Year: 2006

Maybe I skip over all the technical articles so I miss good reporting in trade publications, but this one stood out on a number of levels. Martin Rowe of Test and Measurement World reviewed new product offerings that change the configuration of oscilloscopes: Tall and Shallow or Short and Deep? Why do I like this article:

• Martin writes honestly about an decision that will frustrate buyers of new scopes. The article is talking about what engineers are talking about and Martin is acting like a peer.
• The article names brands and specific products.
• He talks to different engineers about it, from different perspectives. And what the engineers said was worthwhile, covering a lot of the factors that should be considered.
• He summarizes with his own opinion and a raises another potential issue that may be of more consequence (computer interface availability).

As a marketer, you might cringe a little to see a critique of the product offerings, but this is honest, worthwhile writing that engages the reader. And that’s what trade publications should be doing, especially when they are talking about the products they cover. It may seem simple, but rarely do trade pubs do this well. T&MW did. Kudos.

Circuits Assembly Magazine’s blog posted What Can a Patent Cover? which alerted me to this case argued at the Supreme Court on Tuesday:

“Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings is suing Metabolite Laboratories Inc. over a patented method for diagnosing B vitamin deficiencies. After several years of litigation and appeals, the case has made it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Why should the electronics industry be watching the outcome?
Because, for the first time in 25 years, the Supremes are listening to arguments over what can — and cannot — be patented. Its ruling could send shock waves through the industry.”

I agree with Mike that this is potentially dramatic for industry (electronic and more). I am rooting for LabCorp because I feel that overly broad patents (where thinking could be infringing), or patents covering nature (rather than an application of such in a unique way) are endangering our patent system.

Seth spells it out in his new Q&A format:

Q: What do you think of my brochure

A: The thing you must remember about just about every corporate or organizational brochure is this:
People won’t read it.

But that doesn’t mean that Seth thinks you should stop make brochures…read the rest of his post to understand, but at its simplist: A brochure is a statement and should be understood and produced with that in mind.

I don’t get these every day, so thought I would put it out there:

Prescott Shibles is looking for staff for Prism Media’s “New Media” online group. Sales Development, Audience Development, and Online Product Development.

Okay, I’m a cynic about this whole Web 2.0 thing, too. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from their style of hip and approachable brands and websites. After all, our customers are going to be getting used to seeing more sites that look like theirs, and perhaps we will start to look dated.

For a good post that connects us to the Web 2.0 look, go to article at Web Pages That Suck (see not everything Vincent posts is a train wreck):

So you wanna be a rock ‘n’ roll star? You gotta look like a Web 2.0 web site.

“The hot web design style right now is the Web 2.0 aesthetic. What is this aesthetic? Just look at any Web 2.0 site on this list and you’ll see lots of white space, big type, bright colors, and rounded logos.”

And because WPTS doesn’t have an archive, here are the links from the article:

• Explanation of all the required elements of a Web 2.0 web site.
• Web20generator site generator.
• What goes into having a Web 2.0 logo (with plenty of examples).

Let’s back up Danny Sullivan’s diatribe: 25 Things I Hate About Google.

The search world is getting some potentially better choices and I don’t own any Google stock to worry about. I’ve already changed the default search tool on Firefox to ASK at work and Yahoo at home. I’m also interested in Listable and Rollyo.

Update: Looks like David Shaw was jumping on this train already, inspired by a post at if:book with this line:

“what i can’t figure out is: why isn’t there a movement to develop a nonprofit, open source search engine? we have mozilla, we have wikipedia, we have linux. where is the people’s search engine? isn’t it time?”

My further comment: The point is that Google, like King David, is getting distracted by the pretty things that it has the power to seduce or buy. Searching at Google hasn’t changed significantly over the years and I think that there is plenty of room for innovation.

I hope you enjoyed my little foray into “Back to Basics Week”. It was fun to review some of the strategic issues that we don’t face every day. As I posted last week, we marketers are mostly engaged in tactical elements.

But suppose you had a new product to launch. You’ve got your strategy and product all set, just need to do a market test to get things going, and get buy-in of the rest of the organization. This final case study (complements of Big Picture Guy) is as much about politics as it is about marketing or strategy.

“My latest frustration is based on a market test we did conduct. Operations wanted to ensure the costs were borne by Marketing. Any unsold product, they insisted, would have to be the responsibility of the product managers. Finance, always seeking to keep working capital low and turns and GMROI (gross margin return on investment) high, pushed to have a small run so that, in the event of an unsuccessful launch, only minimal quantities would be left to languish in our warehouses.

The sales group screamed that they cannot and would not sell out of an empty wagon. Without a commitment from a bearish Bull Terrier, the likelihood that we will reach the volumes needed to justify a launch is diminished. Which, in turn, means that payback period and IRR (internal rate of return) targets are likely not going to be met. So General Ledger, our under-reaching accountant with the over-arching ears, refuses to include the project in our budget calculations. The senior management team is unsure it wishes to back a project that is not even in the budget. It is all nickel-and-dime stuff.”

Read the rest here: The Waters Wear the Stones

It’s not an easy situation to resolve. BPG sums up that the situation “reminds me of this Bulgarian proverb: If you wish to drown, do not torture yourself with shallow water.”

I’ve accumulated a number of blog posts I want to link to. I’d like to talk more about each of these, but why don’t you check them out yourself? You might find a couple new blogs to follow:

Wetpaint Makes Wiki Development Friendly and Simple By John Blossom points to a new wiki tool and ponders where this wiki thing is going. I’ve been pondering how to take advantage of wikis in a number of ways.

Pixel Button Generator from the Generator Blog: The button is generated with the desired text and colors and is converted into an HTML code. So cool, but no use for it right now.

The Pizza Paradigm from Infocommerce Group: Russ ponders whether we really want a cell phone that’ll find us the closest pizza shop.

About invalid clicks from Google’s Inside AdWords crew. Such honesty, straight from the source, is amazing.

Business Intelligence vs. Business Espionage by Mike Smock gives us a scale of intelligence gathering techniques ranked by ethics. (Surprisingly, not on the list is calling your competitor and pretending you’re a college student writing a paper.)

B2B Marcom: An Unmitigated Disaster by Rick Short. Rick is a genuine in-the-trenches marketing manager/blogger like me, although his blog is actually a sanctioned corporate blog. He likes to give out a dose of reality, like I do:

“To me it just doesn’t make sense that smart people can deliver educated, researched, and persuasive campaigns only to consistently lose market share – unless there are other factors at work. And there are always other factors at work.”

The Worst Web Design Techniques Featured on Web Pages That Suck in 2005 by Vincent Flanders. I’ve been a fan of WPTS for years and here is a good summary of what you missed last year. If you like train-wrecks, you should add his blog to your feeds.

What Would You Do from Sales and Marketing Magazine’s Sound-off Blog: Now you can take the challenge they publish in their magazine on-line. This time their is a marketing manager left out of a sales promotion program. Don’t you think the guy deserves a trip to Tahiti?

While I had a couple articles tagged to continue the Back to Basics series, today’s email from MarketingProfs delivered a great piece titled How to Test Your Competitive Market Strategy. This draws on many elements of strategic analysis, quoting top-shelf names like Jeffery Pfeiffer and classic tools like SWOT:

The basic 101 lesson:
“There are no silver bullets when it comes to competitive strategy. Like the development of most plans, the benefits of models or frameworks, such as SWOT, often come in the act of completing it, not in the final plan or model. The SWOT process is a good jumping-off point in terms of identifying which areas require a more in-depth, strategic analysis. The resulting strategy should be flexible, anticipatory, and focused, not static.”

The 600 level discussion:
“There are many ways to determine the attractiveness of a market, including understanding its size, its growth trends, and its potential. However, regardless of that information, if it’s full of strong, deep-pocketed competitors, it may too costly to gain a foothold. The nuance there is that a number of unattractive markets can be profitably exploited through various ‘disruptions’ or innovative business models.”

The article’s length corresponds with the complexity of the subject matter, but I think it is a great piece to read or reread if you are going looking at basic business analysis/strategy. If you are looking to go with the 600-level distruptive exploit, I’d recommend Kathy Sierra’s Equalizer Slider concept for breakthrough ideas.

I should have made it ‘back to basics for two weeks’, but that doesn’t really have the same ring to it. But I’ve run out of time to make any more posts. I stayed home with the kids yesterday (school closed due to minor ice storm), and today I have a big meeting that wasn’t planned. And, honestly, there are a couple other things on my mind.

I will post at least two more pieces in the Back to Basics series next week.

(Side note: Does anyone out there have experience with business/product strategy software? Someone I know has some interest in this ‘expert’ software right now and asked for my help. Drop me a line. Thanks.)