Back to the Future(ish)

When I read 1984, it was about the future. And it was still in the future.

It might be more confusing now. A book called "1941" would probably be about Pearl Harbor, right? But 1984 is still about the future. It's still science fiction, in the same way Asimov and Bradbury and Vonnegut are, but they're more than that of course.

I remember what Orwell describes looking like the Soviet Union. No one is making that analogy these days, but 1984 is still an important book. Why? Well, if you don't know you should read it. It's $3.99 on your Kindle (or borrow it on paper at that government building where they have all the free video rentals, what's it called again?).

Blackberry Marketing and Cash Value

Remember S&H and other store stamps that had a value other than cash, like "mills?"

Today companies still substitute benefits or free accessories that have some specific proprietary value, but little or no cash value. As long as the two are distinct, there's no problem. But intentionally or otherwise confusing some dollar value other than the real one for cash value is a big marketing mistake.

Blackberry has responded to its latest high-profile service outages by offering a consolation to their subscribers: for their inconvenience, they get $100 in free apps like poker and "Bejeweled." But wait, there's more. RIM also throws in free technical maintenance for a month, which is a value of, well, let's say it's not immediately obvious on their web site. (And just how much do Blackberry owners expect to call technical support next month in the event of a problem, say, another outage?)

The lesson to learn here, as RIM flounders in their marketing efforts, is that marketing is not a standalone entity. It needs to be integrated with the business. When the purposes of the marketing and accounting or other departments collide, you often get a solution that does badly for both.

In this situation, if RIM offered a second option for a discount on next month's phone bill for example, the dollar value would certainly be lower than the one for free apps and support. What would the value of a third option for getting a check in the mail from RIM be? My guess is about $10. That's the real value.

Does RIM really want to address the legitimate concern and inconvenience of their subscribers resulting from significant outages, even down to the phone's daily alarms and reminders not working, with a consolation that has a real value of $10? Of course not. But there's a left-hand, right-hand conflict going on between the business execs and the ones carrying on the dialog with the customer (marketing) that is deeper than this one incident. As the iPhone 4S and steady developments by Android encroach even further on Blackberry's base, RIM is pouring gasoline on the fire.

Making the Law Accessible on the Web - 10 Questions with LegalZoom CIO Tracy Terrill

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Making the Law Accessible on the Web - 10 Questions with LegalZoom CIO Tracy Terrill

View more presentations from Prospero Marketing Group.

Making the law accessible on the Web

Everyone needs access to the law eventually.

At some point, you're going to incorporate your business, write your will or get a copyright or patent. Ten years ago, a couple clever lawyers put their heads together and hatched the idea of making some standard things related to the law available on the internet. Today LegalZoom has been able to provide those services to over a million people, not eliminating all the paperwork and hassle, but a good part of it.

LegalZoom's CIO Tracy Terrill talked with me about his job combining technology and the law for an article in CBS Interactive this week. He brings a tech background from some other notable companies, including Universal Studios, Warner Brothers and Gartner.

One of the most interesting things going on with LegalZoom these days is their Facebook page, where attorney Joe Escalante masquerades as "Free Joe Friday," and has gained the page more than 50,000 followers with his gratis advice.

On social media marketing Tracy says:

"We're still in the early days of our social media presence, but things are starting to come together... Free Joe Friday is an example of that... We actually have about 10 times more followers on Facebook than on Twitter right now."

You can find the free PDF download of the entire interview here.

Making logical steps in your presentation - and your data management

When he's making a presentation, ZL Technologies' founder and CEO Kon Leong believes in the power of making a logical segue before changing the slide.

"One thing I try to do that I believe makes a huge difference for any presenter is to build a verbal segue before changing the slide. It's more effective to set up the mind of the listener to anticipate the next slide, or even what they think it might be. The logical flow is important to maintain, and presenters sometimes overlook that when they cut to the next slide and then read. The thought process should transition into the next visual rather than the other way around."

But when it comes to the stages in managing your data, it's not the transitions but the elimination of the document that Kon believes is the most important, and the most challenging, part of the process.

For the complete interview with this data management expert about his views on how to scale that mountain of records at your company, see today's CBS Interactive article here.

Bending the failed expectations curve - 10 Questions with Jay Gardner of NetIQ

After 30 years in IT, Jay Gardner has landed as the GM and VP at NetIQ, a recent acquisition of Attachmate, privately held company that seeks to "bridge the divide between open source and proprietary source software.

Jay talked with me about getting IT value and bending the "failed expectations curve" when it comes to technology adoption.

"The failed expectations curve is really a financial picture of the business case where the Y-axis is value and the X-axis is time... There is going to be a certain amount of deterioration in the value, or at least a diminishing gain, as the adoption curve levels off and you go from the value of implementing to the value of maintaining and improving... it often comes down to the talent in the organization that makes things happen..."

Once we had covered ten questions on this topic, I also asked Jay to draw on his experience for his best recommendation on making a remarkable business presentation.

"My best recommendation is to tell a story. Always try to relate an example of what you're talking about, either a business process or a customer story. Make it memorable and credible, and unique. That's the way to get people's attention and keep it. Data can support it, but people have to be able to relate to what you're talking about in an illustration rather than bullets. When you can tell a good story, being persuasive is a natural outcome."

You can read the complete interview with Jay on the CBS Interactive site.

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(* Did you already read my interviews on cloud computing with Jimmy Harris and virtualization with Mark Egan?)

Trying hard to be real (Cathy Thomas' insight)

How much do you pick up on the red flags in marketing that announce something less than real (often a .gov or a .org strategy with little or no free-market competition)?

- Over the top repetition: if repeating the phone number or web site six times is good, ten is better.

- Urgency: "you must respond within the next 24 hours," every time you see or hear it. It means nothing really.

- Struggling sincerity: talking a lot about being real, in genuine words that contradict actions.

Rather than being a panacea, technology becomes a megaphone to amplify bad behavior. An e-mail came to me recently from a marketing author/speaker and self-described "relationship master" with a lengthy apology about how his outsourced e-mail campaign didn't maintain the genuineness he truly believes in. Here's an excerpt:

"So let’s talk about how a guy who believes in authenticity, candor, and generosity above all ends up sending out a bunch of crazy-Eddie "act now or else" give away-style emails to his fans and clients. I think the details will just feel like excuses and are frankly not that important for the purposes of passing on what I’ve learned. But basically, we hired outside experts who have made a science of how to hit the numbers in email campaigns. And our team, new and under pressure to succeed right out of the box in the online consumer space, thought we could control and customize their techniques to avoid messaging that wasn’t in line with my identity. The campaign was a financial success and at the same time we utterly failed. And I am sorry."

That sounded like a refreshing epiphany, so I replied to him directly the same day.

Three weeks later I received a fairly generic reply from his assistant. End of story.

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Cathy Thomas is a computer technician with over fifteen years of experience in technology who has created a site with a colleague called computertechnician.net where aspiring tech students can get free information on national programs. Here's a list of her three top recommendations on intrusions, promises and social media.

Three Best Practices for using Technology as a Marketing Tool

It’s not an exaggeration to say the world revolves around technology today. If some higher power were to eliminate technology for good from our lives, the world would come to a standstill. There would be chaos all around, and we would forget how to function. However, even though technology has its advantages and is almost impossible to live without, it does have a host of cons as well.

Consider the field of marketing. Technology has now moved to the forefront of all operations; marketers and advertisers have woken up the power and potential of technology, and are tapping it to push their advantage with customers, both old and new. However, in their eagerness and enthusiasm to maximize the utilization of technology, marketers fail to use it judiciously and to their advantage. In short, they fail to adopt the best marketing practices when using technology as a marketing tool. Marketers must still remember some fundamentals:

· Avoid intrusive marketing practices: Telemarketing, text message marketing, and spam email may be easy ways to market your product or service, but you can bet your last dollar these practices are bound to get on the nerves of your customers. No one wants their schedules disturbed by pesky marketing calls, especially for products and services they no longer want. Avoid intruding, especially if you know you’re doing it. One call should be enough to take a hint, and if you persist in calling over and over again or hanging on the line even after the customer has made their displeasure evident, it amounts to badgering.

· Fulfill the promises they make: Many marketers are guilty of this mistake; it’s like they have short term amnesia and completely forget the promises they make when trying to market their products and services once the customer has been won over and signed up for a sizeable package. Soon customers discover that no one answers their calls and emails, and even if they do, they’re given the runaround and redirected to the “fine print.” Fine print may seem to be a good marketing technique to scam unsuspecting customers, but remember, in this age of technology one disgruntled customer is enough to spread the word of your unscrupulous practices and lose more customers rather than gain any significant profit.

· Know how to use social media wisely: Social media is all the rage in the marketing world today, and if you have an online presence in the most popular ones, you’re well on your way to tapping your target market. However, if you fail to follow the unwritten rules of social media, you could be blacklisted and kicked out, virtually if not physically. In short, social media marketing must be used with discretion, taking care not to offend customers with unsolicited messages and unsavory tricks that lure them to your pages with false promises.

It all boils down to being ethical in your business practices, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because customers today won’t come back if they perceive or know you use underhand tactics to get what you want. I recently received an e-mail from a reader pointing out that spammers are successful if even one percent of the people they spam respond, considering the ease and cost of sending out huge volumes of email. My response to this is that Internet users are getting more savvy every day. They have spam filters in place, they don’t click on unverified links, and they’re aware that deals that sound too good to be true are likely just that. They read the fine print, they don’t read spam and they blacklist you if you keep badgering them. So while a spam strategy may work for some time, it certainly is not sustainable in the long run. Unless you’re a fly-by-night operator on the lookout for a quick buck, it’s time to take the high road in your marketing practices.

This guest post is contributed by Cathy Thomas. She writes on the topic of online computer technician training, and welcomes your comments at cathy83.thomas@gmail.com.

Thanks Cathy!

Virtualizing your Reality

Mark Egan, whose company VMware is synonymous with trailblazing and dominating the area of virtualization, recently talked with me about his perspectives on the future of real technology in a virtualized world.

"...if you think of social-media apps, for example, how do we take some of these systems with a Soviet-era interface and make them look like Facebook and be as easy as Twitter? I believe the user interface trumps functionality."

Another insight from Mark was on his top recommendation for making a more remarkable business presentation.

"I always like to see a speaker who keeps the focus on the question, 'What is the business problem we're trying to solve?' and ultimately answers it. In my humble opinion, as a CIO I should always be focusing on three areas for the company: growing revenue, reducing costs and improving customer satisfaction. Everything I do should track back to those three. Sometimes in our presentations I think we lose the translation to those areas. Those are the things I think we need to see made relevant, and in some cases I've seen my peer presenters get sidetracked to other things."

You can find the entire discussion with Mark in the article out today at CBS Interactive.

25 bullets will kill you - Cloud expert Jimmy Harris on making better presentations

Accenture's Director of Cloud Services Jimmy Harris talked with me recently for an article in TechRepublic about his ideas on cloud technology. Part of our discussion also covered his best recommendations for making more effective presentations. His first thought: cut down on the bullets.

"This is my first rule of presentations: the density of the data presented is inversely proportional to understanding. If I put up a slide with 25 bullet points on it, I'm just distracting people. No one can remember 25 things anyway.

Another mistake I hear presenters make is saying, 'I know you probably can't see this, but...'

One variation on this I've seen is the presenter who put up a detailed, hyper-convoluted chart, pointed to an indistinguishable spot, and said, 'There it is!' Not a single person had any idea what he was talking about.

To the expert making a presentation, that kind of data represents a command of information and demonstrates their credibility. To the audience, the fact that your the epidemiologist, or whatever other kind of expert you may be, already demonstrates that you know more about it than I do.

Another thing I can tell you about my own presentation approach is that it's about extending understanding through storytelling and symbols. We're brought up to remember things that way. For example, in describing the cloud, I imagine I'm trying to tell people in Asia about banking. There are two billion people there with no experience in personal banking. The question is how to create an environment in which you can economically deliver banking services to these people who have none of the infrastructure, who have never even seen a bank. So in my presentation I talk about the components of the cloud in terms of deploying bank services across multiple devices at a lower cost."

For the rest of the conversation with Jimmy on the way cloud computing changes things, see the article published this week by CBS Interactive.

i.c. stars and the proverbial leg-up

The job market has taken a toll on new graduates, with greater numbers either staying in school or coming back home for the time being, and the information technology field is no exception.

i.c. stars founder Sandee Kastrul says economics and competition have increased the need for a "longer runway" for the program's inner-city technology graduates after their four months of concentrated business, leadership and technology training.

Among other business leaders, Bob Kress at Accenture has been at the end of that runway with a good fit for the skills being developed at i.c. stars, hiring almost a dozen graduates over the past few years.

The Chicago Tribune has done a nice write-up of what i.c. stars is doing in their article this past weekend.

Some people should not vote

Everyone should vote? I don't think so. Paraphrasing one of Neal Postman's principles of new technologies: just because you can doesn't mean you should.

So who should not vote?

- The apathetic.
- Those who don't know what apathetic means, and don't want to.
- People for whom emotion always trumps reason.
- Those who think all politicians are equal.
- People just voting for any change at all.
- Those who believe the only motivation for change is fear.
- Those who believe the only motivation for keeping things the same is fear.
- People who are willfully uninformed in an information age.

America is not great because we were born here. It is great because of the ideas and the system of government we have a chance to go out and be a part of today.

Do-not-call - sometimes

Did you sign up for the national do-not-call list when it came out a couple years ago? I can't say whether it really made a huge difference or not. My wife has always seemed to get most of the sales calls for some reason. Are you on any do-not-call lists you didn't even know about? Say, for example with prospective employers?

As much as the big tech companies are known to compete for and lure over competitors' top executives (i.e. Mark Hurd and Leo Apotheker), it's hard to believe that there is a need for the Department of Justice to eliminate gentlemen's agreements between them when it comes to poaching other companies' employees in general. But six of the biggest names in tech, including Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Adobe and Pixar, recently agreed, with a little encouragement from the DOJ, not to continue their no-cold-call-recruiting arrangements.

In times of record unemployment, this sort of collusion may sound like an urban myth (like Congressman Phil Hare considers the national debt). No, big companies really have been playing by these rules in their hiring. Contrary to the free market they esteem for their products and services, this defensive agreement has been considered a mutual advantage among the big players. It's an even bigger advantage to sit on boards of more than one of these companies, or have your CEO sitting on another firm's board, but that habit has come under scrutiny recently as well.

Along with the new corporate hiring glasnost, according to a new SIM survey in eWeek, most executives plan to increase IT salaries in 2011, with a specific focus on business intelligence.

Why IT is not a department anymore

My ten-question interview with longtime technologist and top Fortune 100 executive, Julius Tomei, is out in today's TechRepublic. His job covers 50,000 end users in 45 countries, and his experience runs the gamut of technology-related positions. Among other topics like outsourcing, mobility and consolidation, Julius talks about his perception that IT should no longer be thought of as a department.

I also asked Julius for his insights on delivering remarkable presentations, both the ones he gives and the ones he has attended:

"Two things stand out to me when it comes to Powerpoint: getting the right number of slides, and using good graphics and illustrations. What I see most often is either more slides than necessary or not enough. Then there are people who are good at developing very elaborate slides that actually end up losing the audience's attention. Using relevant pictures and graphics is the way to keep people focused. I try to put together slides I can talk to and not read from, and discuss the background behind the slides.

In 2007 I was invited to speak at the annual itSMF conference in Atlanta on the topic of how I got ITIL to work. I took them through the process by illustrating in terms of golf. You don't win by hitting holes in one every time. You do it by making a series of putts. So I was able to keep the discussion at a high level for a larger audience. I can get technical when I need to, but in this case I needed to make it very accessible. When I do include technical information in a presentation, I like to keep it to one or two slides. What people really want to know is, 'How did you come to think of that? What was your thought process?' In this case it was to run a lights-out data center very efficiently and at the lowest practical cost. I needed people to speak the same language and operate from the same framework, and that was ITIL. Explaining in those terms really resonated with the audience."

You can also find this and other technology leadership interviews at 10QatAtime.com.

Funnel, Filter, Guru.

Not only has the availability of information has moved the needle from the haystack out into the field; it's also a smaller needle.

The streams of information are flowing past us on all sides rather than neatly unfolding on the table beside a cup of coffee, and the key-points summary is taking center stage. There's not so much discussion of "sound-bites" anymore because it's the status quo. Other things equal, a three-minute youtube video gets more hits than a ten-minute one.

What about the whole truth and nothing but the truth? No time. Tell me the main points. And remember, the more concise the summary, the greater the need to trust the summarizer. Your trusted-advisor status is on the line, every time.

Blago's whole truth is more than 500 hours long. You're going to have to leave something out when you tell that story. The jury decides what's relevant.

John Wooden's truth was a seven-point creed from his father, which he carried around with him in his wallet. The New York Times thought seven points was a bit wordy, and made it even more concise. (They later retracted their redactions.)

There's an art to boiling things down to the relevant facts, not the ones that are important to you but the ones that are important to your listeners. Nothing less. Or more.

Whether you're talking to your kids or presenting to the board of directors, remember you're the funnel, filter and guru.

Getting to the truth of the matter - snopes

If you've ever looked something up on snopes.com, you'll appreciate this interview by David Pogue in the NY Times this week with the creator, David Mikkelson.

Looking from the outside in

Southern California tech veteran Ian Clayton talked with me recently about his three decades of work in IT as well as his secrets to making a great personal presentation.

After starting at Ross Perot's EDS International not long after the On Wings of Eagles rescue mission in Iran, Ian went on to do consulting work with clients around the world like Caterpillar, American Express and Australia Telecomm. In the 1990's, he helped to bring the ITIL framework over from the UK as one of the cofounders of itSMF-USA.

More recently, he has been among the first to anticipate information systems as a service, even before the term cloud technology came into vogue. Ian's presentations are most often around a table of technology executives interested in a new way of looking at things. Which is what he provides them.

Here's Ian's recommendation for applying new perspective to delivering a remarkable presentation:

"Instinctively my idea of a best habit in making a presentation is being able to take an outside-in, you-based position. Speak to the problem or challenge and needs of your audience using their language. Start by making the leap of translating your own views into theirs, and connect with them right from the get-go. A habit I've seen that needs breaking is leading off with a description of the 'what' and the 'how' before explaining the 'why.'" Those are the presentations that seem to take longer, get less stakeholder buy-in and don't help the audience."

Read the full ten-question discussion on "Viewing IT service management from the outside in" in today's TechRepublic. Also watch for Ian's second book, Outside In Service Management, to be coming out this summer.

Going from podium to Web

You've put together a stellar presentation for the big conference and are counting down the days. With a week to go, a tsunami/tornado/oil spill interrupts the plan and the conference is cancelled.

After hearing your practice run, your boss says, "We're going with this! Get Webex on the phone!" No problem, right?

Turning a classroom presentation into an online meeting requires some planning and rethinking. It's more than just making your delivery on a conference call.

A bicycle and a unicycle are two ways to get from here to there that seem similar, but the difference can add some new challenges. What you've done behind the podium may not translate seamlessly over to a web meeting.

Winning priority is the first major difference to consider:

Unlike a physical event, attendance on a web presentation is entirely up to you and your team. You don't have the luxury of being an alternative in a handful of speaker sessions. Your message is competing with all the normal (and ever-increasing) priorities of everyone's workday. Clicking on an invitation is a routine commitment for most people. Each reminder of the value you've promised to deliver is more important than the last, up to the final "one hour from now!" e-mail.

Read the rest of the article in today's TechRepublic.

What blindspots?

Without credibility, arguments vaporize. One of the most undervalued components in credibility is objectivity - being above any hidden agenda or influence. As clear-as-a-bell as it is when we hear someone else speaking, it's still incredibly tempting to overestimate our own objectivity.

Do media spokesmen have more or less objectivity after they've been hob-nobbing (or squirt-gun fighting) over the weekend with politicians at a beach party with the Biden's?

Does a new study that shows Ford is now "the no. 1 automaker in customer satisfaction with vehicle quality" have as much clout when you learn the study was commissioned by... Ford? (It disagrees with the most recent Consumer Reports.)

As an expert in your field, you have a claim to trusted advisor sentiments, but it's dangerous to let your bias speak when you need to remain aloof. When you put together your next presentation, make a point to cite objective, third-party sources that your audience trusts, both in the slides and the dialog. And lob the first salvo at "experts agree," and "research has shown," which are even more lame than no citation at all.

(Batteries not included)

Are you leaving the right things out?

Florida Governor Charlie Crist recently left out the pro-life section he had previously included on his web site.

(He's expected to veto a controversial ultrasound bill.)

Hyundai left out the price on advertisements for its 2011 Sonata.

(You can request an e-mail, but you have to include your phone number and yes, they will be calling you.)

A friend of mine in sales left off his resume the position he held for more than a year as the National Sales Director for a growing technology provider.

(It went bankrupt and he returned to his previous employer.)

Steve Jobs left out the part of his talk about how easily the iPhone 4 connects to the internet.

(Too many bloggers in the audience were eating up the bandwidth of the local wi-fi.)

The main thing to keep in mind about what to leave out in your presentation, resume, business plan or other communication is not what you want to leave out, but what your audience expects you to leave out (or in). That will be noticeable in its absence.

Revolution in Words

The way we use words was revolutionized by Johannes Gutenberg. Replication and distribution of ideas took on a whole new meaning. But the process actually wasn't Gutenberg's idea. It was the Chinese who first had the idea of duplicating a pattern with a press, but limited its use to copying silks and not books.

Is the iPad a revolution, or is it just duplicating a pattern?

Interestingly, Gutenberg died a financial failure, the object of numerous lawsuits for the rights to use the press. But he was successful by all counts in changing the world. His first printed work, the Bible, is the number one bestseller of 2010 (and every year).

~ Game Changers in Presentation History

Johannes Gutenberg, movable type printing press - 1394-1468