Archives for category: Technology
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Enough to be Dangerous

January 13, 2016 //
0

Ah, it’s a terribly fine line sometimes. A coin toss if you will. A little knowledge can be all you need to get you started, get some forward momentum and learn as you go. Sometimes it’s all the time you have, otherwise you miss the boat.

Then again, it’s not coincidental that we use the phrase ‘enough to be dangerous’.

A couple of decades ago, a friend of a friend of mine went to live with a Spanish-speaking family to improve his basic language skills. In his first week there, they went out to dinner together. The daughter was 17. During the course of the conversation something was said to make her blush. He wanted to ask her if she was embarrassed.

Unfortunately, he didn’t know the Spanish for embarrassed so took a guess. Worse still, his effort – embarazada – means pregnant. Not good. The father went apoplectic and he had to leave the family shortly thereafter.

Knowing enough cuts both ways. Ask yourself this, do you feel lucky? 🙂

Tags
Categories Communication, Customers, General, Language, Marketing, Planning, Sales, Strategy, Technology

Find Your Place on the Tech Curve

December 21, 2015 //
0

Where are you on the technology adoption life cycle? When a new thing comes along are you first on the bandwagon or do you wait and see or even never adopt?

Pioneers like Geoffrey Moore in his Crossing the Chasm book classify a number of profiles occupying their own place in the distribution of technology adoption: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, laggards. Innovators are the geeks who will experiment with something even before it’s been finished. Early adopters are just that. Then you’ve got the 2 giants of the bell curve, the early majority and the late majority, finally, you have the laggards, late to technology if they use it at all.

Think of something like an iPod, iPad, 3D printer or driverless car. You may not know any innovators – under the terms of this definition – but you probably remember who was the first person on the street, in the estate, in school or in the office who had one. Maybe you were that person. As the old adage goes: ‘how do you know when someone’s got an [insert new gadget]?’ ‘Because they tell you.’

Once you’ve found out where you are on the tech curve, you can understand that place for what it is. Then you don’t get the hang-ups or envy when someone has something new. Your time will come, when you’re ready.

Tags
Categories Customers, General, Technology

Take a Blog Post Miss Dilger

October 26, 2015 //
0

Do you remember, back in the days before computers and any kind of automation, managers used to say to their secretaries ‘take a letter Miss Dilger’?

How times have changed. Now we do our own letters and our secretaries are personal assistants helping us with our own productivity.

I was reminded of this recently when I downloaded the latest Macintosh operating system for my laptop. Usually, I ignore these downloads and proceed with my daily work in the normal way. They don’t affect me. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when the latest release of the operating system downloaded some dictation software for my machine. I had to have a play immediately.

As you probably know, dictation software has been around for quite some time, but it has been notoriously unreliable. Either it completely misunderstood the dictated words or needed a vast amounts of corrections afterwards. Well, I have to say that the current dictation software which I am using to create this blog post is nothing short of a revelation. It is unbelievably accurate, easy to use and time saving. It has probably saved me half the time it normally takes to create a blog post. A couple of changes are all I need to make before I publish the post. In fact, the only mistake it really made was to spell my surname Dillinger and that really is no bad thing.

It is a strange feeling when the creative process becomes one of dictating verbally rather than imagining in your head and then typing in your computer. It reminds me of the differences between spoken language and written language. That said, however, to say that this is a somewhat seismic day for me as a writer and blogger is possibly the understatement of the year. Full stop.

Tags
Categories Communication, Technology

The Key Sales and Marketing Word for 2016

September 21, 2015 //
0

Want to know what the most important word will be for sales and marketing professionals in 2016?

Engagement.

Well, it’s out there now.

I used to think the key word was ‘resonate’, but that doesn’t go far enough. When what you say resonates with someone, it’s like they’re a string you’ve plucked. You’re on their frequency, to mix a simile and a metaphor. But the string doesn’t vibrate for ever, it fades away, or loses interest and it becomes immovable, in both senses of the word.

No, to succeed we all need to engage our audience. If we work in sales, we have to get our customers engaged so that they will do something with us. If we work in marketing or sales enablement, we also have to engage our sales people, those internal customers who never read an email we send them, or a document we prepare for them. We have to find ways of making them listen and realise that this is what they need, what they have been asking for, what is going to make them more money because they can satisfy more of their customers and prospects.

Sales engagement – and partner engagement for that matter – is a crucially important slice of the pie, but it’s often the slice that gets left to go cold. And no-one likes cold pizza, at least not like they do sizzling warm pizza that engages the senses.

So if engagement is the key word in 2016, what is the key process for us for the rest of this year?

It’s this: the journey to establish and effectively communicate what we have – or what we will need to have – that will truly engage our customer.

Tags ,
Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Planning, Sales, Strategy, Technology

The Single Point of Failure

September 14, 2015 //
0

We had a power failure the other day, across parts of where I live in the west of Ireland, perhaps affecting – I’m wildly guessing here – 50 to 60,000 people.

In the old days, an electricity power cut as we called it would be a major inconvenience, since all your appliances would be out, and your lights too, which, if it were winter, would mean cold houses and candles.

These days, especially during the working day, a power cut is a disaster. No electricity means – you’ve guessed it – no Internet. In a place with poor mobile signal, it also means you’re effectively off the grid. I couldn’t even vent my frustration adequately on Twitter, since I was reliant on my signal booster box – powered by electricity – to use my mobile phone.

All of which reminded me of how vulnerable we still are to the single point of failure that is our infrastructure and its systems. When a major travel accident results in thousands of travellers being inconvenienced, who compensates them for that? Similarly, when the power goes, who compensates thousands of paying consumers for the loss of productivity, or the loss of money invested in frozen food which thaws during a prolonged outage?

In the Cold War in the UK, we used to say that the Russians would wait for 2 inches of snow before they invaded; the country would be at a standstill. Our traffic infrastructure was – and still is to a degree – our single point of failure.

It still feels like that these days when the rubber bands and string of our major power infrastructures fail.

All of which leads me onto parallels with work. None of us in my opinion should be a single point of failure at work.

I’ve heard it said that you should try to make yourself indispensable, but that leads some people to become islands of information and jealously protect processes that only they know. I used to work with one such guy in a marketing agency and he was called the Mac Mason. My view is that the best staff are the ones who strive to make themselves dispensable, through leadership and innovation. And if your employers are dumb enough or political enough to make this a reason to get rid of you, then you’re better off out of there, they don’t deserve you.

Tags , , ,
Categories General, Marketing, Sales, Technology

Two Years of Blogging

September 2, 2015 //
2

Two years ago today I published my first blog post on ‘Paul Dilger’s blog – Musings on stuff I come into contact with.’ I committed to do 3 posts a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, going out between 7:30 and 8:30 am London/Dublin time, regular as clockwork. It didn’t seem worth the commitment to do one when I felt like it, since that would degenerate into one a month, and pretty soon none a month.

Two years later, and some 300-plus posts later, it’s still going strong, regular as clockwork. I like to think that I’m still true to the values from the early days: mostly sales and marketing stuff, posts that take a maximum of 2-3 minutes to read – rather than 10 seconds or half your morning – and posts that I hope interest and enable people.

It serves as the chief dollop of fresh content for my business web site, but it doesn’t feel like work. I really enjoy writing the posts, and I know the discipline of creating them is good for me.

I hope you enjoy dipping into them as well. Here’s to the next post :-).

Tags ,
Categories Communication, Customers, General, Language, Marketing, Planning, Sales, Strategy, Technology

It’s Not About Starting Something

August 17, 2015 //
0

It’s not about starting a project. It’s not about coming up with a great idea that could make millions. It’s not about deciding to walk coast to coast for charity.

Anyone can start something. Kids start new things every day, but how many do they finish before they get bored and move onto the next shiny metal thing?

It’s not about starting something.

It’s about finishing something. It’s about following through, executing, closing the loop, learning from the experience and moving on to the next thing.

Tags ,
Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Planning, Sales, Strategy, Technology

Why Go To A Consultant

July 15, 2015 //
0

Question: Why go to a consultant rather than someone in your company to get something important done?

There are myriad reasons, but the 3 I like and the 3 where I feel people like me can add value are these:

1) Specialised experience. You pay for experience in the field where you need help, because a consultant’s experience allows them to know which corners you can cut to execute quickly and save time.

2) Hard-nosed practicality. Consultants know what works and what doesn’t work. The practical, workable solution gets the job done.

3) Laser-like responsiveness. A good consultant knows that you went with them because they are free from any internal company politics or distractions and because they can deliver.

These 3 reasons are the ones we stand behind at M4 Marketing, which is my consulting practice. Together, they add up to what I think is a compelling offering, namely accelerating a company’s time to market for any important project.

Answer: You should go to a consultant because you want to get something important done.

Tags , ,
Categories Customers, Marketing, Planning, Sales, Strategy, Technology

Pulling Up The Plants

July 10, 2015 //
0

There used to be a saying from parent to child that got adopted by business:

‘Don’t pull up the plant every 5 minutes to see if the roots have grown.’

The implication was that you needed to give things time to bed down, to settle. Give them a chance, then monitor, measure and adjust if necessary.

That’s really not valid any more. In the digital era you can tell in 5 minutes if something’s working, or not working, especially if you’re in the volume business. You can check the roots as often as you like. You can tweak something, see if it works, and tweak it again, ad infinitum.

You’re in constant tweak mode, like when you’re driving, making many micro-corrections on the straight, large adjustments to overtake or big turns at a bend or junction.

Pull up those plants immediately. Test early and test often.

Tags ,
Categories Customers, Marketing, Technology

Opening a Bank Account

April 27, 2015 //
0

Opening a bank account in 21st century Ireland is a tortuous exercise. Let me put this another way: starting a relationship where you are trying to be a customer of a financial institution and give them your money so that they can make interest off it in return for a meagre few services is a tortuous exercise.

I know there are money-laundering regulations to be complied with, and processes to go through, but come on, there has to be a better way. I won’t tell you which bank, but they’re all pretty much the same. I was recommended by my accountant to go with a specific one, which I did, but these were some of the hoops you have to go through to become a paying customer. As someone who advises companies on how to work hard to attract companies to you, I’m always boggled by how difficult life is made for someone who wants to become your customer.

I suppose it’s because they’re all as bad as each other, and they’re pretty set in their ways, but if there’s one industry that’s prime for disruption, this is it. Anyway, here are some of the things I find amazing:

– You can’t apply for a business bank account online. The lady I spoke with in the bank said there’s more paper involved these days than there ever was

– You can’t take the application form out of the branch

– You have to make an appointment to apply in person (I’m not making this up)

– If it’s a limited company, all of the directors need to attend in person, to be verified in person for ID and address. For small companies who have maybe two directors, one of which is a spouse working somewhere else, this means they need to take a holiday to get to the bank, for the next reason

– The bank’s opening house are 10am til 12:30pm, and 1:30pm til 4pm. On Mondays they push the boat out and stay open til 5pm

– Once you’ve negotiated the application process, which has to be done in real time, your time, with the bank person, they send it off to head office, where it takes two weeks – yes, two weeks – to process

As the Irish would say, it’s mad isn’t it? Except the Irish simply shrug and get on with things.

As I said, ripe for change, this industry…

 

Tags ,
Categories Communication, Customers, Strategy, Technology
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »