commbasics

If you haven't seen the news release today or gotten a personal note from Richard Goering, he's now a Cadence employee with the title of senior manager of technical communications and writing a blog on the EDA industry. I had heard last week that Richard had left SCD Source, which means, I supposed, that there is not editorial staff, there, just the freelance contractors.  It's just another indication that advertising revenue and directories can't effectively support a free press. I'm glad Richard got a gig though and hope he enjoys the blogosphere.

OK, I know I have to finish my thoughts that I said I would work on... but I've been busy.  And today, as I get ready to go talk to potential sponsors for New Tech Press, I decided to dome up with a list of technology niches we've covered this past year.  It's not a lot, but damn was it ever interesting. This is what New Tech Press has look at over the past 10 months. Polymer organic LED displays Semiconductor industry standards Semiconductor IP Social Media platforms Online Gaming LED applications for displays and industrial lighting Euro startups Media technology incubators Green real estate development Mobile smartphones for military and emergency services Virtualization for electronic systems design That's really cool. Sometimes, I amaze me. 

Lots of stuff is going on.  Lots of things becoming clear.  Let me start off with a true life anecdote. In the 1980s, when newspapers were contracting and laying people off (yes all this has happened before), I was offered a job as a technical editor for Lockheed on the Trident II nuclear missile program.  I told them I knew nothing about missiles, nuclear weapons or submarines.  They said, "We know, but you know how to write.  That's what we need." I worked there for seven years, learning a lot about nuclear warfare, electronics, and all kinds of cutting edge semiconductor stuff.  Also learned how to use computers.  Very interesting time.  The point is, my technical knowledge was not important, but my ability to communicate in the English language was. Fast forward to today.   As I said in part one of this series , people are either having a hard time figuring out what social media actually does, or being completely e...

Just got the latest DACezine providing insight regarding what's coming for the next DAC in San Francisco.  It's got two articles/viewpoints from vendors about how important ESL tools are for the future of the EDA industry, a directory of ESL tools, an editorial from the DAC chair on the importance of EDA, a guest editorial from an EDA marcom consultant on how important it is to go to DAC, and some news about what is going on at DAC. But where is the input from users about DAC, it's relative importance, and customers of ESL tools? If you think you are a leader, look behind you.  If no one is there you are just taking a walk.

Was going to do part 2 today but Forresters popped up with some REALLY interesting statistics  today. In short, 91 percent of technology decision makers are reading blogs, watching video and lurking on social media like Facebook.  Almost 70 percent are doing this for business purposes.  Almost half are creating their own sites.  We're not talking about 20-somethings, but real, mature business people. It's noteworthy that surveys show that these buyers don rate social technology highly in surveys, but do count on peer opinion to make decisions.  What they don't consider is they are getting those opinions off social technology they participate in. What this means in the context of our question: "what does social media do?" is that if you are not making social media an integral part of your marketing, then you are behind the curve... way behind.  So rather than asking about what it does, you should be asking why your are not doing m...

Just caught this at Folio .  Jim Malkin of Source Media  says editors have to eat, so they have to be paid. And if no one wants to advertise, they are going to have to pay for news development in some other way or not have a media at all. Wait.  I've heard that somewhere before...

Wanted to give my homies at RTC a shout out about the upcoming schedule of EDA Tech Forum Events  announced last week, primarily because I wanted to point out that this is yet another evolution of marketing that I think we are facing. With travel budgets being cut dramatically, it's getting harder for engineers to get justification to go to many of the traditional shows unless they can show relevance.  Organizations like RTC Group and Techinsights are trying to provide that justification, but in very different ways. Techinsights has made a strong effort to compartmentalize their big event, ESC , so that attendees going for specific purposes can find what they are looking for more easily, and vendors can better target the right customers.  This way engineers can go to the bean counters and say, "Look, just what we need." RTC, on the other hand, is taking the conference to the street where you live with multiple sites and very specific topics, and with majo...

Let's say you are one of those people who have never had a cell phone and have decided to check out what all the hoopla is about.   You go down to T-Mobile, pick out a basic phone.   Charge it up and put it on your desk to see what happens.   But you don't let anyone know that you have a cell phone, you don't call anyone, you don't set up your voicemail… you do nothing with it but put it on your desk and wait for something to happen. By the end of a week, would you wonder what all the big deal was about?   Would you cancel your service and toss the phone away?   Probably. That, in a nutshell, is the description of how many marketers view social media.   "That's stupid," you may say.   I say, however, that it's conditioning. There have been some interesting conversations about social media all over social media for the past few months.   One occurred on  Harry Gries'  blog where he posted a ...

A guy whose been kicking around the EDA industry for a LONG time, Dan Nenni , just launched his own blog.  On Linkedin, he calls himself an "independent consulting professional" which means he's a hired gun for small companies.  I've bumped into him a couple of times over the years and I'm glad he's discovered social media as a tool for self promotion.  Hope it gets him a steady cash flow and helps him reinvent himself. In his first post, he takes on what needs to change at the Design Automation Conference, which promotes the EDA industry and while he has ideas that have been lobbed at the organizers for several years, I was disappointed that he didn't look at the potential of social media to accomplish the same thing... at much lower cost ... with much higher results.. Dan makes some excellent points about the value, or relative lack of, inherent in modern trade shows.  It's expected that investment in even technology conference...

I did a couple of blips on the EE Times DesignLine changes earlier this week and today got my hand slapped, not entirely inappropriately, by Patrick Mannion and Rich Nass.   I didn't say report anything wrong, per se, but it wasn't the whole story.   After Rich and I made nice over the phone, I got more detail.   But there is more to consider.   First let's look at how this whole thing is breaking down. Techinsights has acquired and developed a lot of media properties in the past decade, but hasn't really done a good job at integrating them, which I reported in an interview with Paul Miller a couple of months ago.   The move to replace the contract editors on the DesignLines with staff editors is a step toward that integration.   Patrick has actually been in charge of the DesignLines for almost three years, but they were allowed to operate fairly independently.   By putting the staffers in charge of the sites EETimes print and o...

Dave Maliniak , one of the workhorses at Electronic Design, dropped us a line today to point out that he actually took over the Test and Measurement beat at the magazine back in January.  Totally missed that one.   While I know that means the perennially swamped Maliniak didn't need another bit of work to do (he also covers EDA), the combination actually makes some sense.  Design automation is becoming more of a backend issue and there are some technologies coming down the pike, outside of both T&M and EDA that are going to dramatically alter those industry landscapes.  This makes ED a good bet for seeing the bigger picture.  That, is if Dave can survive the load and ED can start boosting revenue. I'm working on it, Dave.

A couple of days ago I mentioned that Kenton Williston had his contract cancelled to edit the DSP DesignLine at the EE Times supersite.  What I didn't know, until today, is that all of the editors of the DesignLines were dismissed. The DL program was manned by freelancers, including Kenton, Clive Maxfield, and Gabe Moretti, but the work on those pages is now to be brought in house completely.  We can probably expect some significant changes in the format and content, but I am assuming that with Patrick Mannion taking charge, there will be some redesign of Techonline as well. This is significant because the DesignLines had become not only a repository of contributed content, but for ongoing coverage of certain niches, like DSPs and EDA.  Without those freelancers the electronics industries has lost more than a dozen journalists to take meetings and receive news releases. New Tech Press is looking better all the time.

Just heard that RCR Wireless shut down last week and that Reed Business is closing the San Jose office with all the editors now working from home.  That's been the case for the most part anyway with, I believe, Ron Wilson being the only editor still working out of that office.  But it's a sign of the times that the Silicon Valley is no longer considered worthy of a significant office for Reed.

Last week I posted a tweet stating I thought social media was more "attuned to introverts."  As one might expect, introverts agreed and extroverts disagreed.  (For the record I also posted I had had a lot of wine, which is what happens when you spend two R&R days in the wine country.) I thought, it might be worth taking a few moments to explain myself.  I didn't mean to say that extroverts couldn't use social media effectively.  What I'm saying is that social media is more valuable to introverts.  To be clearer, extroverts don't need social media to communicate in this world.  It's just another tool for them.  For introverts, social media levels the playing field for them with extroverts. Let's set the table on this discussion.  I'm an introvert.  When I go into a large social setting and talk with a lot of people, it drains me.  What I really like to do in those settings is find an int...

Kenton Williston dropped me a note this week to let me know that he's left TechInsights as editor of the DSP DesignLine.  Kenton did a pretty good job as a contractor for that site from my perspective and I'm sorry to see him go.  Patrick Mannion is taking over (gee, Patrick, what are you going to do with your free time) along with his duties running Techonline. Kenton doesn't have a line on what's next for him but I recommend him for freelance work.

Been thinking about lots of stuff this week as I took off three days.  First time off in about 5 years.  Need to do that more.  One of the things that popped up was what to trust in media now that traditional media has shrunk to the point of irrelevance on tech industries.  This is what I came up with: Don't trust anyone with more than 30 percent market share. Yeah, it's a riff off of the hippie adage, "don't trust anyone over 30."  But I think it fits. When the economy is strong, having stable market leaders is a good thing.  Markets grow.  The leaders follow basic competition concepts.  Everyone is happy.  But when things turn bad, leaders hunker down and do whatever they can to kill innovative competition so they can avoid losing market share.  And when those leaders are doing their own thing media-wise (social media, private conferences, etc.) they do everything they can to control market conversation....