commbasics

The glass-and-metal building that Solyndra LLC began erecting alongside Interstate 880 in Fremont in September 2009 was something the Silicon Valley area hadn't seen in years: a new factory. via www.sfgate.com I find it interesting that Solyndra's leadership largely came from the semiconductor industry that widely uses what I have, in the past, called Field of Dreams marketing (as it states in this article from Bloomberg). In this case, those that ultimately ended up holding the bag are from the US taxpayer rolls. You can get away with substandard marketing when you are in the business of selling to your peers, it seems, but when you actually have to reach out beyond your own circle, the results can be disasterous.

Been having some interesting discussions with web managers for b2b companies.  All of them start talking about their web traffic and SEO results.  I always step into the discussion with a series of questions that ends up stumping all of them. "So.  Who are all of those people visiting your site?" They stare at me blankly for a few seconds and then respond, "Why they're our customers, of course." "Like who?" "Well, we don't know who they are specifically..." "Then how do you know they are your customers?  Maybe they're your competitors." "They might be..." Then the stumper:  "So if you really don't know who it is visiting your site, why does it matter how many there are?" It is possible to determine if the right people are visiting your site, but the problem is that most marketing managers never ask that question and so most web site managers never take the time to dig deep...

Been having some interesting discussions with social media marketing/techdev types the past few weeks and I've come to realize that the SM industry is about as inbred as an industry can get.  That's not good.  Here's the background: I am still very tied into the old media world through very deep relationships.  I have good friends that not only work for newspapers, they own them.  5 years ago these friends saw they businesses crumbling but they still thought there was a chance to turn it around and the SM was just a fad.  Today it is quite different.  They understand they were wrong now, but they still don't understand how to put it into the context of their audience... because the SM industry doesn't care about context.  They care about selling stuff... through relationships.  In other words, an industry built on Amway marketing philosophy. But that's not what social media is supposed to be about.  SM is abou...