Chapter 3 - CIO to Marketing Person

It has been a while since I posted my last installment in this story, sorry to all that may be following it.

In the first installment in this series I introduced the concept and how I was brought into this evolving role as Marketing Guy. Just for clarity I have not abandoned my role as CIO type, I have added the marketing to it.

The second posting I shared with you the 3 major challenges as CIO I felt I had to overcome.

• Learn to be open to social networks versus my typical IT thought process that all social is bad, block it.



• Marketing is not always an obvious skill, it goes way beyond know your customer and create the next selling pitch.



• IT and Marketing have nothing in common

This edition I will share with you my first lessons. Like real estate which is all about location, location, location. Marketing shares a similar type of mantra; know your client.......

So who is our client, did we have a definition, do we define our ideal client by any sort of measurable metrics?

Long and Short of this story was there is a general definition, nothing in writing, and it was at best a gut feel more than any scientific model on which to judge or base and measurement upon. It must work, the company is 108 years old after all!

The issue here isn't a definition of who our client is, but rather the development of understanding WHO in the organizations we want to market to as our ideal audience, i.e.: the message we wish to share is targeted to whom in the future client's organization? I can't tell you what the answer was but a lot of sole searching and asking the question, if my firm was to buy this service, who would the message be targeted at. In our case the answer changed from who we thought it was to who it should be, a new audience that we typically never speak to.

So now we had a goal, to develop a way to talk to an audience about a service we wanted to sell them, do it in a way that attracted them to take action, even if that action resulted in them asking the first person (our perceived normal contact) to follow it up. At least the decision to follow it up came from a C suite role, we had their attention and it was perceived as possibly important, a good first start. But if that strategy works then the follow up was easy, getting our foot in the door was the hard part.

One way to answer this question that I used throughout this process was to put myself in the buyers seat and think about how I did do business. So how do I handle the questions that we may be asking of our future client's, and when I had that answered I also had my new audience. It worked in most cases when thinking about the way my wife and handle decision making as well, who makes what part of the decision process when we go to evaluate or buy something of value.

This was a hard process to go through because I was learning the marketing language as well as living the marketing development role, in the end we are satisfied that who we want to sell to is the right audience for this new service we are launching. By the way, the audience changes depending upon what service/product we are selling. A technically oriented product/service is more suited for the operational oriented folks than the compliance/risk management product/service which is more suited to corporate risk managers who tend to be finance related.

So now I knew who we wanted to sell to, the next part of the puzzle is how, that's another story...

Thanks for listening...

A quick observation in education

My daughter in grade 7 came home this past Canadian long weekend with a map project to complete. She did have a text book from school but it was dated 1992.  Now I don't know about you but the world boundaries have changed since 1992, especially in eastern Europe which was part of her homework.

Without asking me for help about the mapping and country names, she asked me to help install Google earth, which provided her with a perfectly useful and updated map for her to use.

I would never have thought of that use for Google earth, but she did...  These Gen Y and younger folks do think differently than we do, we can learn from them if we just watch and learn.

Thanks for listening....

Today makes me think of . . . .

My Wife's Grandmother who was a spirited lady who shared this little ditty at 85 years old. At 85 she used to go to the local seniors club to help the "old folks" with cards and games. She lived to a ripe old age of 98 and almost made 99.

Her ditty that she shared re when to plan a family that I am reminded of this morning;

" When the waether is hot and sticky, now is not the time for dunking dicky;
When the frost is on the pumpkin, now is the time for dicky dunking"

Thanks for listening . . .

United Breaks Guitars - Understanding Social Customer Service

I have been on this quest to understand Social Marketing and Business and how the two meet.

I had a slight epiphany tonight while re watching the Dave Carroll video, "United Breaks Guitars".

While we know that Dave was approached after the fact by United to try and make amends, what caught me of guard tonight is the video I found by Bob Taylor of Talyor Guitars. See it here

While the original video has over 5.6 million views the Taylor corporate video has an impressive 180,000+ views. That's a lot of customer contact is what I thought.

Bob does a great job of covering empathy for Dave Carroll, making references to material on their web site, and extending empathy to other guitar players who have suffered similar fate. He makes reference to material they have on their site from TSA about carrying guiatrs on planes and suggests to avoid problems travellers should print and carry these rules to educate airline employee's. He closes with a subtitle but strong message about a new service that Taylor Guitars now offers to repair not only their guitars, but other manufactures guitars.

It hit me, Wow what a great way to play off the idea that your product is in the news and when it gets viral like Dave Carroll's video that you leverage that to reach out to new and potential clients the way Taylor Guitars has.

I think it is a brilliant use of Video for a corporation and demonstrates how to reach out in a social media way.

Thanks for listening...

Chapter 2 - CIO to Marketing Person

In the first installment in this series I introduced the concept and how I was brought into this evolving role as Marketing Guy. Just for clarity I have not abandoned my role as CIO type, I have added the marketing to it.

I started with 3 major challenges;

• Learn to be open to social networks versus my typical IT thought process that all social is bad, block it.
• Marketing is not always an obvious skill, it goes way beyond know your customer and create the next selling pitch.
• IT and Marketing have nothing in common

The first item was easy for me to overcome as my history in IT has shown that I am typically an open guy to start with and I see more value in looking at technology that isn't obvious in solving business problems. e.g.: Linux in the enterprise over 10 yrs ago, Virtualization in 2003

The second item took me a few months to let my guard down as my instinct was to block and avoid. I started into facebook just to monitor my Son and from there I haven't looked back. In July I was starting to get it so I posted this piece as a response to "Why Twitter users Give Up". I haven't looked back since

The last item was only overcome in the last 2-3 months. It now is very easy for me to see why CIO types should be involved in business development/marketing, although not necessarily leading the charge. They should be at the table contributing to the organizational ability and understanding, I see that as the role I play.

Thanks for listening...

From CIO to Marketing Person!

This is the first in a series of posts I will share my journey from CIO type to partner in marketing strategy development, a whole new space for me.

So why bring in the IT guy? Reason is simple, new marketing efforts in 21st century go beyond putting feet on the street and knocking on doors, it involves a combination of traditional marketing efforts and technology leverage (innovation just seems too strong of a term).

My journey began back around beginning of summer, it was at that time I was asked if I would be willing to help "LEARN" about this form of marketing.

From an IT perspective the "PUSH" marketing method is just SPAM! or at least i thought it was.

The social aspect of Marketing or "PULL" was just flavour of the day, or so I thought.

This begins my journey, so what do you do when you start something new, learn so you can understand (they are not the same)

Remember this is a piece about marketing, so it is more important in how I say something, not what I say :-)

Why Most Twitter Users Give Up

This post began in a group I am part of on LinkedIn, MB CIO. The person posting fully agreed with this article and below is my response to them.

I am still twittering and with great success. What defines my success, who I follow and who follows me. I typically follow a select handful of reporters who I have worked with and I like their approach to a tech/mgmt story. I also follow analysts, those 3rd party non practicing IT folks who charge a great deal to hear their word, it is free on twitter. Finally the last group I follow are other CIO, IT Leaders to hear what they are saying and sharing.

Twitter is about "what are you doing" type of messages, some of what I post at times, it is also about referencing back to other sources of information. That information can be the draw to get Twitter users to go to a web site, important if part of your business strategy is using the web as a viable vehicle to interact with your clients or potential clients.

To date I have 110 followers, not all are real people as far as I know, as the use of add me type bots do exist, but at least 2/3 of them are real people who choose to follow my comments and references. Some of my most recent followers are other CIO's, a group I look forward to further exchange in my extended network.

For me Twitter is still a work in progress, which is why I have a few social media guru's I follow, so I get the best mind think in advance before the main stream catches up. I can already see how our business team can use it to create opportunity to sell services by providing knowledge to it's followers, by creating opportunity/alternate service channels.

In the end our clients will define our corporate success which I firmly believe will be using some forms of social media, will that be twitter specifically? Don't know but I don't want to wait until it's too late to catch this wave as it will be our clients I am not listening to, and that we can't afford.

Thanks for listening . . .

Negotiation Tips and Techniques

I do not take any credit for the first portion of this list, it came from notes I made while on a FREE Gartner webinar today. The closing points are my own and I thought unique enough from the previous points to share.

This list is compromised from Tweets I sent on Twitter, so they are reduced to the 140 character limit of Twitter, you would need to attend the Gartner event to get all their insight behind these bullets.

From Garner Conference Call titled; Hardball Negotiating Tactics

Negotiating tactic #1 - Don't play hard to get - be hard to get a hold off (ensure entire team is on side and not having side conversations)

Negotiating tactic #2 - Commoditize Pricing to demonstrate market awareness (vendors & pricing)

Negotiating tactic #3 - Cancel Contracts for non critical elements, hard dollar impact lets them know you are serious

Negotiating tactic #4 - Reset the rules for RFP's, go back and re focus based on business needs & keep asking until you get the right answer

Negotiating tactic #5 - Give nothing away for free, does your vendor know more about your business than you do, close the door on their information network

Now for 5 extreme tactics for negotiating (credit to Gartner for these also)

1) Keep looping on strategic decisions until vendors comply

2) Good cop. Bad Cop with other parts of business, let IT be the good guy in negotiating

3) Use indirect competition, services based offerings a good tactic these days

4) If vendor performing negatively today, score their performance and use it to bring them in line

5) Delay purchase until vendor is compliant

Here are a few of my own negotiating tactics;

1) Negotiate on the basis you are establishing a 10-15 yr relationship with them, focus long term vs short term

2) Negotiate on the basis of honesty, be fair and honest and recognize we need a deal and they need to make money

3) Negotiate for the business and not for yourself, avoid temptation of add-on's, cash incentives, and other freebies, you win - biz loose

4) Know when to walk away and not waste everyone's time, perhaps your too early on the curve for the offering

5) Finally know you target goal and be happy when you meet or exceed it, don't keep pushing as you may risk some part of the relationship

Thanks for listening

Imaging Engine Results

I finally put together our results for various imaging results based upon real life documents. We used OCR/ICR based technology to capture data in these tests.

My views on social media

The observations and information below are from my own research and experiences and extrapolating what some technologies may be useful for.

Thought leaders say business must connect with clients in way that builds community, as younger workers come into work force and we interact with them we must do so in ways they want to interact and that is social media or creating communities of value for them to belong to.

Blog's - self publishing, on-line public diary of sorts. Limited feedback through comments that can be controlled or not allowed.

Wiki - think of a shared piece of paper, we work together to build information, documents, manuals that allow multiple contributors - creates centres of excellence based upon authors, not where they are in the organization.

Social Media Sites (Face Book/My Space/LinkedIn) - while consumer sites like Facebook/my Space are more focused on personal contacts (friends/family), LinkedIn is a business to business contact site (business associates/suppliers/customers). Consumer based sites speak to connecting with potential work force, recruiting efforts. LinkedIn as potential to leverage all of our networks as 1 virtual network (sales channel, solution channel, subject matter expert channel)

Twitter - sold as "micro blogging" at 140 characters at a time (see Blog's above) Really functions as real time extension of all of above in many ways, a consolidator of the above technologies that creates micro publishing but also links back into the substance that may exist in other platforms as per above.

Video - Unlike the rest of the above which are new channels to communicate, Video is really about content, key issue on-line is keep it relevant and to the point and convey idea's in under 10 minutes.

Think of these technologies like the radio (not satellite), we don't pay to listen to the radio, but by creating value that builds an audience, it creates value for advertisers. These are mediums that help us broadcast that value message (NOT ADVERTISING)

Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post, at Allthingsdigital conference (D7) last week reinforced message that providing value on-line is not about subscriptions (ie: satellite radio to keep with example), but creating value that creates opportunities to build value ($$$$).

The BIG day didn't come

Right up to the final day I was in the office before the holidays, we were working on this deal. The end result was we deferred making a decision because the numbers didn't make sense and it didn't feel right, yes making the right decision is part gut feel and not just a hard numbers game.

Here is a bit of detail on what we are looking at doing and why it didn't make sense

Heart of the deal

After many revisions what we were looking to do is revamp our infrastructure as our lease had come due after 36 months, our typical leasing term.

The resulting solution has gone from an Intel server (yes you read that right), to a SAN with blades and multi baby power systems from IBM including 1 model 520 i system, to the end result after a few product announcements to a 8 way IBM i to continue the path we have travelled with Linux LPARS and AIX on the box because the VIOS hyper visor controls virtualization and not the i5 OS which has worked for us in the past but been fraught with performance concerns. It also included a N series SAN from IBM with 4 Intel servers, 2 task oriented and 2 large virtualization boxes using VMware plus network enhancements with large cisco boxes on the top of the network stack adding 1GB to the network and POE capabilities.

That is the bulk of it.

What about virtualization?

The i box from IBM would of course do virtualization with i5OS, AIX, and Linux in the mix. The large intel based X series boxes from IBM where of course going to use VMware for intel based linux and windows virtualization.

Is SaaS really outsourcing by another name?

In short I say yes. But let me clarify that although I believe that that it does have its place in today's business. For the last 2 years our US division has used a vertical solution for that part of the business with great success. Sometimes it seems we get caught in a flurry of past success and perhaps start to assume that maybe it works in other cases.

Part of the journey I have been traveling is the detailed analysis on not just 1 solution but multiple, some at my bosses (I have two folks I report to in parallel) request, and others at my own desire to change the way we do things.

In the end the overriding decision was that to consider the primary role of the software for our Canadian division and evaluate the vendors newer SaaS based offering for the same software. The financial analysis said that currently I run the operation at about 1/2 the cost they offer their service at. But be clear when evaluating SaaS it isn't just about cost. The solution has to be looked at in relation to many things, let me give you an example of our first analysis a few years ago:

- The vendor we had was not responsive, The SaaS vendor appeared to be responsive

- The software was old and behind the times, vendor had no clear direction; The SaaS vendor had a modern application and as we discussed emerging compliance issues they had answers.

- We were missing tools that customers wanted; The SaaS vendor had the tools and potential clients agreed to do business with us if we acquired that solution so they could use it.


In short the decision was strategic and not just financial. As I said 2 years later we were right and we are glad we did it.


So back to my story on the BIG decision. It wasn't strategic, what it was changing the location of where you run the application. In the end it wasn't a starter even though by current estimates we are or are close to being the only customer still running it on their own hardware, that is a risk and one I am watching very carefully because that can become strategic if things change.

But as I said this wasn't a one horse race. I have also looked at and made recommendations as part of this whole deal on other things;

> Moving our email front end security and filtering to Webroot over Google for many reasons besides cost., currently we run that a virtual linux partition. Missing is GUI front end, sphere of control, Archiving and Discovery Tools, and Web based DR site capabilities, not bad for a single bundle.

> Moving our traditional edi processing to vendor side, I save $1700/month in trouble shooting labor a month and he charges only $700 more for that. I redeploy the labor to other tasks so that isn't a real saving but the impact was enough to consider to off load work.

> Moving to Parature.com for web based top notch customer service/help desk solution


In the end all that along with the storage in the SAN, Network Upgrades, some education and other items didn't create enough of a business win to justify the increase in cost of a lease to cover those items. We are reviewing the whole deal quarterly through 2009 and if the economics change for the better or I can create greater corporate value for the deal we will make the change.

Now like everyone else, I have to work with what I got in 2009 and do more with less, ah well

Thanks for listening . . .

I went to the Dark Side

My daughter in November 2008 had a brush with success with her desire to have a music career.

During this experience I saw how they used a Mac computer and Garage Band to assemble her original written lyrics into a complete song.

I WAS IMPRESSED!!!

I now have a Mac Book Pro 17" to play on with a 1 TB Time Capsule device for storage.

It is a different world but I am trying to get as many of my tools I use on a portable on this Mac so I can try and use it not only for the FUN things like media handling, but for real pay the bills kind of work also.

I found out very quickly that there is a linux/unix back end to this machine and from there I keep getting more and more impressed.

I will post another entry about my customer service experience with Apple as well.

Thanks for listening . . .