commbasics

This thing about the Uber executive drunkenly suggesting digging up dirt on journalists is an interesting observation point in the evolution of journalism in the 21st century. But rather than get into the issue of ethics and gender issues in the Silicon Valley, I’d like to point out another issue that this brings up. It is important that companies, now more than ever, get trained and effective communicators on staff. I’m not talking about marketing executives. I’m not talking about engineers who understand how to string a sentence together. I’m not talking about some sweet young publicist (be it male or female) that can charm people at industry events with their dazzling smiles and impeccable fashion sense. I’m talking about people who know how to tell the truth even when it isn’t pretty. Emil Michael , why are you smiling?     In all this foofarah over Emil Michael’s sexist pseudo threat, and the on-going sexism of the Uber culture, I’m wondering where the chief communicati...

By Joe Basques Back in December on this blog I posted the story of a potential sponsor regarding a series of content surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly referred to as Obamacare. I recommended we tell the complete story of PPACA from multiple angles, and position this provider as a thought leader on this entire subject. We could have exposed his product to multiple viable markets that he had not even considered.  After multiple discussions it became clear that the potential sponsor wanted some content that simply said “Here’s my product, buy it.” There was no interest in going deeper and telling the entire story.  Over the last several years, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard companies say “we know who our top ten customers are, and we’re already engaging them.”  That’s not really true.  We’ve found that everyone knows a few people in each of the top 10 customers, but know nothing of 10 times the number of cont...

The term “return on investment” (ROI) gets bandied about a lot in my business, as in “what’s the ROI of you service?”  We all know what that questions is supposed to mean: how much money can I make back from what I pay you?  But no matter how many statistics and case studies you throw at the questioner, the real question is: “How little can I actually pay you for your service?” I’ve started answering that question with another question: What is your content worth?  If the customer can answer that question, I can better answer their original question. Every company, especially engineering-driven companies, says their content has immense “value.”  They believe that their customers have an absolute need to hear what they have to say.  It is so vital that the customers very existence depends on purchasing a particular product or service.  At least, that’s generally how they answer the question.  But they can’t put a monetary value on that content....

My buddy and business partner in the UK, Peter van der Sluijs , finally launched his own social media presence recently (way to be late to the party, Peter) but is making up for it by posting some really interesting stuff.  Specifically is the most recent post on the new regulations imposed by the UK's Advertising Standards Authority enforcing honesty on the web.  It used to be that the ASA only monitored traditional advertising, but an extension of that power has given it the purview of web content as well, including commercial websites and social media .  As Peter put it: "Reputable businesses would want their advertising  and PR to be ‘legal, decent, truthful and honest’ anyway, though it is possible to be caught out if you make claims you can’t back up.  Common examples are phrases like ‘the world’s leading…‘ or ‘the top…’. If a complaint is made to the ASA (commonly by a competitor) you could be fined and made to amend the page if you can’t ...

Got an email today from a company shilling an upcoming trade show asking a bunch of leading questions designed to get me to agree to come to the show.  The plan didn't work because I didn't answer they way they expected.  But in the process, I think I got some grist for us all to grind on today.  Here are the questions: Most productive opportunities are generated by connecting with decision-makers Executive participants have the majority of the decision-making authority Face-to-face meetings are the best marketing channel to create opportunities The deal was if answered those questions with "fact" then I should come to their conference.  But I said they were all false.  Here's why: "Most productive opportunities are generated by connecting with decision-makers." Decision makers rely on influencers to make decisions.  They don't respond to in-person sales pitches but take what they hear and go back to their influence...

Last week I started a series on the importance and future of geolocal (also called geosocial) apps and outlined a few of the roadblocks to success including the lack of widespread adoption of the underlying technology (smart phones), holding the interest of the audience, and the lack of community building inherent in the current options.  Today I want to look more into that last problem and how some players are overcoming it. As I said last week, the big benefit of social media is its ability to build communities through the web.  But those communities are, for the most part, virtual.  If you are in Facebook or any other platform, you have a large group of people in your network that you have never actually met face to face.  Yet, you are in contact with them regularly no matter where they are in the world.  you know a lot about them and you have several common interests.  However, try to do that on a local level with social media and you run into a p...

   So I just got back from a 2 hour meeting with a handful of on-fire entrepreneurs from Europe who want to shake up the establishment and start building relationships, companies and jobs on both sides of the Atlantic.  "The 12 Entrepreneurs," as the group calls themselves (12 stars in the EU logo... get it?), come from all over Europe ( Austria, France, Spain, Germany, United Kingdom, Romania, Poland, Portugal, Norway, Italy, Czech Republic, Netherlands and Centrope Region (encompassing Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Hungary)  and h ave launched multiple successful companies, but they have grown frustrated with Euro-reticence and Silicon Valley no-it-all-sim (yes I spelled it that way on purpose). They want to get our respective economic engines humming again. I like these guys so I have volunteered my time to get it started. The kickoff event will be a small gathering of no more than 50 invitees at the Plug-and-Play Center in Sunnyvale on Septe...

Starting this week, my live video show on Vpype will be focusing on Investors and Entrepreneurs to talk about the arcane and mystifying process of fund raising for start ups.  It has never been a pleasant experience but it has never been nastier and more frustrating-- for both sides-- as it has in the past 5 years.  There are signs that it may be easing up, but that might just be the eternal optimist in me.  I'm going to find out by venturing into the world of the venture capitalist, live and unedited. Here's the thing.  I am going to be bound by my subjects schedule.  I'll give as much notice about the broadcast as I can.  It may be a day, ir just a few hours.  There will be archives of the interviews on Vpype and eventually on New Tech Press and right here so you can see what has happened.  if you want to get into the actual discussion, come with questions for the chat room and we'll try to get to them. First up in the...

At the Design Automation Conference a couple of weeks ago, one of the big topics of discussion was the use of "Cloud Computing" and one the up-and-coming player in that field is Xuropa.  I did one of my live video interviews with James Colgan, Xuropa's founder an CEO, regarding how that is affecting the bottom line for the industry.  The real kicker came at the end of the interview where James talked about the hard evidence of benefit for the concept... and that got truncated when the bandwidth gods shut down the broadcast.  So here's what I got and after you watch it, I'll tell you tomorrow what the bottom line was. Watch video live on Vpype Live Broadcaster

The customer/client is no more. He is now your partner and you are his. Your mutual success is intertwined. Spent a few days away... thinking.  Lots of stuff needs to be sorted out and I'm getting there.  Much of it has been inspired by Seth Godin's book Tribes , which has been incredibly encouraging personally and I highly recommend it.  But another large chunk came out of a story that Craig Ferguson  told about buying a rug in Turkey. He said he found this rug in a shop, liked it and asked how much it was.  The shop owner quoted a price and Craig reached for his wallet.  The shop owner said, "Let's have a cup of tea first."  They sat, drank tea, chatted, and then dickered on the price of the rug.  An agreeable price was set and Ferguson walked out with the rug at a price less then was originally quoted.  It's the way things are done there. What was not talked about was the reason it was done. ...

It's time to fess up.  All the problems with the Toyota Prius brake and acceleration systems are my fault.  Let me explain. A few years ago I was a PR consultant to VaST Systems who made virtualization technology allowing engineers to simultaneously test and modify hardware and software designs prior to prototyping and manufacture.  Shortly before I came on board, EE Times did a teardown of the Prius at the 2007 Embedded Systems Conference and one of the small bits of the discussion was how VaST Systems tools were used to build the engine control systems of the 2006 models.  VaST was very proud of this fact and as a result, they turned a lion's share of their concerns to automotive systems development.  Toyota was a marquee customer that th mentioned in all their presentations. Through most of my tenure with the company I regularly but softly recommended that improved safety and reliability should be front and foremost in their presentations, but th...

As I said in part one a few weeks ago ,  Social media attacks the tradition mass communication paradigm with a natural flow of communication, which is why marketers and journalists often chafe at embracing the practice.  What I've seen happening through this paradigm shift (geez, I never thought I'd hear that phrase again) is the rise of the value of talented, trained and experienced communicators within corporations and organizations that are making an effort to figure this stuff out.  That probably doesn't include your company, though. I was describing what is happening in social media to a friend who has no connection with high tech (they do exist, you know).  He thought a bit and then said, "Sounds like their going at it like they're killin' chickens."  It was a great analogy.  When you slaughter chickens (and yes, I have done this) it involves a lot of running about, noise, flyiing feathers and blood.  Total ch...

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.

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...