“Audience engagement at presentations is past being a trend,” says Cheryl Cran, an author and a speaker in the field of integrating communications, technology, and human potential. “It’s what’s happening now.”

Here are a few ways you can add some punch to your presentation.

Venues at most big organizations already are outfitted with interactive audience technology that enables a speaker to survey the audience and lets the audience indicate their reactions and responses to the presentation via wireless keypad or smartphone. Be sure to ask what technology is available to you, become familiar with it, and build its use into your presentation.

In addition to (or in lieu of) a high-end system, there also are plug-ins for PowerPoint (PowerPoint Twitter Tools) and Keynote (Keynote Tweet) that enable you to embed a Twitter feed into your presentation that enables the audience to react to the presentation in real time. Set up Tweetchat and provide everyone with a hashtag then watch the comments roll. Tweetchat also enables you (or an assistant) to curate tweets, so that you can control what appears on the screen.

Presentations should be highly polished and much more than a list of bullet points. Keynote offers a lot of flexibility in terms of templates and eases the process of incorporating multimedia elements, such as video and graphics. And there’s even an application for the iPhone that enables you to use it to advance your slides.

Before Cheryl goes on stage, she often mingles with attendees, a small video camera close at hand. (She recommends a Kodak HD, which has a powerful onboard microphone.) Cheryl does video interviews with several attendees, polling them about what their issues are and what they’re hoping to get out of her session. She then uses those vignettes in her opening to set the stage and encourage engagement during the presentation. “Most people are happy to be filmed, but how much they’re willing to say does depend quite a bit on the culture,” says Cheryl. She suggests that learn about the organization you’re slated to speak to before you get to the venue, so you have a sense of what will fly.

Some of her colleagues run their presentations from an iPad and that it’s definitely an option. Doing this, however, requires you to upload the presentation to iDisk. To ensure you can get to the presentation when the time comes, make sure you have a 3G-enabled device—because if there is no Internet at the venue or the signal is poor, you won’t have a presentation!

It’s not all about the gadgets, however. Cheryl emphasizes, “You can have the coolest technology around but if you’re not prepared, nothing will save you. Competition for speaking slots is fierce. Conference directors expect you to do your homework and to fully customize your presentations for their audiences. Customization has become the standard—even for celebrity speakers.”

The good news is you can use technology to get ready as well. As she studies each organization, Cheryl often sends out short web-based surveys using Survey Monkey to test for perceptions and expectations.

With audience attention spans averaging around nine seconds, speakers who want their messages to connect need to involve their audiences in the process. The right technology can enable audiences to provide added dimension to your presentation, create synergy, and increase the impact of your presentation.

A security flaw on popular networking site LinkedIn has left accounts wide open to hackers, according to online security researcher Rishi Narang.

He claims that LinkedIn is keeping cookies active for too long, which means that anyone who can get access to the file (particularly on a Wi-Fi network) can easily gain access to a user’s account. Narang reported this finding on his own blog .

LinkedIn creates a cookie called “LEO_AUTH_TOKEN” after a user enters the proper username and password to access an account, which later serves as a key to gain access to the account. This can be a problem if you are using a public (or even private) Wi-Fi network. Software like Firesheep has previously been used to hijack other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, enabling hackers to see all the account holder’s friends, read their private messages, and even post a status update. Scary stuff.

Firesheep is a Firefox add-one that was basically created to check for security holes in websites that don’t use encryption—but it has since been (inevitably) used by hackers and online scammers. All the hackers have to do is download and install the add-on, open the Firesheep sidebar, and click “Start Capturing” and then a list of all the accounts that aren’t encrypted appears in the sidebar.

Wi-Fi has always been known for its less than impressive record of security, so it is essential that, if you must use a wireless connection, you follow basic safety guidelines:

1. Use passwords. Your wireless router will come with a generic password for that brand that restricts access to its settings, so you will instantly need to create a strong password of your own. This can help prevent an outsider reconfiguring your router maliciously via the network. You can read a simple Change Router Passwords article available online to see how this is done.

2. Use the SSID name. This is the unique name for your network can be up to 32 characters long and may contain any symbols. This doesn’t have to be remembered, so it can be as complex (obviously not featuring words) as you like. This must then be set on both the router and all the computers on your network.

3. Enable WPA encryption. Immediately look in your owner’s manual to discover how to enable and configure WPA encryption for your device. Again, this must then be set on both the router and all the computers on your network.

4. Enable a firewall. Some wireless routers come with a built-in firewall, which you should check are enabled to prevent attacks.

5. Switch off. Turning off your wireless router and computer when not in use should always be carried out, as hackers can’t get at you if you are not online.

Now, back to the initial LinkedIn problem … In addition to carrying out the above Wi-fi safety tips, manually deleting cookies in order to save space or to address privacy issues is highly recommended. Just delete the LinkedIn ones after each visit. Click on “tools” in your browser and “Internet options” or “Options.” You will be able to delete all cookies or individual cookies from there to avoid being literally “LinkedIn” to the hackers.

Andrew Parker is a copywriter for computer forensics and online security experts IntaForensics.

While I’ve never met Segal, nor do I doubt his experience in the B2B marketplace, I fervently disagree with his statement.  To explain why, here are my four reasons why B2B marketing is still alive and kicking.

1. Sales Needs It

It was not long ago that Marketing was seen as merely a cost center to most organizations.  Marketing offered no intrinsic value beyond designing brochures, making sexy presentations, and ensuring brand compliance.  When cuts had to be made, Marketing was one of the first targets. After all, Marketing had no value (or if it did, it didn’t know how to prove it).

However, this is not the case anymore.  Marketers in the B2B world are providing and proving value more than ever before.  They are working alongside their sales counterparts in the development of demand-generation and lead-management strategies.  They are helping to propel deals through the sales pipeline through the development and execution of lead nurturing.  They are focusing on generating quality (versus quantity) leads.  They are providing metrics that show the value of their work and how marketing spend is directly generating revenue.  More and more, sales organizations are understanding and appreciating the value of their marketing teams. Together, both groups are working to meet revenue goals.

2.  The B2B Buyer

In his statement, Segal mentions the use of mobile technologies and people who are shifting continuously. He is absolutely correct.  The B2B buyer is changing, and that change now has them in control of the buying process. Sales used to be in control of disseminating information to the buyer.  Not so anymore. Today, the buyer (or more often, buyers) now control and manage the entire process and involve Sales much later in it.  Buyers have access to information like never before.  Peer-to-peer interaction, social networks, and online research have shifted the power to the buyer, thus making Marketing all the more important.  Why?  Because Marketing is better positioned to engage the buyer in a one-on-one dialogue, while doing so in a mass context.

Buyers today are not just looking for a vendor. They want the assurance of a business relationship.  They are looking to buy from partners who will provide value, understand their needs, and grow with them.  Building this relationship requires consistent, relevant, timely content centered on each buyer’s needs. Today, marketing is the entity driving this in B2B organizations.  So as the buyer continues to transform, marketing will be ever so vital to customer acquisition and retention.

3. The Focus on Revenue

One of the reasons Marketing has traditionally been a corporate doormat is its inability to show value in what it was delivering.  This is no longer the case. With the attention to metrics and the use of automation and BI technologies, Marketing is now able to show its impact on pipeline and revenue.  This shift in focus is putting Marketing on par with sales from a revenue goals perspective. It’s also bringing alignment to organizations.  While many marketing groups are still in the process of developing this approach, the awareness and understanding of revenue impact as the key barometer of success is certainly there.  This shift in focus has revived marketing groups and is allowing them to showcase their impact on their companies.

4.  Enabling Technologies

The marketing automation industry is a little more than a decade old. Yet the last three years have seen a significant increase in awareness where marketers are now looking to these technologies as keys to success.  While adoption rates are increasing slowly, marketers are beginning to understand that combined with the right people, process and content, marketing automation can enable them to meet the needs of their buyer and deliver the most quality leads to sales.  These technologies have truly been a game changer for B2B marketing organizations. When used correctly, they breathe new life into a marketing organization, giving them exponentially greater resources to drive revenue.

I have said it before and will continue to say it over and over again: “There is no better time to be a B2B marketer!”  Proclamations of its death—while provocative—are surely premature.  B2B marketing is just hitting its stride!

And, then you’d have questioned its use for business.

Before we get into why Quora could be important for your business, here’s a two-minute primer on Quora, for those of you wondering what I’m talking about.

Quora is to information networks what Facebook is to social networks.

Let me explain. Sites like Facebook and LinkedIn (I work there) are focused on the relationship networks that bind us. Sites like Twitter, Quora and Yahoo!Answers are focused on the information we possess and share among those networks.

On Quora, what you know is more important than who you know.

So, for an information network, organizing all this random information is a pretty monumental task. Twitter still hasn’t figured out how to do all of that, but Quora is built from the ground up to organize this info along related topics and categories.

Once organized, it not only massively scales to potentially any topic on the planet but also think of it as Wikipedia, just bigger and potentially covering the long-tail of topics. In particular, I think this post by Semil Shah on Quora as a wedge product that could drive growth in many industries nails it.

But I believe this initial activity is just Quora’s thin edge of the wedge. The first arena the site has been successful in altering slightly is the concept of network blogging, all of which has been well documented by others—many times over.

As the product matures and as contributors, consumers, and search engines crawl across the site looking for structured content, Quora could be slightly reorganized and positioned in a variety of new ways to challenge existing Internet products and services, many of which today are themselves large, multi-million dollar businesses. In no particular order, here is a list of markets where Quora could offer an alternative, leading all the way to the other edge—the thick edge—search.

So, why should your business be on Quora? For starters, search. Currently, Quora hasn’t scaled well enough for it to be a no-brainer for your business, but it may soon be in the same way that businesses slowly started getting Twitter’s value.

Now, even if you’d like your company to be on Quora, they’d rather not. They just recently banned Mashable’s account. I guess this could be more of a reflection of their priorities today and less of a disinterest to support organizations. Only time will tell.

Alternatively, I’d be surprised if they’d rather brands use company ambassadors (as David Armano mentioned recently) respond on behalf of brands instead of creating separate brand IDs. A more elegant and authentic solution, in my opinion.

For Businesses: To Quora, or Not to Quora?

Since I started using Quora more aggressively, its potential benefits are pretty obvious to me as a blogger who writes about marketing. But I’m sure all of us will get to wondering if Quora is of any use for the companies we work for?

The answer to that is: Maybe. If your team (copywriters, customer service, etc.) or your company (Zappos, Sears, Best Buy, etc.) are in the information business and shares unique information about their brand regularly (like on a blog for example), Quora may be a better place to do that than the 140 characters on Twitter.

That said, since Quora doesn’t encourage businesses having a Quora account today, I’d instead urge you to give it a shot and let me know what you think.

And if you’re wondering how to get started on Quora, here’s a post I wrote that walks you through the five stages of Quora adoption. And here’s why I don’t buy the contrarian viewpoint that Quora is hyped.

Leave a comment on your specific Quora experience. Do you think it’ll help your business?

Fresh off the digital presses, the report was published this morning. A total of 755 Internet users were asked about 15 different kinds of online material that could be purchased or accessed after a payment. The biggest news: “Sixty-five percent of Internet users have paid to access or download some kind of digital content.” At 33%, digital music and software are the most popular categories for purchases. And 21% have paid for apps for their cell phones or tablet computers. The least amount of purchases were for adult content (2%) and online dating services and sites (5%).

Other interesting facts about Internet users who purchase online content:

• About the same percentages of men and women pay for online content (except software, which online men are more likely to purchase than online women).
• Online purchasing is color-blind. Whites and non-whites are equally likely to purchase most forms of online content.
• The more educated the Internet user is, the more likely that person is to purchase online content.
• The older the online person, however, the less likely he or she is to purchase content. Internet users ages 18 to 29 and 30 to 40 are more likely to buy online than folks 50 to 64 or older than 65.
• Internet users who live in high-income bracket households are more likely to pay for various kinds of content than those who live in lower-income brackets.

So what do all these percentages mean for you? According to the Pew Internet Project, “The issue of people’s willingness to pay for online material has enormous implications for media companies, artistic creators, and others who are hoping to sustain themselves—or grow new businesses—by raising revenue through online purchases.”

In other words, all signs point to a better days for businesses who know how to capitalize on the growing trend for online purchases. Do you?

For more details, check out the complete report.

The Essentials

No mobile worker should be without some basic gear:

• A small, light computer like the HP Mini. Its energy efficient Intel processor means it’ll last hours on a single charge. If you need more power, get a full-size notebook instead or a high-powered but ultra-portable HP EliteBook with Intel® Core™ i5 or i7 processors.
• A smartphone. Trade your five-year-old brick for a smartphone that lets you check email, view websites and even read and edit documents.
• Power essentials. Although clever power management in Microsoft Windows can extend battery life, it’s wise to take your charger, plus a socket doubler to avoid plug-jostling. Taking an extra battery or choosing a long-life battery for your notebook can keep you going all day. You can use a USB socket in your notebook to charge other accessories like smartphones and cameras; this will keep the number of adaptors to a minimum.
• A good bag. Choose something that’s well-padded, easy to carry and not too flashy (you don’t want it stolen). You can even go for a smart jacket that includes space to store all your gadgets and music players, such as Scott eVests.

To access the internet, you’ll either need a wireless network or —to get connected from nearly anywhere—a mobile broadband connection. Some HP notebooks have a slot for a SIM card so you can connect to mobile broadband without any extra equipment or you can buy a plug 3G modem.

The Right Software

To be truly mobile, you need to be able to do real work. Be sure you have the right software:

• Office applications. Microsoft Office (or if you’re rocking open source, try OpenOffice). You can also consider Google Apps, which has an offline mode if you don’t have a constant network connection, or Microsoft Office Web Apps.
• Online apps. There are great online apps now that let you run big parts of your business from the web, such as file-sharing tools like Dropbox. HP Notebooks with HP QuickWeb software let you get online in seconds without the usual wait for a boot-up making these applications much easier to access when you need them.

Accessories

Carefully chosen accessories will add minimal weight to your bag and can make you more productive:

• Noise-canceling headphones. Loud cafe? Busy train? A good pair of headphones can give you peace and quiet. Getting into the flow is essential for productivity. If you take lots of phone calls, consider a Bluetooth headset too.
• A mouse and wrist rest. Working on a laptop can be an ergonomic nightmare. Carry a portable mouse and—depending on your laptop—a wrist rest to stave off aches and pains.
• The right low tech. It’s not all about electronics. Stick a decent notepad and a few pens into your bag. If you tend to scribble notes on scraps of paper, organize them in a zip-up folder.

Matthew Stibbe is Writer-in-chief at Articulate and a contributor to HP’s Business Answers website, blog and Twitter feed. Business Answers is an online resource and community for growing businesses.

1. Go big screen. Switching to a bigger screen or adding a second one can dramatically improve your productivity, according to usability guru Jakob Nielsen. For example, you can review artwork on one screen and write feedback on the other. If your desktop computer only has one video connector, consider adding a discrete graphics card with multiple ports. Most notebook PCs will now extend their display over two screens. With Microsoft Windows 7, try using the Windows key and the left and right arrow keys to arrange windows side by side.
2. Polish your presentations. Marketing agencies spend a lot of time making pitches and presentations. Try to avoid long lists of bullets and reading text from the screen. (For more tips, see 10 simple rules for awesome presentations.) It also helps if you can get your PC hooked up to a projector without fumbling too much. Look for notebooks that have quick launch buttons to configure multiple displays and consider getting notebooks with extended battery life so you don’t run out of juice mid-speech. A neat way to make presentations more responsive is to use hidden action buttons in PowerPoint, so you can navigate from slide to slide and section to section by clicking on the screen.
3. Improve the quality of your copy. Use automated tools to assess the readability of your copy. For example, Microsoft Word gives readability statistics when you run a grammar check (but you need to enable it in the options). You can also use web-based tools.
4. Increase concentration. Creativity is the heart of marketing, and it starts when you shut out distractions and focus on the task in hand. Consider using an offline computer and working in a quiet, unplugged area.
5. Get free training. HP has a large library of free online courses and supports Knowledge City, a site where you can develop your business and IT skills.
6. Share files and collaborate. Once you start working with colleagues, clients and subcontractors, collaboration and project management become essential. Here are some things that can help: video conferencing on Skype with your notebook’s built-in webcam; sharing files online using Basecamp or Microsoft Online Services;  and online proofing tools like ProofHQ. See HP Business Answers for more tips on improving teamwork.
7. Rapid prototyping. Check out MakerBot. It’s an affordable 3D printer for building ABS plastic prototypes of anything you can design on a PC. (Even if you can’t use it in your business, it’ll make a perfect geek birthday present.) You can use technology to prototype other things, such as websites more efficiently.
8. Outsourcing. Sometimes, coming up with a really great product logo can be a burden. Why not outsource it?
9. Better, cheap stock photography. Good photography makes the difference between “Me, too’ and “Look at me!”  However, stock photos from traditional libraries can be fiercely expensive, especially if you can’t get a buy-out and need to pay renewable license fees. Don’t overlook the plentiful supply of public domain images and crowdsourced low-cost online libraries such as iStockPhoto.
10. Get free advice. If you have a question about how to get the most from your technology (but not, please, technical support questions) you can ask HP experts directly using the Business Answers IT Agony Aunt. It’s free, confidential and run by humans.

Matthew Stibbe is writer-in-chief at Articulate and a contributor to HP’s Business Answers website, blog and Twitter feed. Business Answers is an online resource and community for growing businesses.

From last week’s #TechChat, here are 4 social media lessons for the enterprise from LaSandra Brill of Cisco Systems:

1. Educate Employees on Social Media Marketing Best Practices

How many people have you met that say,”I just don’t get Twitter. People don’t care what I ate for lunch or that my cat just puked”?

If you’re like me, you’ve met lots of ‘em. Marketers, too. But Cisco Systems is turning regular employees into social media enthusiasts by educating them on social media best practices with their in-house optional social media certificate program.

2. Have an Open Social Media Policy

Unlike Apple (and the NFL), Cisco encourages social media participation, and has a clear social media policy. Want to comment on a blog, or Tweet about Cisco? Go for it—as long as you follow these rules.

3. Encourage All Employees to Participate

The one advantage that large corporations have is well, a large workforce. Cisco has 70,000 employees—70,000 potential social media brand champions. Just imagine the power those 70,000 people would have on Twitter. Pretty awesome, isn’t it?

4. Share Knowledge with Other Groups

Cisco has an internal site where they post best practices and planning resources. They meet and share their success stories monthly. So if product team A finds out that XYZ works, they can easily share it with product team B, and vice versa.

A big thank you to LaSandra for participating in #TechChat, and an even bigger thank you for those of you who shared your insights during last week’s seminar Cisco and the Social Web — it got rave reviews!  If you missed the free seminar and want to learn more about Cisco’s high-performance social media program, have a listen to the recording. Learn even more about high-tech B2B social media marketing in San Jose at SocialTech 2010. SocialTech is our new conference about social media for the high-tech industry. Not in San Jose? No worries. We’re streaming all content to virtual attendees as well.

And don’t forget: #TechChat is every Tuesday at 8 PM ET. Our next guest is Michael Brito, SVP of Social Media at Edelman Digital. Michael has worked for major brands in Silicon Valley (HP, Yahoo! and Intel) and was instrumental in driving social media programs and campaigns emphasizing authenticity and long-term relationship building. Awesome, right? We can’t wait to see what lessons he has to share.

Here are my favorites:

1. Trial and error leads to strategy.

Because social media is still relatively new territory for most marketers, it makes sense to develop your strategy as you go along. You can’t plan what you don’t know. According to Guy, “I think ’social media planning and strategy’ is an oxymoron. Basically, you try stuff and see what sticks.”

2. It’s all about the numbers.

Let’s be real. Twitter is all about the numbers. The more followers you have, the more opportunities for developing connections you have. According to Guy, “The best way to get good connections is to get more followers. It’s the big law of numbers.”  With more than 250,000 followers, Guy has played that game very, very well.

3. No one’s an expert. We’re all experts.

Again, because Twitter is so new, we all have the opportunity to be experts. Unlike other forms of marketing, we’re all still figuring Twitter out along the way. So seize this opportunity to own it like no one else. Guy says, “No one’s an expert at social media. One of the reasons I love it is we all have a fighting chance to use this thing effectively!”

A big THANK YOU to Guy for these insights, and thanks to everyone for attending. If you missed the inaugural #TechChat, don’t fret. WTHashtag has a transcript, the Isatis Marketing Blog compiled the best Tweets from Guy, and Stanford Smith wrote a great blog entitled, “How to Tweet like a ‘Beat Reporter—#TechChat Edition.”

Ready for more? Join us Tuesday, August 24 from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. (Eastern standard time) for the second #TechChat. We’ll be chatting with special guest, LaSandra Brill, social media manager at Cisco Systems, about social media for high-tech, B2B marketing. LaSandra is also presenting the new seminar, “Cisco and the Social Web: Our Adoption and Evolution,” on Thursday, August 26 at noon (Eastern standard time).

Mainstream news outlets use the web heavily to supplement (or in some cases, overshadow) their broadcast or print counterparts, but the fact remains, tech writers were there long before the masses showed up. Tech journalists (and the technologies they bring into the spotlight) maintain an enormous advantage when it comes to share of voice online. And tech news isn’t just fighting general news for marketshare, it heavily influences what news outlets are now choosing for their top stories. Just look at Apple and the pending announcement of their new tablet computer. This isn’t just a trending topic on Twitter, it’s also mentioned as a top story on CNN, USA Today, and elevator screens across the country.

The implication? When possible, it is extremely important to time your PR efforts carefully so you are not competing for attention from the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Apple.

Obviously breaking news about the latest gadgets or operating system cannot always be predicted. These companies tend to be quite secretive about such matters. But that being said, there is still a great deal of predictions that can be made and implemented into an editorial calendar meant for brands you represent. Apple often schedules its conferences and Google is beginning to do so as well to build anticipation for their upcoming products. They don’t reveal the topic of discussion, but you will know when something big is coming. Additionally, conferences like the Consumer Electronics Show, E3, or SXSW are all scheduled far in advance. These events make web conversations soar, and they absolutely steal the spotlight from other categories of news in social media and mainstream blogs.

Do not plan your PR efforts in a vacuum.

Obviously not all campaigns can be shifted over a week or two, but when it is possible to have some flexibility with launch dates make sure you’re planning for maximum share of voice. Here are a tactics to help maximize your story vs. being crowded out by the tech crowd:

1. Create an evolving calendar which maps out known future conferences, announcements, etc. Keep launch dates away from those events.
2. Watch for spikes in tech news using free/paid monitoring tools. If you see something that might develop into a big story in a week or two, try to see if you can shift your launch to sooner or later.
3. Watch who you pitch based on current news. If the brand you represent is also going after tech bloggers or mainstream blogs that also cover tech news, you are much more likely to be ignored.
4. If possible try to latch onto pending tech news. This will only work with a certain type of product, but if your product/brand can ride the way of upcoming tech news, help it do so (but don’t get  yourself sued).
5. Select your channels carefully. Even traditional vehicles like newspapers are gobble up tech news these days, but if you do see a looming tech story on horizon, examine what places you might be able to have conversations that will be least likely to carry chatter about the latest nifty gadget from Cupertino.

Is this the best projection of market growth — i.e., is this ‘the number’ for 2010?  Beats me — I’m not a full-time industry analyst — but given this data, plus some other recent insights I’ve read, it seems as though 2010 is going to be a big year for marketing automation.

Then it occurred to me:  What do all of these B2B marketers (and some B2C marketers) actually mean by marketing automation?  Is their definition the same as mine?  What is it they think they are investing in — in droves — in 2010?

And I have had similar thoughts while reading recent blog posts by Jep Castelein (a.k.a., “The Lead Sloth”) and David Raab on where marketing automation is headed in 2010.  So I did some thinking about how we define marketing automation.

Strategic Marketing Automation

The problem with definitions is context.  I think many who look at marketing automation lean towards a definition rooted in how marketing automation improves the operational efficiency of a B2B marketing organization.  There is no question that this is a benefit — a significant one — and it often is the initial catalyst that gets a given marketing organization thinking about marketing automation.  In fact, it probably was the catalyst for the initial development of the entire marketing automation segment.  But as with any technology advance — for instance, CRM — having a holistic platform to tackle the operational obstacles changes things.  It opens up totally new capabilities that were perhaps not fully envisioned at the outset.  This is what is occurring with marketing automation … and at a key moment.

Operational efficiency is important, but it is not the greatest challenge B2B marketers are facing today. 

B2B marketers’ greatest challenge lies in responding to a rapidly-changing B2B buyer.  A Web 2.0 world has fundamentally changed the dynamics of buyer-vendor interaction.  B2B buyers not only have greater access to information than ever before, but increasingly, that information comes from industry peers and third parties, versus coming from their vendors or from traditional media outlets.  Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff wrote about this loss of control in their book, Groundswell, and they noted “[t]he groundswell has changed the balance of power.”  Buyers now move forward on their own terms, conducting much of their education on their own (and online) and connecting with a live sales team member later and later in the process.

So given this power shift, B2B marketers must more than ever work to wrap their marketing programs around the B2B buyer — managing dynamic, anticipatory, buyer-driven campaigns and programs and being in the right channel with the right information in the right voice at the right stage of the buying cycle.  It’s a posture that imitates how a live sales person might have engaged with a prospect in a consultative interaction in the past.  But now it’s being driven — out of necessity — by a B2B marketer.  I think of it as ‘mass one-to-one’ marketing or ‘bottoms-up’ marketing, and more than just enabling operational efficiencies, marketing automation is critical to executing against this type of marketing.  In fact, I believe you really can’t do mass one-to-one without some sort of underlying marketing automation platform.

“[C]ompanies have to engage differently with prospects,” commented Lumension SVP of Worldwide Marketing C. Edward Brice in a recent interview on the Savvy B2B Marketing blog.  “They have to stop focusing on the sales cycle and instead focus on the buying cycle. This ultimately means that companies need to understand prospects and customers to a greater extent, including how that individual wants to buy and what information they need at particular points in the buying cycle.”  Marketing automation thus also is critical to observing and understanding the buyer — keeping track of information consumed and using this to better understand and tune outreach — and to closing the loop.  This means having insight into buyers’ ‘implicit’ information-seeking behaviors and being able to link these behaviors to purchasing behavior.

This view of marketing automation — as the key infrastructure for driving buyer-centric, mass one-to-one marketing — is a different definition of B2B marketing automation.  This is what I view as the strategic definition versus the operational definition.  It recasts how we think about automation and its role in modern B2B marketing, and this is important because I believe it is this new role that is driving the rapid growth of the segment — the 70-75% (or whatever number) net growth I cited above.

An Expanded Agenda

Here’s the other impact of the strategic definition:  Once you are thinking about marketing automation in this strategic context, it then becomes clear why recent and upcoming developments in the marketing automation segment make sense.  And why it is natural that marketing automation will increasingly have an expanded agenda.

These developments are all about extending the platform’s ability to deliver buyer-centric, mass one-to-one marketing.  “It’s all about the buyer now,” explains Castelein I his 2010 round-up, above.  And so the natural evolution are features and capabilities that reach further upstream into a buyer’s decision-making process, strengthen our engagement in the middle of this process and reach further downstream into when that process naturally intersects with our sales organization.

This — in my mind — better helps to rationalize the current vector of marketing automation vendors better than any operational definition.

Feedback

How do you define marketing automation?  What are your thoughts on this strategic versus operational view?  And how do you believe B2B marketers will leverage marketing automation platforms and related technology to be more successful in engaging buyers (and in the process, getting their arms around the ‘brave new world’ of B2B marketing) in 2010? 

I’d love to get your feedback.

This has been in the works for years, but what better time to capitalize on the success of the iPod and the iPhone like the present? Let’s face it: with our recent recession, there hasn’t been much to get excited about. There hasn’t been much in the way of innovative new consumer products hitting the market. So the timing couldn’t be any better, in my view.

Here’s the deal according to WSJ: this “tablet-like device” will offer TV and movie viewing capability; games, Internet, e-book and newspaper access. While Toshiba and Hewlett-Packard have similar Window-based tablet computers, “people briefed by Apple say the company intends to carve out a new product category,” according to WSJ.

Well, of course! Apple wouldn’t be Apple without going for a game changer in the marketplace. And there’s nothing like creating a brand new category, is there?

While Apple declines comment until the unveiling, speculation is building. According to sources, Apple’s new tablet will change the way consumers interface with a variety of content. A touch screen and live, up-to-the-minute information from numerous sources are rumored to be some of the product’s new features. There is also talk that content might be presented through color screens.

Downside? Price might be a factor. But who knows? If the new tablet is unique enough, offering ground-breaking innovations and maybe even a subscription to a nationwide Wi-Fi wireless service (WSJ article suggestion), price might not matter that much. Especially for consumers who are ever hungry for the new cool.

But all of this is exciting for lots of consumers. Firstly, for Apple’s legions of fans. Secondly, for tech junkies from around the globe. Thirdly, for Apple’s competitors, who are no doubt nervously awaiting the new multimedia device while feverishly planning their own launches to take it on.

How like Apple to build anticipation and excitement. Masterful marketing: to announce the new product unveiling is imminent, with a TA-DA moment planned for the end of the month, even though shipping won’t begin until March. The most brilliant part: letting the world know the company intends to create a new category…by changing the way people interact with content.

All of this got me thinking, why don’t more companies, large and small, generate excitement about their product innovations? Why don’t they build anticipation if they’ve created a new widget? Why shouldn’t we have more ‘Apples’ out there?

Questions:

• What do you think of the way Apple rolls out its new products? Do you think they do well to create an aura of mystery and anticipation? Or should they just announce an unveiling date and show the world their new game changer?
• Can you think of companies in other sectors that do a great job launching and marketing new products?
• Are there any specific companies you’re watching for potential game changers, that you’d like to share with the Daily Fix community?

I’d love to hear from you.

Where customers have to wait in line for service, you can be sure the science of queue management is involved. Queue management is the design of customer flow to and possibly through some function (cashier, customer service, help desk agent etc.). Processes can be documented, calculated and optimized and are sometimes enabled or automated by technology. But not all queues are created equal.

In a WSJ article, “Justice–Wait for it on the Checkout Line“, author Carl Bialik discusses how different industries react and adjust to improving customer wait times. For example, in an effort to speed service and ensure fairness (first come, first served) Wendy’s has long implemented a single line to order food. And most airlines, with the exception of the red carpet treatment for frequent fliers, also have implemented a single line for customer service.

Undoubtedly, most of us have experienced the aggravation of Murphy’s Law of queues–that the line next to you, will finish first. To address this issue, most transactional businesses (with the exception of grocery stores) have implemented a single line (or queue) for service. A single queue helps speed service and more importantly, gives waiting customers a sense of fairness that they will be served in an orderly fashion.
So your customer wants fair, but he/she probably also wants fast. And while you may think you’re delivering speedy service, your customer likely perceives something entirely different.

The above WSJ article cites a study by Richard Larson a professor at MIT which showed that customers waiting in line for a Boston Bank “overestimated their wait times by 23%”! So, customers often think they wait longer than they actually do, and get especially irritated when others get service (unfairly) after arriving later.

Now let’s add something else to the mix …. suppose you are a business that has segmented your customer base and identified your most profitable customers. What if you wanted to design processes for them to “jump the queue”–allowing them to go first?

For example, in an effort to reward their most valuable customers, airlines often let passengers with status board an aircraft first. Some airlines employ priority baggage handling where bags in effect “jump the queue” by coming off the conveyor belt first. Passengers without status often look at this special treatment as unfair–at least until they achieve a level of status and start accruing special benefits!

Indeed, it’s a tricky balance to deliver a different level of service to a customer segment … especially when that treatment is visible to your entire customer base.

Technology can and should play a critical role in optimizing customer queues, especially when there is more demand than resources:

• A global grocer based out of the UK uses sensor technology to “count” how many people enter a store location and then “predict how many tills will be needed up to an hour in advance and monitor average waiting times and queue lengths.”
• Disney uses technology to create “virtual queues” such as FastPass to “track guest activity and smooth out demand by scheduling a future time slot for guests to return to an attraction.” This practice helps reduce wait times and allows guests to enjoy more attractions in the park instead of waiting in long lines.
• Automated call distribution systems allow for the intelligent routing of priority customers to agents with the right skills to assist them.

When it comes to customer service, every business must consider its capacity, and required service levels based on customer expectations and then balance these variables with available resources, costs and fixed architectural constraints.

However, a word of warning; getting the service queue wrong could be a prime reason why your customers aren’t coming back. Richard Larson, the afore mentioned MIT professor, says he remembers a time–23 years ago, when he wasn’t served on a first come first serve basis at a local department store. He hasn’t been back since.

Questions:

• The WSJ article notes that at grocery stores there seems little time to exchange pleasantries with cashiers as management systems track the speed of each transaction. In the name of optimization are we sacrificing a “better” customer experience?
• Is self-checkout the savior for long wait times?
• When it comes to waiting in line–would you take fairness over fast? What about “valuable” customers that get to go first–any resentment?

Author and speaker Nicholas Carr recently wrote in the Atlantic Monthly how the use of technology has altered the way he absorbs and processes information. In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Carr makes the case that by consuming most of his information via a computer screen vs. the printed medium he’s “not thinking the way (he) used to think,” and perhaps even “remapping (his) neural circuitry.”

For a writer like Carr, “the Web has been a godsend.” He can now easily research topics with the click of a mouse, and spend minutes instead of hours in the library. He no longer needs to read tomes of information to find the “telltale fact or pithy quote” needed to support an argument. In a sense, the efficiency of internet search technologies brings many benefits including more productivity (due to better and faster access to information), however there are downsides as well.

By “tripping from link to link,” capturing bits of information here and there, and constantly scanning internet news and information, Carr finds that he’s losing the ability to concentrate and stay focused on longer pieces of writing. In the article, Carr interviews friends and other professionals who constantly use the computer. These associates report that they’re also having difficulty reading articles of more than 2-3 paragraphs and often find they’re skimming more than deeply reading.

Dr. Gary Small is a Professor of Psychiatry & Bio-behavioral Sciences, and Director of the UCLA Center on Aging. He is also the author of “iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind.” Via letter to the editor of Atlantic Monthly, Dr. Small agreed with Nicholas Carr’s observations.

He writes, “The average young person spends more than eight hours each day using technology (computers, PDAs, TV, videos), and much less time engaging in direct social contact. Our UCLA brain-scanning studies are showing that such repeated exposure to technology alters brain circuitry, and young developing brains (which usually have the greatest exposure) are the most vulnerable. Instead of the traditional generation gap, we are witnessing the beginning of a brain gap that separates digital natives, born into 24/7 technology, and digital immigrants, who came to computers and other digital technology as adults.”

In the letter to the editor, Dr. Small continues, “Today, video-game brain, Internet addiction, and other technology side effects appear to be suppressing frontal-lobe executive skills and our ability to communicate face-to-face. Instead, our brains are developing circuitry for online social networking and are adapting to a new multitasking technology culture.”

So, our brains are “re-wiring” and adapting to how we’re using technologies, but this begs the question; “Is this rewiring of our brains a positive change?”

I found Dr. Small’s letter to the editor very intriguing and thus I contacted him for a few follow up questions.

When asked about the effects of too much technology on the brain, Dr. Small said, “Tech users may increase their hand-eye coordination, peripheral vision and reaction time. Research has found that surgeons who regularly play video games make fewer errors in the operating room. Potential negative effects include increased frequency of errors from multi-tasking, worsening of attention, the risk of technology addiction, and a decline in face-to-face human contact abilities.”
Many of us are well down the path of too much technology usage. We’re addicted to our Blackberries, inboxes, PSPs, and YouTube. What if we deem the costs outweigh the benefits? What if we want to stop? Is the rewiring of our brains reversible?

“The brain is malleable at any age so we can continue to rewire our brains in ways that improve our lives,” Dr. Small says. “The best approach is to make sure that we are spending enough time off-line, both with other people and on our own. The lure of technology can present a daily challenge for many people so scheduling regular breaks and learning ways to reduce stress and increase focus are helpful too.”

Questions:
* Do you find that constant use of technology is changing the way you think? Positively or negatively?
* Have you noticed a dramatic shift in your online vs. offline reading?
* Technology is surely making us more efficient, but with too much technology are we also training our minds to be more “robotic”?
* In the Atlantic Monthly article, the founders of Google have suggested that humanity would be better off if we had “all the world’s information directly attached to (the) brain” via interface or implant and of course, supplied by Google. How much technology is too much? When will we know when we’ve crossed “the line” between benefit and harm?
Related post: Are Web 2.0 Tools Dumbing Us Down?

With exponential trends of data growth and computational power colliding, the world is literally drowning in data. There’s too much data, and not enough analysis. Fortunately, companies are using technology to capture and integrate data and sophisticated mathematical procedures to analyze data and make better decisions–decisions that ultimately improve the customer experience.

An article from The Economist, “Business by the Numbers“, highlights how companies are using algorithms to make book recommendations, choose optimum delivery routes for packages and even route calls to agents that can best diagnose a particular problem.

While the term “algorithm” sounds like geek-speak, the article notes algorithms are nothing more than, “a step by step method for doing a job.” Some algorithms are simple, and some are very complex. Coupled with the power of a computer, “algorithms can execute tasks with blinding speed using vast amounts of data.”

But how do algorithms improve the customer experience?

Take for example, something that on the surface sounds easy, but actually is very complex–package delivery. We often take for granted the operational efficiencies and supply chains of companies we rely on for package delivery. For example, we need a package delivered to Manhattan by 10am the next day. Using any of the global shipping companies, we would have a high degree of confidence in that package arriving on-time. However, peer behind the curtain and you’ll see some pretty advanced algorithms make all this possible.

The Economist article mentions how UPS uses algorithms to route millions of packages each day:

“The simplest routes are easy to draw up. If a driver only has three destinations to visit, he can take only six possible routes. But the number of possible routes explodes as the destinations increase. There are more than 15 trillion, trillion possible routes to take on a journey with just 25 drop off points–and an average day for a UPS driver in America involves 150 destinations.”

Now add other variables such as transportation schedules, special delivery times and shipping options (plane, train, truck, boat etc) and you’ll begin to see there is a real science to ensuring timely package delivery. Algorithms help tackle complicated challenges–especially necessary as marketers race to take care of their “best” and/or most profitable customers.

Suppose you are a frequent flyer on a particular airline and have achieved some level of “status”–say Platinum. You’ve checked baggage for a flight to New York City, with a connection through Denver. Due to unforeseen circumstances, however, your flight into Denver is an hour late. In Denver, you barely make the connection and at this point are unsure whether or not your bags made the flight.

About fifteen minutes into the flight, and just after the plane has reached cruising altitude, a flight attendant taps you on the shoulder and says, “Rest assured, your bags are on the plane.” Whew! You breathe a huge sigh of relief–especially because your business suits are in those bags!

Getting back to your flight attendant–how did he know your bags are sitting in the cargo hold? And how did you make your connection? Was it just luck? Perhaps fate?

While we cannot rule out the effects and benefits of luck in this instance, the more probable cause of making your flight (both you and your bags) is a combination of complex algorithms, scanning and sensing systems, processes and people executing in perfect harmony.

Ideally, the cause of the delay (weather, mechanical problems etc) was identified by systems or airline personnel. This caused a chain of events to take place with systems (running algorithms) that then started to identify possible alternative options (flights, aircraft, schedules) for you to make your connection.

Some systems examined the passenger records and recognized top tier customers (based on miles, profitability or some combination thereof). Other systems checked baggage and identified your particular suitcase in transit. Computers then sorted through thousands (if not millions) of options and either made automated decisions, or decisions supported by airline personnel to ensure that you and your bags arrived on-time. And of course, the flight attendant was notified via in-flight systems to tell you … a valuable customer–that your suitcase had made the flight.

Our world is becoming more–not less–complex. As data volumes and decision options increase, algorithms and the systems that run them take on added importance.

Powerful and well designed algorithms are only part of the story in how companies are taking better care of customers. As the Economist article points out, an algorithm is only as good as the systems, data, processes and people behind it. Nonetheless, algorithms are helping companies increase competitiveness, improve efficiencies and enhance the customer experience.

Algorithms are all around us–helping marketing and other business professionals meet complex challenges, but sometimes we take them for granted.

So, the next time you decide to buy that book Amazon recommended, pause for a minute, and thank an algorithm.

I am working on client projects – yes, marketing work. That is how I make a living. But, alas, I must depend wholeheartedly on my computer for Internet research, communicating with clients 4000 miles away, and yes, copywriting, designing and strategizing.
But when my IT specialist says it’s time to reformat, I cower with dreaded anticipation. I know what that means. As the Beach Boys used to sing, “Wipeout!”
I started on a Friday and didn’t complete the process until halfway through Monday. I backed up everything onto my external drive and reloaded all my software. Why, oh why, isn’t there a better way?
I thought my life would be better – that I could just click away on my keyboard and all would be well with the universe. Disheartened, I find myself lost without my personal contacts – all because I forgot to check a little box that says “include all sub-folders.”
I am working again, thank goodness. But, now there are new bugs that irritate me. Things that didn’t occur before. Maybe it’s a conspiracy. After all, Vista is on the market, just crying for attention, What? 3 gigs of RAM – oh joy. I find myself reading technology ads even more and browsing tech sites. Oh, oh.
What about you? Do you have a love-hate relationship with technology?

The video is part of a regular “Whiteboard” series in which Matt deconstructs technologies that marketers should understand (but often don’t). They also make for great instructional videos to share with clients.
“The next time you have a meeting where they’re speaking geek, you can surprise them with your knowledge instead of just nodding along,” Matt writes on MarketingProfs.
I’m excited about this series …. Matt has a gift for making complex technologies decidedly less so. In other words, he speaks your language.

You can subscribe to all of our future videos by clicking the “Subscribe” button on our new “MarketingProfs Channel” here.
One more thing — if you have a specific technology suggestion that cries out for Matt’s “Whiteboard” treatment, please suggest it below, or by email to me or Matt. THANKS!

Surowiecki says, in part, “Technology is supposed to make our lives easier, allowing us to do things more quickly and efficiently. But too often it seems to make things harder. This spiral of complexity, often called ‘feature creep,’ costs consumers time, but it also costs businesses money.”
He refers to remote controls with more buttons than you can count, and digital cameras with features the average shutterbug never uses, let alone knows how, to use them.
Product returns in the U.S., the article says, cost a hundred billion dollars a year. A study by Philips Electronics found that more than half of returned products have nothing wrong with them. The problem, instead, is with the features and/or the difficulty in accessing and using those features. Hard-to-read instructions simply add to the problem.

Studies show we (consumers) tend to behave like kids in a candy store when offered gadgets and features. We want it all, so manufacturers and marketers comply. But once faced with the reality of using all the features we’ve paid dearly for, we begin to suffer from “feature fatigue.”
So we have a situation of high expectations being set for us by the marketing of a product. We’re convinced we need 1,000 different ways to take a picture, or 100 ways to dial a number on our cellphone. We want to be state-of-the-art with our Blackberries and Treos and Cheerios. (I just threw that last one into see if you’re still paying attention.)
We buy the product and then we’re caught in feature hell. It’s not new. Think back to the early ’80s when everyone wore those plastic Casio runner’s watches. How many of us really knew how to use all the features? A simple and trusty Timex would have done fine for most of us, but those Casios were cool, weren’t they. Even if we couldn’t figure out how to make the alarm stop beeping in the middle of a meeting.
I had a client who has all the latest in technology. But she doesn’t know how to use the features. So when I try to call on her new Blackberry, I don’t always get through because her battery died. Or as we discuss a project, I’m put on hold for 10 minutes while she’s fiddling with her new laptop trying to access a file or an old email.
I’ve tried texting, and I can’t say how many times I lost the message I was painstakingly composing because I hit the wrong button when I wanted to send. I know the message is in there somewhere, but I couldn’t find it. After a few times, I say, “Damnit! Let me just call you, already. It’ll be quicker.”
Technology is wonderful. Features are great. But we’re not all technical wizards who enjoy working through puzzles in order to get our stuff to work. Hell, I don’t even have patience for crossword puzzles or Sudoku. Why in the world would I want to send my blood pressure boiling just to take a picture or program my VCR (oops, I mean DVR).
When I began blogging, a friend emailed me in disbelief, reminding me how I resisted getting my first office computer, and then how I fought using email for work.
I suppose some of us are Luddites, but we still are consumers.
What would you like to see simplified? Do you think marketers are overselling us on features we don’t really need?
Hey Panasonic, Sony, Motorola and friends… can’t you give us some neat features, but keep it simple?
Please?

If we’re to successfully implement these tools, we must first acknowledge that the tactics marketing should never take the place of marketing itself. Marketing is not about merely the effort to match the right people with the right product or service, but it is also about doing it in the right way. Your message, in fact, is strongest when it occurs at the intersection of ethics and the strongest passion you share with your audience, which, assuming a sustainable business model, naturally results in sales of whatever you are peddling.

“‘Script timed out’ or Error Line Number 0 on pages that normally run fine mean something prevented the server from processing the page as usual, e.g. IIS is hung up, or there was a file/data accessing conflict. These are very vague Microsoft errors (of the many vague MS errors), and difficult to drill-down on. So, I have to try to determine what happened based on logs and server performance.
“Not exact science from these types of error messages by any means…”

Aaron’s words were a bit of a revelation to me, sort of like those uttered by my next-seat neighbor after a leg of last Thursday’s flight from Santa Barbara to Boston. After spending most of the ride listening to air traffic control via the plane’s passenger audio system, she commented, wide-eyed, “Wow! Flying a plane isn’t the science you think it would be!”
With my limited comfort with technology, I assumed that tech diagnostics–like flying an airplane across the country–is all science, not art. But as Aaron later said, “Sometimes it’s a best-guess based on previous experience.”
But what about marketing? Is it an art, or is it a science? The debate often pits those who preach ROI against those in the squishier “creative” end of the business. The ROI camp says that numbers are the path to marketing’s seat at the management table, while the artists counter that decisions based on scientific results alone fail to capture the nuances and dynamics of a market that, fundamentally, is made up of people. And by the way, if you really want to bone up on the debate, there are reams of articles and studies that squarely take-on this issue–some published in MarketingProfs, including this week’s newsletter.
But here I’ll take an admittedly more anecdotal view, which is to say that marketing, like some aspects of technology and flying a jet, is often both. I like what the guys at Orbis wrote in Marketing Magazine a few years ago:

“Just because marketers today want (and need) to express outcomes numerically doesn’t’ mean intuition, savvy, experience, and self-criticality are abandoned.”

In my view, the “art vs. science” debate isn’t really much of a match at all. It’s less of a cage-match and more of a partnership, because marketing as a business is both–art and science.
What’s your take? Let me know your thoughts below.

In that way, we complement each other beautifully. As we work on opposite coasts (he’s in LA), I email him and say something like, “It would be great if…” and Allen is like Staples in his response: “Yeah, we’ve got that.”
Except this time. This time, Allen is stymied, and I’m figuring that one or two of you equally smart types who are more experienced with blogging might be able to help. Specifically: we can’t get Technorati to pick up our blog feeds. And as all of your bloggers know, that makes us the ugly girl at the school dance: pretty much invisible.
Here’s what Allen said: “The RSS feed is appropriately tagged, as they suggest, but I can’t seem to get them to pick it up when we post. I have all the stuff turned on in Moveable Type, as well. I’m a bit at a loss.”
Can you grok his frustration?
Chime in with a comment here or email Allen or me. In return, I’ll be happy to share your solution here.
And, by the way, after dealing with this stuff, I’m amending one of my posts from last week — “Got Traffic?” In it, I wrote about the frustration of blogs as a publishing tool — you might deliver your content to your audience faster than take-out Chinese, but the same old publishing rule of growing your audience one reader at a time still applies.
The amendment is this: the same old publishing rule still applies, but some of it is written in technical Sanskrit.