Category

Management

• Management

  Great marketing doesn�t always start with marketers

  12.06.05 | Permalink | Comments Off on Great marketing doesn�t always start with marketers

  I have to be honest. Part of why I made a radical career change in the late 90’s was because “the internet was going to change the world”. Not too much later I was worried I made the wrong move. These were the days of marketers who didn’t get it; banner ads, pop-ups, pop-unders, spam, bad email marketing come to mind. But we’re back on track and great innovators have shaped a new internet experience and you can even call it web 2.0.

  What has made me really excited recently is how Microsoft is showing a vulnerability through blogs and efforts such as channel 9. The interview with Bill Gates looks so genuine that’s almost endearing. I almost forgot that Bill is the richest man in the world. What Robert Scoble and his comrades are doing is the new marketing.

  To that effect, Scoble points to a posting that describes it well.

  It�s so easy to draft up a marketing plan that runs through the checkboxes – banner ads, check. Keyword buys, check. DM (if you have budget), check. List buy + email drop, check. Content kit call-to-action that collects PII for your me-too newsletter, check. These, for the most part, work in terms of generating leads and moving people through the pipeline. We have the stats to prove it, which is why marketers always fall back on tactics like these. Lord knows I have time and again.
  
  (…)
  
  Don�t be obvious by using the same tried-and-true tricks in the marketers bag. Don�t fall back to them just because they are safe, even if you get burned by being out on the edge. The challenge to all of us in the field is to look outside our profession to those who are doing great marketing, even if it�s not so easy to recognize it as such at first glance.

  At Tourism BC, our recently launched blogs are very successfull and people are talking about doing more. Things are officially exciting again.

• Management

  Software Development Process

  06.30.05 | Permalink | Comment?

  I’ve developed a keen interest in managing software development (again) recently. Scobble pointed me to David J. Anderson, a program manager at Microsoft and I came across this awesome webcast. Very cool, I hope this doesn’t spark another obsession to learn for me, I can only handle so many at a time. Can’t wait for Scoble’s video.

  There’s good stuff in his blog as well. Last Monday’s entry is called “Not so formal“.

  Where there is low trust, there must be documentation, verification, audit and potentially punishment. Where there is a lack of trust, there is fear. Where there is fear, there is a lot of people taking cover and protecting themselves. Such protection is waste – muda. It takes the form of overly long schedules, overly detailed specifications, precise plans and elaborate change procedures to track all of the changes, audit trails and assigned accountability and responsibility – there must be a scapegoat.

  Amen.

William Bakker's Destination Marketing blog