Like everyone else on the planet, you have a complex and interesting story to tell. There are all of your childhood antics, and accidents. There are the exciting and trying times through your high-school years, and all of those crazy things that happened to you in college. Your family, your job, your hobbies, your dreams. They're all part of the "story of you."

But when you meet someone new at a party, I suspect that you don't recount your entire life story with them; at least I hope you don't. Rather, you start with some of the more pertinent parts of your story -- your name, where you live, where you work, how you know the people who are hosting the party. That type of information.

As you engage in this dialogue, you begin to learn more about the other person and can slowly add other relevant parts of your personal story into the conversation.

Depending to whom you are talking -- someone you've just met or an old friend -- you relate different parts of your life story. It's as if we have an innate ability to edit parts of our personal stories based on whom we're communicating with.

Companies have complex and interesting stories to tell too. Unfortunately, companies cannot rely on some innate "corporate" ability to help them tailor their story for different audiences. That's where a well-designed, content-centered communications plan comes into play.

Think of all of the different audiences your company might engage on a daily basis, often simultaneously. There are employees, customers, potential customers, former customers that you're trying to woo back, investors and shareholders, distribution partners, application developers, user groups, traditional media, industry analysts, bloggers, those following your company on social media sites, government agencies and regulators, and on and on.

At any given time, your company may be telling various parts of the company story via specifically tailored content to a wide range of audiences. Further, there are likely to be dozens, if not hundreds, of people within the company having these variouis conversations.

Without proper planning, through the use of a content-centered communications plan, you run the risk of not communicating the right information to the right audience at the right time. That could hurt your company through lost customers, wasted time, energy and money, and could tarnish your company's brand image.

Even if your company has gone through the disciple of articulating its business objectives and has a clearly defined its brand story, without properly targeting your audiences by segment, and identifying which parts of the company story you're going to tell to each of them, you could create confusion rather than inpart useful information.

Think about the golf story your Uncle tells every single year at Thanksgiving dinner. You've heard is so many times that once he launches into his tale you automatically tune him out. Without targeting your company's story (content) for specific audience segments, you run the risk of them tuning out your message too.

Do you have a content-centered communications in place that tailors your company's unique story of your various audiences? If so, we'd love to hear your story.

Set Expectations To Get a New Relationship Off to a Fast Start

A former colleague of mine reminded me after I posted "Seven Keys to Successfully Transitioning to a New Agency" earlier today to Beyond the Arc that I left out a critical "key."

And she was right.  

So the "Eight Key" to successful agency transition management is this:  the incoming agency should hold an expectations meeting with the client's executive team and communications team leaders to review their expectations -- which are different from their business goals.  

For example, the CEO may have the expectation that he/she is going to be actively involved in business press activities (or doesn't want to be involved).

Setting clear expectations for how the program is going to run, and what each person's role and responsibility is, is key during the agency transition. 

Also, expectations meetings are ideal platforms for client and agency to agree to the establishment of a day-to-day working structure.  For instance, how will the client and agency account team members communicate on a daily basis; which communications tools will be regarded as essential to real-time communications; what will be the schedule for formal weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual meetings to review the progress against agreed to objectives. 

Seven Keys to Successfully Transitioning to a New Agency

Recently, I've been asked by several corporate communications pros what makes for an effective transition from an incumbent agency to a new agency.

It's a great question because for most corporate marketing or communications departments, transitioning to a new marketing services provider -- whether it be an advertising, PR or digital media agency -- is a very significant undertaking.

In most instances, the organization will have just completed a time-intensive, time-consuming, costly and exhausting agency review that took anywhere from two weeks to six months, and longer in a number of cases.   During the agency review, key internal review stakeholders likely sacrificed their "day jobs" to choreograph a thorough review process. 

And let's not forget that long before the agency review was actually underway, the corporate team running the review spent hour upon hour questioning, debating and deliberating the real need for a review and some time wondering if the existing agency relationship should or could be salvaged.   After all, wouldn't it be easiest if we just stayed with our existing agency?  That question crosses the mind of most every corporate decision maker since making a change means lots of heavy lifting, at least in the short term.   Typically, the negative impact of sticking with an incumbent agency where the relationship has run its course is much costlier than the short-term start up costs associated with bringing a new agency up to speed.

Corporate pros who know the agency review drill typically sprint from the completion of the agency selection process to the next critical step:  the transition from the incumbent agency to the new agency.  

To this point, and to help answer the question that's been asked of me of late, here are my seven agency transition management keys:

1. Establish a collegial relationship among the incumbent and new agency with clear expectations set by the client.
2. Insist on transition sessions with the outgoing agency where an extensive and detailed analysis of all immediate outstanding corporate and product issues can be discussed and transitioned.  Clients should be prepared to pay a fee to the outgoing agency at the successful conclusion of the transition period.
3. Clearly determine which agency will be completing press-related activities that are in progress.
4. The client's IT department should be made aware of the transition so it can provide the new agency with access to the client's intranet(s), email, phone system, etc.  The incoming agency's technology needs to be in sync and compatible with the client's systems.
5. The client's international constituents should be alerted to the change in agencies, as well as the company's internal marketing and communications employees and any local and regional agencies that are supporting the company.
6. The incoming agency should meet with the client's executive and communications team leaders to hold a strategy session to ensure the new agency, senior executives and communications team leaders are on the same page regarding the company's business goals and objectives and how the communications program is going to support them.
7. Procurement and the client's financial department should be made aware of the transition so the outgoing agency is paid on time for its final month(s) and the incoming agency is entered into the company's supplier database.

Based on your experiences, are there other transition management keys that should be considered?

Five Marketing (and business) Truths Every Start-Up Should Know

Start ups are, perhaps, the most exciting and the most imperiled companies on earth.  They are the products of great ideas, brilliant observations, dogged determination, perseverance and risk. In the start-up stage, everything is possible and everything is critical.  Cash must be preserved while market share must grow, and thus there is little margin for error.  The competition for dollars between innovative engineers and customer-facing marketers is often intense -- both sides win when neither side dominates, but that is fragile balance to maintain even with level-headed executives on both sides.  So, with that, we offer our five rules of the road for marketing in start ups. This has nothing to do with how to market.  It has everything to do with how to conduct yourself as a company that needs marketing to define and drive the strategy of the company.


1. Learn how to make a decision. I know a start-up CMO who participated in weekly executive strategy meetings for six months with the CEO, CFO, CTO and head of sales. Each week they would discuss their ideas and outline them in detail on a white board in an executive war room and then leave thinking they were on the same page. For all the brilliant thinking and ideas, they never seemed to make much progress.  "The board brought in an outside consultant," my friend told me.  "And the first thing he did was ask to attend our weekly executive staff meeting. He watched us for 20 minutes, and then he asked a simple question that left us dumbfounded:  'How do you make a decision here?' "  The great Harvard Business  School Professor, Michael E. Porter has said that strategy is what you choose NOT to do.  As a start-up every choice you make and don't make is strategic. A large percentage of those choices will have a lot to do with spending money on marketing. But you have know how to make marketing a business decision. You have to agree to a process, and the CEO has to be the final arbiter. That's why he or she has more stock than you. 


2.  Spin it all you like, you are not a market leader so don't act or spend like one.  We can't tell you how many early stage companies flush with venture money try to market like leaders. These are usually companies whose executive team has not worked in start-ups before and assumes that the battle and budgets should be waged just as they were in the corporate world. This is a disastrous approach tied to ego, inexperience, reading too many business books or all of the above. The likely outcome is the rapid disappearance of all those VC greenbacks despite your followers and fans, your great press coverage, analyst reports and speaking engagements. 


3.  Protect your cash. If you are new to the world of start ups, you need to understand that cash is king. Do not over spend your marketing dollars.  Use them cautiously and be sure they are aligned against specific, measurable business objectives. If those objectives are unclear, pull that big red emergency break right away and stop your marketing spending. There might be some squealing as you grind to a halt, but if your ad agency or PR agency or social media agency are the only people asking about strategy, something is very wrong and you are about to spend precious cash on tactics that probably are not aligned with what the business needs to do to succeed -- and your investors probably have the wrong CEO in place.


4.  Practice guerilla warfare. As a start up, you are small and insignificant.  Your resources are limited and your business objective is most likely survival. If you have mastered the first three points here, you are in an enviable position.  How do you -- as an underdog -- fight, much less win?  Understanding the competition is part of the battle:  Market leaders usually fight defensively.  Direct challengers are trying to take market share from market leaders.  Smaller, established companies are looking to outflank large companies and early stage companies must find a niche they can own as a base for future expansion so that they can one day move to the next level and outflank the leaders. 

5.  Learn OODA.  This is not a new martial art.  It is what the military teaches soldiers to do in any new situation. OODA is an acronym for observe, orient, decide, and act.  If you are going to engage in battle against bigger, better fortified competitors you need to learn to read the situation and react faster than the next guy to survive. That is what OODA is designed to teach us. You gather information (observe), form a point of view about an unmet customer need and/or the intentions of competitors (orient), then you make decisions, and you act on them. The cycle is repeated continuously. The aggressive and conscious application of the process gives a business an advantage over a competitor who is merely reacting to conditions as they occur, or has poor awareness of the situation.


So, there you have it.  Five practices that will help marketing become a strategic part of the ultimate start up objective -- survival.  Let us know if you have shared any of these experiences or observations in your start up.

Branded Content

There is now general acceptance that a company's brand plays an important role in generating and sustaining financial performance. A company's brand can help attract new customers, keep existing customers from switching to a competitor, help pave the way for entry into new markets and regions, and even affect stock valuation.

To this last point, stock price, a BusinessWeek/JP Morgan study found that some companies enjoy most of their stock valuation as a result of their strong brand. The study found that McDonald's, for instance, attributes more than 70% of its shareholder value to its strong brand. Disney's brand contributes 68% to the company's market capitalization and Coca-Cola's brand chips in just over 50%.

To some degree or another, every company's brand contributes to its overall financial performance. That's why a company's brand story, along with its clearly articulated business objectives, should form the foundation upon which a content-centered communications plan is developed.

As has been discussed before on this site, content is the engine that drives customer engagement. To ensure the interaction with the customers is fully realized, a content-centered communications plan should map directly back to the company's business objectives and stay true to the company's brand; given a brand's powerful influence on customer perception as well as stock valuation.

A few years back I did some consulting for a publicly traded, global telecommunications company that had a brand reputation as an inventive and innovative company, which was based largely on the licensing of its extensive patent portfolio.

Every time we generated content for this company -- be it press release, an executive presentation, a video, a theme for a developer conference, or a social media program -- we always made sure that it was highlighting the company's inventive and innovative persona. In this way, every time the company used content to interact with any number of its target audiences, the company's brand image was reinforced.

If your company hasn't gone through the process recently, you might want to conduct a brand audit prior to development of your content-centered communications plan. The audit is a comprehensive and systematic evaluation of the brand involving activities (both tangible and intangible) to assess the health of your brand. This process should either confirm the status of your company's brand story, or suggest modifications to it. In any case, the audit should help you develop 3-5 brand messages, any one of which can, and should, be used when you develop content to interact with your customers.

Having your brand story clearly defined -- along with easily articulated business objectives -- will help guide the development of all of your company's content. As a result, your customer engagement will be more meaningful for you, and your target audiences.

Karma

This summer has seen its share of communication blunders and, as we head into August, we are starting to see the consequences. Tony Hayward has been removed as CEO in light of his poor handling of the oil spill. Maybe that yacht race at the height of the crisis wasn't such a good idea? Apple said it would provide iPhone 4 customers with free cases to improve reception issues that happen when the phone is held in a certain way. General Stanley McChrystal is retiring from the US Army after he was relieved of command of NATO forces in Afghanistan by President Obama, following blatantly disrespectful comments made to Rolling Stone magazine. Laurent Blanc, the new coach of the French national soccer team, announced that none of the players who went on strike at the World Cup in South Africa would play in the next match and that future selections would be based not only on talent but on a strong sense of teamwork, as well. The lesson in all of this is that what you say and do and how it is portrayed in the media and online has a tremendous impact on companies and careers. Tony Hayward didn't cause the oil spill but the problem was his to solve. Instead of showing leadership and providing clear, regular and honest communication, he was portrayed as not wanting to deal with the problem by saying he wanted his life back, minimizing the problem by not providing accurate information on the size of the disaster and not caring by going to yacht race at the height of the crisis. Likewise, Steve Jobs probably didn't design the finicky antenna for the iPhone 4 but he did tout its engineering at the launch press conference. Instead of blaming customers for holding the iPhone the wrong way he should have said right off the bat that the iPhone 4 didn't live up to Apple's high quality standards and that they would find a solution. Instead of a story that persisted for a period of time and tarnished Apple's otherwise sterling reputation, it would have been a one day story that might have actually strengthened their image as a company that can do no wrong. General McChystal should have had media training and a thorough briefing prior to letting a Rolling Stone reporter follow his entourage for a month. If he had done so, he would not have made such rookie mistakes. The problem is that most CEOs or, for that matter, Generals and professional athletes, don't understand the importance of communication and, as a result, don't solicit much input from their communications department or agency. If they had, they would have probably reacted differently.

Robert Dudley's Mission of a Lifetime

Robert W. Dudley has accepted the mission of a lifetime. 

As the new leader of embattled BP, Mr. Dudley has a full plate.

Dudley is charged with picking up the twisted pieces of a massive train wreck and putting it all back together.  Quickly.

He'll need to stand in the fire and not get burned.  He'll need to be decisive and fearless.  But also calm and thoughtful.  Never let anyone see him sweat.

He can't afford, nor can BP, to say the wrong thing -- as his predecessor did on too many occasions.

Dudley needs to move without delay to restore trust among regulators and investors.  But also among BP employees at every management level around the world.  I don't know anyone who works for BP, but I can imagine the conversations they have been part of during summer cocktail hours.  And I suspect many of these discussions were unpleasant for BP employees.

BP has been accused by a number of watchdog groups for taking the easy way out -- cutting corners.  One such watchdog group charges BP with a "culture of recklessness." 

How will Dudley move his troops toward a culture that values safety above all else?

Dudley and BP can't afford to do anything less but to deeply engage everyone of its 80,000 employees to rebuild the company's culture and reputation.  The days of pretty boy Tony Hayward and lip-service treatment to important issues are gone forever. 

Here are a few additional suggestions for Mr. Dudley and BP as the company goes through the most important CEO transition in its 100 year history.

• Pay attention to all stakeholders.  Employees, investors, regulators, media, business partners, customers, etc.  Some of the underlying anxieties of a particular stakeholder group may not be obvious at first but could burst on the scene at inopportune times.
• Develop key transitional messages and err on the side of over communicating to key stakeholders.
• Communicate globally.  U.K. CEO succeeded by a U.S. CEO to run a U.K. company.  This is the perfect time for BP to embrace its global workforce and anoint them as true ambassadors of the global brand.  BP needs every employee believing that BP, over time, will overcome its present situation.
• Make any senior management team changes in the proverbial "first 100 days."  Unlike many CEOs, Dudley isn't going to get a honeymoon period and acting quickly could become his biggest ally.  If he has any doubts about any member of his management team, he should take the appropriate action now.
• If Hayward is truly out of the way, insists he stay out of the way.   

How Has Marketing Lost its Relevance?

In 2004, Nirmalya Kumar of the London Business School, published an incredibly insightful book called "Marketing as Strategy."  Professor Kumar argued that CEO's have lost faith in marketing -- that somewhere marketing became marginalized by tactical implementation of communications programs rather than owning a strategic "seat at the table."  Yet, as Kumar states, the importance of marketing as a two-way mirror between organizations and their customers has never been more important.

So we have this odd situation where the importance of the function is growing while the faith of management in those who lead the function is diminished. How did we get to this place where the marketing function is in crisis? How has marketing lost its relevance?

The answer lies, in part, with the subtitle of Professor Kumar's book: "understanding the CEO's agenda for driving growth and innovation." 

Over the years, many marketing organizations and the marketers who run them and serve them have become disconnected from the strategy of the company. My experience is that they often are communications experts not marketing experts.

Like any function under constant pressure, marketing developed its own measures to justify its existence.  Today, that takes place in the form of reliance on communications tactics and a train wreck of metrics, strewn like jackknifed cars along the track. 

We, as marketers get caught up in the latest pretty packaging whether it is social media, SEO or web traffic, and we look for metrics to justify how well they work.  (How many followers do you have?)

I find it interesting how many times I've read leading social media experts stress the importance of understanding the company's business objectives.  I want to stand up, shaking with incredulity, like the comedian Lewis Black.   "THAT IS THE PROBLEM!"  What are the business objectives?  Who in marketing helps set them?  Who in marketing understands them?  

Don't misunderstand me. Metrics are helpful. They are wonderful tools. But they are usually the cart before the proverbial horse. They often are not lead indicators of where the CEO is trying to move the company. CEOs are under increasing pressure to deliver profits. Board members worry about the complexities of financial reporting requirements. And, so, the C-suite agenda is less likely to focus on marketing issues. But marketing still has to find and deliver answers to questions that ultimately drive the growth of the company -- who are our customers?  what do they need from us?  how do we deliver what they need better than our competition delivers it? 

What has to change for marketing to become relevant to CEOs -- and for CMOs to keep their "seat in the suite"? 

Let's start by throwing stuff out. The 4Ps -- product, promotion, price and place?  In the dumpster!  Let's start to think and act like strategic business executives not kids playing with the latest toy and trying to show mom and dad how well it works.


THE THREE CORE QUESTIONS CEO's FACE

Here's an easy place to start.  Answer the following three questions for your company or organization:

1. Where are we?  

2. Where have we agreed to go in five years?  

3. How do we get there profitably and increase shareholder value?

In one form or another that is what every CEO is trying to determine.  Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, Radian 6, only matter if they help answer the last bullet, and I believe they can -- when applied correctly to the right problem.

So if that is is the CEO's short list, what should marketing's be?  Let's go back to Professor Kumar.  Here is the set of questions he poses that every marketer needs to become relevant to the CEO and his or her agenda.  You need to answer these. If you don't know the answers, ask somebody. If nobody knows, figure out how to use the tools of marketing to get answers. That is how you become relevant. 

Seven Steps to Making Marketing Relevant Again

1. From Market Segments to Strategic Segments: 

• Who are our valued customers?
• Which customers are unhappy with current offerings in the industry?
• Is the target large enough to meet our sales objectives?
• What is our value proposition?
• Does it fit the needs of customers we are trying to serve?
• What benefits are we delivering?
• Can we deliver and earn a profit?

2. From Selling Products to Providing Solutions: 

• Do we guarantee customers outcomes and benefits instead of product performance?
• Have our sales people developed consulting skills and deep industry knowledge?
• Have we developed effective processes to allocate resources to solution projects?

3. From Declining to Growing Distribution Channels: 

• What service outputs will the new channel provide?
• How will the relative importance and power of existing channels change?
• Which competitors will enter the new channel?
• What changes in channel incentives to existing members will competitors try? 
• What new competences do we need to enter the new channel?

4. From Branded Bulldozers to Global Distribution Partners: 

• Have we identified our most valuable clients on a worldwide basis?
• Are there single points of contact for global customers?
• Have we optimized our supply chain for global efficiency
• Have we harmonized pricing structures?

5. From Brand Acquisitions to Brand Rationalization: 

• Which brands are contributing to our profits?
• What needs-based segments exist in each category?
• How much sales revenue would we risk by deleting non-core brands?
• What is the role of the corporate brand?
• How will we articulate our program to stakeholders?

6. From Market-Driven to Market-Driving: 

• Are new ideas routinely imported from the outside?
• Do we tolerate failures and have processes in place to learn from failures?
• Do we ensure that radical ideas do not lose resources to incremental ideas?

7. From Strategic Business Unit Marketing to Corporate Marketing: 

• How does the organization rate on customer focus in processes, including new product development, order fulfillment, customer relationship management?
• Is the organization organized around customers?
• Are metrics and rewards related to impact on customers?
• Does the organization systematically learn about customers?

Clearly this is as much a shift in thinking as it is in the tools and programs marketing deploys. Social media and digital marketing tied to analytics can move the needle forward only a fraction if marketers don't understand the three most difficult questions any company faces. As marketers, isn't it time we stepped back and started thinking about the metrics we use as vehicles to identify the growth needs of the company rather than metrics that justify the existence of tactics that are often not well aligned with the strategic direction of the company?  Isn't it time we started to help set the strategic agenda of our companies and clients rather than serve as marginalized order takers worried about followers and colorful charts?

Reasons to be Optimistic Heading into a Summer Weekend

Here are a few of the corporate earnings headlines we were treated to over morning coffee, earlier today and yesterday.  

"Microsoft Profit Rebounds by 48%"

"Second Quarter Income Higher at Amazon"

"Optimistic 3M Lifts Guidance For Year"

"Wireless Revenue Drives AT&T Growth"

"Honeywell Outperforms Again"

"AutoNation Profits up 36%"

"CA Exceed Expectation"

"Ford Higher After Strong Q2 Earnings"

"Verizon Posts Wireless Customer Growth"

"UPS Raises Profit Outlook"

"U.S. Manufacturers Continue Streak of Profit Beats"

"Caterpillar Posts Strong Profit and Raises Outlook"
 

These results are reasons to be optimistic about the recovery.

And this too:  "...spending on technology products and services is set to continue growing around the world."

According to a report this week from Forrester Research, spending on IT goods and services in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Easter Europe, the Middle East and Africa will increase this year anywhere from 9.9% (in the U.S.) up to 16.2% (Canada). 

It's true that IT spending in the western and central regions of Europe are forecasted by Forrester to drop by a modest 0.7%.  But the increase in spending throughout the rest of the world is significant enough to offset Western and Central Europe.

A reason for the IT growth spurt?  According to the IDG News Service which viewed the report, "the U.S., and to a lesser extent, other nations, are entering an innovation cycle marked by the adoption of new technologies."

News like this makes for a great summer weekend.

Cluelessness Volume III

I can't swing a dead cat without finding an example of bad communication. This time it is France that takes this week's prize. On July 14, Bastille Day, the French government launched france.fr which was to be a global and multi-lingual portal for all things French -- tourism, investment etc. The problem was that the same day that the site went up it then came back down and has not come back to life since. Visitors to the site receive the following message, "France.fr, a complete and complex site, is temporarily unavailable. We are in the final phase of our audit to find out the causes of the technical failures which led to us closing the site, and are close to finding a solution. We would like to thank all the web users who helped us spot the bugs. We aim to have the site fully operational again in the second half of August, and can confirm that a version with a participatory dimension will be released in November. Thank you for your patience." At least the SIG, France's government information service, bit the bullet and re-set expectations with a new availability date. What I don't understand is how they got themselves into this mess in the first place. I mean this is cyberspace not outer space and creating a website -- even a complex one -- is not like sending astronauts to Mars. This has been an embarrassment for the French government. Maybe it is because the web is inherently a bottom up environment and not top down. The most visited websites -- Google, Facebook, eBay -- were bottom up / entrepreneurial ventures. Maybe this is why Microsoft has struggled with Bing and Live. At this point the damage has been done and my advice to the SIG would be to ensure that when the site launches it works flawlessly -- even it it means delaying the launch past the late August date. The last thing the SIG needs is to make the headlines again with a buggy site.

It Depends On Who You Ask

“It depends on who you ask.” That was the response I received from the head of Corporate Communications of a global semiconductor company during our annual planning session when I asked the question “what are the company’s three primary business objectives for the coming year.” Now I understand that in a large organization that different business units or divisions will have their own specific targets and objectives for the year, but I wasn’t talking with a business unit or divisional communications person, I was in the midst of annual planning with the head of Corporate Communications on behalf of the entire company. If we were going to build an effective plan that reached all of the company’s various audiences in an engaging and meaningful dialogue, we needed a solid foundation built upon clearly articulated business objectives. This wasn’t the first time I’d encountered a Corporate Communications leader who couldn’t succinctly identify the organization’s business objectives. In fact, I’d have to say that more times than not, this was something very few people in companies could clearly state. I’ve seen it happen at big global companies, smaller venture-funded companies, hardware companies, software companies and just about every company in between. And you know what? For decades, it didn’t really matter all that much if the communications people couldn’t repeat the company’s business objectives in two or three sentences. That’s because for decades, having only a general understanding of the direction the company was headed was enough to do effective marketing and communications. For years, if a marcom manager knew that the company was expanding into France and Germany, they took out ads in the top trade publications in those markets touting the company’s newest widget and put out a few press releases that had been translated into the local language. The ads ran, the press releases were issued, some articles were written in key industry magazines and the communications team celebrated their success. But we all know that in today’s digital and online environment this methodology is as outdated and ineffective as group-faxing. A company’s customers today don’t want to hear about what the company thinks about its own product or service, rather they want to know that the company understands their business challenges, has helped other companies solve similar problems and is willing to work in partnership with them to make their business thrive. To accomplish this effectively, a company must align its internal goals and objectives with the needs and wants of its customers, and then enter a long-term relationship where information is shared in both directions so each can achieve success. Sharing and receiving information with customers in an efficient and effective manner is at the heart of content-centered communications. And the starting point for this effort is the clear articulation of the company’s business objectives and alignment of those objectives across the entire organization. Which takes us back to my meeting with the head of Corp. Comm. at the semiconductor company. After much discussion, it was decided that if we were going to develop a truly effective annual plan, one that was impactful, sustainable, and measurable we needed consensus among all of the company’s leadership upon no more than 3-5 succinct corporate business objectives. Our agency took the lead on scheduling meetings with the various EVPs, divisional and business unit leaders and key internal communications people. We led sessions where we extracted business information from the various company leaders and then reconstituted it into a handful of easily articulated business objectives. Gaining consensus wasn’t an easy or quick process, but when we had accomplished it, it gave us the solid foundation upon which to build a powerful content-centered communications program. Clear articulation of a company’s business objectives isn’t a communications panacea, but it is the first step to in entering an ongoing and meaningful conversation with your customers.

Can you recite your company's business objectives, or will it depend on who you ask?

Cloud Computing is Sitting in the Catbird Seat

Cloud Computing is sitting in the technology catbird seat.  

Earlier this week, two leading technology companies betting their businesses on the promise of cloud computing -- EMC, Inc. and VMware -- reported strong second quarter earnings.

For EMC, this was its third consecutive quarter of record revenue growth.  The company's operating cash flow is at an all-time high.

And server virtualization leader, VMware, exceeded analysts expectations with strong second quarter profit and sales results as well.

Google, who along with VMware constitutes half of the so-called Four Horsemen of Cloud Computing, also announced last week that it too grew second quarter and revenue profits -- although profits fell short of the street's expectations.

On the company's earnings call, EMC execs said that sales of its solutions for building virtualized, private and public clouds will grow this year by about 25 per cent.

VMware's second quarter results and rest-of-year guidance were strong enough to earn a price target increase from the analysts at J.P. Morgan -- from $60 to $70.

And if these cloud developments don't excite, then how about this? Cloud computing is helping organizations climb out of the global economic mess!

How?

Well, according to a new study conducted by international research firm Vanson Bourne, a majority of IT business and decision makers say cloud computing is helping their companies do more with less.

A number of the 600 survey respondents believe that the benefits of cloud computing will result in a 15 percent decrease in their IT budget while others said IT savings could approach 40 percent.

Bryan Doerr, CTO at Savvis, Inc. -- which commissioned the study -- says that two key issues are driving organizations to cloud computing: flexibility and a pay-as-you-go model.

Cloud computing isn't the perfect computing model -- yet.

Security issues remain a concern, for example. But among fewer and fewer organizations as security issues are addressed and resolved.

Not matter how you slice it, Cloud Computing is enjoying the view from its coveted perch.

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité and Universal Access to Broadband

The 14th of July, the national holiday of France. A day filled with military parades, fireworks and patriotism. As I was watching President Nicolas Sarkozy reviewing the troops on the Champs-Elysées, I thought about the values of Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité and how France has provided universal healthcare, five weeks of vacation and a 35-hour work week for its citizens and wondered if it would follow Finland's lead and declare access to at least 1 megabit per second broadband a right for all citizens. Residents of Helsinki have had reasonably priced broadband access for quite sometime but rural Finns -- approximately four percent of the population -- have had to do without. And, without some form of government support, it would be prohibitively expensive to reach those four percent. What is interesting is not that the Finnish government is providing another benefit to its citizens but rather that it has realized that broadband access to the Internet is an essential development tool -- as essential as providing electricity to rural America was in the 1930s. Without broadband Internet access rural Finns would essentially be cut-off from the rest of the world. With it, they have similar access to commerce, culture, communication and information that their urban Helsinki countrymen have. Now that is what I call closing the Digital Divide.

The Four Horsemen of Cloud Computing

The first four of the seven seals, as described in the last book of the New Testament, represented pestilence, war, famine and death.  These four seals were depicted as beasts riding on white, red, black and pale-green horses.  These Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as they became to be known, were said to have been unleashed to warn of upcoming events -- including the Day of Judgment.

That is heavy stuff.

Ok, now fast-forward some 2,000 years, and we had the "lite" version of the Four Horsemen:  Cisco, EMC, Oracle and Sun Microsystems.

Much less intimidating than famine or death, and certainly not as serious, but still imposing in their own right.

These were the four companies who prior to the rupture of the Internet bubble, were firing on all cylinders.

EMC had reinvented and reinvigorated the data storage solutions industry.

Oracle was king of the database software world.

Cisco networked the universe and at one point became the world's most valuable company.

And Sun "the network is the computer" Microsystems was happy, for a time, to sell the world as many high-end servers as it could manufacturer.

As a result, Wall Street had christened these companies the Four Horsemen of the Internet.

Today, three of the four continue to dominate their market segments while one has been subsumed by the other and lives on in technology only, no longer in name.

Although three of the four companies that comprised the Four Horsemen live on, The Four Horsemen of the Internet is done.  It's time has come and gone. Their 15 minutes of fame behind them.

Make way for the The Four Horsemen of Cloud Computing.

In alphabetical order, here they are, the Four Horsemen of Cloud Computing.

Akamai:  "At Akamai we've been optimizing the cloud for over ten years, building a global computing platform for over ten years, building a global computing platform that helps make cloud computing a reality."

Google: "the elephant in the cloud."

VMware:  "Advancing the Foundation for Cloud Computing."

But wait a minute. That's only three horsemen.

Well, I guess we could go with The Three Horsemen of Cloud Computing.  But to me, it lacks the panache of "The Four Horsemen of Cloud Computing."

Do you agree that we need a fourth?

If you do, please weigh in.

The cloud computing company that gets the most mentions will become the fourth horseman of cloud computing.   And you'll get the satisfaction knowing you helped make it happen.

It Can’t Be Said in 140 Characters

It goes without saying that social media – such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and numerous others – have changed the way we communicate with one another, share information, and learn of breaking local, national and international events. Who can forget the barrage of tweets coming out of Iran in June 2009, following the presidential elections and subsequent protests and violence that broke out after it was announced that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been re-elected. Then Twitter and YouTube brought us the news that a young woman named Neda was killed by Iranian forces during the protests thus bringing to the world a human face to the terrible violence. More than half of the world’s population now gets its information – everything from national news to sports scores to weather reports – from the Internet or on their smartphones. Couple that with the rapid exchange of ideas via social media and you have an environment where everyone, everywhere in the world, is not only a consumer of content but a publisher of content as well. You may have a poor experience with valet parking at your favorite restaurant and decide to share the event on Foursquare. Your friend sees your post, and decides to eat at a different restaurant the next time they’re in the city. They in turn give the new restaurant a rave review and within months the new eatery has a weeks long reservation list. Instantly, the fortunes of businesses can be changed as a result of social media. But some people are beginning to question whether the Internet and our dependence on digital information – everything from Google to Twitter – is actually stunting critical thinking and sound reasoning. In his recent book Shallows, Nicholas Carr explains, “how the printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In stark contrast, the Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from many sources. Its ethic is the ethic of the industrialist, an ethic of speed and efficiency, of optimized production and consumption – and now the Net is remaking us in its own image. We are becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming, but what we are losing is our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection.” As someone who works with B2B technology companies, and produces content for them on a variety of topics, I know that there is some corporate information that can effectively be communicated via social media and the Internet, while other information is simply too complex, and requires too much explanation for this medium alone. Here’s a quick example. A B2B company is involved in a complex software licensing agreement with a company in France that it both competes against and does business. The European Union questions whether the licensing agreement impedes fair competition and decides to bring both companies before a commission to study the situation in more detail before making a final ruling on whether the licensing agreement can continue as is, if it needs modification or if it is breaking the law and must be scrapped altogether. This type of situation happens all the time with B2B global technology companies and explaining the intricacies of these situations to the audiences who need to know what’s going on simply can’t be accomplished in a 140 character tweet, 750-word blog entry, 20-page bulleted eBook or 2-minute YouTube video or Podcast. That’s why any comprehensive content-centered public relations plan needs to account for white papers, technical documents, financial reports, legal briefs and other lengthy tomes that provide enough room to adequately cover a complex subject in detail. The majority of the world’s people may be communicating with one another at speeds faster than ever before in human history, but the issues and challenges facing business today are as complicated and complex as ever before and demand our ability to concentrate, contemplate and reflect before we make decisions that could affect the future of our companies. Despite access to social media and instant information, we as professional communicators must take the time to slow down, think, capture our thoughts in detail and share them in documents that provide ALL of the pertinent information available; not just the 140 character sound bite.

Cluelessness is catching

I last blogged about three head-scratching examples of a complete lack of awareness about image and reputation -- General Stanley McChrystal, The French national soccer team and BP. Now it would seem that Apple is trying to join this elite group by telling its customers that the iPhone 4's poor reception is due to the way they are holding it. I've never seen a mobile phone with specific gripping instructions. Are we supposed to hold it with just the index finger and thumb as if it were a dirty diaper about to be thrown in the trash? Maybe rubber coated barbecue tongs with do the trick? Once again we see a problem, in this case poor reception, being aggravated by poor communication. Essentially Apple denied there was a problem and implied users should modify the way in which they hold their iPhones. Then they said the way in which they calculated reception strength was wrong. What Apple should have done was acknowledge there was a problem and try to provide some practical and in-expensive remedies. By practical and inexpensive I don't mean the almost $30 iPhone case or the software update for the reception signal. I've heard putting a fat rubber band around the iPhone 4 fixes the problem. Is this true or is it an urban legend? It would be nice for Apple to come clean and weigh in this and other possible practical and low-cost solutions.

LeBron James is Among the Savviest of Content Marketers

Like millions of other Americans and basketball fans around the globe, I'm eager for closure.

NY Knicks? Stay with the Cavs? Join the Bulls in the Windy City? Or perhaps it will be the Heat in Miami?

Oh where, oh where will LeBron James, aka King James, play for the 2010/11 basketball season and the foreseeable future.

Well, unless you have been truly off the grid and vacationing in say, the Peruvian Amazon, then you're aware of James' prime time announcement tonight on ESPN at which point (9 p.m. ET) he will reveal which NBA team he will play for.

While we wait, James can lay claim to being the subject of the most hyped free agency in NBA history.

It's an award that will look handsome enough alongside his many other awards, which include Rookie of the Year, two Most Valuable Player awards and his membership to multiple All-NBA and All-Star teams.

Despite his "King James" status, this king has yet to earn the crown that most NBA players covet above any other -- an NBA Championship.

And it really doesn't matter other than to the purest of NBA fans if he ever wins a championship.  He's King James, crown or no crown, because everyone says so -- fans, TV and radio broadcasters, his team mates, competitors, sports writers, his mom.

Everyone.

So how does he do it?  How does he get us to watch tonight?

Well, perhaps above anything else, LeBron James is a brilliant content marketer.  In the same class as Tiger Woods (at least before Tiger's crash) but perhaps savvier since James has won the world's attention and pocketbooks without winning the big one while Woods has a truckload of of trophies from winning golf's Majors.

In a post today, Joe Pulizzi, a founder of content matching site Junta42, reminds us that we are all media companies -- publishers of content. And whether you like LeBron James or not (I happen to like him though the ego can be a bit tough to take), B2B and B2C companies can learn from how James has built his tremendous brand.

Create great content and tell a story (tonight, LeBron tells his story live to his fans)

Put a line in the sand and say something interesting and thought provoking (as Joe points out, James has never been a media darling).

Use a range of communications channels to converse with your customers.  Find out where your customers are.  And go there (James talks to his fans via Facebook, Twitter, his web site, and on TV a few hours from now).

Closure is just around the corner.

Global Forecast Sunny for the Cloud

Last month a Gartner report said the U.S. share of the worldwide cloud services market was 60 percent in 2009 and will decline slightly to 58 percent in 2010.  While barely noticeable, that two percent reduction may not be a sign of reduced interest in the U.S., but an important indication of global market share dilution as other countries accelerate their interest in the cloud


Signs of global adoption are emerging everywhere.


Two examples within the last week include an announcement that SFR, a leading French telecom operator, partnered with HP to offer cloud based services to their customers. The cloud services platform helps SFR offer IT infrastructure as a service (IaaS) with utility-based pricing to French companies. The HP-SFR partnership is based on the HP offering known as HP Cloud Services Enablement (CSE) portfolio for Communications Service Providers (CSP), which tightly integrates HP software, hardware and services to simplify and speed cloud services deployments. 


And just this morning, an article in the English language publication, Al Bawaba, said that heightened interest among businesses in the region has spurred the creation of a new, dedicated conference -- Cloud Confex -- for Middle East businesses to assess and compare cloud technologies.  Cloud Confex will also provide a vendor showcase and knowledge exchange.  Scheduled speakers include executives and technologists from Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority, EMC, HP, LiveRoute, Kamal Osman Jamjoom, Qatar Foundation, Sahara Petrochemicals, Saudi Aramco and The Executive Council, Government of Dubai.


These are just recent examples that illustrate the global emergence of the cloud. Gartner confidently predicts worldwide cloud services revenue will reach $68.3 billion this year --  a 16.6 percent increase from 2009 revenue of $58.6 billion.  


A FOUR YEAR BOOM
In four years, Gartner estimates global cloud services revenue will more than double to $148.8 billion.  The report cites cumulative growth in Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service and Software as a Service and identifies financial services and manufacturing industries as the largest early adopters of cloud services followed by communications, high-tech industries and the public sector.


Geographically, the report indicates the U.S. share of the worldwide cloud services market will see 10 percent dilution over the next four years as other nations move to the cloud, decreasing the U.S. share to 50 percent in 2014.  


While this kind of growth in a troubled global economy is exciting, we wonder if it will accelerate even faster if the industry resolves concerns over security, availability of service and vendor viability and as the use of the cloud shows signs of maturation and build confidence in its capabilities. 


Additional information is available on Gartner's website “Forecast: Public Cloud Services, Worldwide and Regions, Industry Sectors, 2009-2014.”