I've officially moved my blog to this address:
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Blog has moved!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Agile Marketing: The Movie
I can't believe I started by saying "OK, people." Talk about your crappy opener. But with six minutes and thirty-eight seconds remaining, I had to press on. And plus Alexis had just brought down the house.
Categories: marketing, running a business, software development
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
The leading provider of meaningless marketing solutions
Omniture, Inc. is a leading provider of online business optimization software, enabling customers to manage and enhance online, offline and multi-channel business initiatives.
Awesome, I found the leader! They lead the other providers around like cattle. Well, they are a leading provider, not the leading provider, but still, one of the leaders! I'm impressed.
webMethods (Nasdaq: WEBM) provides business integration software to integrate, assemble and optimize available IT assets to drive business process productivity. webMethods delivers an innovative, enterprise-class business integration platform that incorporates proven integration technology with next generation capabilities into one interoperable set of tools that delivers a unique combination of efficiency, agility and control. webMethods combines industry leadership with a zealous commitment to customers to deliver tangible business value.Take a scalpal to your marketing content. Make every word count.
Categories: marketing, running a business, selling software
Friday, November 7, 2008
Five ways to listen to customers instead of goin' fishin'
Lots of small business bloggers tell you to listen to the customer and build accordingly. But some people take it too far.
I recently had an experience with just such a company. They had finished their product demo and I was wrapping with a few standard questions.
Me: What's on your roadmap?Notice how it evades the question, like a politician. He might as well have said, "The future is whatever you think it should be." Perhaps he's trying to demonstrate receptiveness to feature requests, but it's a non-answer.
CTO: We're going to listen to what you need.
Follow-up questions failed to uncover a roadmap. Maybe because they don't have enough customers to know where to go? The next snippet provides more evidence for this theory:
Me: Do you have any questions for us?Fishing for ideas? Are you asking me to define your next product for you?
CTO: Yes. What is your biggest business problem that you would like someone to solve?
This isn't "listening to customers," this is a rudderless ship. Having clear goals and confidence is compatible with customer-guided development. What you should be doing is active listening:
- When a suggestion appears, notice and write it down. Restate it in your own words and repeat it back to ensure you understood correctly.
- Dig into feature requests until you find the root pain point. This means back-and-forth communication so do this on the phone or in person, not email. Often there are ten ways to address a problem and you have other customers and a product architecture to consider.
- Ask them to order their suggestions by importance. Often a list of twenty suggestions yields only two deal-breakers. No priority levels are allowed, just an ordering; otherwise you end up with seven "Priority 1" line items.
- If you can't (or won't!) implement something, admit it. Explain why so the customer understands you're being pragmatic and forthright, not dismissive.
- Collect feedback proactively. Most people won't send an email to support with a feature request; they've been conditioned by most companies that such things go unnoticed. One way we've started doing this recently (with much success) is through a Uservoice page.
Even admitting something is impossible is constructive because then when you do accept a suggestion they know you mean to implement it. You're displaying honesty and setting up reasonable expectations. People know all twenty of their ideas can't be done; they'll appreciate honest rejection.
Companies that listen are both rare and beloved. Listen, don't fish.
Categories: running a business, selling software, software development
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Voting early: What if there were no election day?
- Voters wouldn't be affected by state returns, time zone differences, and the news networks "calling the race for whomever" every ten minutes.
- Lines would be shorter because polling locations are open for many days instead of one. Shorter lines means more people actually vote.
- The quasi-laws requiring employers to allow employees time off to vote could extend to the extended voting period, causing less disruption as people take off different days and times rather than all at once.
- The time pressure to report results vanishes. You have at least the two weeks to accumulate numbers, plus some pre-determined number of days after that. Now you can recount close races and double-check numbers without the time pressure and scrutiny of Wolf Blitzer and the Fantastic 12.
- Some swing states in this election aren't used to high voter turnout (Michigan, Colorado, Nevada, Pennsylvania) and are anticipating problems with insufficient number of voting booths, long lines, and not enough back-up ballots in case a machine fails. With the voting spread out over more time, it's easier for each location to have enough back-up paper. You could even extend the number of voting days if you needed to.
Categories: misc
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Love the messenger
I'd had Korean food before, but as this was my first trip to Korea House I wanted something different, something authentic, maybe even adventurous. Friday lunch at Smart Bear is usually interesting.
Categories: marketing, running a business, selling software
Saturday, October 25, 2008
2000 feature requests: Our foray into Uservoice
- We're setting up an private Uservoice site to track marketing ideas -- we have 50-100 ideas and we'd like to start internal discussions on which ones to try next.
- Have one Uservoice site for existing customers and a separate one for potential customers just trying it out.
- Let your customers give you feedback on your website.
- If you're a consultant, lawyer, speaker or other professional you could use it for anonymous feedback.
- Company "management" could demonstrate they care about doing a good job by opening a personal, anonymous site for feedback (like glassdoor, but private).
Categories: running a business, software development