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Showing posts from September, 2009

The view from the boys in the press room

I did a boatload of podcast interviews with EDA companies at DAC in July and on my last day I got together with Dylan McGrath and Nic Mokhoff of EE Times regarding the issue of how the industry is communicating with its customer base. I think it’s interesting to note that while Dylan kinda agrees with me that he doesn’t see the evidence that engineers get all the information they need by talking to each other amd getting it off press releases, Nic generally agrees that engineers can get all the information they need off the web now, and will be able to do it even better in the future. What that means for traditional media, they aren’t sure. Note: The sound level on this is a bit wonky because my computer was trying to balance my big mouth with Nic’s soft basso. You’ll probably have to turn up the sound to hear Nic.

Learning to communicate better

It's been one of those really intense weeks.  So to save some time, I decided to do an podcast on this issue, rather than write it up. My activity in European startups looking for funding brought me into contact with Irish entrepreneur Anton Mannering in 2008 and we had a pretty good connection at the time.  He popped up again this week with a new venture in New York called, T he Audience Conference .   Considering I was talking earlier this week about how engineering-based companies need to learn how to communicate better with their audience, I thought the reconnect with Anton was providential.   Here's the interview.

We're in this boat together. Start acting like it.

Harry the ASIC Guy got into the outsourcing discussion that has been going on in EE Times , starting with the "secret" IBM layoffs, and now with revelations that Chinese engineers will work for a fifth of the salary of a comparable American engineer.  He asked fro responses but as I started getting into this I realized it was too long for a comment, so I'm putting it here today. As usual, American corporations take it on the chin. The main excuse the corporations make is that they are beholding to their stockholders and have to maximize profits in a down economy.  Unemployed engineers, union workers and politicians say they are disloyal to America. The truth is that everyone has a hand at sending jobs overseas. Let's take a look at the unions and engineers first.  The largest single stockholding group in the US is retirement funds... for unions.  The pressure to maximize profits, that is causing corporations to look for offshore answers comes d...

Proctor and Gamble Raises the stakes in advertising

New Media Age reported that in the UK  Proctor and Gamble  is going to start paying publications based on how well people respond to advertising and promotional efforts.  It's called "pay for engagement" as opposed to pay for clicks or visits.  If a reader plays a game, downloads information, signs up for newsletters, they get paid for it. This is a very new approach and some publications are balking, but it makes a lot of sense to me.  The real value of any media now is not that it reaches a lot of people, but that people respond in a positive manner by engaging with the sponsor.  This plays well into the social media world, especially when you offer materials that can be downloaded for later review, including podcasts. Something to think about.

Not in the whirlwind, but in the still small voice

So I spent a great deal of my morning trying to get into the EE Times Virtual Conference on SoCs.  I was able to get into the exhibit hall to see really bad demos and webinars,  I could get into the resource center and download a lot of badly written marketing material and a few good articles.  But the meat of the conference... the panels and keynotes ... was unavailable to me.  Even Tech support couldn't figure it out. So I wandered into the chat room and found a half dozen people with the same problem.  And since they were all engineers I figured they weren't using a Mac like me, so my tech couldn't be the problem.  We all had a lovely chat about the conference as it was shaping up and learned something very interesting: Engineers don't like marketing materials (who does?), they don't like presentations, and they don't like webinars.   Webinars?  I thought webinars were the be-all and end-all of marketing.  ...

It's all about the benjamins

I'm preparing presentations for all kinds of sectors on social media strategies and I'm currently looking at market dynamics.  For many years I've said that good marketing on mediocre products always beats good products with mediocre marketing.  I still believe that.  Today, however, I've come to realize something else while watching a Microsoft commercial about why people should buy a Windows-based machine: A product will succeed in the market because it's cheaper, even if it is technologically inferior, especially in today's economy. That's the entire message of the commercial and, in the end, it's why Windows-based machines continue to outsell Apple.  And in this current economy, that is the trump card. In World War II, Germany had superior tank technology.  The were better armed, had better targeting optics, had better armor, better drive trains... they outclassed all opponents.  But when a tank crew got their assig...

Advertising needs a hand

Guy Kawasaki did a post in Open Forum this week on "Is Advertising is Dead " reporting on a panel of advertising experts from Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft.  The purpose of the panel was to discuss the benefits and pitfalls of using advertising to support a web-based business.  There were some good points, but like every other discussion I have seen on advertising it missed an important point:  How do you make it work? Advertising does not create sales.  It improves them, but  it doesn't create them.  It reinforces opinions and impressions that have already been established.  For advertising to work, the initial sale has to have been already made; the first impre ssion established.  The panel got close tot he subject with the  statement:  The key starting point is great content. When you have great content, you’re more likely to attract audiences, and audiences are what advertisers are looking for."   T...

I just had to share this one

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