April 2007 - Posts

• Ben Verwaayen at BT totally gets it!

  Check out this acrticle published today in the daily Register.  It's about BT's emerging strategy to evolve it's core broadband assets to compete as a SaaS provider in the 21st century.   Group chief executive Ben Verwaayen said:   "This is the second phase of BT's transformation. The first phase saw BT shift its focus from narrowband to broadband. This next stage is equally important. It will see BT advance from a 20th century hardware-based company to a 21st century software-based services company."   It'll be interesting see how many fast followers (Verizon, AT&T, others) there will be?   I suspect there will be a few.  All the rest will be dead. Posted Tuesday, April 24, 2007 3:02 PM from Matt Howard | 0 Comments

• Battle ground for Collaboration

  Robert Guth wrote an artcile in today's Wall Street Journal entitled "Microsft Embeds Sleeper in Business Software".  For those in the software industry (and more specifically those with acollaboration background) the article is an extremely familiar rehash of Micrsoft's effort to wage "collaboration" war against IBM, Orcale, Adobe, and others to collect and control massive amonts of "work related" data being generated by businesses everyday.   The artcile tells the story of Miam Dade County public schools and how they were planning to go with IBM for a next gen collaboration solution only to realize (at the last minute) that they had already paid for, and deployed, a latent technology called Sharepoint as part of the Windows Server Operating System.  In the end, they chose Microsoft because it seemed like the right thing to do based on the fact that WSS was already bundled into their existing infrastructure.     In terms of the Microsoft strategy with Sharepoint, i admit the article is absolutely spot on the money -- especially as it relates to the battle for mid market and enterprise customers (large businesses with IT departments). But what about the millions of small businesses without IT departments???  The simple facts are: SMBs also have incredibly valuable data. SMBs want to store this data to get more done. SMBs want it to be easy to use, inexpensive, and delivered as a service. SMBs want the service from someone that they know and trust (like BT and Telus). Collaboration for the small businesses masses.  That's what i am talking about.  And, that's what evolved broadband service provdiers are capable delivering. Posted Tuesday, April 24, 2007 2:22 PM from Matt Howard | 0 Comments

• Broadband Evolved and Mass Marketing

  British Telecom last week announced the production launch of BT Tradespace, a foray into the world of small business social networking.  But bringing tools like PODCasts and blogs to the masses of small businesses requires a different mass-marketing approach....something you probably haven't seen from YouTube and MySpace.  The kindly old cobbler that lives down the street may not spend as much time on his iPod and in chat rooms as a twenty-something in the bay.  BT's strategy is to appeal to the broad common denominator of foul-mouthed humor. Here's a quote from an article in The Register titled:  Gordon Ramsay mashes up small businesses for BT "BT has fingered marathon-running potty mouth Gordon "b*llocks, a*se, sh*t" Ramsay as the ideal Michelin-starred gourmet to extol the virtues of social networking to Britain's small business owners." "In one promo, Ramsay struggles to set up his computer, while his kitchen catches fire in the background. The groundbreaking marketing move comes ahead of the launch later this week of BT's business to business social networking platform Tradespace. It's live now in trial form. BT's hoping to charge some users £15 per month for extra services, like Skype-style click-to-call." For US readers, Gordon is from the reality show Hell's Kitchen.  Screaming.  Crying.  Spilled pasta.  Everything you need for a party. What this shows is that the evolution of broadband brings massive company marketing ideas, plans and investments to the 'started in my basement' web 2.0 world.  In fact, the sub-title to the article is 'F*ck off 2.0'.  This won't be the first of such massive, traditional media efforts to bridge the web 2.0 world with the millions of SMBs.  With existing customer relationships and massive distribution opportunity, evolved broadband providers are in an interesting position to capitalize. Posted Monday, April 23, 2007 5:14 PM from Andrew Brooks | 0 Comments

• Building Software and the Conversational Web

  On Tuesday, April 17th BT launched the v1.0 production version of BT Tradespace.  BT Tradespace is designed to create a web-based conversation between buyers and sellers (via the Tradespace itself) and between businesses (potentially partners) as well as buyers/sellers via BT-sponsored and promoted Communities (like Gardening, Home Improvement, Photography, London, and on and on).  Here are some interesting examples: Tradespace Site - Jill's New and Used Office Furniture Community - Photography In the cold reality of a web-based naked conversation, feedback (good, bad, indifferent) comes in quickly and with a sharp eye.  As examples, here's some feedback from GoonerChris posted on the forum boards at discuss.bttradespace.com. "Hi all at BT Tradespace, my name is Chris (the hints in the user name lol) and came across this site by accident and how good is this!! My site is aimed at all PC users and i provide a remote cleaning service. I have been providing this service for about 3 years and even though i have a website most of my new clients are word of mouth. With this site i hopfully will gain lots more customers and find more services that i can use." But Dennis Howlett of AccMan Pro has a different perspective in his article titled 'BT Tradespace is Grim'.  Some very valid feedback in his bullet points that I know the development team are looking at closely.  It's always hard to hear the word 'vomit' in a review, , but it gets your attention!  In the same vein, some of his concerns actually conflict with direct feedback from alpha and beta test users and focus groups, so then there is the challenge of balance. So what are the Conversational Web lessons? 1.  Just like web conversations are key to buyers actively connecting with sellers, so to are they key to developers actively connecting with a passionate and invested audience.  Feedback has never been more available.  If you don't listen to feedback from your customers, whether you're a furniture shop or a large telco, you will suffer the consequences.  The Conversational Web is all about ensuring everyone, from tech-focused dev team to sole trader, has access to the tools that enable this dialogue.  I expect the BT Tradespace team to be actively responding to Dennis over the coming days and weeks.  A real web conversation with big impacts. 2.  Every conversation must be weighed and prioritized.  My friend JHoskins (who I would link to if I knew where!) made a very solid point on the signal-to-noise issue with conversational/interactive web tools.  How do you value a rating or a referral?  How do you know if the feedback you're seeing is from a single bad experience, or a series of experiences?  This extends to the tough reality of building software.  There are a lot of itches out there, and it's hard to scratch them all.  I think when things don't hit the mark, it's often because the functionality was designed to scratch too many itches, none as well as potentially possible.  And so the task of the Conversational Web is to provide tools that help a seller (of furniture or software) receive as much feedback as possible, parse through it, and see trends.  Maybe that means the next generation of blog-scraping and RSS feed tools could also include some functionality to help me collect like feedback, rank that feedback based on the individual providing it, 'bubble up' recurring themes, and respond more effectively. 3.  You have to want and encourage interactions.  The conversational web only works when everyone is engaged and pushing forward.  For SMEs, this means actively asking their best customers to rate and refer them.  For software developers, it means actively recruiting the smartest in the industry and inviting them to hold a public dialogue with you. Will watch and see how things unfold. Posted Wednesday, April 18, 2007 2:04 PM from Andrew Brooks | 0 Comments

• The PodCorps Army has Arrived!

  This morning i was reading Jon Udell's blog and i came across this fascinating, and brand-spanking new, concept called PodCorps which is part of this other really fascianating project called The Conversations Network. The premise behind PodCorps is this:  Every day there are hundreds of thousands of physical events -- lectures, meetings, political rallies -- happening somewhere in the world that might be interesting to thousands of other people.  Unfortunately, more often than not -- these events are not recorded and published to the web.  The reason is becuase participants don't have a clue about the mechanics of digital audio recording and Internet publishing. That's where PocCorps comes into play -- PodCorps.org is an all-volunteer team of audio/video producers who record and publish spoken-word events anywhere in the world. Here's how it works: Stringers: are forming a community (database) of free-lance journalists who are willing to volunteer their time to record and pulish events. Event Producers: are people looking for a stringer to record an event.  All they have to do is register on eventuful.com and add the tag "podcorps" and the system will find a volunteer stringer near you whol will come to your event, record it, and publsih it to the web. This is yet another example of how today's world is increasingly being driven by conversations which are occuring online. From my perspective, it will be interesting to see how big an impact podcorps will have?  I am sure it will result in a proliferation of "spoken word" events being recorded and published to the web that would have never been captured otherwise.  That said, I think the REALLY BIG impact will come from the proliferation of truly simple to use tools.  In other words, when college professors (or small business owners) can podcast by simply hitting a button on a machine and then uploading to a web page. It will happen one day soon...and sooner than you might think. Posted Monday, April 16, 2007 9:17 AM from Matt Howard's Blog | 0 Comments

• The 6th conversation: Hilary vs. Obama

  A freind of mine named Kameran Ahari wrote a great piece the other day on the power of Word of Mouth marketing.  His focus was Obama's "1984 Attack Advert" targeting Hilary. Check it out here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3G-lMZxjo A few things that are quite interesting: A.  Hilary (like a successful small business owner) is taking a very conversational approach to her campaign. B.  Both political and business conversations are driven by motives to sell (which is OK). C.  The web is increasingly the platform of choice (among politicians and small business owners) for engaging in conversations to sell things. D.  It's easier for a politician (with professional IT resources) to engage conversations on the web than it is for a small business owner (with no IT resources). F.  Tools like www.bttradespace.com will shift this balance over time by providing small business owners a truly simple mechanism to leverage the web to facilitate conversations. I am not prepared to cast any judgement on Hilary or Oama.  But what i can say for sure is that the power of conversational marketing is real -- and that small businesses will increasingly use it to their advantage. Posted Saturday, April 07, 2007 7:46 AM from Matt Howard's Blog | 0 Comments

• Evolved Broadband and Social Media

  An article in ZDNet today titled 'BT readies social networking for SMEs' talks about BT's Windows SharePoint Services-based offering called BT Tradespace. Here is a quote from Ivan Croxford at BT: "If you take away the technology, what you effectively have is a communications mechanism and a way of getting a personalised and conversational marketing message out to your customers," said Croxford, describing the potential results as "a lot more powerful than static marketing copy or brochureware". What's interesting from a broadband evolved concept is the use of 'communications' and 'conversational' in this quote.  Communications and conversations are the purview of the telecommunications providers - the people that have historically delivered you your phone line.  SMEs have conducted conversations with customers over the phone for 100 years.  Now they are ready to do it on the web, but in a much more social context.  The fact that the web is now an interactive conversation (see www.5conversations.com for this concept explored more) is a great driver for the role that incumbent telecommunications providers must play in the SaaS market. On the social networking side, BT plans to launch communities of SMEs for weddings, home repair, gardening and more in a few weeks.  You can see an example (and links to others) here: www.bttradespace.com/weddings     Posted Tuesday, April 03, 2007 12:56 PM from Andrew Brooks | 0 Comments

• Social Media, SaaS Services and Marketing

  If you're a provider of SaaS solutions, online advertising is a must.  Customers go through a process of search, find, try and buy in making SaaS purchasing decisions.  If they want an online solution, it makes sense that they are searching it out online (though there is some argument that the mass market of SMBs is just coming into this purchasing profile).  So if online marketing is critical to SaaS success, it makes sense that the biggest growth area of online sites (social networking / social media) requires critical thought.  Should SaaS marketers use social media sites as a marketing tool? Here is an article on just that topic titled:  Social Media: A Business Marketer's Guide by Dan Morrison, CEO and co-founder of ITtoolbox, a professional (social) networking site for the IT community. Here is an interesting quote:  "According to a recent report by market research firm Compete, Inc., more than 71 percent of consumers who use social media are more influenced by user-generated content when making purchasing decisions than by information from brand advertisers and marketers." This obviously raises the question of how a SaaS provider can use social media as a marketing tool if consumers are only looking at user-generated content in making their decisions.  A couple of ideas: 1.  A community with an active user base will respond to requests for feedback.  For instance, if you are considering integrating a third party service (and have a few options) into your SaaS offering, look for user feedback on their experience with service A vs. service B.  Ask for candid feedback on the pros and cons on each.  You will achieve your goal of making your SaaS offering known and demonstrate a willingness to listen to the market in your product roadmap decisions. 2.  Go for passion - Every industry has topics that are contentious.  Give people a discussion topics that inspires a passionate response to keep your post on the top of the 'most recent' and 'most viewed' lists.  For example, if you provide a SaaS offering for sales automation, make a statement that a certain selling strategy fundamentally doesn't work and explain why.  Obviously you can't alienate your purchasing audience, but you might need to break some eggs. 3.  Bullet Lists - Irony acknowledged, but users are typically looking for the 'meat' of an article or post very quickly.  Go for bulleted lists on tips and best practices on a topic with which you're familiar (for instance, best practices on online credit card billing) and end the article with a request for ideas from users.  Invite the dialogue on the back of a quick post of 1 sentence ideas.   Posted Tuesday, April 03, 2007 12:33 PM from Andrew Brooks | 0 Comments

• Beware of the Company Formerly Known as Cisco

  The network OEM formerly known as Cisco is now a Software as a Service (SaaS) provider lusting after your SMB customers?   Say what???   Yes, it's true they go by the same name -- and, yes it's true they still want to sell you equipment (BFRs) to power your carrier class network -- but with their recent acqustion of WebEx, they've also openly declared a strategy to deliver application services to a wide range of consumers and small businesses.   Don'e believe me?  Check out this quote from Charles Giancarlo, Cisco's Chief Development Officer, "Cisco believes the network is the platform for all forms of communications and collaboration, and WebEx's technology and services portfolio complement Cisco's leadership in the Unified Communications and collaboration market, while providing Cisco with a new and unique business model to expand its presence in the fast-growing SMB market."   The result is that Cisco is not only competing with Microsoft OfficeLive and Google Apps to control and own the SMB market for SaaS -- but they're also competing with their telco customers such as BT, Telus, Verizon, and AT&T who are also heavily motivated to directly own a portion of the SaaS market for SMBs.   According to this article published today by CMP, Cisco is set to steal a signifcant portion of the SMB market right from under the noses of Microsoft and Google -- and also from under the noses of their carrier customers.   If you're an incumbent broadband service provider looking to remain relevant in this hyper competitive world -- then Cicso latest plans are yet another reason why you must aggressively evolve your broadband network.   Posted Monday, April 02, 2007 11:27 AM from Matt Howard | 0 Comments