven Customer Targeting</li><li>The Death of Traditional Lead Attribution </li></ul><p></p><p>I’ve also added a few resources below each observation if you’d like to look more deeply. Please leave comments, notes and other insights so that others can learn from this! </p><p><b>1. Use of Mass-Customization in Marketing: </b></p><p>AI is now being applied to “mass customization” (personalization-at-scale) of content, marketing outreach, web experience, and even product experience. As marketing departments mature from using LLMs/AI for simple content creation, they’ll find that combining AI with customer data enrichment will open the floodgates to creating even better Ideal Customer Profiles (ICP). </p><p>AI tools are being increasingly used to enrich customer data; not just to add missing contact information and addresses, but to uncover individual customer use-cases, jobs-to-be-done, existing tech-stacks, previous purchase history, social network engagement and more. This data can be assembled for much more precise targeting, outreach, product recommendations, and of course content.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><img height="222" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/toq1oISl4tYO5PBYTE8Ktb9wXHOo88qO54gmZ5Z0WbYljQhv-lxqaBGJdpAH_WNMM20BUaaaivnhfLxGPiX37g8Hx-GNE5lGkU9cDPe20KpL63djRweYUUa81tyJzqx8E2Fs_ncvmEdNlsO9xY1sj3k" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;" width="390" /></p><p>In 2024 I hope to see marketing leaders decrease their “spray-and-pray” outbound marketing and demand generation – in favor of using AI-based tools that will both harvest/enrich contact information (see below) to generate more relevant, ICP-based outreach. The results could be an order-of-magnitude improvement in outreach response and click-through rates.</p><p><i>For deeper insight: </i></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="white-space: normal;"><a href="https://demandgenreport.com/features/demanding-views/the-intersection-of-ai-abm-transforming-b2b-content-syndication" target="_blank">The Intersection Of AI & ABM: Transforming B2B Content Syndication</a> (Mark Nachlis)</span></li><li><span style="white-space: normal;"><a href="https://fastercapital.com/content/Personalization--The-Power-of-Personalization-in-Mass-Customization.html" target="_blank">The Power of Personalization in Mass Customization</a> (Faster Capital) </span></li></ul><p></p><p><b>2. Data-Driven Customer Targeting: </b></p><p>Building Ideal Customer Profiles has largely resided in the area of assembling personas - and doing so has largely been qualitative research, experimentation, and a pinch of guesswork.</p><p>In 2024, I see top-of-funnel ICP creation becoming far more precise and data-driven, leveraging new AI-driven data enrichment, correlation, and analysis. This will be guided by targeting the highest lifetime-value customers, as well as those with the lowest acquisition costs. </p><p>As the trend continues (I hope) we’ll also see a shift to augmenting existing Customer Relationship (CRM) systems with newer Customer Data Platforms (CDPs). CDPs collect/amass more information about customers than what is simply entered by sales and marketing teams. I see CDPs leveraging publicly-available 3rd-party data sources, social, etc. to add to customer profiles. The results will (a) help better understand existing customers and needs, as well as (b) help predict sources and ways to ID net new customers. <br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><img height="258" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/X97tY7OJGlI8hXJruTGN4HasXaJD0aJomtu8PuMllr--FhxA3kW6Na07i706l24Boegc8ESKl1Gea_jXbpljtn8h1jN9cyijzdXeVaFpHBp5TJWUsDJkwQH0pG4fNTTbtvtv1NvC27EBB7w5Hmcfwtg=w400-h258" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; white-space-collapse: preserve;" width="400" /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Source: Alignicp.com</div><br /><i>For deeper insight: </i><p></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="white-space: normal;"><a href="https://www.unusual.vc/articles/what-is-an-ideal-customer-profile" target="_blank">What is an ideal customer profile? </a>(Unusual Ventures) </span></li><li><span style="white-space: normal;"><a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/the-framework-for-ideal-customer-profile-development" target="_blank">The Framework for Ideal Customer Profile Development </a>(Gartner)</span></li><li><span style="white-space: normal;"><a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/best-customer-data-platform/" target="_blank">Best Customer Data Platforms</a> (Forbes Advisor)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><b>3. The Death of Lead Attribution </b></p><p>In the very recent past, Lead Attribution and last-touch tracking was used to determine what resources “caused” customers to convert (and what org got the credit). In my opinion, this approach has been simplistic and short-sighted. </p><p>In addition, cookie restrictions and web tracking limitations are making these approaches even more difficult to implement. </p><p>In response, marketers will begin to use more holistic (and privacy-centric) approaches to finding the sources of marketing and sales leads. Strategies like adopting first-party data collection, data enrichment tools, investing in predictive analytics, leveraging AI-driven models, and emphasizing contextual targeting will gain traction. </p><p>Plus, advanced analytics and ML algorithms enables a deeper understanding of customer behavior and allows for more detailed attribution models that take into account various touchpoints and interactions. One of the key benefits of using ML in attribution modeling is its ability to identify the most significant touchpoints in the customer journey, even when those touchpoints may not be obvious.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><img height="256" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/8MuC920DeyMPAX7I7oD5dutSKKxcZPzNnvgg7MAtrnjjxpETD56_W-40U_iLqpc8Z8nNkpqHYGPJBvbo07KVhQ-ffTMJ8A7LgPZ0JIH2kOu8CxxPaypSaCzYQrdLa7plENH8eKc-IsfqrJWyEksLUlo" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; white-space-collapse: preserve;" width="624" /></p><p><i>For deeper insight:</i></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="white-space: normal;"><a href="https://segmentstream.com/blog/articles/future-is-ai-attribution" target="_blank">Future of marketing attribution: How AI changes the game</a> (Segmentstream) </span></li><li><span style="white-space: normal;"><a href="https://www.pecan.ai/blog/change-marketing-attribution-model/">Why It’s Time to Change Your Attribution Model</a> (Pecan)</span></li></ul><p></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b>Final Thought</b></p><p>These themes are simply observations I've made as a practitioner; please leave comments, notes and other insights so that others can learn from this! </p><p><span style="white-space: normal;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="white-space: normal;"><br /></span></p>Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-75630495802335666472023-10-15T15:55:00.012-07:002023-10-15T16:03:48.665-07:00First Steps to Find Product-Market Fit: Zero-In on Your ICP<div class="separator"><span style="font-family: arial; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUobvNKQPTcMFiNRhyphenhyphenis_VJJDuwTInOjCEExYD8s03u37b0M2LrvJk0qwUnosQSYjziNQrTMlZIhEE2oKaHzuJYSyHlDFC5boTkf6SkbB2jOCEAR1o7O3xW5jCwr9eHgiQSJtn-XjoPaLYioJHGPOgA3eaC3qwanL97PEXmbduSwloSPWMCnqI6nZnzji4/s384/ICP%20Graph.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="201" data-original-width="384" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUobvNKQPTcMFiNRhyphenhyphenis_VJJDuwTInOjCEExYD8s03u37b0M2LrvJk0qwUnosQSYjziNQrTMlZIhEE2oKaHzuJYSyHlDFC5boTkf6SkbB2jOCEAR1o7O3xW5jCwr9eHgiQSJtn-XjoPaLYioJHGPOgA3eaC3qwanL97PEXmbduSwloSPWMCnqI6nZnzji4/s320/ICP%20Graph.webp" width="320" /></a></div><br />Recently I spent 2 days at the <a href="https://www.techstars.com/">Techstars</a> <a href="https://foundercon.techstars.com/">FounderCon</a> event in San Francisco. And during the previous week I participated in their “mentor madness” events, meeting 1:1 with dozens of founders.<br /><br />What was clear in 80% of my meetings was an urgent need for early product founders to narrow-down their focus on their Ideal Customer Profile…. And to try to stop “selling to anyone”. <br /><br />Indeed, so many founders - especially those with technical backgrounds - felt they were building a platform that would appeal to a huge swath of the market. The problem with this approach is that with a limited budget, their priority is to prove their concept… not to show scale (or even revenue). Investors and leadership need to know that there is actually a market for their product – one in which customers will be thrilled by the value it creates.<br /><br />This is true for new products at established companies, not just startups.<br /><br />Indeed, the classic product-market-fit metric, the “<a href="https://prelaunch.com/blog/sean-ellis-test">Sean Ellis Test</a>”, needs to show ~ 40% of customers would be “very disappointed” if the product no longer existed. This isn’t a metric for how many people adopt your product – but rather one that shows sustainable product value. <br /><br />The takeaway is first to find a narrow customer profile (perhaps uncomfortably narrow) that you can define, identify, target, and win. Worry about scaling later. The advantages of this rationale are:<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>Efficiency</u>: A narrow focus makes your outreach more cost efficient</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>Data</u>: The feedback from a narrow customer segment is statistically meaningful</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>Value</u> Focus: you’ll find the exact value you provide to a precise type of customer</span></li></ul>A great summary from <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/heyrobk/overlay/about-this-profile/?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base%3BS9KXSIgiTuW9xG8eLox40A%3D%3D">Robert Kaminski</a> recently illustrated this – How brand-names got their start…. With an uncomfortably-narrow initial focus:<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>PayPal</u> owned payments for eBay sellers before they were in every online checkout.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>Facebook</u> owned online social networking at Harvard, before your mom (and the rest of the world) signed up.</span></li><li><u>Airbnb</u> spread their concept through New York and San Francisco before they disrupted the hotel industry. (<u>Uber</u> did the same thing)</li><li><u>Amazon</u> dominated the book market before they owned all e-commerce.</li><li><u>eBay</u> owned the collector items market before they took over all online auctions.</li></ul><br /><b>Where to begin: Focus, Focus, Focus<br /></b><br />Typically I see marketers at all sizes and types of companies default into a blurry, imprecise customer profile, believing that a firmographic customer definition is sufficient. But for an early-stage B2B company, there are many more ICP dimensions of focus you need to consider: <br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>Firmographics</u>: the broadest filter to use that helps narrow-down the type of businesses you are targeting. The most common basic step to define customers.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>Psychographics</u>: Getting to know the *buyers* and *influencers” you’ll be marketing to. Understand the language they use, the problems they’re solving, and where to find them when it comes time to market to them.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>Jobs-to-be-Done:</u> Describes the *specific* jobs and outcomes the buyers are trying to achieve with your product. E.g. What are the specific problems, solutions, and workflows they use? How would your product fit-in and enhance their experience?</span></li><li><u>Technical Indicators</u>: Are there specific technologies or products that would bias the company into buying yours? Are there products in use that would *not* bias the customer to buy from you? What technology categories would they turn to find yours?</li></ul><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEdSLufjlcR8PISYgH22dbkT1MatzXGal9JHNhzvnxo9tYl5Lvy5pzbCMZkbwCL2BpeImitDIzQdF_Dgogx9_1m8rVcQWdBtqlxU-tcpr2rVW45IjXes9CdOGpaxYjgT2MGGHaUp0oejJcIjqONp7udYklnS5jPe2tQe2qj9Xdg4CkUPgURacIIZLaMjSb/s2140/ICP%20Indicators.jpg" style="font-family: Times; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="ICP Ideal Customer Profile - Indicator Characteristics" border="0" data-original-height="872" data-original-width="2140" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEdSLufjlcR8PISYgH22dbkT1MatzXGal9JHNhzvnxo9tYl5Lvy5pzbCMZkbwCL2BpeImitDIzQdF_Dgogx9_1m8rVcQWdBtqlxU-tcpr2rVW45IjXes9CdOGpaxYjgT2MGGHaUp0oejJcIjqONp7udYklnS5jPe2tQe2qj9Xdg4CkUPgURacIIZLaMjSb/w320-h130/ICP%20Indicators.jpg" width="320" /></a><br /><br /><br /><b>Next: Form a hypothesis, test, repeat! <br /></b><br />Now comes hard work… manual reaching-out to, and conversations with, individuals who’ll help you validate your ICP hypothesis. These are *not* sales calls. Start with connections, colleagues, social networks, etc. and ask relatively open-ended questions. What makes sense about your product to them? How do they describe it? What do they compare it to? Do they reach an “aha!” moment where they see value? What value is it, and what got them to that point? Try to identify as many firmographic, psychographic, JTBD, and technical indicators as you can.<br /><br />This process will take weeks if not months, and you should have perhaps 50 conversations – during which time you’ll find yourself constantly refining your “pitch”, challenging your value propositions, and maybe reconsidering much of the product itself. You’ll come to realize that your initial ICP might be off (or totally wrong). But the result will be invaluable learnings that you probably didn’t even anticipate when conceiving of your product.</span></div><div class="separator"><span style="font-family: arial; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="ICP Research" height="137" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/zrlFLYgSyolXgLRiXus-YVhyhU6qWZDxqNWddd5yvb3c8PUBiBHYBOR5nU4hOI2qY_B88rtIMpGP3-1jSJkw9IL5_qFNTRuhRAS00Jg2FNDLk9u4YPL3EWYFhQCuNi3Du4wFMmN779B5rHGQ42U940U=w369-h137" style="font-family: Times; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px;" width="369" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Research Approach for ICPs</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator"><span style="font-family: arial; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">My own ICP experience at a series-A big-data startup showed how many levels and iterations of ICP research, experimentation, outreach, and refocus are needed. This process took the better part of a year before clearly understanding who to initially target. And it turns out that the “traditional” firmographics (e.g. vertical industry, company size) had almost no bearing on finding an ideal customer… <br /><br /><br /><img height="175" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/OT-xqkhzyBiqirbBiNIWkueNYz4rbSP07c91ARsO282nZ_alEJrbmFEIYphv0bu9QG35CUMojb4LMNyhwxXJljJt65ctOm2JY6AaygyAeclHOld2siCQ8BH7JZNmn7omJyOsHHmxrWJuvDsLm_Dj_V8=w382-h175" width="382" /><br /><br /><b>Also Ask: What’s My Category? <br /></b><br />As you do your research, you also need to uncover the *product category* you fit into. That is, how do customers think about your product, and where do they conceptually place it? This is all about letting the market *informing you* about where your product fits. And with this knowledge, you’ll better understand competitors and alternatives, as well as keywords and search terms to use.<br /><br />One important thing to note: Don’t try to create a new category! (or, at least not yet). No matter how “cool” or unique your product is, categories are defined by their competition and by having a defined market. Chances are, at an early stage, you’re not defining a new category. While some products may indeed merit a new category, a challenge is that *no one* will know to ask for, or search for, a product in a category that’s new. . So go with what’s understood.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Great places to begin to discover and define your category (and associated language to use when marketing) are product review sites and industry analysts. For example, G2, Capterra and TrustRadius group products into categories for comparison. Analysts such as Gartner (the <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/research/magic-quadrant">Gartner Magic Quadrant</a>) and Forrester (the <a href="https://www.forrester.com/policies/forrester-wave-methodology/">Forrester Wave</a>), also group products by category. Follow these market-driven definitions as you bring your own product to market.<br /><br /><img height="75" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Wwn0cNLPgEKCftdNUSA0bdebdfGOGxXYBq_i29vJQ7WFrfKKVa-9urfLetp5dBlwW8TFsuRp3qM3UBuj4EFcl7cVeDXA9ygTibFS20_NcBI6C7eWSNQq8murK6ijuKYMw0xQi-Azg5W-1Vtdoep4ydY=w400-h75" width="400" /><br /><br /><br /><b>ICP in the Broader PMF Context <br /></b><br />Now that you have a clear 1.0 ICP – which may have taken months to hone-in on – your real go-to-market work can begin: Closing your first early-adopter customers.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />As you progress in your go-to-market journey and begin growth, you still should do customer research on your ICP. Why? Because (a) you’ll find that customer expectations change, (b) markets change, (c) competition changes, (d) different customer segments have different ICP requirements. <br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Consider embedding an “ICP Mentality” into your marketing, customer success, and sales organizations. As you mature, you’ll iterate into a “v 2.0” ICP. This is where you also begin to identify your “superfans” (high-expectation customers who’ll give you regular detailed feedback) and a regular process to poll customers and track ICPs for different solutions, verticals, etc.. And eventually, you should build a customer advisory board made up of customer advocates and high-expectation customers … choose those that will be candid, direct, honest, and representative of the various segments that you sell to.<br /></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTWuPR3d014kvEh6q0divxDmfNWbQLreP7cpnDYHRnmZyuTZppA4hrJU5EPC7PsPDn4Ybq8bUEbajWy-LcXEMTaY5UHJ8nh44XNJ2ZY81Lom1STwO7-iAFX6_F6L-5dUtZpHD06-SA55GkVvCMGhagz6qXG_lu3mMpbFGthMUJ-Ug1ROvooFIkzdMo-Ewv/s2028/ICP%20Maturity.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img alt="ICP Ideal Customer Profile Maturity Model" border="0" data-original-height="928" data-original-width="2028" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTWuPR3d014kvEh6q0divxDmfNWbQLreP7cpnDYHRnmZyuTZppA4hrJU5EPC7PsPDn4Ybq8bUEbajWy-LcXEMTaY5UHJ8nh44XNJ2ZY81Lom1STwO7-iAFX6_F6L-5dUtZpHD06-SA55GkVvCMGhagz6qXG_lu3mMpbFGthMUJ-Ug1ROvooFIkzdMo-Ewv/w320-h146/ICP%20Maturity.jpg" title="ICP Maturity Model Stages" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ICP Maturity Model Stages</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Embedding an ICP Mentality also serves to align your entire organization. A single, agreed-upon ICP (or set of ICPs for different products/markets) helps focus messaging, sales and even finance… and avoids that messy finger-pointing between sales and marketing (HT to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dansperring/">Dan Sperring</a>):<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>Marketing/Sales</u> -</span></li><ul><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Agreed-upon GTM & campaign focus</span></li><li>Consistent lead qualification & prioritization</li></ul><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>Sales/Finance</u> -</span></li><ul><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Planning & forecasting based on ICP segment targets</span></li></ul><li><u>Finance/Marketing</u> -</li><ul><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Computation of CLTV based on ICP segments</span></li><li>Estimation retention based on ICP segments</li></ul></ul><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>Other thoughts? I always welcome them! <br /><br /><b>Additional ICP References</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgeleith/overlay/about-this-profile/?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base%3Bbo%2FzHy%2FdSI%2BKLilk4uH1Fw%3D%3D">George Leith</a>: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-ideal-customer-profile-6-ways-identify-icps-george-leith/">What is an Ideal Customer Profile and 6 Ways to Identify ICPs</a></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Lenny Rachitsky: <a href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-identify-your-ideal-customer">How to identify your ideal customer profile</a></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Product Marketing Alliance: <a href="https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-determine-your-ideal-customer-profile/">How to create an ideal customer profile</a></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Gartner: <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/the-framework-for-ideal-customer-profile-development">The Framework for Ideal Customer Profile Development</a></span></li></ul><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p></div>Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0San Francisco, CA, USA37.7749295 -122.41941559.4646956638211535 -157.5756655 66.085163336178852 -87.2631655tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-89150842195460930662023-01-18T13:10:00.002-08:002023-01-18T13:10:51.917-08:00Announcing: Fountainhead Product Marketing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7tjNCBp7V3r6ePfNZIGQAnp7gO67TUGD86zipXkplQ3jmRU6ypyFWX7WjVU0N6PpwciZsyicSFdnZT-5iv5GtapLXfnxHbY5Mojb7GB6v33z8esp-69zcHNRA0TDG_I0iYMxYMdoPt3TvaKkk3Ht_CONCQDAGk5cdAe0mFNko6rMdnML8UEP0Lx-DlA/s1401/FHPMM%20wide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="162" data-original-width="1401" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7tjNCBp7V3r6ePfNZIGQAnp7gO67TUGD86zipXkplQ3jmRU6ypyFWX7WjVU0N6PpwciZsyicSFdnZT-5iv5GtapLXfnxHbY5Mojb7GB6v33z8esp-69zcHNRA0TDG_I0iYMxYMdoPt3TvaKkk3Ht_CONCQDAGk5cdAe0mFNko6rMdnML8UEP0Lx-DlA/w426-h49/FHPMM%20wide.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><div>I’m happy to announce my newest professional chapter: Establishing <a href="https://fountainheadpmm.com/">Fountainhead Product Marketing</a>, an advisory and consulting practice focused on serving early-to-mid stage engineering-led companies.</div>Fountainhead is based on leveraging product-market fit as the core model to help B2B SaaS companies organize teams and improve their marketing.<div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/announcing-fountainhead-product-marketing-ken-oestreich/?trackingId=WMPT78K6IRitNkUc6s87Fg%3D%3D">Full article published here on LinkedIn</a></i></div>Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-82338084772285931502023-01-03T12:04:00.002-08:002023-01-03T12:05:45.816-08:00What are “Team APIs” and why should product marketers use them?<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f40; font-size: 21px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f40; display: inline-block; font-size: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; min-width: 100%; padding: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXqfNURe4yOPscEf6COMPp6xwPL8cMR-XX8s3jQ2OsipRyMFrG286tTfUFBDXzb0sXYl6HvVowRcg-6Ph68diymiRvyl7gtTvO-TbqtMieOs7oyz-3dOmTbzcw-8k8YU9NmqQKE223SIZkMG-8XWGgqTrS6h3vdDy_qkM_F1cI0BadyisCJRKEF4n95g/s923/teamapis.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="497" data-original-width="923" height="108" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXqfNURe4yOPscEf6COMPp6xwPL8cMR-XX8s3jQ2OsipRyMFrG286tTfUFBDXzb0sXYl6HvVowRcg-6Ph68diymiRvyl7gtTvO-TbqtMieOs7oyz-3dOmTbzcw-8k8YU9NmqQKE223SIZkMG-8XWGgqTrS6h3vdDy_qkM_F1cI0BadyisCJRKEF4n95g/w200-h108/teamapis.jpg" width="200" /></a></div></span><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The API metaphor is a powerful concept when thinking about how marketing teams and adjacent orgs need to </span><a href="https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-importance-of-internal-communication-plus-how-to-crush-it/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff5d4c; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 20px 0px; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word;">intercommunicate</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Basically, your goal is to formalize your information exchanges, frequency, and formats so that you begin to build regular bridges with other important players at your company. It's also a great metaphor for organizing standard company interactions of any kind....</span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><i style="color: #3f3f40;"></i></p><div style="text-align: center;"><i style="color: #3f3f40;"><i><a href="https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/what-are-team-apis-and-why-pmms-should-use-them/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Complete article posted on Product Marketing Alliance</span></a></i></i></div><p></p><p></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><p></p></span><div style="text-align: left;"><div><div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f40; font-size: 21px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p></div></div></div>Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-67741694227139428702022-10-18T09:12:00.002-07:002022-10-18T09:12:18.788-07:00A Product Marketing Tech Stack for B2B SaaS<span id="docs-internal-guid-1c65f379-7fff-480f-8f98-0d7aef3d3ec7"><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNaF9bDpl5HsKwS_TRw90OukBpV889FI-zCOFsSJmCxu_4QOWjB5bDQ2PNiPOzDalSwPbKieF-49Rjp7c9U85b7Pd758CyAipcje-_P5v09OEPpTXR-8JxNgaoqotd_bIocrqEE4ZXiaKABbOk1VDCXkQclV32y0-_3ZXVchBdO7ckZ8l1loaX6AbdRQ/s1111/TECH%20STACK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="646" data-original-width="1111" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNaF9bDpl5HsKwS_TRw90OukBpV889FI-zCOFsSJmCxu_4QOWjB5bDQ2PNiPOzDalSwPbKieF-49Rjp7c9U85b7Pd758CyAipcje-_P5v09OEPpTXR-8JxNgaoqotd_bIocrqEE4ZXiaKABbOk1VDCXkQclV32y0-_3ZXVchBdO7ckZ8l1loaX6AbdRQ/s320/TECH%20STACK.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve always been a proponent of </span><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/productmarket-fit-organizing-principle-pmms-ken-oestreich/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">organizing Product Marketing using the Product/Market Fit framework</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> – thinking about marketing as a set of inside-out components, as well outside-in components. And each component has its own set of technologies, as well as a set of </span><a href="https://fountnhead.blogspot.com/2019/11/measuring-marketing-is-science-not-art.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">outcome-based goals/metrics</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLl0HiM8czZ-3crQs90x_AlSpBaby_BkdM" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">expanded on this model</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> using a few different approaches and ultimately found it useful to organize marketing technologies as well. Note: The products I list are only ones I’ve had direct and/or indirect work with – this is by no means a scientifically or statistically-derived list. What’s most useful (IMHO) is how to think about categorizing tools, and how those categories map onto PMM functions and organizations....</span></p><div><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/product-marketing-tech-stack-b2b-saas-ken-oestreich/" target="_blank">Complete Article Published on LinkedIn</a></i></span></div></span>Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-75585867443484140752022-07-26T13:05:00.003-07:002022-07-26T13:07:47.771-07:005 Missteps New CMOs Should Avoid at Early-Stage B2B Companies<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeir92uvsh-yS2EMXu9Ts7GnjvhGhGLj7if9kftD1wlqui0ZtYWCw7W6gHOkJocik0R955hwUqK1altHoRCW_SY7dztpKyERhPwAYfqapfQVnZkcsh6Q78AWUQsMQWLlEhwp0zEifvokndRPu0bRibhBG3rdOiSfzbHwkLf2y3x3kXwPPUal4u_YtIgQ/s507/Heel-Peel-2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="507" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeir92uvsh-yS2EMXu9Ts7GnjvhGhGLj7if9kftD1wlqui0ZtYWCw7W6gHOkJocik0R955hwUqK1altHoRCW_SY7dztpKyERhPwAYfqapfQVnZkcsh6Q78AWUQsMQWLlEhwp0zEifvokndRPu0bRibhBG3rdOiSfzbHwkLf2y3x3kXwPPUal4u_YtIgQ/w200-h133/Heel-Peel-2.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div><br />You’ve just landed a marketing leadership role at a Series-A or -B tech company – offering a SaaS product in the B2B space. </div><div><br /></div><div>During the interview process you’re told how great the product is, how unique it is in the market, how it blows-away the competition, and how it fills an un-yet met need. But, if you believe it all, be prepared to fail. </div><div><br /></div><div>I have to openly admit to having made just about all of the missteps below at some point in my career. So, I’m sharing these personal observations from 20+ years of leading marketing, product marketing, and product management teams in a number of small (and large) Enterprise B2B software/SaaS companies. Think of this as a Getting-Started Playbook as an early-stage hire... or for that matter, as any type of marketing leadership hire.....</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-missteps-new-cmos-must-avoid-early-stage-b2b-ken-oestreich/" target="_blank">Full Article Published on LinkedIn</a></i></div><div style="text-align: center;">.</div><div style="text-align: center;">.</div><div style="text-align: center;">.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-71932134669224020512021-05-02T11:13:00.001-07:002021-05-02T11:13:54.433-07:00Rethinking The Resume: How Marketers Should Market Themselves<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If your resume doesn’t market you well, then expectations </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of how you’ll do marketing for an employer will be just as low. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve interviewed countless marketing (and sales) candidates. And probably reviewed 50x as many resumes. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What has struck me is how totally bland and generic 95% of them are. For all the work people put into writing their CVs, it’s confounding how many are downright undifferentiated.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then I thought: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Shit, I’m trying to hire a Marketing professional… if they can’t market themself well, then they sure won’t be good at marketing for me”.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It struck me: Could it help to offer a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marketer’s interpretation </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">on how to write a resume? It would be based on using basic marketing principles. Gone would be all the BS we were told about using exciting verbs, acronyms, claims about team-orientation and collaborative skills, eagerness and energy. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead, consider thinking about the CV as a “marketing data sheet” about you: You’re selling a unique, differentiated individual, with a career arc and set of achievements that will uniquely solve the hiring (and functional) need of the buyer (hiring manager). Plus, that document should use words and proof-points to catch the eye of the right buyer and pull them deeper into the details.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I’ll propose an approach to (re)designing the CV the way a marketer would: </span></p><p></p><ol style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; margin-left: 36pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Positioning narrative and headline</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; margin-left: 36pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Articulate differentiation and uniqueness</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; margin-left: 36pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Focus on your buyers’ needs and persona</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; margin-left: 36pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Use proof-points and data… not claims</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; margin-left: 36pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Use keywords and think SEO</span></p></li></ol><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-588d7395-7fff-9068-24d7-c6a767ccf1a6"><br /><h3 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1. Positioning Narrative and Headline</span></h3><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let me start at the beginning: The mindset you want to adopt when thinking about rewriting your resume is to start with the classic approach to writing a positioning statement (which you should adapt to your own situation) e.g. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">For companies in the xx category needing yy skills, <yournamehere> provides an exceptional zz record of accomplishments. Unlike the average Jane/Joe, <yournamehere> has shown they have and can deliver, and is likely to show increasing promise for you in the future… </span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And if you don’t have a sense of how you want to position yourself, you’ll immediately fall into the trap of sounding generic. Frankly, I can’t stand seeing 2 things: Resumes that *don’t* have a line or two of summary, and resumes that say completely generic garbage, e.g.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Motivated marketing professional and team-player looking for a challenging opportunity with a growing company.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That approach tells the reviewer absolutely nothing. Instead, consider using the summary as communicating the “brand” you want to give yourself, and the specializations you have, i.e. under the umbrella of your positioning: </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A proven demand generation professional specializing in business-to-business software sales for hard-to-reach SMBs</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The other thing I like to see at the top of a resume - just as with a data sheet - are a few bullets summarizing Background, Skills, and/or Highlights. Did you personally achieve something great? Win an award? Specialize in certain tools or techniques? These bullets should be eye-catchers for the lazy/tired professional scanning dozens of resumes each day.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 159px; overflow: hidden; width: 508px;"><img height="159" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/FGVDhw4GA6XeqNKn_-T0HeIQ64n-W4XafaSZhWfyxJ7pS2Y1E5cqzCaJNrNDzYV4M3PkystWuE4Kbn2ajOKUGJINudOCMKUUi48U1njp9ltnWjtAk8n8749WaO7I60weh6qWKnuK" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="508" /></span></span></p><br /><h3 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. Articulate Your Differentiation and Uniqueness</span></h3><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Any good marketer should know that - counterintuitively - narrower focus is better than generality. Being everything to all audiences means you’ll identify with none. The more focused your message is, the more it will resonate with your </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">intended audience</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. You actually don’t want responses from *every* audience, you want a response from an intended one. Why? Because hiring managers rarely want a jack-of-all-trades with zero specializations. Rather, they look to fill a specific role/need with someone who’ll fill it well and grow with the needs of the function. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, as you think about how to position yourself as </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">unique and focused</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, make sure that you carry through a thread that speaks specifically to what you uniquely bring.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avoid sounding generic, or listing everything under the sun: </span></p><ul style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; margin-left: 18pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marketing program management</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; margin-left: 18pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Product marketing for Cloud technologies</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; margin-left: 18pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Demand generation, audience marketing, messaging, strategy, program management, cloud marketing</span></p></li></ul><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rather, appeal to your strengths, and to the needs that a hiring manager will need:</span></p><ul style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; margin-left: 18pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Integrated marketing and campaign program management</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; margin-left: 18pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Product marketing for B2B SaaS cloud-based offerings</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; margin-left: 18pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Demand generation utilizing audience-based technologies, persona-based messaging, and SEO analysis</span></p></li></ul><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, you may think “</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gee, this approach is too narrow for me. I’m looking in a few areas, not just a single-focus</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”. That’s fine. Then you should maintain 2-3 *different* resumes that focus in distinctly different areas. I’ll talk to more of that in the section below. </span></p><br /><h3 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3. Focus on Your Buyers’ (e.g. Hiring Managers) Needs and Persona</span></h3><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Too many resumes are just vanilla statements that don’t target hiring managers. They’re akin to writing a product description, web page, or data sheet without a specific buyer persona(s) in mind. This pitfall (again) is like creating a general everything-to-everyone statement... but specific to none. Remember: a hiring manager looking for a candidate profile that doesn’t speak to them will spend 12 seconds reviewing it, and then throw it aside.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead, approach your own positioning, language, job descriptions, and achievements in the following classic marketing manner to appeal to the buyer:</span></p><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Their Need</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Consider the role the hiring manager is trying to fill - A missing function, a new role, or an additional skill-set? Do they need a leader, a doer, or a subject-matter expert? Think about what YOU want to bring to the table, and “spin” your CV in that direction with words, descriptions and proof-points (across all of your previous roles) that speak directly to the need of the “buyer”. </span></p></li></ul><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Their Persona</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: If you’re applying for an entry-level individual contributor role, the persona you’re speaking to is probably a departmental manager looking for a specific set of skills to add to their team. But if you’re applying for a managerial-level role, the hiring manager is likely an executive, looking for leadership and broader strategic thinking. The message here is to write your CV keeping the buyer right persona in mind.</span></p></li></ul><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you’re like most professionals, you probably have two or three skills, a few different potential roles you’d be great for, and a few different titles you’re gunning for. So take a page from target marketing and create 2-3 *different versions* of your CV, each targeting a different need, role or position. The classic marketing example of this is the Tylenol® brand of products, where a small number of medication formulas are actually branded and marketed as a wide variety of products (e.g. extra-strength is just more of the regular strength, which is just more than Children’s). Focus, focus, and customize.</span></p><br /><h3 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4. Use Proof-Points and Data… Not Claims</span></h3><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The most meaningful and impactful part of a data sheet or a convincing report is *proof* and *data* that the product/service performs. Use of this approach is more common than you think… you always hear “</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9 out of 10 dentists recommend…</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”, “</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">cleans 90% better than the next leading brand</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…” or “</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kills 99.9% of germs</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…” Yup, proof-points sell.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You also don’t see marketers talk about how their product merely helps…. They focus on the value of what the product *does*. So avoid talking about how you “</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">helped launch blah blah</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” or “</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">supported the blah blah program</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”. Those terms are passive and meaningless. Instead focus on what you did: </span></p><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Launched blah blah using an SEO campaign yielding xx% increase in new visits</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grew the blah blah program by yy% by scaling global outreach into zz new geographies%</span></p></li></ul><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You just don’t see knowledgeable marketers make empty claims or use general words - they all are specific, and show results. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Say what you did, highlight your results, and prove the difference you made to the company. Illustrate quantitatively to show you were effective… and know how to measure your own achievements. Data is convincing. Hiring managers want that.</span></p><br /><h3 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">5. Use Keywords... and Think SEO </span></h3><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">More initial screening of resumes is done by machine automation than ever before. Hiring managers tell recruiters to look for specific companies, titles, skills, products and technologies. Recruiters then literally tell resume scanning systems to search for matches and score candidates. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So write your CV using meaningful keywords. Repeat the words/terms that you *want* to be recognized for, and specific industry terms that a savvy hiring manager will look for. Oh… and while you may have been told not to use abbreviations or acronyms, that’s all changed in the Tech Era. Nobody in their right mind says they program HyperText Markup Language; you wouldn’t say you’re a specialist in Search Engine Optimization; a security would never say they work with the Open ID Connect standard. Just say HTML, SEO and OIDC -- that’s what your hiring managers (and algorithms) are looking for. </span></p><br /><h3 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In Closing: </span></h3><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you can’t market yourself as a marketer, how can you expect someone to hire you for that? If you can’t sell yourself as a salesman, why would you expect to be chosen?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Take a step back from your resume, and re-think: Is it a dry historical summary of jobs, or is it a compelling illustration of accomplishments and future promise? </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-18190657241155446922021-04-07T14:50:00.003-07:002021-04-07T14:50:43.776-07:00The How (not the what) of Product-Led Growth <p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">5 organizations and 14 metrics that make PLG work</span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sQp0fSyFFmY/YG4oKgEvftI/AAAAAAAAlsA/Bcz641YFgVgd8tBaHasAlJLjAIV_1EYHwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1003/PLG%2BGraph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="308" data-original-width="1003" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sQp0fSyFFmY/YG4oKgEvftI/AAAAAAAAlsA/Bcz641YFgVgd8tBaHasAlJLjAIV_1EYHwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/PLG%2BGraph.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;">There is an explosion of articles focusing on the popularity of the PLG growth model, analyses of company valuation, and quite a bit written about growth metrics for this new model. </p><p>But I want to parse the problem a bit differently, focusing not only on the goals an aspiring PLG company should set at each stage of the sales cycle... but also on how to <u><i>organize delivery </i></u>of a successful PLG product. IMO, these are the real keys to PLG success.</p><p><b>Most Important: How to *Organize* for Successful PLG Execution</b></p><p>I’ve found that most PLG articles stop at this point. But to be successful and designing and executing on the strategy, the company has to think and act in new ways. And that means core organizations need to be structured specifically in a PLG-related fashion.</p><p>Consider that the product itself needs to be designed so it’s more easily adopted and onboarded; that it needs to be instrumented differently so as to track speed bumps in the customer journey; that it generates triggers when it’s time to send-in the ‘big guns” to close large deals. </p><p>At least 5 organizations need to be part of this company-wide effort, and each should be accountable to the overall PLG/DLG plan. Leaders of these 5 organizations must choose which PLG metrics they can impact, and be willing to adjust/experiment/adapt to improve. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-what-product-led-growth-ken-oestreich/" target="_blank">Full article published on LinkedIn</a></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-66308751475765064182021-01-22T14:24:00.003-08:002021-01-22T14:28:38.458-08:00Three SuperPowers Every Marketer Should Develop<p><b><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia;">Why Paranoia, Customer Intimacy, and Peripheral Vision are key skills for Product Marketing Management</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8gKK_U13zGc/YAtRha68n0I/AAAAAAAAk2Y/llUzqi1KMS4myVqe-KhdAuYa61W_9imUwCLcBGAsYHQ/s440/superman_cape_-_Google_Search.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="253" data-original-width="440" height="115" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8gKK_U13zGc/YAtRha68n0I/AAAAAAAAk2Y/llUzqi1KMS4myVqe-KhdAuYa61W_9imUwCLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h115/superman_cape_-_Google_Search.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">If you’re going to be in Product Marketing - or in any company leadership position - I’ve found that the same 3 “superpowers” keep recurring in successful careers. These aren’t operational or functional skills per se. Rather, they are persistent perspectives that leaders with insight always keep in the back of their minds.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">First, there’s always maintaining a healthy dose of <b>Paranoia</b>. That is, you haven’t drunk the product Cool-Aide, that your product/company must be the best. Second, there is the requirement for <b>customer closeness and intimacy</b> - knowing your core buyers inside-and-out. Then finally, there is what I call Product <b>Peripheral Vision</b> - understanding your product/service in a greater customer and competitive context.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Embody these, and you’ll always add value to the company, to your product, and to your customers. </span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. A Super-Healthy Sense of Paranoia</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Andy Grove - of Intel fame - literally wrote the book:<i> “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Only-Paranoid-Survive-Exploit-Challenge-ebook/dp/B0036S4B2G/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1" target="_blank">Only the Paranoid Survive</a>: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company.” </i>In this he famously pointed out that <i>"Business success contains the seeds of its own destruction... Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive”</i>. He narrowed-down this statement to 6 Forces, but in my opinion, a good PMM focuses on the following paranoia:</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3yPzTfBpVKU/YAtMnvKACaI/AAAAAAAAk10/4P_cVvpDkbk0PkIuYGlGyFwU4GaSvT_cQCLcBGAsYHQ/s397/Grove%2B-%2B6%2Bforces.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="306" data-original-width="397" height="154" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3yPzTfBpVKU/YAtMnvKACaI/AAAAAAAAk10/4P_cVvpDkbk0PkIuYGlGyFwU4GaSvT_cQCLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h154/Grove%2B-%2B6%2Bforces.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></div><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u>Competition</u> - assume they’re always trying to be better than you - and perhaps they already are. Don’t be complacent or simply dismiss the competition. Take them seriously, and always question whether you’re <i>really</i> more compelling to customers.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u>Alternatives</u> - your biggest disruption won’t necessarily hit you head-on. Customers always look for alternatives, including “good-enough” solutions that can invisibly displace you. Always be on the look-out for the closest alternatives customers use… and why.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u>Differentiation</u> - while you probably <i>*think*</i> you’re differentiated, you’re likely not (at least, not as much as you think). Take a cold-hard look at how really different you are from a customer’s perspective, and push to modify your offer as well as your marketing.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u>Industry changes </u>- while you’re focused on segment or category “A”, there’s always the possibility that a completely different industry imperative will shift customers to different categories. Be ready to adapt.</span></li></ul><p></p><p><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. Super Closeness to the Customer, Customer intimacy</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">As a marketing leader - ensuring that your product has proper <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/productmarket-fit-organizing-principle-pmms-ken-oestreich/" target="_blank">market fit </a>with your target customers, you <i>Must</i> be the SuperPower expert about your customers. And you need to communicate these learnings back into the company, specifically back to marketing, product management, and sales. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TqOoTxFt2PU/YAtOmqjqEHI/AAAAAAAAk2A/77KzdpOG8SgbeYT4f2cQJWBuWylgH06jQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2000/customer-focus-vs-customer-intimacy.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TqOoTxFt2PU/YAtOmqjqEHI/AAAAAAAAk2A/77KzdpOG8SgbeYT4f2cQJWBuWylgH06jQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/customer-focus-vs-customer-intimacy.png" /></a></span></div><p></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u>Know the customer at every level</u> - Know the decision-makers vs. buyers vs. users. The tactical reasons they buy, as well as the strategic business reasons. </span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u>Why they bought</u> - You’ll need to get inside their heads regarding why they chose your product, how they evaluated it, how they use it - on a daily basis.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u>Know Alternatives</u> - Similar to the Paranoia topic above, you’ll need to know what alternative (and competitors) they considered during the process - and *why*. What was attractive to them, how they got the names, whether they’re *still* considering the alternatives.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u>Ask the critical question</u> - <i>“How would you feel if you *didn’t* have this product?”</i> The answer will be telling - indicating how well your “fit” is to the customer, how much they value the uniqueness, and how critical your product is to the customer’s outcomes. </span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Intimacy vs. Focus </i>- There are subtle differences between <a href="https://blog.on-the-mark.com/blog/customer-intimacy-a-strategic-choice-not-the-same-as-customer-focused" target="_blank">customer intimacy and customer closeness</a>. Ensure you develop the right insights and relationships so you can serve -- and even better -- anticipate their needs. </span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>3. Maintaining Super Peripheral Vision</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">One of the best SuperPowers you can develop as a marketer or businessperson is the ability to see out beyond the myopia of your own product, technology, and even industry segment. Always be looking for (worrying about?) adjacencies, routes-to-market, partnerships, and the <i><a href="https://280group.com/product-management-blog/whole-product-concept-a-quick-guide-for-the-expert-pm/" target="_blank">“Whole Product”</a></i> aspect of your offering. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sxgKnjxFE-Y/YAtPptF6ixI/AAAAAAAAk2M/hyUq61ZWImAMwt3ITNnRC15eEEMb-jiQQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/Whole-Product-Concept-variation.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1000" height="160" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sxgKnjxFE-Y/YAtPptF6ixI/AAAAAAAAk2M/hyUq61ZWImAMwt3ITNnRC15eEEMb-jiQQCLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h160/Whole-Product-Concept-variation.png" width="200" /></a></span></div><p></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u>Think “Whole Product”</u> - That is, partners, ecosystems, channels. Most B2B products simply don’t exist in a vacuum. They are bought with, or through, other technology partners, value-add ecosystems and channels. Every product exists and abuts other products and technologies. Every decision you make has to take these realities into account.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u>Focus on indirect competition / alternatives </u>- The notion of maintaining peripheral vision also applies to alternatives and competition. What other distant adjacencies are (or will be) intersecting with your own market? Are any of them potential partners - before they become competition? </span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u>Consider similar (but different) market plays </u>- I always like to think about product and marketing analogies in different markets that either worked or failed… and whether those analogies apply to product /market. Do they help reframe product positioning? Value propositions? Routes-to-market? </span></li></ul><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Got any other suggestions on critical "Super Powers" ? let me know!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><p></p>Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-50525380726696324532021-01-11T14:15:00.000-08:002021-01-11T14:15:41.551-08:00Digital Agility Gets a Boost with Identity Management<p style="text-align: center;"><i>(A version of this Blog originally published on <a href="https://auth0.com/blog/digital-agility-the-auth0-point-of-view/">Auth0 Blogs</a>) </i></p><p><b>Apps are becoming componentized and API-based to facilitate reuse and agility; Identity management cloud services will help.</b></p><p></p><blockquote><i>"In today's online-first, intensely competitive environment, creating a monolithic, inflexible CIAM system will quickly put the firm on the path toward extinction." ~ Forrester's Customer-Obsessed IAM Operating Model April 2020</i></blockquote><p></p><p>There is an "old-school" view of Identity and Access Management (IAM) that sees it purely as a security requirement for apps and websites. Simply, IAM is there to keep the bad guys out and let the good ones in.</p><p>A more progressive view recognizes how IAM helps provide a better level of user convenience and app-level <a href="https://auth0.com/blog/how-identity-management-helps-you-personalize-your-user-experience/">personalization</a>, as well as <a href="https://builtin.com/product-management/customer-friction">lower-friction interactions</a>. Plus, it can offer the business better CRM data, a lever for managing data privacy and compliance controls, and (if implemented properly) a consistent context-sensitive <a href="https://www.itproportal.com/features/why-user-identity-is-becoming-the-new-security-perimeter/">security perimeter </a>across all apps/properties.</p><p>But there's a third level of benefit of IAM that IT often overlooks: A consistent, <i>flexible</i> IAM foundation can contribute to the firm's overall <a href="https://auth0.com/digital-transformation">digital agility</a>.</p><p>Here's why: IAM systems have traditionally been embedded into apps and frameworks (think: React, Angular, JS, etc.). Using that approach, each app runs the risk of becoming an IAM silo unto itself. And when it comes time to integrate those apps with other identity-driven systems, the approach can create a massively <i>inflexible</i> infrastructure.</p><p>Worse, firms should expect that many of their custom apps will have to work alongside other enterprise apps — e.g., marketing, digital experience, privacy/governance, business systems, and of course, security and analytics. However, the reality is that the logical topology surrounding your IAM system<i> will always be dynamic and distributed</i> — plan for it. The nature of enterprise systems IAM needs to interface with will always change. But when business leaders don't plan a consistent IAM foundation, digital agility will be one of the big losers.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iu4d8h73qFQ/X_zIIzQUd5I/AAAAAAAAj4s/E0f-VGeAmQcLD1wDne0xOVAVjtBeQ8azgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/iam_digital_agility.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="476" data-original-width="1200" height="159" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iu4d8h73qFQ/X_zIIzQUd5I/AAAAAAAAj4s/E0f-VGeAmQcLD1wDne0xOVAVjtBeQ8azgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h159/iam_digital_agility.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><p><b>Identity Has Become a Foundational Component of Digital Transformation, IT Agility, and Infrastructure Modernization</b></p><p>Digital transformation initiatives are when progressive software-driven companies shift from rigid, monolithic IT infrastructures and apps into more componentized <a href="https://auth0.com/blog/the-business-value-of-api-first-design/">API-first architectures</a>. These are more easily reassembled/rearchitected and reused (see this great <a href="https://blogs.informatica.com/2019/09/18/how-to-win-with-apis/">blog about API strategies </a>by Informatica). Component software also means that app updating can be done on a piece-part basis, without requiring the entire application to be retested and QA'd.</p><p>When shifting to an API-based strategy, there is often a simultaneous <a href="https://go.forrester.com/blogs/the-top-strategies-for-replatforming-your-commerce-solution/">replatforming</a> initiative for some (or all) of the components, shifting them into the cloud and/or onto serverless cloud platforms. These initiatives also help businesses respond more rapidly to fast-moving opportunities and/or competitive issues. The growth of API-first architectures and use of serverless execution platforms has been nearly geometric during the past few years.</p><p><b>Distributed and loosely coupled</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Vb9_zT44684/X_zIWUTwm7I/AAAAAAAAj4w/EUBVz_ayOQIFQM7QS3quD0kmyQUwLSulQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/Programmable%2BWeb.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="773" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Vb9_zT44684/X_zIWUTwm7I/AAAAAAAAj4w/EUBVz_ayOQIFQM7QS3quD0kmyQUwLSulQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Programmable%2BWeb.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p>In software design, a loosely coupled system is one where each component has, or makes use of, little or no knowledge of the other components. This could include the coupling of software classes, interfaces, data, and other SaaS services. Loose coupling is important because it allows you to rearchitect specific components in the future with minimal impact to other components.</p><p>Often, one of the loosely-coupled underpinning layers of these digital transformation initiatives is security and access management — certainly found at the application level, but also even at the component level. With potentially millions of such API-first distributed components being deployed, each component, app, and composite application must be reliably and consistently secured, embracing the capacity to be identity-aware.</p><p><i>Decoupling identity from the application and/or app component</i> means avoiding inconsistent IAM stores/DBs, yet ensuring a consistent privacy model, reliable access, and a strong security perimeter.</p><p><b>An Identity-Centric Point-of-View: </b></p><p>Your Identity Management functions should be componentized, programmable, and cloud-neutral</p><p>Many of today's IAM technologies are embedded in programming frameworks and therefore hardwired to apps. I believe these IAM functions must — and will — become decoupled from the apps they support. Decoupling IAM helps release customers from the bonds of vertical integration stacks that are inherently siloed, brittle, and fundamentally non-optimized for the complexity of today's identity needs.</p><p>IAM functions should also be released from mega-cloud lock-in. The market requires an IAM foundation that's open and customizable — rather than a foundation that binds customers to an Amazon, Azure, or Google agenda.</p><p>This matters because an IAM approach that's API-first, application-decoupled, and componentized also allows developers and their enterprises to rearchitect and dynamically deploy new updates, features, and functionality without disrupting the underlying identity infrastructure. That results in the ability to respond to business conditions and competitive situations more quickly and reliably.</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>“Using microservices in containers has also allowed us greater flexibility when deploying IAM solutions. Typically IAM solutions have featured larger, more monolithic services that are harder to scale and upgrade. Microservices allow the structuring of an application as a collection of loosely coupled services. This architecture then enables the continuous deployment of complex applications, as it is less complicated to update smaller services incrementally than larger ones. It also allows the scaling of particular components (e.g. databases, LDAP servers, etc.) to meet demand as required.” ~ IAM DevOps in Capgemini, Terence Stamp</i></p></blockquote><p><b>Some closing recommendations</b></p><p>For executives, technology agility equates to business agility. Work with your technical colleagues to understand what IAM underpinnings you currently have and how those will need to evolve to work alongside adjacent systems for marketing, digital experience, privacy/governance, business systems, and security and analytics. Urge technical partners to: </p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Seek to componentize applications, and underpin them with a consistent IAM infrastructure. Treat IAM as <i>a reusable component service </i>the way you use other reusable SaaS services (e.g., payments, databases).</li><li>Measure and justify the benefits of IAM across your infrastructure. Collaborate with colleagues in security, customer experience, web, and CRM teams; assess where identity can yield quantifiable top-line revenue and competitiveness.</li><li>Prioritize customer outcomes within digital transformation initiatives. Digital agility and transformation program outcomes must be driven by a focus on responsiveness to customer needs and expectations. Identity management foundations not only contribute to a consistent/reusable infrastructure but also help build a comprehensive customer 360°.</li><li>Neutralize cloud vendor lock-in risk with an independent, cloud-neutral IAM system. Long-term agility and avoidance of high switching costs are further enabled by using an independent, cloud-neutral IAM service.</li></ul><p></p><p>For technologists, it's time to apply IAM like other loosely-coupled SaaS services you commonly use. For example: </p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Use familiar API and microservices principles when adding IAM into your platform. Select a reusable, easily-integrated cloud IAM service that's compatible with a broad set of programming languages and frameworks.</li><li>Reduce IAM time to production; simplify app reuse. Get your team started quickly with a solution offering SDKs, quickstarts, and implementation guidance.</li><li>Consolidate user IAM systems and databases. Use an IAM solution offering a range of migration tools and customer DB connections to fit the user migration scenario best for you.</li></ul><p></p><p><br /></p>Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-62282133397821350972020-12-10T14:25:00.005-08:002020-12-21T22:22:42.465-08:00Product/Market Fit As a Organizing Principle for PMMs<p><br /></p><p><b>“Product-market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.</b></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Marc Andreessen, co-founder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz, <a href="https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part4.html " target="_blank">Guide to Startups</a></i></p></blockquote><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_uWIYKfHtZA/X9KgUGXtYtI/AAAAAAAAjVs/jVjLc5BsPqclg8SKPwHUEEyZltsFz2BOACLcBGAsYHQ/s1096/Product_-_Market_Fit-Level2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="1096" height="109" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_uWIYKfHtZA/X9KgUGXtYtI/AAAAAAAAjVs/jVjLc5BsPqclg8SKPwHUEEyZltsFz2BOACLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h109/Product_-_Market_Fit-Level2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />When I’m asked “What does Product Marketing do?” I respond that it’s the core role that drives product-market fit, matching the product to the right buyers. All markets are made up of buyers and sellers… and when the needs of buyers are met by the offers of sellers, there’s a transaction. For me, it’s the role of Product Marketing Management (PMM) to drive this for the company that is, to influence product development to meet the market needs, and to help find the right market buyers that need the product being offered. When both of those conditions are met (and it’s a continual process!) there’s great fit and a successful business. (Really, this is just a variation of Bid/Ask). So, PMMs are the core role rationalizing Product Management, Sales, and Go-to-Market motions. <p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/productmarket-fit-organizing-principle-pmms-ken-oestreich">Full article published to LinkedIn</a></div>Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-27282646491062872662020-08-30T12:28:00.003-07:002020-12-21T22:23:06.061-08:00Advice to the Aspiring Employee<p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’ve spent the past few weeks busy evaluating team performance for our semi-annual review process. And every year, I take it more seriously because every year I realize how much more important *people* are to the company. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Rm6UAAJnVjk/X0v9ryVlZUI/AAAAAAAAeRQ/TjGMpLfco-wQs9rGdDQqoUk8ndoRArRyACLcBGAsYHQ/s900/ceremony-knighthood-two-knights-castle-background-97898659.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="611" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Rm6UAAJnVjk/X0v9ryVlZUI/AAAAAAAAeRQ/TjGMpLfco-wQs9rGdDQqoUk8ndoRArRyACLcBGAsYHQ/w136-h200/ceremony-knighthood-two-knights-castle-background-97898659.jpg" width="136" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">I used to think this was a throw-away comment - but hiring, developing, promoting and rewarding the “A” players is the difference between a high-performing company, and all the other average players.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Anyone reading this might ask, “<i>Well, what do you mean by an ‘A’ player? I work really hard. I have great ideas. I’ve got experience. Doesn’t that make me an ‘A’ player too? How do I get promoted?” </i></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Well, from a manager’s perspective, here’s <i>the advice I give, and what I look for in “A” players</i> - and believe most other management does too.</p><ol class="ol1"><li class="li1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Table-Stakes: Do your core job well.</b> You’re <i>expected</i> to be competent, handle your responsibilities, know your skills, execute on-time, and keep your accountabilities on-track. And for all of that, you’ll achieve being a solid “average” player. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this - unless you’re looking to grow, get a promotion, and excel at the company. But you have to start here.<br /><br /></li><li class="li1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Next: Your willingness and ability to go above-and-beyond</b>. This means that if/when there is a “crunch-time”, when there is an aggressive project, an emergency, a “special assignment” etc., you’re willing to put in the extra hours to get it done. These extra hours might be over a period of days -- and occasionally over weeks. But you’ve got to be willing to show your commitment to do this. It means that you’re able to identify the important projects (maybe only 1-2 a year) and rally to deliver them on time. Your management will notice, because it shows an awareness and commitment to do what needs to get done. BTW, a word of caution: This does NOT mean you are <i>constantly</i> working 80 hour weeks! (you’ll burn yourself out). <br /><br /></li><li class="li1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>The hard one: Learn to push the envelope of your Job Description</b>: Here’s the aspect of your job that signals your most “promotable” aspect: I like to think of it as “pushing the envelope” of the job. Others might call it “working at the next level above you”. Either way, it means you are thinking outside the box that’s called your job description.<br /><br />Is there an idea you have that management hasn’t thought of? An opportunity nobody’s identified yet? A strategy that hasn’t been pursued? Whatever the instance, it should be <i>incremental</i> to your role (but not so “blue-sky” as to be immediately dismissed). But here’s the key: Management *loves* new ideas - and execution of those ideas - coming from employees. It means the employee is interested, motivated, ambitious. Who wouldn’t like someone like that on their team?<br /><br />One other perspective in which to hold “pushing the envelope”: It’s all about your attitude. Try this thought experiment - if you got a promotion tomorrow, what would you do differently? How would you act? What goals would you set for yourself? How would you team/partner differently? How would you communicate differently with management? So start acting/doing all of that NOW! Promotions most frequently happen to people who are ALREADY acting and executing at the next level. <br /></li></ol><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What if you don’t know what “outside the box” means for you? Then my recommendation is to brainstorm with your manager… or with <i>their</i> manager. You don’t need to have all the answers, but you should show the eagerness to inquire and discover. </p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There are tons of other skills, attitudes, and attributes that’ll help you be a star. And sometimes, it’s just-plain experience that helps too. </p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But if you’re wondering “<i>how will I get that great review</i>” or “am I promotable”, my suggestion is to first focus on the 3 points above.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-25050726019480572832020-02-17T18:39:00.001-08:002020-12-21T22:23:34.815-08:00Gartner MQ, Forrester Wave: A Disservice to Innovation? <b>Note</b>: <i>Read this blog more as a wakeup call to vendors than as a criticism of Industry Analysts. By inadvertently playing into analysts’ narrow definition of products and categories, vendors can become distracted from their real goal – pursuing meaningful, valuable, and unique innovation. </i><br />
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<b>Prologue</b><br />
Industry analysts have an important job in the technology industry: To help customers better understand trends, technologies, and vendors, so they can make better, more confident purchasing decisions. And for vendors, analysts are helpful by providing market research, trend analysis and evaluation of products and technologies.<br />
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But in my experience, analysts also have a fine line to walk when they make vendor evaluations. Since analysts take money from both vendors and customers, they put themselves in potential conflict-of-interest positions, if not also risking bias. This is made worse by lack of transparency in their evaluation methodologies.<br />
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The most popular – and influential – evaluation tools analysts offer are periodic product analyses and ratings. The well-known <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/magic-quadrants-research" target="_blank">Gartner Magic Quadrant </a>(MQ) and <a href="https://go.forrester.com/policies/forrester-wave-methodology/" target="_blank">Forrester Wave</a> are at the top of the list, with others such as <a href="https://www.kuppingercole.com/reports/LeadershipCompass" target="_blank">KuppingerCole’s Leadership Compass</a>. These reports are pervasive, with Wikipedia listing 66 different Gartner MQs – with many more unlisted.<br />
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<b>Unintended consequence: Category myopia</b><br />
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A closer look at how the MQs, Waves, and other evaluation are constructed reveals massive spreadsheets that vendors are asked to complete. They largely focus on product feature comparisons, and to a lesser degree, company operations. I’ve personally helped complete countless numbers of these – and it’s often a multi-person, multi-week vendor effort.<br />
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But the spreadsheet questionnaires have an unintended consequence: They inadvertently treat each vendor product/category as a fungible, semi-generic solution to meet a limited set of problems. Further, they often track technology categories that can quickly become outdated, even as analysts struggle to update them.<br />
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The result is that vendors are compelled to play the analyst’s game... <i>not their own</i>. The unintended myopia – the forced “thinking-inside-the-box” – manifests itself this way:<br />
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<ul>
<li><u>Vendors</u> end up spending time, R&D resources, and marketing expense to chase feature boxes that will yield them high evaluation scores. This inadvertent “keeping up with the Jones’ ” for feature parity does an injustice to innovation they would otherwise pursue. It is the rare visionary vendor that’s able to say “<i>screw the features the analysts want, we want to innovate in a different direction</i>”. And, unfortunately, those same vendors might be penalized in the next vendor evaluation for not “checking the boxes” even though they may have a breakthrough approach to the market.</li>
<li><u>Customers</u> may also be misled by these evaluations, often narrowly viewing the product sector through the narrow lens presented by the analysts. While some customers will benefit by an apples-to-apples comparison of features, many may miss appreciating the variation in vendor options, approaches, and overall direction/strategy – things not generally reflected in simple checkbox evaluations. </li>
</ul>
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<b>True innovators are penalized</b><br />
A great set of <a href="https://lochhead.com/lochhead-on-marketing/" target="_blank">podcasts</a> by Christopher Lochhead focus on “legendary marketers” and innovators who re-think their products, market strategies, and ultimately create new concepts and categories. But in the world of standard analyst categories, innovators of new categories are penalized, because (a) they are not being considered for a MQ or wave, or (b) receive poorer ratings on the standard category ratings... even if they offer a truly revolutionary approach to solving a technology problem.<br />
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Now, to play my own devil’s advocate, I recognize the need for analysts to create some level of standardized evaluation criteria – the industry needs this. However, analyst criteria can be mistakenly held as the end-all and be-all, rather than as general guidance. Further, most analysts fail to go the extra mile to fully explain the differentiations between vendors and products.<br />
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<b>Note to Vendors: Analysts assess the Finite Game, not the Infinite Game</b><br />
In his excellent new book<i> </i><a href="https://simonsinek.com/the-infinite-game" target="_blank"><i>The Infinite Game</i>,</a> Simon Sinek outlines the notion of great companies focusing on the “infinite game” – one where there is vision, constant reinvention and constant shifting of the playing field... and even shifting the definition of what it means to succeed. This is in contrast to playing the “finite game” where the rules are defined, there is a limited set of metrics, and a singular clear goal to win.<br />
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The current mindset which is rewarded by MQs and Waves is that of the Finite Game... where vendors are encouraged play to their competition, innovate with the “check-the-box” mentality, and where customers might errantly treat vendor solutions as generic and fungible.<br />
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<i>My candid vendor advice is this:</i> Yes, we need to play the analyst’s game. There is absolutely a service to our customers using this approach. But proceed with caution and intelligence – There may <b>not</b> be not a need to “check all the boxes”, nor necessarily should you. Balance that effort against your own vision, direction and approach to differentiation. And ensure that if you opt for a powerful direction, albeit one that could weaken your evaluation, emphasize your believe/vision with the analysts. Remember: There are lots of billion-dollar firms that aren’t leadership quadrant companies.<br />
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<i>My advice if you’re a customer: </i>Don’t blindly choose to put the top 3 vendors of a leadership quadrant on your short-list. Look more deeply, and have your own set of criteria developed when selecting a vendor. All-too-often, a vendor might have a solid offering in a given category, but ultimately fail to demonstrate the strategy and direction that will carry your company forward a few years in the future.<br />
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<b>Coda: A note to analysts: </b><br />
I have the greatest respect for you – and for the incredible knowledge you have and advice you give. (Even some of my own best friends are Analysts). But please emphasize that your evaluations are standardized. Go the extra mile to really understand and communicate<br />
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<ul>
<li>how vendors differentiate their products</li>
<li>where vendor visions lead and/or diverge</li>
<li>adjacent categories to the vendors’ own (or categories that overlap)</li>
<li>how the vendor’s products are either “pure-play” in the category, or how it expands the category definition. </li>
</ul>
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I look forward to your comments/feedback<br />
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Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-88187995301490915272020-01-06T07:58:00.003-08:002020-12-21T22:24:07.691-08:00Own Your Category With a Network-Effect Product<span id="docs-internal-guid-1c0ff444-7fff-9ae0-08e6-99060b7f0d48"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the intersection of product marketing and product development </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is constructing a “data flywheel” business model </span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I recently found myself speaking with a number of companies - in completely different industries - yet all expressing the same essential strategy: <i>We’d like to make our product more valuable - and more difficult to duplicate - by making it constantly learn from our customers.</i> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I stopped to think about that as an increasingly common strategy…. And how (in contrast) I’d been accustomed to marketing products that are just a race against competitors who were adding similar features to mine. <i>That old approach was an endless technology treadmill, constantly trying to outpace feature parity for leadership.</i> </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0AitbixVQas/Xgz-tjzcc-I/AAAAAAAAXww/eC3lUKVzq_MTVbPni8mYZjygYYEbnlFGQCEwYBhgL/s1600/Data_Flywheel.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="113" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0AitbixVQas/Xgz-tjzcc-I/AAAAAAAAXww/eC3lUKVzq_MTVbPni8mYZjygYYEbnlFGQCEwYBhgL/s200/Data_Flywheel.png" width="200" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My insight was that a *real* leader is a product (or service) that develops an unfair edge, a hard-to-duplicate <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Competitive-Advantage-Creating-Sustaining-Performance/dp/0684841460/ref=sr_1_1">sustainable advantage</a>, that makes (and keeps) the offering a runaway success. The "network effect" of customer usage is how it keeps its edge over the competition.<br /><br />This is how I rediscovered the notion of the “Data Flywheel”; The idea that the more relevant data you collect from users, the more you can build better learning/algorithms and continuously develop a better and more valuable product. And finally, this positive feedback is what helps you acquire even more users and defend against competitors. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The concept of the data flywheel was originally conceived by <a href="https://www.jimcollins.com/concepts/the-flywheel.html">Jim Collins</a>, author of “<i>From Good to Great</i>” IMO, a seminal business book. Another great discussion of this model is from <a href="https://lochhead.com/024-the-difference-between-a-first-mover-and-a-category-creator-w-eddie-yoon/">Christopher Lochhead’s podcast (#24)</a> part of an excellent series of marketing discussions. This product-centric network effect isn’t a new concept, but definitely one I don’t (yet) see most companies pursue. With the acceptance and maturation of more Artificial Intelligence (AI) engines, I expect this trend to accelerate over the next few years. <br /><br /><b>Your customer data is value - and key to valuation </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ll begin with this contrast: <i>If your business is purely transactional, if you have no ongoing relationship to customers, if your product is not constantly learning and improving from interactions, then this should be a warning sign.</i> It's because your customers only present a single value-in-time (the moment of purchase) and that’s all. Worse, you'll eventually lose to a competitor and/or be disrupted by someone evolving faster than you. <br /><br />Many in the financial industry believe that ongoing customer interactions and data have very *real* value. Consider the simplistic example of valuing a company for its customer list and their purchase history, not just for its existing cash flow. (A very good paper by Glue Reply is on <a href="https://www.reply.com/Documents/13903_img_The-valuation-of-data-as-an-asset.pdf">models of valuation of data as an asset</a>) Or, consider valuing a company for its customer database, not just for hardware sales… a great recent example is <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/01/google-is-acquiring-fitbit/">Google’s acquisition of Fitbit</a>. Per Motley Fool, “<i>...there's a lot of data in there, of course. Fitbit collects all this health data. They've been building this digital health platform, much like Apple. Both Fitbit and Apple want to help users be able to manage their health data on this platform"</i>. At the acquisition price of $2.1 billion, this represented a valuation of approximately $75/customer.... a bargain if you think about the follow-on products/services Google may be able to offer in the near future. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I recommend both product marketing and product development need to re-think what information the company can (or should) consider collecting, using, and ultimately monetizing in the form of a continuously improving product/service... and one that can generate recurring revenue while doing so. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b style="font-size: 14.6667px;">Where Product Marketing and Product Management might begin:
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In some cases it might be obvious what information you could collect to begin to build an accretive “flywheel”. If not, I suggest bringing engineering, product management, customer success leaders, and product marketing together - for a facilitated brainstorm. </span></div>
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<br />Ideally you want to answer this: <i>“If we just knew ____, we’d provide incredible new value and insight for our customers.'' </i>Consider dwelling on questions such as...</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How could we create a better customer “network effect”?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What types of benchmark customer data sets could we develop, offer, and use?</span></li>
<li>If we had it, what external data would we tap into? (Or, could we partner with others to develop it?)</li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Do our customers want to compare themselves to others? What questions do *they* ask that we could help answer?</span></li>
<li>What customer information do we already have that other business (even unrelated) want? how could we monetize it?</li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What continuously updated product feature or data would keep customers returning to use our product/service?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Could we apply AI/ML to detect customer use patterns for higher-value offerings?</span></li>
<li>During your session, it’s important to think outside your current business model, and even outside your current product category. Remember - you’re trying to pursue a potentially disruptive approach to an otherwise traditional product. It might lead you in some exciting directions.</li>
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</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Finally, you'll probably want to build a customer “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_lake">data lake</a>” (as I see it often referred to) a unique, highly-valuable collection of customer interactions, intentions and experiences. And, if used wisely, it’s what will make your product/service more competitive and sustainable. It could include customer use of your product, their interactions on your web properties, their profiles they (opt-in to) provide to you, and even related public-domain data. But choosing what data to capture is key...<br /><br /><b> A few examples to get you thinking (real and invented)</b></span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A software security vendor -<i> builds a database of past attack vectors across all of its customers, including a list of previously compromised login credentials. In turn, the security software provides customers with increasingly faster, more complete responses to security threats and attacks. </i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A network monitoring vendor - <i>builds a customer database of network performance benchmarks and typical precursors to failures across various technical environments and architectures. It then constantly provides better predictive alerts to potential failures rather than waiting to react to existing failures. </i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A vape pen provider -<i> through its interactive app, assembles a database of feedback to/from customers about satisfaction ratings of oils, oil vendors, and optimal devices and temperature settings for each. It also correlates age and sex of users to preferred oils, to make suggestions for future use and purchases. </i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Automobiles - <i>Unlike traditional insurance vendors, Tesla can assemble a database of driving habits of individual drivers to create custom risk profiles allowing the company to often offer less-expensive <a href="https://www.tesla.com/insurance">automobile insurance</a> than a typical broad-based actuarial tables would otherwise permit. </i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Entertainment/content providers -<i> <a href="https://www.codecademy.com/articles/how-netflix-recommendation-works-data-science">Netflix</a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/machine-learning/creating-a-recommendation-engine-using-amazon-personalize/">Amazon</a>, and others constantly monitor viewing and purchasing habits and demographics to recommend additional products as well as follow-on entertainment suggestions for constant up-sell opportunities.</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Excercycles - <i>Peloton has famously created a subscription service for its exercise hardware that gathers and constantly updates a database of user data and demographics, matches individuals for competitions, tracks improvement, and creates custom workouts. </i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Custom Sports Helmet Vendor -<i> a custom 3D-printed sports helmet manufacturer provides a database of customer-submitted custom designs and improvements, as well as user ages and sports levels - proactively recommending new/upgraded helmets for growing and advancing athletes. </i></span></li>
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I’d love to hear how some of you have pursued a “data flywheel” approach to your product or service - and I’m sure other readers would too. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>For More Inspiration…. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here are some additional links/articles you might find relevant: </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Strategy+ Business: <a href="https://www.strategy-business.com/article/How-to-build-disruptive-strategic-flywheels">How to build disruptive strategic flywheels</a> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Forbes: <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/insights-intelai/2018/07/17/how-to-hack-your-way-into-a-proprietary-data-set/">How To Hack Your Way Into A Proprietary Data Set</a> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">JP Morgan: <a href="https://www.jpmorgan.com/europe/merchant-services/insights/develop-data-insights-to-drive-ecommerce-growth">Go deep on data and grow your e-commerce business</a> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Reply.com: <a href="https://www.reply.com/Documents/13903_img_The-valuation-of-data-as-an-asset.pdf">The valuation of data as an asset: a consumption-based approach</a> (PDF)</span></li>
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Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-59729092838334768942019-11-20T13:57:00.002-08:002020-12-21T22:24:28.508-08:00Improving Your Product Marketing Alignment<i><b>Product Marketing is a highly-networked function with multiple internal touchpoints that need to be actively developed and curated</b></i><br />
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In the tech/software world, I’m often asked how best to scale the Product Marketing function and how to make it a highly performing function in a growing organization. Really great product marketers are masters of understanding the problems their products solve, positioning those products, identifying ideal buyers and personas, and knowing the overall market. <i>But that’s only where their work begins...</i></div>
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<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/improving-your-product-marketing-alignment-ken-oestreich/" target="_blank">Complete article published to LinkedIn.</a></div>
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Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-59393123941693026712019-11-08T08:57:00.001-08:002020-12-21T22:24:47.044-08:00Measuring Marketing is Science, Not Art.<span id="docs-internal-guid-9a647344-7fff-ba25-e1d2-cfa403657db3"></span><br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-9a647344-7fff-ba25-e1d2-cfa403657db3"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">~ W. Edwards Deming </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When in business school, I had the honor of meeting W Edwards Deming while taking a class on operations management. Deming literally </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=w+edwards+deming&ref=nb_sb_noss_2" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wrote the book</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on quality and process control, and is known for his </span><a href="https://asq.org/quality-resources/total-quality-management/deming-points" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">14 Points</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of Total Quality Management. But only when I entered the realm of product marketing did I realize that many of Deming’s principles can directly apply to marketing process quality as well. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a product marketer, I’m always asked about how to set objectives, goals and actions for marketing - for individuals, for teams, and for organizations. My approach is to first ask about what the desired *outcomes* are - the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OKR" target="_blank">OKR</a> approach (Objectives and Key Results) </span></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and then analyze and break-down the stages of the </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">marketing loop. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I use a “loop” concept (and not </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchase_funnel" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">funnel</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) because when marketing is done properly, it’s not a unidirectional process that ends with a sale. Rather it should feed on itself with customer loyalty and advocacy, ultimately helping you generate even more awareness. When marketers refer to the funnel, it only corresponds to the stages of Discovery through Purchase… so if you don’t include the post-purchase stages, you’ll be blind to monitoring customer experience/use, loyalty and advocacy. Hence the value of the loop concept.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Step #1: Break down your stages / define your marketing processes</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I like to use this 8-stage loop that’s specific to enterprise software marketing and purchases - but you can adapt it to your unique product/market circumstances. In whatever manner you use it, It’s critical that your team crisply define each stage, and even the customer personas and desired interactions at each point in the loop. Work with your team to drive agreement on stages that seem logical to your organization. For example:</span></span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Discover</b>: How, when and where potential buyers initially discover your company and products; it’s your first opportunity to expose your brand.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Learn</b>: Where and how potential buyers learn more in-depth details of your products and fit-for-use</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Compare</b>: The first time potential customers begin to consider (and sometimes demo or trial) your offering, pricing etc. in the context of your competition or other close alternatives</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Choose</b>: Where your decision-maker and influencers ultimately downselect to you over the competition. This could include “bake-off” comparisons, etc.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Purchase</b>: When, where and how your customer (and often, their purchasing agent) ultimately transacts (with you or with a channel partner of yours). This might be a one-time purchase, a subscription, site-licensing, etc.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Usage</b>: Post sale, where your customer (often many internal users) actually engage with your product - and hopefully derive the intended value you provide. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Loyalty</b>: The affinity that your customers develop internal with/for the product, your service, etc.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Advocacy</b>: Where, if your customers are delighted, they’ll become advocates of yours, helping drive continued discovery by new potential customers.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once you’ve defined a set of marketing stages that aligns to your unique org, the most critical part of the process is to define “exit gates” (essentially outcome or OKR metrics) from each stage as it flows into the next. Getting these gates and metrics right is critical because they provide you with the process control and trends of each *outcome*. In this manner you can adjust each stage’s marketing *actions* while keeping how you measure their outcomes consistent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">The example I give here is just that… your set of metrics, naming, etc. will be different. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">But one thing is important to internalize: The metrics measure the effectiveness / outcome of each stage, and *not* the activities in each stage. For example, in the “Learn” stage, we don’t want to measure the number of events attended, blogs posted or papers written. Instead, you want to measure the number of attendees you achieve at events, blog views, and paper views/downloads. (Think content consumption not content production)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If resources permit, I also recommend that you organize the marketing organization in a way that a single person (or team) is </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">directly accountable</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for the outcome metrics at each stage. These individuals need to be singularly focused on the effectiveness - and outcomes - of each stage, working with the other teams to continuously improve the activities (and thus, the outcomes) at each gate. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During your regular marketing and business reviews, effectiveness trends of each stage should be evaluated, and actions adjusted appropriately. The key to process control is to </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">precisely and consistently</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> measure the outcomes of each stage - which I’ll explain next.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, the most overlooked aspect of the process is defining exactly *how* your team plans to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">consistently</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> measure each outcome. It’s not as simple - or as obvious - as it might seem. For example, how will you count content views? Is it just pageviews + downloads? Which pages and which content? Are “views” limited to your website or will you include YouTube and 3rd-party syndicated content? And if syndicated content, then from which partners? (And, how to *they* measure “views”?) Getting these details right and repeatable is important because these are the specific outcomes you’ll be trying to impact by continuously improving your marketing activities. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XFYKNG2m8hE/XcWeA1Bu74I/AAAAAAAAXbY/9fJes7hcINYqg9yzCJEqWwDjiL0BENOsACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/3.%2Bmetrics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="747" height="248" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XFYKNG2m8hE/XcWeA1Bu74I/AAAAAAAAXbY/9fJes7hcINYqg9yzCJEqWwDjiL0BENOsACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/3.%2Bmetrics.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your Mileage May Vary</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is just an example. It will probably vary wildly based on they type of product you sell - if it’s a service, or B2B, or B2C etc, the stages and metrics will vary considerably. My advice? Dissect your buyer’s journey into as many distinct phases as you can, and map your marketing organization’s activities/outcome onto it. That way, you can apply as much process control (and continuous improvement) as possible. </span></span></div>
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Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-24973724396057306172019-09-19T12:02:00.001-07:002020-12-21T22:25:00.991-08:00The Argument for Public Product Roadmaps<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-85W8fg7nSVc/XYO-IIaqndI/AAAAAAAAXMM/bSUqw2oz5HMJJ7gC-gw3Z1vSCqPrIK_lACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/OpenWindow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="818" height="175" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-85W8fg7nSVc/XYO-IIaqndI/AAAAAAAAXMM/bSUqw2oz5HMJJ7gC-gw3Z1vSCqPrIK_lACLcBGAsYHQ/s200/OpenWindow.jpg" width="200" /></a><i>“Can you please share your roadmap?”</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>“What are your plans to engineer feature xxx?"</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>“Great product, but does your vision match ours?”</i><br />
<br />
I've received these questions all the time, from customers, partners, and analysts.<br />
<br />
When leading Product Marketing at an <a href="https://wso2.com/whitepapers/the-business-value-of-open-source/" target="_blank">open source</a> software vendor, I felt it antithetical to be open and transparent about code, financials and priorities - but not about our actual product roadmaps. So we decided to open-up our product and solution roadmaps for <a href="https://wso2.com/api-management/product-roadmap/" target="_blank">each product</a>. And on reflection, if you're selling enterprise software, it's probably a good idea for you to consider this approach too (whether or not your product is open source).<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Why do this? Are you crazy?</b><br />
There are a number of reasons to consider taking this bold step - a step that many high-tech companies shun as competitively risky - and thus guard their roadmaps with absurd paranoia.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Public roadmaps are consistent with openness and your customer community</b><br />I trust the customer/partner community, and they can only trust you if they know your plans. That way they are always involved in your development and you'll be able to best deliver meaningful new features, contributions, and roadmap suggestions.</li>
<li><b>Public roadmaps signal honesty and transparency</b><br />Transparency is key to building trust between partners. A public roadmap helps committers, partners and customers to know you're not pulling any punches with your direction. With transparent roadmaps, your technology partners know what to expect… and have a proactive vehicle to comment on the direction.</li>
<li><b>Public roadmaps are good to build customer trust</b><br />When customers buy into your platform, they’re putting <i>their</i> technology direction on the line. They want to know if you'll be evolving in the direction <i>they</i> want. For them, it’s all about mitigating long-term technology risk. This way, “opening the kimono” and boldly stating direction, is just plain good for the long-term relationship.</li>
<li><b>Public roadmaps show your pride, confidence, vision</b><br />Assuming you're proud of your engineering, and confident in your company, you should show it. Your thought leadership material ought to indicate direction - but put deeds behind words, and commit to technology direction following your higher-level vision.</li>
<li><b>Public roadmaps are good for business</b>In sales situations, customers often ask pointed questions about specific (missing) features. And the usual answer “<i>yup, we’re working on supporting it</i>” is always received with skepticism. However, public roadmaps put your money where your mouth is… either it’s on the roadmap, or it’s not. And if the roadmap doesn't reflect mutual direction, work with customers/partners to change the roadmap… with everyone else to see. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>Are you nuts? The competition will clobber us!</b><br />
In reality, your competition is probably dealing with their own internal politics, debates and direction - and may not have time to seriously consider yours. And if they do take your roadmap into account, that generally indicates that they'll be a follower, not a leader.<br />
<br />
<b>OK, I get it. But what will Legal say? </b><br />
True, your counsel will generally play the safe/conservative card. Their concern generally takes one of two angles: (a) Corporate liability if you somehow don't fulfill on your promises to customers and/or to the market, and (b) risk to near-term revenue by possibly stalling sales... if customers sit back and wait for you to actually deliver on the promised features.<br />
<br />
To these, I respond with a bit of marketing pragmatism: First, you should <i>always</i> add some form of legal disclaimer to your roadmaps. Roadmaps are your best, honest intentions - but they're not guarantees... so say so. And, roadmaps have to do with *direction*, not necessarily with granular specifics - so it's OK to be vague and avoid details that could changes as development runs its course. <br />
<br />
And regarding stalling purchases/revenue, consider this: If a customer is going to delay a purchase to see whether you deliver on a roadmap component, you probably run a greater risk of that customer going to a competitor in the interim. So I say, try to win them over *now* with your direction, and maintain their allegiance as you build on your roadmap.<br />
<br />
Thoughts? In the theme of transparency, I'd love to hear yours !<br />
<br />
<b>Other Resources: </b><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #231f20; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://venturebeat.com/2019/06/16/we-made-our-product-roadmap-public-and-havent-regretted-it/" target="_blank">We made our product roadmap public — and haven’t regretted it </a>(Venturebeat)</span></li>
<li><a href="https://www.prodpad.com/blog/our-product-roadmap-is-public-and-people-love-it/" target="_blank">Radical Transparency: Our Product Roadmap Is Public And People Love It</a> (ProPad)</li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #24292e; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://www.holistics.io/blog/why-should-you-have-a-public-roadmap-and-how-to-build-it/" target="_blank">Why should you have a Public Roadmap and how to build your Public Product Roadmap </a>(Holistics... with a nice list of public roadmaps)</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>(Note: A version of this blog originally posted March, 2019 on wso2.com)</i></div>
<br />Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-90922405990186698242018-12-08T21:46:00.001-08:002020-12-21T22:25:37.074-08:00The Virtues of (Personal) Networking
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<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ve taken a bit of hiatus from blogging as I’ve settled-into
my new gig at WSO2. But I’m back with a career and social observation that
applies to everyone. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This past week – partly by chance, partly by design – I’ve
had lunch/coffee with</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<br />
<ul>
<li>A CEO / Serial entrepreneur looking for marketing guidance on his latest venture</li>
<li>A college alum reaching-out for an informational
interview</li>
<li>A product marketing leader wanting to share professional
experiences</li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s been an interesting set of wide-ranging conversations.
But taken as a whole, it dawned on me that everyone, no matter what their level
or level of discussion, should go out of their way to expand their network and “pay
it forward” by sharing experiences, knowledge, and connections.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Never turn down an opportunity to exchange
ideas or to meet someone new.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The LinkedIn era<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a new career era where potential employment is as
much about using your network and knowing someone, as it is about being discovered
via blogs, LinkedIn, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a hiring manager, <b>rarely</b> does a good resume come
in because of a passive job posting. Rather, almost always good candidates are
found in the blogosphere, on LinkedIn, or through a referral by a friend /
colleague / Tweep. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So as the saying goes, one’s professional value is as much “what
you know” as “who you know”. Per the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect">Network Effect</a>, every
new contact you make exponentially expands your marketability, source of
knowledge, and overall professional value. So the act of expanding your network
makes you more discoverable and valuable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A nod toward WSO2 Principles<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The other aspect of my (new-ish) philosophy is reflected in two
of <a href="http://www.wso2.com/" target="_blank">WSO2</a>’s six new principles (we will announce them soon) that all of our
employees embody. I try to take-them-to-heart every day in the office.... and
outside. You should too: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[Life is a] Journey of Experiences</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #666666;">Each person is on a journey of
constant growth.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #666666;">We provide everyone opportunity
for their best journey.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #666666;">We are humble in accepting
feedback and act with integrity.</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[We are a product of] Community Contribution</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #666666;">We are part of a wider
community.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #666666;">We stand on the shoulders of
other giants. </span></li>
<li><span style="color: #666666;">Everyone contributes; therefore,
everyone can influence.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #666666;">We want to contribute to
communities, facilitate external contributions and encourage community
participation. </span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These two principles speak to me professionally – to see that my career is
a journey, and it is my (and our) individual responsibility to make the most of opportunities
to learn from anyone and everyone. And the broader tech/business community is
valuable to us when we constantly share our experiences amongst friends and
colleagues. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As corporate principles, they also speak to me – to appreciate
every employee and colleague’s experience, perspective and approach to their
job. And to take all feedback (the good and the bad) as a contribution. As part
of the open source community, we also have to be humble, but also realize it’s
our <b>responsibility</b> to contribute back to the community-at-large. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Networking is holographic - Our network of experiences, and our
contribution to/from our community, is true at work as it is in life. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> So m</span>eet new people. Struggle against being
insular; share information, don’t hide it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Propel others. In doing so, you’ll propel yourself. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-22040688121384550552018-05-01T11:20:00.000-07:002018-05-01T11:20:00.769-07:004 Warning Signs an Integration Wall is Approaching<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fKHuCbPACzU/WufoOVlPJzI/AAAAAAAARcM/5As_kXsmD3AhBWtvJXUKZ6UQBuH9VFe1wCLcBGAs/s1600/AGC%2Bipaas_growth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fKHuCbPACzU/WufoOVlPJzI/AAAAAAAARcM/5As_kXsmD3AhBWtvJXUKZ6UQBuH9VFe1wCLcBGAs/s200/AGC%2Bipaas_growth.jpg" title="Source: AGC Partners" width="200" /></a><br />
The Integration and API Management markets are growing, expanding in both popularity and use. Enterprise App integration will surpass $33b by 2020, and other markets like iPaaS and Data Integration are growing at double-digit CAGRs. Enablers, such as containers and serverless technologies are only accelerating the move toward increased disaggregation of applications.<br />
<br />
<br />
All seems rosy. And it mostly is.<br />
<br />
But with the <a href="https://thenewstack.io/the-exploding-endpoint-problem-why-everything-must-become-an-api/" target="_blank">explosive growth of APIs and endpoints</a>, traditional centralized tools like ESBs will become unsuitable, and simple low-code snap-together tools won’t scale to address the broader scope. We’re potentially about to hit an “integration wall” at high speed.<br />
<br />
Consider the following four warning signs – some technical, some process – that I find are beginning to plague the integration market:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dGZteiBv5Sk/Wufo3BHuwpI/AAAAAAAARcU/cmaebfg7j-MsfoROhYtdwvZxfnBqYfhdQCLcBGAs/s1600/WSO2_4%2Bissues.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="362" data-original-width="944" height="152" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dGZteiBv5Sk/Wufo3BHuwpI/AAAAAAAARcU/cmaebfg7j-MsfoROhYtdwvZxfnBqYfhdQCLcBGAs/s400/WSO2_4%2Bissues.jpg" title="Source: WSO2 Inc." width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>1. Waterfall Development for integration is hitting a wall. </b><br />
Although most <i>code</i> development has shifted to an Agile Development model, the same can’t be said for <i>Integration</i> tools. As the quantity and diversity of endpoints increases, and as Integration projects become more diverse and complex, use of the waterfall model is beginning to slow down integration projects. And with a future where there will be billions of Integratable endpoints, it’s obvious that an Agile Development model for integration will need to become the norm.<br />
<br />
<b>2. Existing tools and programming languages aren’t optimized for Integration-at-scale. </b><br />
Enterprises that currently use low-code, snap-together, centralized integration technologies (including iPaaS) will not be optimized for orchestrating, integrating, observing and governing the expansion of constantly-changing endpoints. Nor are traditional centralized approaches (think: EDI and older ESBs) prepared to handle increasing endpoint scale or diversity. Many of these existing tools are well-adapted for Line-of-Business or Citizen Integrators of relatively small-scale implementations but are far from well adapted for more complex integration-at-scale projects.<br />
<br />
<b>3. Current programming languages are not optimized for Integration. </b><br />
With languages like Java/Spring or JavaScript/Node, developers can engineer flow, but must take responsibility for solving the hard problems of integration. With these languages, developers have to write their own integration logic or use bolt-on frameworks. Clearly a new programming paradigm will be needed long term.<br />
<br />
<b>4. The Exploding Endpoint Problem is very real.</b><br />
As I referenced above, IT is ill-prepared to address the oncoming wave of service disaggregation, the diverse types of APIs, differing sources of service endpoints, challenges from Big Data, and multiple approaches to serverless IT. The industry is about to hit a scale and diversity wall. To wit,<br />
• 917 apps in use per enterprise <i>(Netscope, 2016) </i><br />
• 893-1206 average cloud services used per employee <i>(Kleiner Perkins, April 2017)</i><br />
• 19,000 APIs as-of January 2018 <i>(Programmable Web, 2018) </i><br />
<br />
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bnGx0GIEr3w/WufpWflBIxI/AAAAAAAARcg/vqNlvgQQaWwR3vm_sqw6178LS5uyPZ8AwCLcBGAs/s1600/Containers_VMs.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="895" data-original-width="1600" height="111" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bnGx0GIEr3w/WufpWflBIxI/AAAAAAAARcg/vqNlvgQQaWwR3vm_sqw6178LS5uyPZ8AwCLcBGAs/s200/Containers_VMs.png" width="200" /></a>And if you don’t believe those numbers, Matt Eastwood of IDC recently pointed out that the number of containerized services has expanding well beyond where VMs ever were. Yep, billions of programmable endpoints aren’t kid’s stuff.<br />
<br />
<b>Where does this leave us?</b><br />
<br />
A new approach to addressing the future of integrating thousands – or millions – of endpoints could lie in a new programming language, <a href="http://www.ballerina.io/" target="_blank">Ballerina</a>.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U5BGtOFDlMM/WufrKQClAPI/AAAAAAAARcs/UYQhGeCmgJoB7aRPcd7jXvRoqQuUmCeQwCLcBGAs/s1600/BallerinaLogo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="140" data-original-width="621" height="45" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U5BGtOFDlMM/WufrKQClAPI/AAAAAAAARcs/UYQhGeCmgJoB7aRPcd7jXvRoqQuUmCeQwCLcBGAs/s200/BallerinaLogo.jpg" width="200" /></a>Ballerina is a simple programming language whose syntax and runtime have been optimized for the hard problems of integration. <i>Its focus is integration</i> – bringing concepts, ideas and tools of distributed system integration into the language. Based on the concepts of interactions within sequence diagrams, Ballerina has built-in support for common integration patterns and connectors, including distributed transactions, compensation and circuit breakers. And it supports JSON and XML, making it simple and effective to build robust integration across <i>distributed</i> network endpoints.<br />
<br />
So, watch this space for future developments. And in the meantime, beware of the approaching wall.Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-38594860179876261522018-03-15T12:09:00.001-07:002018-03-15T12:09:29.279-07:00My Next Big Thing<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<b style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Skating to where the
puck is going to be</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h13J2MzU9MQ/WqrEZmBt_FI/AAAAAAAARFU/cmUe4f8rCSETaDIOZt9MMkHM69BxtOAHQCLcBGAs/s1600/515874104.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="112" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h13J2MzU9MQ/WqrEZmBt_FI/AAAAAAAARFU/cmUe4f8rCSETaDIOZt9MMkHM69BxtOAHQCLcBGAs/s200/515874104.jpg" width="200" /></a>Some of you have noticed my professional interest has
shifted. This week I joined <a href="http://www.wso2.com/" target="_blank">WSO2</a> to help them achieve their next stage of growth.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am thrilled about this move because the ever-increasing
popularity of cloud services and cloud sprawl is triggering the need to integrate
those exploding quantity of endpoints – APIs services, events, and data
streams. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is an important technology
market, helping companies harness the power of the cloud to generate real
business value. It's where the industry is headed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For me, the opportunity to develop and shape new technology categories
for integration, API management, identity and services analytics was too
exciting to pass-up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And WSO2 has a number
of unique advantages that I found compelling – ranging from their suite of
technologies to their open-source model (and culture) to.... well, stay tuned
for a <b>big</b> announcement in the near future.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To be sure, there are already a number of industry players
in the API and Integration markets. Most are either pursuing relatively straightforward
SaaS integrations around a “hub” (think: SalesForce, WorkDay, Netsuite, Oracle)
or building simplified “Citizen Integrator” templated approaches to Integration
(think: iPaaS).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And if you somehow haven’t been reading about Containers,
Serverless Architectures, IPaaS and others, you should know that the exponential
trend toward more, smaller, cloud services is already upon us. Leveraging these
technology resources will enable (if not accelerate) the trend away from large
monolithic apps (and SaaS apps) toward more granular – and more flexible –
services and APIs. And businesses that move in this direction will find
themselves with a more agile IT that can respond/adapt to needs more quickly.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Continue to watch this space for tips and observations on WSO2, as
well as about the API Integration space overall. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-25593312607449294612018-02-01T10:52:00.000-08:002018-02-01T10:54:28.597-08:00The CIO as a Cloud Supply Chain Manager<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12px;"><i>Transforming IT from engineers and builders... to assemblers and integrators</i></span></h3>
<div class="p4">
<b>Preface</b></div>
<div class="p4">
<i>About 5 years ago, I wrote a GigaOm article, </i><a href="https://gigaom.com/2012/08/26/the-cio-as-the-it-supply-chain-manager/"><span class="s1"><i>The CIO as the IT Supply Chain Manager</i></span></a><i>. The focus was how cloud services would transform how CIOs shifted from Technology Builders to become Service Assemblers. This concept is now more relevant than ever – with 30+ vendors offering API management products, Integration Platforms as a Service (iPaaS), Serverless functions and containerized microservices.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Let’s look at how technology is helping CIOs in this transition...</i></div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p4">
<b>Setting the stage</b></div>
<div class="p4">
If you’ve been a CIO for more than 10 years, you’ve probably thought of yourself as a builder of technology. You’ve had oversight of app development, built custom databases, managed director and identity systems, and hired scads of coders.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p4">
But the CIO as a software engineer and builder of technology is changing.</div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p4">
Let’s consider enterprise application evolution. Over time, monolithic applications made way to special-purpose apps... which then made way to third-party SaaS apps. This evolution afforded IT with higher-value and better fit-for-purpose infrastructure, while allowing for broader choice to use different app sources and vendors. Indeed, <a href="https://www.blissfully.com/saas-trends/q3-2017-saas-explosion-creates-saas-chaos/"><span class="s1">the number of SaaS apps being consumed by enterprises is exploding</span></a>, with the average midsized company consuming 20+ SaaS apps</div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p4">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wZY796qKRiU/WnNhBxrIg6I/AAAAAAAAOt4/ZI_0iYrPTrcZccLVExvdBGYvunsK5Z_VwCLcBGAs/s1600/Programmable%2BWeb%2BAPI%2BGRowth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="532" data-original-width="709" height="150" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wZY796qKRiU/WnNhBxrIg6I/AAAAAAAAOt4/ZI_0iYrPTrcZccLVExvdBGYvunsK5Z_VwCLcBGAs/s200/Programmable%2BWeb%2BAPI%2BGRowth.jpg" width="200" /></a>However, today we’re now seeing the SaaS apps beginning to yield to component web services, <a href="http://chiefmartec.com/2016/12/5-disruptions-marketing-part-2-microservices-apis/"><span class="s1">public APIs, and even micro-services</span></a>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>We’re also seeing companies beginning to front-end their existing services with internally published APIs, so that they can be consumed like external micro-services.</div>
<div class="p2" style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p4">
But these changes are challenging IT teams with the need to <b>integrate</b> the cloud services, APIs and workflows, so that the services work seamlessly with the business.</div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p4">
But all of this comes with new challenges that require a new CIO mindset and set of capabilities.</div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p4">
<b>Enter: The Transformational CIO</b></div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p4">
As Tim Crawford recently pointed out, the <a href="https://avoa.com/2017/01/04/the-difference-between-the-traditional-cio-and-the-transformational-cio/"><span class="s1">job of the CIO is going through a transformation</span></a>. CIOs are becoming more central to the business, more critical to strategic agility, more essential to competitive advantage.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p4">
To achieve those goals, IT departments are now looking at how they need to use and consume services, whether they’re internal apps, external SaaS providers, data sources, public API-generated <a href="http://www.codemag.com/Article/1801081/Understanding-Microservices-and-Microservice-Architecture"><span class="s1">microservices</span></a>, and even IoT-generated <a href="https://docs.wso2.com/display/CEP400/Understanding+Event+Streams"><span class="s1">event streams</span></a>. And, more CIOs are taking inventory of their internal apps, disaggregating them, and internally publishing their APIs and event streams so app services can be more readily consumed by other apps.... becoming service creators themselves.</div>
<div class="p3">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o7HoRDcJHcE/WnNhWfm3QsI/AAAAAAAAOt8/RtSTQmPj1LYs-j6CNhTeo-Gwvu8iDMIYwCLcBGAs/s1600/APIFriends.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="412" data-original-width="395" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o7HoRDcJHcE/WnNhWfm3QsI/AAAAAAAAOt8/RtSTQmPj1LYs-j6CNhTeo-Gwvu8iDMIYwCLcBGAs/s200/APIFriends.jpg" width="191" /></a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br />
The driving force behind these changes are simple: large, monolithic apps – and even large SaaS app suites – are difficult to modify.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>So, when a business need requires a new function, supplier integration, app integration, data source, etc., IT has to be able to respond quickly.</div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p4">
<b>Act II: Integrating the Cloud Supply Chain</b></div>
<div class="p3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p4">
The new mindset for IT requires them to think as integrators of resources... whether internal, external (public cloud, SaaS, etc.) and a hybrid of both. This is the “IT Supply Chain”.</div>
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If the CIO is successful, the result is a monolithic-app-to-API-and-service-centric transformation that yields a new set of capabilities for IT as well as for the business:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
<ul class="ul1">
<li class="li4"><i>Standardization</i>: Curated and managed APIs make service use (and re-use) simpler.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></li>
<li class="li4"><i>Technology agility</i>: Assembly, workflow and orchestration of service components helps IT add/adjust its capabilities and portfolio more quickly</li>
<li class="li4"><i>Business agility:</i> By adjusting technology quickly, IT can enable the business with new revenue-generating, competitive, and strategic services sooner than the competition.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></li>
</ul>
<div class="p4">
Take, for example, a marketing-driven company that typically consumes a dozen or more web services for different functions such as demand generation, operations, customer communications, and web development. There are nearly 100 services to choose from and integrate, and few if any the company will want to natively develop.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l77PodjQW4o/WnNhfUNddNI/AAAAAAAAOuA/esFhGwibSKk7atGjJ86Yp1O70xrfDj7rgCLcBGAs/s1600/Micro-Landscape_StormVentures.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="861" height="120" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l77PodjQW4o/WnNhfUNddNI/AAAAAAAAOuA/esFhGwibSKk7atGjJ86Yp1O70xrfDj7rgCLcBGAs/s200/Micro-Landscape_StormVentures.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit: Storm Ventures</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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However, if the CIO views their role as a supply chain manager of these services, they can provide their company – in short order – with a sophisticated, integrated set of services that are customized to their needs. And agile enough to change should business conditions change too.<br />
<br />
The advent of cloud services, public APIs, and integration/programming platforms will transform how CIOs operate. And in turn, these new supply chain-oriented CIOs will drive a new advent of change in their organizations.</div>
Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-75263921119905340332017-11-20T20:13:00.002-08:002017-11-20T20:13:28.635-08:00Trying to Market a Horizontal Technology? Think Again.<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Why marketers fail to focus on industry-specific buyers</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></div>
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LO_8WuotUVI/WhOnPJE5SqI/AAAAAAAABxI/Fkf08pRT7jEZTQGNHqC0ybwe0ylo8ZbrACLcBGAs/s1600/hp-hero.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="365" data-original-width="1377" height="169" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LO_8WuotUVI/WhOnPJE5SqI/AAAAAAAABxI/Fkf08pRT7jEZTQGNHqC0ybwe0ylo8ZbrACLcBGAs/s640/hp-hero.jpg" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was recently speaking with 2 CEOs of leading-edge technology companies about how they go-to-market. One is a brilliant open-source software firm, the other a groundbreaking virtual networking startup. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I asked them what their industry marketing approach would be, each essentially said “I don't need that – we have a horizontal technology.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My reaction was one of surprise. Were their technologies applicable cross-industry? Yes. Will the companies continue to grow? Absolutely. But after years of my own leading product- and corporate marketing teams, I’ve found that it will take longer for each company to reach their full potential and market penetration if they don’t first adjust their go-to-market approach to industry-focused buyers. I’ve blogged about this in the past as it applied to <a href="http://fountnhead.blogspot.com/2014/02/manage-services-providers-agree-build.html">Service Providers</a>, and how they can also use Verticalization to reap increased profits.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Avoiding technology marketing gaffes</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Speaking as a (recovering) technologist I can say that engineers and technical leaders are unbelievably proud of their accomplishments... so proud in fact, that to them, their technologies ought to speak for themselves. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The problem is, most customers aren’t buying technologies... they’re shopping for solutions to needs that they have in their business. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 4 biggest Go-to-Market errors I typically see are</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Build it and they will come” - A dangerous tech mentality that really only succeeds in rare, industry-wide transformations. How many great ideas have you seen flop?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“It’s good for everyone” – Ironically, this is a myopic view. Beware of the fact that while the idea probably good for everyone, it’s probably not great for anyone. Actual (or perceived) focus on segments is critical.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The technology speaks for itself” – This might be true. But the issue is that humans search for (and buy) solutions to problems, not for technologies</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Just see how it works” – Perhaps illustrating functionality helps in the buying process (inside the “marketing funnel”) is cool. But talking about how a technology works high in the funnel doesn’t accomplish helping get the initial attention from a prospective buyer.</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Instead, think about how buyers think</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The takeaway is that buyers rarely look for a generic technology... and even when they do, they want to know (and see) how it’s applied to their specific market, industry, or company size. They want to be assured that it’s the right solution, and one that’s been successfully tailored to other companies just like theirs.</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Buyers think about solutions specific to their immediate needs and their problems. And each buyer thinks (often justifiably) that their problem is unique to their type of business. So solutions and descriptions have to be tailored to sounding industry-unique.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Buyers identify with, search for, and buy, solutions that align with their title, industry and company type. So your solution personas need to appeal to these specific attributes and use these specific keywords</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most buyer agents prefer solutions that appear to be fit-for-use and/or ready-to-use, rather than generic “engines” that might imply wasteful customization. So it’s critical to illustrate how “finished-goods” the solution is for each industry solution.</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>What to do now – Even for the most “horizontal” technology</b></span><br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Know your customers and know your buyers</i><br />understand the keywords they use in their industry, what terms resonate with them, especially terms that are industry-specific. Also, understand the specific problems they’re solving for... Even a small tweak to your “horizontal” solution description that uses terminology in the selected industry or specific persona will get an added resonance with a buyer. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Emphasize industry-specificity </i><br />Every industry has unique language and terminology – so use them. Plus, most industries have specific forms of legal constraints, compliance requirements, and/or security approaches. Learn these and explain – in industry terms – how your horizontal technology maps to each on, individually. You may need to hire someone from these industries to help you understand them and craft unique messages. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Highlight use-cases! </i><br />Not every buyer can envision how your technology applies to them, how critical it might be, or how valuable it is. Make sure you illustrate a broad set of use-cases that highlight individual industries. And once again, ensure you’re using industry-specific terminology, value propositions, and personas as you tell the use-case stories. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>You can differentiate with your channel</i><br /> If you sell indirectly (via resellers, system integrators or distributors) often your channel partners can take your technology and adapt it to specific markets, buyers or geographies. This is often a win-win relationship: You get a differentiated product that’s adapted for a market or use-case, and your partners get an opportunity to add value and increase revenue.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Other creative ways to differentiate </i><br />There are surprisingly simple ways you can differentiate a basic technology in the market such that it has greater appeal to specific audiences. For example, consider how you might address a small/medium/large customer – perhaps with slightly reduced functionality and associated pricing for smaller or entry-level customers.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Organize your customers by industry<br /> Every time you get a new customer “success story”, make sure you categorize it in an industry category. Rest assure, when buyers come to your website, they’ll instantly gravitate to verticals they play in... and even want to see what competitors of theirs have done with your products.</span></li>
</ol>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Back to where we began...</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ve taken a shot at using my own advice – and applying it to the two CEO examples that I experienced earlier. I hope you find these interesting and thought-provoking for your own products:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vertical marketing advice for the Open-Source firm....</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can re-categorize their ~ 400 public customers by vertical - and making the list searchable</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Illustrate integrations with major industry-specific enterprise apps in ways that resonate with buyers of those products; Also, partner tightly with those app vendors.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Emphasize vertical industry use-cases (i.e. they already cite Banking) and how each industry is each deriving value differently from the product</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Attend and/or secure speaking opportunities at core vertical-industry trade events where they have solid use cases and success stories</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Team with value-add technology partners who further customize the open-source platform.</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vertical marketing advice for the Networking technology firm</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Create a content marketing initiative focusing on solutions and use cases, not just on “how it works”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Assess and expand upon ROI and benefit analyses that are specific to different industries – in their terms and cost/benefit models</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Differentiate the offering with alternative pricing models, such as dedicated instances vs. peak load “burst” instances </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Build off of the vertical messages that the adjacent competitors use, illustrating why this new technology is better for each industry.</span></li>
</ul>
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<ul class="ul1">
</ul>
Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-73318909200773020872017-11-01T18:39:00.000-07:002017-11-06T22:01:28.515-08:00A Tale of 3 Cloud Strategies - Part III<div style="font-family: calibri; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<b>How the major vendors are vying for hybrid cloud dominance</b></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PpBD6kqHcmc/Wfp27_Qqs2I/AAAAAAAABvc/RP7hH6VECpEcIzlPEb3vxUFjE6lNLAVNwCLcBGAs/s1600/3%2Bclouds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="644" height="148" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PpBD6kqHcmc/Wfp27_Qqs2I/AAAAAAAABvc/RP7hH6VECpEcIzlPEb3vxUFjE6lNLAVNwCLcBGAs/s200/3%2Bclouds.jpg" width="200" /></a>Over the past few years it’s been an exciting show to see the Big 3 cloud providers jockey for strategic dominance, each with a different approach. As an IT professional, it’s useful to understand each of these in context as you try to determine which horse(s) to ride and what bets to make.</div>
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To recap how I’ve been tracking some of the evolution:</div>
<ul>
<li style="font-family: calibri; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In <a href="http://fountnhead.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-tale-of-two-cloud-strategies.html"><span style="color: #0079cd;">Part I</span></a> (back in 2013) we observed AWS experimenting with expansion by reaching down into the enterprise by licensing its APIs (remember Eucalyptus?) and building a VPC (which evolved into <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/directconnect/"><span style="color: #0079cd;">Direct Connect</span></a>). Meanwhile VMware was experimenting with growth by partnering with independent cloud service providers, a precursor to their <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/05/vmware_sells_vcloud_air_to_ovh_analysis/"><span style="color: #0079cd;">failed</span></a> vCloud Air approach – an attempt to reach from the enterprise up into the cloud. </li>
<li style="font-family: calibri; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In <a href="http://fountnhead.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-tale-of-three-cloud-strategies.html"><span style="color: #0079cd;">Part II</span></a> (later in 2013) I added a 3<sup>rd</sup> player to the scrum, when Microsoft introduced the concept of the <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/windows-azure-pack"><span style="color: #0079cd;">Azure Pack</span></a> to their Server stack, a strategy to reach down from the Cloud into the enterprise and bridging the two with a common set of APIs.</li>
</ul>
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In essence, AWS, VMware and Microsoft all looked at ways to expand their presence to create easy-to-adopt hybrid cloud strategies that would lower barriers-to-adoption... and hopefully accelerate enterprises landing workloads onto their stacks.</div>
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<b>Enter VMware Cloud Foundation: </b></div>
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Recently, VMware <a href="https://venturebeat.com/2016/08/29/vmware-launches-cloud-foundation-software-bundle-coming-to-ibm-first/"><span style="color: #0079cd;">announced Cloud Foundation</span></a>, a new strategy to (in my opinion) replace vCloud Air. In concept, this approach is not unlike <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/11/azure_stack_debut_analysis/"><span style="color: #0079cd;">Microsoft’s Azure Stack</span></a> strategy. VMware is building a common cloud workload management platform that incorporates their <a href="https://www.vmware.com/solutions/software-defined-datacenter.html"><span style="color: #0079cd;">SDDC</span></a> that will operate with both public clouds and on-premises VMware implementations... thereby lowering the barrier-to-adoption of hybrid workloads based on VMware technology.</div>
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While Cloud Foundation is similar in concept to Microsoft’s Azure Stack, the two companies took very different approaches to implementation. Microsoft in essence took the Azure API set, and embedded it into their on-premises server software. In contrast, VMware took their (mostly) on-premises API sets and is embedding them to public cloud provider offerings.</div>
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VMware’s approach is interesting – and potentially very successful. First, they’re cutting deals with major public cloud providers like <a href="https://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/solutions/ibm-vmware/"><span style="color: #0079cd;">IBM</span></a>, <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/vmware/"><span style="color: #0079cd;">AWS</span></a>, and <a href="https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-vmware-on-aws-compares-to-microsoft-azure-stack/"><span style="color: #0079cd;">Azure</span></a>, so they are able to embed their virtualization stack on top of these public cloud platforms. And next, they’ll (likely) begin to work with their ~ 4,000 cloud service provider partners to do the same, enabling a pervasive set of common APIs across thousands of providers large and small. If you buy-into the VMware view of the world (and, some say, the “vTax”) this could give you the ultimate degree of common cloud choice... and put the reach of VMware across as many clouds and on-premises infrastructures as Azure.</div>
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<b>Snapshot: Where we are today</b></div>
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As I see it, we now have the following competitive landscape and strategies: </div>
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<b>AWS: </b></div>
<ul>
<li style="font-family: calibri; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Strategy</span>: Abandoned licensing APIs; Now 100% invested in public cloud presence, and in building-out a dominating set of services – to make their APIs into a <i>de facto</i> “cloud OS”</li>
<li style="font-family: calibri; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Play</span>: Focus on the single best public cloud IaaS platform and PaaS services for developers and enterprise workloads</li>
<li style="font-family: calibri; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Business Model</span>: Make money from services and from running workloads</li>
</ul>
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<b>Azure:</b></div>
<ul>
<li style="font-family: calibri; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Strategy</span>: Expand from Cloud Enterprise. Take their public cloud APIs and duplicate them on-premises within their installed base within the enterprise. Further helps blur the line between on-premises and cloud, as-has Office365.</li>
<li style="font-family: calibri; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Play</span>: Reduce/remove barriers-to-adoption of the public cloud by first encouraging API adoption on-premises</li>
<li style="font-family: calibri; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Business Model</span>: Make money both from server software (traditional) as well as from cloud workloads landed on Azure. </li>
</ul>
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<b>VMware:</b></div>
<ul>
<li style="font-family: calibri; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Strategy</span>: Expand from enterprise Cloud. Introduced Cloud Foundation, coupled with SDDC. Initially work to deploy on major public cloud providers, then expand platform to 1000’s of cloud service providers.</li>
<li style="font-family: calibri; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Play</span>: Encourage pervasiveness of the platform by expanding its reach onto public clouds and into managing heterogeneous hypervisors and containers</li>
<li style="font-family: calibri; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Business Model</span>: Make money from becoming the central management software (while partners make money on workloads)</li>
</ul>
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<b>Other Players? </b></div>
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There are still some players out there that are still to be reckoned with. Namely Google Compute Cloud, as well as IBM/SoftLayer. While I’m not yet aware of any Google GCP approach/strategy, IBM has just announced their “<a href="https://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/products/ibm-cloud-private/"><span style="color: #0079cd;">IBM Cloud Private</span></a>” approach, based on a number of open-source technologies. This also seems to be a hybrid container/deployment management model – and we’ll look to the future to see what traction it gains. </div>
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<b>In summary... </b></div>
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As go most major industries and technologies, it appears that industry consolidation has pared-down the major cloud players to 3-5. So, I’ll close by pointing you of my favorite, prescient Blog back from 2006 by Greg Papadopoulos, then Sun Microsystem’s CTO – <a href="https://bigip-blogs-cms-adc.oracle.com/Gregp/entry/the_world_needs_only_five"><span style="color: #0079cd;">Why the world only needs 5 computers</span></a>. True Dat.</div>
Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-40524386101154510242017-10-19T13:21:00.000-07:002017-10-19T13:21:15.473-07:00Cultivating a New Tech Category<h4>
<span style="font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">9 Things
every marketer should know before they introduce a new technology</span></h4>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ptQByv4ducg/WekIKKoNbWI/AAAAAAAABus/15x5hmHjyVEVrVcSv7I0UaMZzenNggtbQCLcBGAs/s1600/lifecyclebeanplant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="253" data-original-width="425" height="118" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ptQByv4ducg/WekIKKoNbWI/AAAAAAAABus/15x5hmHjyVEVrVcSv7I0UaMZzenNggtbQCLcBGAs/s200/lifecyclebeanplant.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At some point in their career, most technologists think they
have the “next big thing”, a product or technology that stands out uniquely
from anything else on the market. In fact, it’s so great that it deserves to be
a new category in-and-of itself.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, if you’re a reasonably-seasoned marketer, your initial
response to this is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“They first need to
properly price and position the technology so that it solves a well-defined
problem, or creates a new valuable capability that customers will pay for”. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That would be true if the product was in a well-understood,
mature market. But it’s far from sufficient when the technology or category is
new or nascent.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Maturing a new market
category and building an ability to execute<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem technologists face is that most potential customers
approach buying-into the product the way Gartner Research sees their “<a href="https://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/research_mq.jsp">Magic
Quadrant</a>” – (a) is the revolutionary have a “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Completeness-of-vision</i>”? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[often
Yes] and (b) do they embrace a reasonable “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ability
to execute</i>” [often No]<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why “No”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because
most often, customers shy away from purchasing products in a vacuum. Rather,
they demand a “<a href="http://crossingthechasmreview.blogspot.com/">Whole
Product</a>” – one in a category that’s mature, well-understood, and ultimately
poses minimal risk of long-term adoption. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Besides good messaging, how should product marketing, market
development, and alliances organizations help build a mature market
category?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, how can they accelerate
the journey to “Ability to Execute”?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Top Market Category
Development Initiatives<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">You need the competition</span></u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
Look... nobody will believe you if you claim there’s no competition. Rarely is it
ever true. If you want to ensure a mature market category – one where customers
believe the technology is worthwhile, will someday be mainstreamed, and
represents a relatively low-risk option – then customers will expect and demand
competitors. So, don’t hesitate to include mention others in adjacent markets,
or companies that are just nipping at your heels. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Encourage healthy Analyst
awareness & coverage </span></u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
Some of the top influencers in the tech market are industry analysts. Find out
who the individual analysts are that cover adjacent spaces to your new category
and educate, educate, educate. This process won’t result in instantaneous
reports, but is critically important nonetheless. If analyst organizations don’t
first recognize your category, they won’t assess it or follow it. And that
means that buyers – who follow the analyst’s evaluations – won’t buy into
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know you’ve reached your goal
when analysts formally cover the category with ratings, Magic Quadrants, and competitive
evaluations.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Ensure a known/understood product
and pricing model</span></u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
Mature markets have known (and often, expected) pricing models.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If your category’s approach is different or
unusual, consider changing it to a more industry-standard style.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Otherwise, you may need to wait until other
competitors in the space offer similar pricing approaches so that customers see
it as the “standard” for the category. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><u><o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Cultivate a Developer
following</span></u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
For most technologies, you’ll absolutely require a community of developers,
admins, and/or architects to adopt your platform, APIs, architecture, etc. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their expectation is that you’ll publish
information, examples, and best-practices and even free testbeds – to get them
that information essentially free-of-charge as they learn/adopt your
technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Make sure you create an
enthusiastic following of developers, local user groups, and even ISVs, and
liberally nurture this critical population of customer/buyer influencers.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Cultivate an ecosystem of
ISVs and 3<sup>rd</sup>-parties</span></u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
Similar to cultivating a developer following, the notion of offering a “whole
product” requires that you also work with partners, software vendors, service
providers, or any other company that directly (or indirectly) adds-value to
your technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(They’re <b>always</b>
there. If you have trouble identifying them, look harder... or ask your
customers).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You should consider investing
in an ISV and/or alliances program, where you’re actively helping promote your
value-add partners to your customers. Remember, if you have a robust ecosystem
of partners, your customers will immediately recognize it, and further trust in
your new technology category. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Develop the right terminology,
and work it into the industry vernacular</span></u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
Customers won’t buy-into your new category if nobody’s talking about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’ll need to invest in very intentional content
marketing, social marketing, hashtag use, SEO seeding, conference speaking
opportunities etc. to begin to get your market category terms in use. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Choose the terms judiciously, and only use 1-2
lest you dilute their use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wherever
possible, also work with influencers near the space (analysts, editors, tweeps,
etc.) and engage them in conversation where they begin to use your terminology<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Cultivate the new topic at
trade shows and conferences</span></u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
This is not about exhibiting at conferences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Rather, it’s that you really know your category is mature when entire
industry conferences are based on it. But in the meantime, you should focus on getting
your new topic inserted into conferences on adjacent topics/technologies by
submitting speaker abstracts, and by encouraging customers of yours to do the
same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you know of complementary
companies (or even competition) in the space, then also consider approaching
conference promoters to create a small “neighborhood” of like-minded
technologies within the larger exhibition floor. That will help develop
customer awareness of the new category.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Pursue industry awards</span></u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
It never hurts to get mentioned in industry awards, or even in those “best new
xxx” or “coolest vendors in xxx” surveys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Search for who’s conducting awards and surveys, and make sure you are on
the short list of those getting considered (remember: you don’t need to win...
just getting an honorary mention is OK). And don’t forget to have your
customers and partners nominate you, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The more your technology category gets mentioned and considered, the
closer you are to getting in the mainstream. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">9.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Hype that customer momentum</span></u><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">!<br />
True for all forms of marketing, the best seller/marketer to customers is
another customer. Focus on developing great customer stories that illustrate
your outcome/benefit (not how “cool” your technology is). Ensure these stories contrast
your new category against the “old” ways of doing things. And get the customers
to directly endorse the technology/category/segment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their peers will always take notice, and have
greater confidence in the new sector/category.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.666666984558105px;">As always, I'm interested in your thoughts, reactions, additions. Part of the magic here is bringing new and innovative ideas to the table. Please have at it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.666666984558105px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.666666984558105px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
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Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008964430195994324.post-88080486916157231212017-10-09T22:42:00.000-07:002017-10-09T22:42:02.264-07:00The New Way We'll Start our Digital Day<h4>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>This post originally published on <a href="https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2017/07/05/the-new-way-well-start-our-digital-day/">Citrix Blogs</a></i></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">The desktop-centric world is dead. Here’s why — and how — it will be replaced.</span></h4>
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When industries shift very slowly, sometimes the most significant changes go completely unnoticed. For example, consider how the notion of the “desktop is your workspace” is pretty much becoming irrelevant (if you disagree, read on).</div>
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The point here is that cloud services, SaaS apps, and browser-based services are now really your new “workspace.” You don’t <em>really</em> need your desktop at all. In fact, even your desktop productivity tools, like MS Office, are now in the cloud (Office 365) and even desktops themselves (<a href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/want-to-run-windows-10-desktops-virtually-on-azure-now-you-can/" style="color: #df1995; text-decoration: none;">XenDesktop Essentials</a>) can be accessed over the web.</div>
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Now, if you’re in corporate IT, this evolution toward disaggregated services is leading you toward a ton of problems: multiple user logins, manual service onboarding, inconsistent security across different service providers, and, basically, loss-of-control over what apps users/employees work with. More often the problem is being referenced as <a href="https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2017/04/05/combating-cloud-sprawl-why-its-now-a-critical-need-for-todays-enterprise/" style="color: #df1995; text-decoration: none;">cloud service sprawl</a>.</div>
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As the desktop-centric model dissolves, there is a new model ready to take its place: <em>the digital workspace.</em> This will fast become the way that IT <em>aggregates, assembles, secures and delivers</em> unified workspace environments in this brave new cloud services world.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">How we got here</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 600;">The world used to be desktop-centric</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For decades, workers started their “digital day” with their PCs or Macs — mostly using applications and productivity tools. The Integration model was whatever was installed locally; the Security model was whatever they had protected with their PC password. Maybe they used a browser, but 99% of the time, it was to consume information from the web. And it worked… for a while.</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-1-PC-only.jpg" style="color: #df1995; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><img alt="digital-day-1-pc-only" class="aligncenter wp-image-174233056" height="320" src="https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-1-PC-only-360x408.jpg" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%;" width="281" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: 600;">Then, we became browser-centric</span></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over time, more of our work lives were spent with <em>browser-based</em> applications (think SalesForce, WorkDay, SAP). Gradually, the success of cloud-delivered SaaS apps — which were soon available as apps on our phones, too —<span style="font-weight: 600;"> </span>began to dominate our work days. Plus, lots of useful apps, such as Evernote and DropBox, were organically adopted by employees, creating “Shadow IT” problems within companies. Thus began the first true phase of cloud sprawl, where the digital work environment became disaggregated. Worse yet, some services had different browser requirements, users had multiple logins, and IT had little-to-no insight into who had access to what. Even still, more and more of our time was being spent “outside the desktop” using externally sourced services.<span style="font-weight: 600;"> </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-2-Browser--360x326.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="digital-day-2-browser" border="0" class="aligncenter wp-image-174233055" height="288" sizes="(max-width: 220px) 100vw, 220px" src="https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-2-Browser--360x326.jpg" srcset="https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-2-Browser--360x326.jpg 360w, https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-2-Browser-.jpg 629w" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%;" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: 600;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 600;">Today, nearly everything resides outside your desktop</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fast-forward to today. The vast majority of apps you use are either browser-based, fully web-based apps, or full mobile apps (particularly true when you think about how you use apps on your cell phone). The only things, really, that workers use that are “native” to the PC or Mac are productivity tools like Microsoft Office (unless you’re a digital native, you probably eschew that in favor of Google docs, yet another external service.) In fact, even Microsoft Office is being disaggregated from the PC desktop, with the prevalent use of Office 365.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, we have to ask ourselves two questions: (a) is the desktop (as a “container” of apps) relevant anymore, and (b) if not, what becomes the new access and aggregation point for a worker’s apps and data?</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-2.5-Disaggregated--360x337.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="digital-day-2-5-disaggregated" border="0" class="aligncenter wp-image-174233053" height="299" sizes="(max-width: 220px) 100vw, 220px" src="https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-2.5-Disaggregated--360x337.jpg" srcset="https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-2.5-Disaggregated--360x337.jpg 360w, https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-2.5-Disaggregated-.jpg 619w" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%;" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">IT – and users – need a new way to</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><em style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">aggregate, secure, access, and deliver</em><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">cloud services</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let’s assume we had <em>never</em> started with a desktop PC at all and that all of your necessary work applications were just a mix of on-premises apps, browser-based apps, mobile apps and cloud/SaaS services.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We’d want our IT departments to have a way to onboard and aggregate each service into a curated and controlled “workspace” environment. Each employee would have workspace of their own — one with a single login, with policies that controlled which apps they had access to, end even workflow tools between apps and coworkers. Even better, we’d want the workspace to ensure that apps with native UIs, browser UIs, and even device-dependent UIs would all be available consistently on any device. Best of all, we’d want this controlled “space” to follow workers around on their devices, whether they were using their laptop, a borrowed tablet, their personal phone, or any device of their choosing.</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-3-SDW--360x332.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="digital-day-3-sdw" border="0" class="aligncenter wp-image-174233054" sizes="(max-width: 220px) 100vw, 220px" src="https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-3-SDW--360x332.jpg" srcset="https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-3-SDW--360x332.jpg 360w, https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-3-SDW-.jpg 613w" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%;" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The digital workspace is real, and it’s now: Where you’ll start your “digital day”</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The relatively new notion of the “secure digital workspace” is increasingly the way workers will access the resources they need, and how IT will aggregate, secure, and deliver all applications, regardless of where they’re generated or which personal devices are being used for access.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And it will be contextual and personal — you’ll have it available on all of your devices, and it will know if you’re using a secure device, if you’re on a secure network, and even whether you’re in a secure location. This means that you might not have full access rights to certain apps based on where you are or what network you’re on, or the system may change the method of delivery to ensure better security. It might even notice you’re simultaneously logged into two devices in two countries and raise a security flag.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For workers, this approach will simplify how they get to all the apps and data they need to be productive, and will make it possible to easily collaborate with coworkers, contractors, partners, and customers. And it will ensure consistency by bringing disparate applications and data into a user-centric, context-aware environment. Finally, it will optimize their experience, performance and security across any device, platform or network — regardless of the platform for which the original app may have been designed.</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-SDW-properties-360x178.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="digital-day-sdw-properties" border="0" class="aligncenter wp-image-174233057 size-thumbnail" sizes="(max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px" src="https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-SDW-properties-360x178.jpg" srcset="https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-SDW-properties-360x178.jpg 360w, https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-SDW-properties-720x357.jpg 720w, https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-SDW-properties-768x380.jpg 768w, https://www.citrix.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Digital-day-SDW-properties.jpg 967w" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%;" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For corporate IT, it will help them restore control over their employee’s digital environment because a secure digital workspace ensures better, more consistent control over on-boarding, aggregating, and managing access across hybrid cloud services, regardless of their source. And overall, this unified approach reduces risk for companies because the entire workspace is surrounded by a “Secure-Digital Perimeter” across infrastructure, apps, delivery networks, and devices.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 600;">If this sounds interesting, I encourage you to look into the possibilities, such as using the</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 600;"> </span><a href="https://www.citrix.com/products/citrix-workspace/" style="color: #df1995; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 600; text-decoration: none;">Citrix workspace</a><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 600;"> to aggregate, secure, access, and deliver this new world of possibilities to workers near you.</span></div>
<br />Ken Oestreichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13530514227192850735noreply@blogger.com0