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I think the latest Microsoft TechNet mailer show that they don’t understand the new realities of the “conversation“.

I recently received a marketing piece for TechNet Flash from Microsoft Canada. I looked at the copy on the front and thought “Wow, they just don’t get it!”

The copy read:

Some people believe it is who you know that gets you ahead.

When I opened the piece I saw that it wasn’t as bad as I first thought:

Members of TechNet Flash believe it’s what you know, too.

The “too” at the end made the difference. While “what” absolutely is important in the technical arena, the Cluetrain Manifesto showed us that “who” can be even more important.

As a provider of technical knowledge TechNet tries the typical approach of making their stuff “the most important thing since …”.

What’s wrong with that you might ask? Well, to really show their class I think they should have acted differently. By wording their marketing piece differently they could have acknowledged that they understand the importance of the “conversation” - and at the same time underlined the importance of technical knowledge.

Let’s face it. With 95% of all jobs never advertised you need to know somebody. Without contacts you are stuck! Thus the importance of “who”. When you know somebody you have the possibility to get ahead - if you know “what”.

So, while Microsoft got both of the elements in their message, I think they should have stressed the overall importance of “who” much more, and then played the “what” card.

One possible option:

Networking expertise is important. It is who you know that might get you ahead!

Networking expertise is important. Do you know what to do to run your network properly?

Any other ideas? Suggestions welcome!

roar at roarweb dot com

I went to a VEF session last month where we were told why Venture Capitalists are looking for the “home-run” in all their investments

If I remember it right :

• Investors into VC funds are looking for a 20% annual return on their money

Since I did not write down the math presented at the VEF I had to look around the net or some help. I found the following info on one site:

For every 10 companies you invest in, expect:

• 1 home run (>10x return)
• 1 decent return
• 6 return your original investment
• 2 complete write-offs

which means that if you have $1,000,000 to invest and you split them in 10 equal pots, you should get back

• 1 home run (>10x return) = $1,000,000
• 1 decent return [lets say 2x] = $200,000
• 6 return your original investment = $600,000
• 2 complete write-offs=$0

for a total return, including principal investment, of $1,800,000.

While 80% return sounds good to most of us we must not forget that it might take 10 years to get to this point. So, even if we really simplify and forget about the NPV of money, and then even forget about the IIR the VC’s like to use (Read about some problems with IRR here), it does not take much to figure out that $1.8M does not give a 20% annual return over 10 years. In fact, if we forget about interest on the annual returns (to keep the language in layman’s terms)then $1M will grow to $1.8M after 4 year at the 20% annual interest required by most VC fund investors. $1.8M after 10 years only give $80,000 annually, simplified to 8% annually.

Let’s get back to the VEF presentation… since you never know which investment is going to be the home run, then ALL investments should have the possibility of reaching 10x to make sure that at least one investment reaches this level.

While 2x on an investment might sound great to many of us, it is thus not enough to make up for the losses and and zero-percent returns a VC fund is likely to see.

So, if you find a VC not to be interested in your HOT 3-4x opportunity, you now know why

roar> at roarweb dot com

Blogs are a great tool to publish your thoughts to a wider audience. But what you write is also publicly available information!

What you say on your blog may impact you other places! Take Mike Klander, the executive vice-president of the federal Liberal party’s Ontario wing, that thought his blog was only read by a few friends! Well, Mr. Klander has now resigned!

According to wolfvillewatch there are now a cloned site available.

As wolfevillewatch said: “It just goes to show you that in webdom once it is out there, it is out there, and you can’t really take it back.”

Bottom line? Think twice, post once! And when that fails, edit as fast as you can!!!

roar at roarweb dot com

Christmas is a time full of “customer experiences”.

- shopping
- wrapping of presents
- preparation of food
- time with friends and family
- giving and receiving of gifts
- church
- eating
- returns
- sales

For many they all go together in a blur. Christmas is a busy time for many and their “customer experience” in one area really depends on what happened in other areas.

- Making food, wrapping and giving gifts are dependent on shopping.
- Receiving gifts and eating of food depends on …. shopping
- Returns depends on shopping
- For many, sales means shopping

So, does it all boil down to shopping? It might look that way from the examples above and for some it does. Even the time spent with friends, family and at church sometimes depends on how the shopping has gone.

While shopping for many has become the main activity around Christmas, there are others that try to focus on other things. Convention organizers at a local hotel had the hotel take down all their Christmas decorations as it reminded them about the commercialization of Christmas.

Shopping has become an important part of this holidays here in North America. And our experiences when shopping impacts how we feel about this time of year. Poor service and long lineups make this a stressful time for many.

This stress follows us through the holidays. We’re late for church - standing room only. We’re trying to squeeze in another few friends for a get together - people we can see all year round, but “have to” see during these few days. We’re busy! And to this we add more shopping when the sales starts!?!

Christmas is a great example on how things are interconnected. Our experiences when shopping or preparing food often impacts how we feel about other parts of the holidays.

This interconnection is there year-round, but the additional stress at Christmas time makes it more obvious.

This interconnection impacts us both as a consumer and as a business.

As a consumer an experience in one area will impact how we feel about an experience in another area. As a business we’ll see customers react to what we offer of products and service(s) based on what they have experienced other places.

We need to keep this in mind when looking at experiences. When a customer has been treated poorly somewhere else you might have to increase your service level to achieve the same satisfaction level as before. That the last customer yelled at you does not mean you should yell at the next one in the line-up.

To help create a positive customer experience we all need to work hard to break the cycle of stress and negative feedback. First then will the experience improve - both for customers and the employees trying to serve them.

Want to look at inter-connectivity from a different angle? Imagine a glass half full of water. Then you start adding more water - one drop at a time. If you do nothing else the water will eventually overflow. While many will say that it was the last drop that made the water overflow, I urge you to look again. Have you ever tried to find that last drop in the water? Is it still in the glass or on the outside? Does it matter?

The glass of water overflowed because of the combined volume of water was larger than the glass could hold. So is it with customer experiences. Each little item impacts the larger picture. Too many “irritations” and you might “spill”, too many complaints and the response from the store clerk might be very negative.

Next time, let’s keep this interconnection in mind.

By the way. Christmas is not about shopping. For me it’s about a Gift of another kind. A Gift that is free to all those that ask for it. While I still shop for food and gifts and still stress more than I should, no shopping is needed for the true meaning of Christmas!

roar at roarweb dot com

Forbes writes in an article that Intel Chairman Craig Barrett [wiki] dismisses the $100 laptop of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) association as a gadget.

The laptop, which will feature a wind-up power supply, is still not in production and has been described as follows by the association: “This rugged laptop will be WiFi-enabled and have USB ports galore. Its current specifications are: 500MHz, 1GB, 1 Megapixel.”

OLPC plans to start shipping the laptops in late 2006 or early 2007 with the goal of equipping 200 million of the world’s poorest children. Initial test markets include China, Brazil, Thailand, Egypt and South Africa. It is intended for distribution through Ministries of Education of developing countries and minimum orders will be one million units.

I think Barrett is missing the point. This is not about a computer, it is about enabling education and learning. And to produce a really low-cost computer you have to make some choices. While this $100 computer may not be a big hit in developed countries, a market for which it is not intended, I’m sure it will work quite well other places. In fact, I probably could use it myself as a back-up option for places where power supply is limited.

It’s easy to get blind-sided when you focus on specifications and not the intended usage. Bill Gates is reported to have said, back in 1981, referring to computer memory, that “640K ought to be enough for anybody”. I remember thinking 128K was high.

Personal computers and their applications have changed the way we communicate, the way we learn and how we spend our days. While the PC of yesterday is slow and lack features compared to many of today’s high performance machines, it was still able to impact our lives.

Gadget or not, this is an opportunity to help change lives. It will also create business opportunities here and in developing countries too. After all, we’re looking at - to start with - 200 million people with some kind of computer knowledge.

Since Barrett doesn’t like this gadget, maybe he can help produce something better?

And, as an afterthought, I understand it takes quite a while to prepare computers for space travel - I wonder what they have reached for specifications at this point? Are they at Pentium 4’s yet??

roar at roarweb dot com

I’m a winner!

While I’ve long known I’m a “lucky guy”, with a great family and good friends, I’ve now graduated from the “Super 7: One Free Play Winner” circle to be the winner of an iPod nano. In about a week I will be able to pick up my black iPod nano from the offices of e-hosting.ca.

I’ve been considering a new web host lately. I guess I should look further at e-hosting.ca’s plans $9.95 for 500MB with lots of extras doesn’t look that bad…

Hey, e-mail from MyPoints just came in - looks like the Gap is given away another nano + a chance to win $10,000 ) hmm…

roar at roarweb dot com

Note This post moved from Blogger December 6, 2005

Vancouver Sun: “Stray e-mails”

Stray e-mails is a problem. Especially if you are on the senders’ side. I’m sure most of us at some point have ended up including too many people (”reply all”??) or misspelling a domain name.

An article in the Vancouver Sun today underlines the importance of spelling e-mail addresses right and not expecting e-mail messages in general to be “secure”. To me the story also raises a question about ethics.

The owner of the infrastructure.ca domain has “for several years” (WHOIS says the domain was registered in 2000) been getting misdirected e-mails, [some] containing inside information about the Liberal government.

Sender beware! You never know who will be reading your e-mails!

On the other hand, this could have been an easy problem to fix for the domain owner - especially after several years of “problems”.

Some issues to consider:

1) He probably used the “catch-all” setting for e-mail, limiting the number of valid e-mail adresses would have been simple.
2) He could have deleted the e-mails. Instead it looks like he read every little detail.

The owner is now negotiating with the Canadian government for them to purchase his domain. He’s been asking $70,000! This amount has now been reduced to $25,000. The offer from our government: $5,000!

As people are likely to continue mistyping domain names, I suggest they use an outside agency to set the value. A Google search on Domain Valuation lists quite a few providers that is willing to do this.
This will make sure the asking price is not seen as black-mail and the offer price is not seen as a “cover-up”.

For the rest of us, we need to make sure we use the right e-mail addresses, not send confidential materials by e-mail …. and maybe delete incoming e-mail not intended for us? Telling the sender their e-mail went astray is a nice thing to do as well, but maybe not that practical for higher volumes.

Oh yes, if you are interested in politics … you might want to read the whole article on your own.

roar at roarweb dot com

Note: This post moved from Blogger on December 6, 2005

Cadbury Schweppes plc | our brands | find a brand | Search Results

BITTER LEMON

How I miss this drink.

It’s funny though how this british company doesn’t know the product is sold in England!

roar at roarweb dot com

This post moved from Blogger December 5, 2005

Caramilk Bars - The Biggest Secret In The Universe

Frozen … which explains why they taste so good straight out of the freezer.

Just try it!

roar at roarweb dot com

Tickle me …..

A while back I took a free IQ test from Tickle.com. The result … well, let’s just say I was on the “right” side of the curve.

As I’m a bit sceptical to this kind of testing, I did not buy the premium analysis …

Today I was offered a free copy - as long as I was willing to check out some offers from some of their partners (”free” gas card etc.).

The report was “interesting”. I’m a “Visionary Philosopher”. And guess what, they even issued me a Certificate of Intellectual Achievement”!

From the report:

You’ve got tons of strengths. It wouldn’t surprise us if you:
- Think of the “big picture”
- Can anticipate and predict patterns
- Are good at context clues
- Can see similarities in seemingly disparate things

Who wouldn’t be pleased with this?

It also gave me some help for my job search )))

Some of the careers they suggested:

- Archaeologist
- Detective
- Sculptor
- City planner
- Chief executive

Quite a range to choose from. I could have told them that without taking the test. I’m sure my mom must have told me I could be whatever I want to be!

roar at roarweb dot com