The AHA! Moment

Almost every company describes themselves to the customer base almost exactly the same way. Customers are left to make up their own minds and without any differentiation they make the same choices: the one they know that costs the least.

Every company is unique.  Every company has something that sets them apart from all the others.  Products and services have been developed with care and dedication.  But almost every company describes themselves to the customer base almost exactly the same way.  The same phrases, same buzzwords, same claims, same features, same keywords.  Customers are left to make up their own minds and without any differentiation they make the same choices: the one they know that costs the least.

The companies believe their products and services are their differentiators, and they would be right… from their perspective.  The customers, however, have no idea what it is that sets those products apart because they are described the same.

A company may decide to invest in marketing and technology to grab the attention of a significant portion of the market, raising their visibility to the level of the market leaders, but they will still fill that communication pipeline with the same phrases, same buzzwords, same claims, same features, same keywords as those leaders. The customers have only the option of price to differentiate.

How do you break the cycle?

First, find an uncrowded, interactive communication pipeline to grab attention.  For example, everyone uses Youtube, or Vimeo or Brightcove to disseminate video, but all of the most used video platforms are crowded, minimally interactive, and filled with a lot of repetitive information.  They deliver basic information about viewers, but very little, truly valuable information… like who the heck are these people and how can you contact them.  There are technologies that will give you significant information about each viewer and their preferences; allow you to create a conversation with your most likely customer and find out what they need to know that sets you apart from the crowd, demonstrate your true value and minimize popularity and cost from the decision process.

Second, find out what makes you different… AND THEN SAY IT!  Here’s how you figure that out:

Your customers don’t care about your technology and that you adhere to the same standards as everyone else.  Knowing your technology doesn’t help them.  What makes you different is that you solve their problem.  Show that you actually understand their problem because you spent some time listening to them.  When you find them, ask them questions.  Get a clear idea what they are facing.  Remember, everyone is different, so offering them a solution based on what you assume is everyone’s problem says you don’t think they are unique.  In fact, they may not be, but you have to make them think they are.  What comes out of that conversation will be a story that will resonate will many potential customers; customers who will say, “Hey, this company gets it.  Let’s find out more.”

That is the AHA! moment you need, the thing that differentiates you and makes you into the rarest of all companies: The customer-focused company.  

More to come.

(Are you ready to create the moment for your customers.  Ask for a free consultation here.)

Customer Experience Recognition Awards to launch at IDW2014

The first ever Customer Experience Recognition Awards (CERA) will be part of the Information Development World (#IDW2014) program in October.

The first ever Customer Experience Recognition Awards (CERA) will be part of the Information Development World (#IDW2014) program in October.

 

CERA will recognize outstanding contributions to exceptional customer experiences by information developers in a variety of disciplines including technical communication, marketing, content strategy, customer support, translation, and product management. 

 

Nominations for the awards are being accepted until the September 19th. You can invite folks to nominate themselves or nominate others. You can even nominate companies if you would like. 

Submissions can be made to recognize companies, teams, project leaders, and consultants working in content development within any industry. CERA honorees demonstrate how content is integral to exceptional customer experience, and show collaborative effort between design, content development, and experience delivery to achieve business objectives.

Here are some links for more information.

Submit Your Entry

Submission Categories

Awards Criteria

Questions 

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Information Development World: You need to be there.

There are not an infinite number of monkeys.

I appreciate the ability of the web to lower the barrier for people to publish content because it truly simplifies my work, as well. But just because you can create a website and populate it with pictures and words does not make you an effective communicator, or a journalist, or even a writer.

I was once waiting for a plane whose take off had been delayed and a well-dressed but obviously annoyed fellow passenger sat down next to me grousing about the airline, so I struck up a conversation to help him take the edge off.

"Going out or coming home?"
"Out," he said. "Speaking at a medical conference."
"Oh? What's your field?"
"Neurosurgery."

I thought that was fascinating and asked a few questions, like where he was educated, where he did his residency, how many years, etc. and we had an interesting discussion of his field. Then, being polite, he asked what I did.

I always struggle with that question. I've used the terms journalist and PR consultant, but in the past 10 years those terms have acquired inaccurate and unfavorable opinions about what they are. I've tried using professional communicator and content strategist for about 6 years, but even when I offer a simple explanation people have a hard time with the concept. So I've fallen into a pattern of just saying,
"I'm a writer."

That description, however always generates the same response, which makes me cringe... and the doctor used it.

"Really? I've often thought about doing some writing."

So I looked at him and said:

"That's interesting. I've been thinking about taking up brain surgery."

He wasn't pleased.

I've been a working in the field of human-to-human communication since I was 17 years old in both broadcast and print media, technical communication, editing, public relations, marketing communications and now in content development. I have a degree in journalism. It took me a good 10 years as a professional just to get to the point I felt adequate. Over the past 45 years I've spent every waking minute studying the art and practice of communication, reviewing technologies, honing my skill. I don't mind it if people want to enter into the profession and I highly encourage it, especially since I believe it will be entering the golden age soon. But it really annoys me that people think it requires absolutely no skill, dedication or knowledge to do.

I appreciate the ability of the web to lower the barrier for people to publish content because it truly simplifies my work, as well. But just because you can create a website and populate it with pictures and words does not make you an effective communicator, or a journalist, or even a writer.

It is said if you put an infinite number of monkeys in a room with an infinite number of typewriters, eventually they will produce the works of Shakespeare.  There are not, however, an infinite number of monkeys and it's hard to find any typewriters anymore. If you really want to be a communicator, get ready to do some work and, for crying out loud, ask for help.

A good place to fine it will come in October at Information Development World coming to San Jose, October 22-24, organized by Content Rules and the Content Wrangler.  This is the first big step toward making content development a serious profession.

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Information Development World: You need to be there.

Last week I had a brief but productive conversation with Jill Rowley about content and social selling and she said something very profound.  She pointed out that her driving force, social selling, is still in its “1.0 stage” and remains largely undefined and that content marketing, which should be entering the 2.0 stage still remains largely undefined.  that is problematic for her because sharing good content is crucial to success in social selling.

That’s why I was extremely excited when I received an invitation to be an official participant, as an influencer, at Information Development World coming to San Jose, October 22-24, organized by Content Rules and the Content Wrangler.  This is the first big step toward making content development a serious profession.

I have an ongoing battle with both marketers and journalists about what constitutes content development.  Both consider it to be just another arm of marketing.  In truth, that is what much of it has been.  That is the problem with it.  If content is seen as an offshoot of marketing in todays media-rich culture, it fails.  And as Richard Edelman points out, that practice is backward.  Content and the strategy that creates it should drive marketing, not the other way around.  From the description given me of “InfoDevWorld,” making content the horse that pulls the cart is the intent of the event.

“Information Development World is the first—and only—conference dedicated to helping organizations create exceptional customer experiences centered around content,” said Adam Helweh, principal at Secret Sushi and one of the event team. “Our goal is to bring together the brightest minds in the content arena—content strategists, technical communicators, content marketers, product managers, customer assistance specialists, translators, localizers, taxonomists, and user experience professionals—to demystify the methods, standards, tools and technologies needed to deliver exceptional omni-channel customer experiences.”

Note that marketers are only a part of the process.

I changed my career path to content strategy 10 years ago, about 6 years before the phrase content marketing became popular.  I’ve got a good idea what it actually means and what needs doing, but I always need input. So I’m going to this thing, even though trade shows and conferences are my least enjoyable experience and I will be there every day, tweeting, blogging, taking video and generally making myself a nuisance asking very hard questions.

If you are involved in the development of content or using content, either as a corporate lackey or a media hack, I urge you to check this event out.  It’s time to define this thing and this event is step one.

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38 new companies face curse of Silicon 60

You may have heard of the Sports Illustrated Cover Curse: It states that any athlete featured on the cover will immediately experience a rapid decline in skill and accomplishment.

What you may not have heard of is a similar curse in the electronics industry: The curse of the EE TIMES Silicon 60. 

Peter Clarke compiles the list irregularly after evaluation by the UBM Tech editorial team.  Most of the companies identified since it started in 2004 have disappeared from the earth. The curse goes beyond the list, though. There is a reason for it, and it has nothing to do with UBM or the list itself.

Back when I owned a PR agency, many of my clients expressed a desire to be included on this list.  I never really quite understood why.  There are a lot of startups that seek to make the list, and all other media coverage as a validation of their business model or technology.   Companies that make the list trumpet the achievement, for several years, before they disappear altogether.  Basically, it’s because they have nothing else to say. And if they have nothing else to say, they disappear.

Getting a meeting with a B2B editor is relatively easy for a startup.  They all want to talk to you if they are getting a scoop.  If someone else wrote a story about you, forget it.  If they ever wrote about you before, you'll probably never get them to write another... unless you have something important to say.  

That's what makes a Silicon 60 listing so dangerous. Many of the companies have had some mention before by a UBM Tech editor and have been lurking in the wings for some time when the press finally decides to pay attention.  Once they are listed, however, they have to really deliver on the promise and there likely will not be a single follow-up story about them until they do.  That's the way modern B2B media works.

Content marketing is generally thought to be an answer to that problem.  Become your own publisher and tell the story you want told.  But like the B2B media, you have to figure out if the story you want to tell is what your customer wants to read.  Journalists are generally better at figuring that out than you are.  That's why they won't write anything more about you once the story has already been done.  Repetition doesn't build readership.  If the press has already told the story you want to tell, your customer won't care anymore.

Forrester recently put out the results of a survey that showed only 14 percent of marketers found their content marketing programs are highly effective.  That seems to fly in the face of the Content Marketing Institute's research that says 75 percent of marketers are highly satisfied with the results of their programs until you realize the qualifier in the latter study: the marketers that are satisfied are those with a content marketing STRATEGY.  And according to CMI, less than 5 percent of marketers are working on content strategically.

So what is a Content Marketing Strategy? I'll make it simple for you.  It's making sure that your content is engaging your audience, not your CEO.  The real challenge is, everyone thinks they already know what content will engage their customers, but the Forrester survey proves that most don’t.  What’s really needed is an outside view to help you see the broader picture when determining your strategy.

 If any of the Silicon 60 companies accept that truth, they just might survive the curse.

Need help figuring out what your content strategy should be?  Give us a call or send an email and we’ll help you figure it out.  It’s what we do.  In fact, I’ll even throw out a limited time offer.  We’ll give away a FREE 30 minute strategy session to the first 10 people who contact us at 650-366-8212 or click here.. 

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Finding the small data in Big Data is what makes you grow

 The technology world is hell-bent on serving the needs of big data in the cloud because, after all, the cloud is the place to be, right?  And one of the big benefits of the cloud is how it simplifies the marketing process.

However, the technology industry (mostly semiconductor and its related industries) that support those customers generally hate marketing, don’t want to invest in it and say they already know who their customers are.  They really don't need the cloud, they think. Those industries are still using mass market techniques and a shotgun approach to marketing, blasting the marketplace with generic, repetitive messages; targeted at the people who have no authority to make purchases and very little influence on those who do.

 For example, several years ago I worked with a rapidly growing semiconductor company who happen to have gotten into the iPod when it first came out.  Gave them instant credibility and massively growing sales.  They were coming out with a relatively exciting new component that they wanted to unveil at a major trade show.  We advised them that they should start with a  blitz directly to their primary customer, Apple, before the show.  They said, “We already know our customers well and we have talked to the right people, already.  So we backed off.

On the first day of the trade show, two men with Apple badges came up and took a look at the display with the new component.  No one from the semi company knew who they were.  They got a briefing from the marketing people about the component and then one of them said, just before leaving, “It’s too bad we didn’t know about this.  Could have worked well in our new product."

Shortly after that, the client fired us. A few months later Apple came out with the iPhone, with a component from their number one competitor. The client started a rapid downhill slide.  They never again hit the growth they were on before.  In April, the competitor acquired our former client.

What was missing from their marketing?  Small data.

Small data is that crucial information about the one person in your customer base that makes the crucial decision to buy whatever it is you are selling.  It’s the information that makes a salesman’s contact list important to him keeping his current job or getting his next.  It used to be found by excruciatingly endless sales calls and foot numbing trade shows and mindlessly expensive lunch meetings.  Today, however, it comes out of effectively shaving down the yottabytes of data gathered through social media and discovering the name of that one person that will make the sales quota for the year.

And, according to recent research from the Content Marketing Institute, companies who have figured out how to do that are making money.  Lots of money.  Unfortunately, less than 10 percent of those companies have figured it out, and a lot of those clueless companies exist in the world of electronics.

Earlier this year, Alix Partners issued a report that shows most of the semiconductor industry, from chips, to CAD tools, and all the way to solar panels is in financial distress, and within two years, the entire industry will be, even though these companies are selling more product and services than ever.  The basic problem of the industry is that they are creating products and services that do not meet the actual needs of their customers and they are investing millions of dollars in effort to sell those reluctant customers even more  of their unwanted products and services.  The industry is still buying tons of Big Data, but they won’t invest in the means to winnow that information down to the right person and make the sale.

Yes, they know who their customers are, but they are, for the most part, the wrong customer.

 We’ll be doing more on this soon.  There is a new marketing technology about to hit the streets and it solves the problem.  Only time will tell if it is used by the people who need it most.

If you want to know more, contact us.

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Is the quality of your content is dragging down your marketing?

As a follow up to the audio chat with Joe Pulizzi, my partner-in-crime, Joe Basques and I did a price Hangout on Air about the state of social media marketing.  We’ve found that the new paradigm of communication is not as widespread as reported.  Those that hope for a return to the “good old days” of mass media are going to be disappointed, however, because that stuff isn’t working either.

It comes down to one thing:  The content being distributed, either through social channels or traditional channels, is really, really bad. Some people are starting to realize it, but they are few in number, possibly fewer than those who have figured it out.

 Listen to our conversations, then send us questions or comments.  Let’s figure this out together.

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Had a chat with Joe Pulizzi of Content Marketing Institute today about how well content marketing is doing in US business

Had a chat with Joe Pulizzi of Content Marketing Institute today about how well content marketing is doing in US business.  Of course we've all heard the glowing reports, but it turns out that the success is still very limited to only those that are doing it right.  And there aren't many of them at that.  Gee, who knew?  Here's the discussion.

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Think twice before discounting print as part of your marketing mix.

It's not that social is failing business. Business just isn't doing it.

They are creating 20th century content, stuffing it into web 2.0 sites and putting links to social platforms so lots of people can see how god-awful their stuff is.

When I was a young journalist, I worked for the managing editor from Hell.  I'd write a story, turn it in, he'd cuss under his breath, crumple it up and say, "Do it again."  

He'd never tell me what was wrong with it, because he said he really didn't know, so he gave me no good direction.  I went through that for 18 months and was on the verge of being fired every month.  Talk about a gaunlet.  But after those 18 months I started to see what he saw and my copy started getting better.  Much better.  And I could explain what made a story good or bad, which came in handy for new reporters who started to go through the gauntlet.  Because I could help them, they became better faster, which made the paper better overall.  I went from becoming a crappy reporter to a damn good writer and editor.

Today I see much the same thing going on in small businesses and multinational corporations.  They all think they are doing social communications, but they aren't.  They are creating 20th century content, stuffing it into web 2.0 sites and putting links to social platforms so lots of people can see how god-awful their stuff is.  Their customers are acting like my old managing editor and tossing the stuff aside and mumbling under their breath, but they aren't telling the companies what is wrong, because most people don't know what makes good stuff.  They just know it when they see it.

Some studies are coming out that companies aren't seeing value in social communication and some are saying it just doesn't work.  It's like a carpenter who forgot nails complaining that his hammer doesn't work. 

There are companies out there that are doing really well at social, and that keeps getting reported:  That businesses have embraced the new communication medium and are making money like crazy with it.  Those people probably aren't you.  We know that now.  We've got the numbers and it isn't what's being reported.  We still have a long way to go before this new medium becomes the norm.

We'll be talking about this Monday on a Hangout on Air.  If you want the lowdown, tune in. 

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Is content driving your media strategy or dragging it down?

Lots of journalists have a hard time distinguishing what is good content (in other words, stuff that people will read and watch) and what they actually produce.

Facebook recently announced it would be "punishing" users with bad content by driving it out of friends and followers news feeds. Reports are coming in that most marketers have no idea if their content is actually effective.  More experts are saying there is an extreme disconnect between "best practice" SEO and good content.

And it goes beyond marketing.  Lots of journalists have a hard time distinguishing what is good content (in other words, stuff that people will read and watch) and what they actually produce.  A couple of weeks ago the president of a large media company told me in frustation that his advertisers what to tell one story and his journalists want to tell another.  But the readers are asking for something altogether different and he can't get his team or sponsors to understand that.

Joe Basques and I just finished a Hangout where we take a look at the problem.  Questions and comments welcome.

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The trouble with trade shows

51st Design Automation Conference (DAC) in San Francisco have come out and, if they are anything like past reports, the numbers are, in the least, moderately steamed if not entirely cooked.

The latest numbers on the 51st Design Automation Conference (DAC) in San Francisco have come out and, if they are anything like past reports, the numbers are, in the least, moderately steamed if not entirely cooked.  I found a site that does independent audits of trade show attendance and found that the numbers reported by the Electronic Design Automation Consortium (EDAC) are between 50 and 1000 participants higher than the independent audit numbers.

In reality, the EDA “official” total attendance of 6,701 attendees — if accurate — is slightly under the 6 year average of 6,795.  DAC is not growing.  It’s flat.  There is one definite trend that’s showing a decrease, and that is exhibitor support which has come down steadily from 3400 exhibitor support staff down to 2500 this year.  

But don’t take it personally.  I looked at the numbers for an even larger trade show connected to the Electronic Design industry: Semicon West.  The independent agency reported a low of 22,900 in 2011, which was the last year Semicon contracted with it to audit the conference.  In 2012, SEMI reported they had rebounded to 29,200, which was boosted by the inclusion of a solar industry show.  But the following year, total attendance dropped 3,000 as the bloom came off the solar industry rose.

SXSW in Austin is a good example that there is nothing inherently wrong with the concept of trade shows/ conferences.  That’s a place where companies experiment with messages and stories. But if I go to a particular trade show in the electronics industry more than once every five years, I will hear the same stories told that didn’t engage the customer the previous years.  In fact, for DAC, there has been little change in the content of the conference since I first started going in 1995.

And that is the trouble with trade shows.  Joe Basques and I talked about it last week (see it below) after I visited DAC in San Francisco. In short, the exhibitors and presenters at these shows have no idea what will actually engage their audience.  Until they do, don’t expect to see real growth in trade shows or their industries.

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At the #51DAC in San Francisco this week, I was approached by three separate companies in the Exhibition Hall at Moscone South who wanted me to do a story on them.  I looked the representtive in the eye and say, "OK, Why?"  That I didn't ask "What do you do?" or "What is your product?" completely flummoxed them.  All I was asking was their reason for existence.  They had no idea.

We've been talking about how the events are getting worse every year and we think our experience this year identified the problem.  We will be talking about it at a special Hangout tomorrow at 9:30 Pacific.  Here's the link, and the Youtube page.

Come with questions and comments.

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Embrace the horror of bad review

Companies large and small worry about online reviews, almost to a point of paranoia, without ever finding the value in them.  In today’s social world, the best review may be a bad one, depending on how you react to it.  Let me offer two bad examples and two good. 

A winery owner was freaked out over bad reviews on Yelp and asked for our help in “getting rid of them.”  We did an analysis of the reviews and found that one of the 72 reviews was negative about the product of the winery and two were from a former business partner that went their way acrimoniously.  Most were glowing reports of the wines and, in particular, the unique collection of ports they produced.  Several were highly complementary of the facilities and and the services.  However, within the high praise for the product were multiple negative comments about the lackadaisical attitude of the staff and the public arguments between the owners of the business.  What was “killing” them on Yelp was something that was easily fixed: Don’t argue in front of your customers and get rid of employees who aren’t there to work.  They had a hard time understanding that.

Then there was one that happened to me recently.  I decided to order some pasta sauce online rather than go to the supermarket for it.  It arrived four days after the promised delivery date and the jars had shattered in the inadequate packaging.  According to the postal service, they picked it up like that and ended up having to label it a biohazard. I went to the store to get my sauce and then requested a refund.  It took them a day to respond, but before they did, they requested a review of their service.  So I did and gave them the lowest rating.  That prompted them to call me and said they would give me a full refund IF I removed the review.  It wasn’t an insulting review, it was just honest and removing a review from Amazon is not easy.  Plus they conditioned my refund based on my action.  They might have gotten a better response if they had offered to make it right.  I think they got what they deserved and I learned a valuable lesson about ordering pasta sauce online.

Now for some good examples.

A student at a local preschool fell in a playground and hit his head on a tree root.  The injury was quite bloody but there was no serious damage.  The school employees responded quickly and the child received medical aid and evaluation.  The parent, however, charged the school with negligence, which was determined to be without cause.  Undeterred, she launched a Yelp campaign with multiple fake accounts.  It was easy to determine that it was the same person because she made the exact same spelling and grammatical errors in each post, and copied whole sections from each.  The director sought our advice and we first suggested going to her and seeing what could be done, but the woman was not convinced and continued her campaign.  Our counsel was to enlist the help of other parents, telling them exactly what the issue was and asking them to go on Yelp to state their own concerns and reviews.  The result was a wave of positive comments that raised the approval rating of the school and pushed the negative reviews to the bottom.  

Finally, your unhappy customers can become your best friends.  There was a tire shop that called us in to help them launch a modest social media program using Yelp and Facebook.  Everything was going well and sales jumped 600 percent in three months requiring the addition of personnel and new equipment.  But the fly in the ointment was a very negative comment by one customer on Yelp.  It wa so negative the shop owner wanted to pull business from Yelp.  We offered a different perspective. 

We had the owner personally call up the customer, apologize for the problem and ask for specific details of what had upset her.  The owner got a good perspective on a weakness in his business, offered to fix the problem and throw in a free service.  The customer came back, was more than satisfied with the new service and started raving about the business on Facebook and amended her review on Yelp.  That one customer has become an ambassador for the business.

Social reviews can kill your business, but they can also be a substantive force for positive change.  Don’t fear them.  Embrace the horror.

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An equation for a communications budget

"Super seller" Jill Rowley is a new professional hero for me. She recently posted the following in Facebook:

Social selling approach does take more effort because you are not initially selling—you are adding value. You are showing that you have earned the right to sell by doing your homework.

It's a great statement because she emphasizes that personal commitment to communication is the most important aspect of modern marketing and sales. It inspired me to come up with the following video lesson on what investment in communications looks like:

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Media directories and press release services for small companies can be overwhelming

I've been involved in a discussion on Linkedin for the past week regarding finding affordable media directories and most of the discussion has been pitches from sales people at media directors and press release services.  Funny how that works.  Of course, none of the pitches actually answers the question asked.  Funny how that works, too.

Here was the question: I'm interested to know if anyone can tell me of an inexpensive online media directory vs. Cision and others. I just need it for some circulation figures and a few other items.

The questioner wasn't looking for  how to reach editors or produce content, or send out press releases.  She just wanted to get some circulation figures.  The answer, of course, is at the public library where you can find the information in several directories for free.  You can also sign-up for a free membership to BPA Worldwide and do a search.  I'm actually surprised how many PR and Advertising professionals do not know about either of those resources.  

There are several organizations that offer your own hard copy or paid-for online service for a significant fee.  Of course "significant" is a matter of degree.  if you are a large advertising firm with millions in revenue, you can always buy the information for use in house and pass the cost on to your clients.  If you are a one- or two-person operation, those services tend to eat into your budget and clients notice the extra fee.

Then comes the add-on services, like press release distribution, monitoring, analytics, etc. There is something to be said for having some of that service purchased, but whether you should choose one over the other is harder.  Business Wire and PR Newswire are the biggest and most comprehensive, but most corporate marketing people, and few consultants know how to use most of the service you pay for... and you can end up paying through the nose for most of it if you don't know what you are doing.  The sales reps will help you work your way through it, but only if you ask.

Sor those that don't understand how to use the services, that's where the cut-rate services are attractive because they will still do exactly what you get out of the big guys and are sent to pretty much the same people.  There is very little difference.

That is why I recommend that if you truly want to be professional about reaching journalists, you need to build your own list and maintain it.  The wire services boast of the 10s of thousands of journalists and analysts on their list, but it is likely that unless you are selling beer or boner pills, you don't need to know how to reach every single journalist on your list.  You need to reach less than a dozen.  And building a relationship that gets you the coverage you need will take time.  It can't be automated and you can't buy it in a one-size-fits-all service.

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Net neutrality may no longer be an issue

Net neutrality by no longer be an issue

 I’ve been following the debate regarding net neutrality for sometime and recently gave a talk to a group of small business people about how it could affect them directly.  But in the past few days I’ve become increasingly sanguine about it all.  From where I stand today, whether it is mandated by federal edict may be entirely unnecessary.  

 There are four reasons for this:

1. It died long ago on the receiver end


2. It’s almost dead on the transmission end


3. Technological advances in compression make any difference in speed unobservable


4. The Federal Clown College (FCC) has so little understanding of the issues they would screw it up even if they did it right.

Let’s take a look at reason #1. 

I buy the highest speed possible from Comcast because I need it for my business.  I do a lot of video work and I need the speed.  But I live and work in an area of my town where there are only a few Comcast customers who use this kind of bandwidth.  Stanford University Hospital … and me. I discovered this reality this past year when I reported a degradation in service to Comcast and they said they had no other reports, but in checking down the line, they found some equipment problems that was slowly going south.  When the University started to complain, they were able to triangulate off my service and theirs to find the problem.

What does this have to do with net neutrality? The basic doctrine says that everyone should have equal access to the internet for the equivalent price, yet for years ISPs have been providing different levels of internet speed on the receiver end with no complaints.  No other Comcast subscriber in my area would notice any performance difference until the equipment completely failed, because their chosen service speed was considerably slower than mine.  So net neutrality has no noticeable affect on the consumer for the most part.  That’s why so few people either understand nor care about the issue.

 Now for reason #2.

Google’s Youtube has been gating content in favor of those who pay for some time.  More often than not you will bring up a Youtube video and immediately a commercial will appear.  After a few seconds you have the option of clicking out of it, but when you do, the video you originally clicking on will take a while to load.  That’s because Youtube will make absolutely sure the ad runs right away, but your free video doesn’t get the same response.  So Youtube has violated the net neutrality doctrine for quite a while.  That’s just one example. Since the FCC doctrine was knocked down, Netflix has already made a deal with Comcast — one that they don’t like but agreed to anyway — to get preferential access to the network.

There will be time for the public to make comment on the new doctrine guidelines, but unless the opposition actually causes some legislators to lose their job, it seems clear the clowns are going to move forward.  That means we need reason #3 to override the decision.

Technology is advancing rapidly especially in the compression world.  Junko Yoshida reporting at NAB a few weeks ago wrote about a product that reduces bit rate requirements by as much as 50 percent, even on compressed data, with no loss of quality.  Another company I’ve run across ( and plan to look into more closely) is claiming to speed up wifi connections by up to a factor of 3.  Technologies like these will easily bypass slower connections and make the hi-speed “lanes” from Comcast an unnecessary expense. 

So, while the Federal Clowns flail about to regulate a business and technologies they don’t understand and corporate behemoths try to lobby their way to hegemony, I’m feeling pretty positive about the future, thanks to some very innovative people.

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Amazon gets my business as they shift toward big box competition.

Right now, I think Amazon and Google have become the best friends of retail world, including local business. I’m not sure Costco can survive. If I were a stock holder, I’d be calling my broker.

 I made a significant decision recently to let my Costco membership expire and give my business to Amazon and a lot of it has to do with how both have marketed themselves to me.  i think I might be on the cutting edge on this “trend” but I think it’s going to cause trouble for Costco down the road.

 I have shopped at Costco since 1987.  Average trip was around $300 and I went twice a month.  I still shopped at local brick-and-mortars when Costco didn’t have what I needed, but bulk items bought there made more sense.

I boycotted Amazon for a time because of their stance and active lobbying against state sales tax in California, but when they gave up their tactics that actually hurt small, local business I decided to give their Amazon Prime service a try.  Recently, however, I started buying grocery items in bulk, just like I did at Costco.  I found the prices were at least competitive and had the added bonus that they could be delivered to me within two day, which saved time and gas for me.

Then something wonderful happened.  Amazon’s algorithms started analyzing my purchases and showing me things that I thought were only available at Costco, and then sending me notifications.  This month, I visited Costco once and looking at my shopping list, I have no reason to go back.  Ever.  

Amazon communicates better than Costco, which has weakly embraced the changing market.  If you do a search for Costco on Twitter, you will find dozens of inactive accounts.  I’ve learned that the corporation still relies on minimum-wage workers to go door-to-door to encourage people to sign up for memberships.  They still rely on printed handouts, passed out at the door, to boost certain products (and every time I’m handed one I throw it in the basket and never refer to it because it never has anything I actually need).   Costco does have a website, but the savings are no better than what you get at the stores for the most part and you still have to pay for shipping.

 And now Google has entered the market making it possible to shop at local B&M stores delivering product to your door for a nominal fee.  Yesterday morning I saw three separate Google Express trucks in my neighborhood.

Right now, I think Amazon and Google have become the best friends of retail world, including local business.  I’m not sure Costco can survive.  If I were a stock holder, I’d be calling my broker.

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Getting a vision for content strategy

The vision of the market most companies have is akin to a many walking toward a cliff holding a full-length mirror in front of them. Everything looks great until they run out of land.

I got some interesting feedback on my post regarding UBM’s #EELive event both negative and positive reactions.  I said I would have more to say on this and here it is.

It’s not UBM’s fault if your industry conference goes bad.  It’s yours.

UBM fought the good fight to deliver to B2B industry what it needed, which was an independent source of news and analysis for many years.  About five years ago, it decided to give their customers what they demanded, which was a place to repeat the same marketing collateral they send out to their customers, both on line and in person.  UBM found this a much more profitable business as they saw their marketing services eclipse editorial in revenue.  Today, editorial brings in about 7 percent of the total revenue and trade shows generate a whole lot more.  As a result, UBM Tech CEO Paul Miller declared a couple of years ago the company was not longer a media company but a marketing services company.

Focusing on events and marketing services allows the company to pivot quickly whenever marketing budgets change.  If a conference they run starts to cool off (and EELive is so cool they are moving to Santa Clara Convention Center next year) then UBM will switch to hotter industries, like computer gaming (Game Developers Conference), where exhibitors and participants can listen to their own messaging.

The vision of the market most companies have is akin to a many walking toward a cliff holding a full-length mirror in front of them.  Everything looks great until they run out of land.  They need someone to point out that a cliff is coming; someone they trust… like an independent journalist. Tom Foremski over at the Silicon Valley Watcher has been calling for a return to the good old days when corporations financially supported an independent press.  I’d love that, too but it ain’t going to happen.  There are too many senior executives running corporations who don’t remember what a robust press was all about.  They can’t see how anyone who lives off of advertising revenue can be objective.  Over the past 20 years, I think they may have a point, but that’s an entirely different discussion.

What they do understand is that customers are not accepting marketing messages and I’ve written often about why that is.  All conferences work off the same mailing lists from the previous year with very little change, UBM’s included. It is an echo chamber of marketing.  That’s not the fault of the vehicle but the fault of the content.  The content fails because it’s going in the wrong direction for the most part.  There are customers out there who want to know how you can help them, but first you need to know how to help.  That comes from conversation and that is not what is happening at the conferences.

Foremski is right; industry needs independent vision, but we’re past the point where that vision can be provided external to each corporation.  The corporation needs a journalist, acting independent of marketing and sales, providing insight to marketing sales and even the C-Suite. 

More to come. 

Don’t want to wait to figure out how to get on track. Call us at Footwasher Media for an analysis of your content strategy … before you go over the cliff.

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Without a vision a trade show perishes

I went to the latest incarnation of the Embedded Systems Conference, now #EELive. This was, at one time my favorite trade show because of its diversity. This reboot, the third in five years, was more diverse, but that seems to be working against it now. It has seven distinct tracks : embedded systems, internet of things, FPGA, security, hardware startups, Android development and C++ development. None of it seemingly attracting the core audience or engineers, however, because there were not many people there. At least not as many as there use to be.

I went to the latest incarnation of the Embedded Systems Conference, now #EELive. This was, at one time my favorite trade show because of its diversity.  This reboot, the third in five years, was more diverse, but that seems to be working against it now. It has seven distinct tracks : embedded systems, internet of things, FPGA, security, hardware startups, Android development and C++ development.  None of it seemingly attracting the core audience or engineers, however, because there were not many people there.  At least not as many as there use to be.

Engineers wondering what EELive will be called next year.

I’m sure I’m going to get push back on this with lots of people (especially from UBM) saying the sessions were packed with people, and I'm sure they were.  But here are some observations.

• Exhibit participation.  For the past five years the conference has filled up all three exhibition halls at the McEnery Center and I remember they had a mammoth tent outside for a couple of years to handle overflow.  This year the exhibition was limited to two halls. 


• Parking.  I was busting my butt to get down to the conference before 9 a.m. on Tuesday because my experience told me that any later and I would be relegated to tertiary parking.  Since it was raining I didn’t want to schlep a half mile to the convention center. I got there at 9:30 and, was surprised to find parking in the covered lot inside the center.  LOTS of parking.  When I left at 3, there was still plenty of space.  Wednesday was better weather so I thought I’d save a couple of bucks and park outside.  I was surprised I could get into the secondary parking across the street.  The lot was practically empty and when I left at 2 it was still half full.  I cannot remember a time at ESC when I could find convenient parking at the convention center after 10 a.m.


• Session attendance.  Yes, UBM was widely tweeting about “standing room only” at the keynotes with pictures of people near the back standing up.  If their photographer had pushed just past the second row of back-standers, he would have seen the back of my head with three empty rows behind me and two almost empty rows in front of me.  Lots of audience members came in late, checked their email for five minutes, listened for five minutes, and escaped out the back door.  It’s too bad because on Wednesday, Bunnie Huang had a great talk about how electronic component recycling is going to bring back DIY electronics and kill the semi industry as we know it. 


• Exhibitor happiness.  There was none.  In three interviews and a doezen other discussions at exhibits was the same refrain:  “We are paying more for exhibit space every year and seeing the exact same leads as we did last year.  We will have to find something new.”

UBM will deny this, but under their current business model, they really don’t care.  If an industry they support won’t pay what they ask, they will just switch to another industry that will.  Right now, Interop and the Game Developer Conference are the big winners and are gutting the attention of the UBM hierarchy.  Case in point: this was the first year I can remember that I didn’t have a chat with UBM CEO Paul Miller at ESC/DesignWest/EELive/Etc because he was not there.

ESC used to happen three times a year.  Then it was ESC East and West.  Then it was Design West.  Now it’s EELive.  Next year, who knows.  So, what is the problem?  Vision… or the lack thereof.  And that's not necessarily the show's problem.

More to come.

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Friending Facebook for Fun and Profit!

...if your content is crap it doesn't matter how much you spend on social media, unless people find your content amusing, useful or thought provoking, NO ONE WANTS TO READ IT!

With all the negative feelings about Facebook in the marketing communications industry, I gotta say: Facebook has been doing great by me.

The big meme blasting the social network recently has been the video purporting that if you pay to boost likes they are probably fake. Then came the fashion magazine magnate who spent tens of thousands of dollars on Facebook advertising and got zero return.  Finally, marketers are pissed that Facebook is downgrading organic feeds.

The problem with all of these complaints is the fact that if your content is crap it doesn't matter how much you spend on social media, unless people find your content amusing, useful or thought provoking, NO ONE WANTS TO READ IT! 

What marketers forget is, before all this failure of their social efforts, was an uprising of users who said they were tired off getting spammed by all the crappy content marketers were forcing on them. Facebook, realizes that their bread and butter is based on positive user experience, and changed their algorithm to bring only the content the users showed interest in. But the marketers figured out how to game that change and the flood of crap content continued.  Marketers didn't learn the lesson and, in fact, refuse to change.

 So Facebook decided to tell them, "If you insist on filling feeds with crap, you are going to have to pay for the right."  What's more, they gave users new filter tools to make sure that those who refused to pay the toll got cut out of the herd.

There is a very easy fix for marketers and corporations who refuse to invest in real marketing: Make better content.  The problem, content is neither easy, nor free to create.  Someone who has spent decades honing the ability to crank out repetitive, self-serving content can't suddenly switch styles and become interesting and engaging.  That's why marketers, politicians (especially politicians), CEOs and venture capitalists need to swallow their pride and hire someone who can teach them how to communicate in the 21st Century, or do it or them.

And that's why Facebook has been doing Footwasher Media a solid.

Footwasher Media helps companies communicate effectively. What we do comes before marketing communications, public relations, advertising and sales collateral and makes it ALL more effective. We find the story that makes you unique and interesting. Find out more here.

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