There’s an old saying that goes, “Time waits for no one.” The same can be said of product development. No one can stop the march of time or the need to constantly update, upgrade or improve products. Thanks to cloud computing, we can now adapt to changing market demands much faster than we could just five years ago. That one factor alone has a major impact on how quickly we roll out new generations of Kurryer.More...
There’s a lot going on these days — and much you can say about the year ahead. You could focus on the obvious, like the growth of mobile, or the obscure, like the subtle changes in the ways consumers pay for products and services. The most interesting development for me is the growth of what I refer to as assistive or concierge software. More...
Rob Savette, Ethofy’s VP of sales and marketing, guest blogs today and delves into the world of cybercrime with Network Computing Architects.
I’ve known Thomas (Tom) Gobeille for a while now – he’s the president and CEO of Network Computing Architects (NCA). Based in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue, NCA is one of the top security consulting firms in the industry, and they recently deployed Kurryer among their sales force.
Tom is a recognized thought leader in the IT world, and has a bird’s eye view into information security and other leading edge technologies. For this interview, Tom agreed to answer a few questions about the current threat landscape regarding cybercrime and what every business should consider. He also discussed some of the upcoming trends he sees among NCA’s own extensive partner network.
Rob: Are you seeing any new issues or trends emerging among your customers?More...
The discussion around mobile customer engagement heated up last year with Forrester’s release of its Mobile Is the New Face of Engagement report. While their finding – that by 2016, smartphones and tablets will put power in the pockets of a billion global consumers – isn’t breaking news, the report was a wake-up call for everyone in sales. More...
Do you remember playing The Game of Life as a kid? The classic board game is still going strong, with newly updated careers and life events. Times have changed, though. Now you can be sued for $100,000.
But can you guess the least desirable career card in the game deck? If you guessed salesperson, you’re right on the money.More...
The other day I came across an interesting piece of research – sales of mobile phones dropped in 2012 for the first time since 2009 [ Tweet This ], pretty shocking stuff. Even more surprising is that the title of this blog is ‘The Smart Mobile world keeps growing’ – why would that be the title of a blog post that starts out by saying that mobile phone sales are down? More...
Earlier this week IBM reported their fourth quarter results and beat market expectations. The company that was an IT powerhouse, then wasn’t, and is again, pulled in $29.3 billion in the quarter — certainly an impressive amount. IBM’s numbers look very solid for this quarter and they’re offering some very good future expectations — and that bodes well for the economic recovery.
But that’s not what this article is about. This article is all about where IBM is telling us they’ll go. If you read the commentary that goes with the results you’ll see this quote by Ginny Rometty, IBM CEO: “Looking ahead, we continue to invest to deliver innovations for the enterprise in key areas such as big data, mobile solutions, social business and security.”
Wait. What?
I get the big data piece — this is IBM after all and they’ve moved more bytes around than we can count and then stuffed them all into Watson, the supercomputer that won Jeopardy. (By the way, if you want a quick laugh - check out this Fortune article on how Watson learned, and then was made to forget how to use profane language in its answers.) But back to the point, I get big data and I get security. Sure, those are IT/Enterprise staples. IBM will be selling those two solutions until … well, you get the point. But innovating in Mobile and Social Business? That’s not the IBM we’ve known for years… is it?More...
Part 2 of 2 Know your industry, brand, audience, and content.
In our last post we looked at what content marketing and content curating is. Leaving us with the question: how do you aim that enhanced content in the right direction? It starts by knowing your industry, brand, audience, and your content. However, we must lay out more questions in order to begin to answer our first question “how do you aim that enhanced content in the right direction?”More...
Marketing professionals have long understood the importance of promoting their brand to external stakeholders. Ironically, as they implement marketing strategies, they frequently forget their most valuable internal connections: employees.
An article in Fast Company Design explains that employees are your brand — the creators and producers of the products or services you offer to the world. They are engaged and care about your company’s success. They understand your organization and can speak about you in an approachable and honest way. An article in the human resources publication, Talent Minded details the impact of employees who are also enthusiastic brand advocates as an incredible advantage against your competition.More...
Twenty years ago, I was asked by my manager at Microsoft to become an evangelist for our product (Microsoft Access, wow!). My mission: to get our team members, other employees at Microsoft, and our partners to get to know Access, to know our competition, and to be able to tell the story of why Access was better.
I didn’t know it at the time but that was my first experience with brand advocacy – people, some closer than others, telling the story of my product. More...