Comments on: The Impact of Moore’s Law on Marketing

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:18:34 +0000

Thanks Paul and I will view the slide as well.
Thanks for the post, too, you bring up some very, very important things.

By: Paul Barsch

Paul Barsch — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 18:03:03 +0000

Neil, with so many technologies and that every IT shop is different, I’m loathe to give out a comprehensive list. That said, fundamentally they are EAI (enterprise application integration), ETL (extract,transform,load), data warehouse, BI and/or analytical tools/applications. Business Activity monitoring (BAM), Business process management (BPM) technologies might also be a factor. I’ll send you a slide that might make it a bit more clear…

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:28:04 +0000

Paul,
How is this done? Are there tools that tie all together?

By: Paul Barsch

Paul Barsch — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:27:29 +0000

Neil, thanks for commenting. To answer your question, I believe it begins with a robust and foundational IT infrastructure to capture, cleanse, integrate, store, analyze and disseminate data and information (actionable intelligence) throughout the enterprise to help both operational and strategic employees make better decisions.
There are good case studies of companies “doing it right”, but I think they’re a small piece of the pie.

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:52:44 +0000

I do believe that we can benefit from Moore’s law and already have. This blog is evidence of that, right? Google search, etc., etc.? And Google Analytics is free!! I remember when it was Urchin (before Google bought it out) we paid a monthly fee.
We have come a long way since I first booted up my Apple II. I could never have dreamed in my wildest imagination the Internet and all of the tools we have at our fingertips.
That said, could we do better? Absolutely.
What does marketing need that it does not have now that technology can provide? Better reporting technology? Better ways to segment and analyze our target customers? What? I know we need much, much more to ride the Moore’s law wave but what?

By: Paul Barsch

Paul Barsch — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:25:27 +0000

Michael, thank you for commenting.
I agree that marketers need to take a step back from their daily routines and ask themselves questions like, “why am I doing this?”, “am I targeting the right people?”, “is this the right message?”, “what is the optimal marketing mix based on my limited budget?”, “are we delivering the right products?” etc.
To your point, stopping for a minute, taking a deep breath, and asking the right questions is key. Then, analytics can help us uncover and discover the right answers to help drive our businesses forward.

By: Michael Goodman

Michael Goodman — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:52:46 +0000

As a veteran of the analytics wars, I’m pretty much convinced that the gating factor in adoption of new technology in marketing is the inability of marketers to stop executing long enough to think strategically and ask themselves whether what they’re doing is the right thing or not.
Technology has outstripped effective use of analytics for at least 20 years now. It’s not about the technology. It’s about marketing professionals becoming strategic thinkers and asking the questions that will really make a difference in their businesses. Once they have high value for getting the answers to the questions, the technology will be there to help them get those answers.

By: Paul Barsch

Paul Barsch — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 16:58:55 +0000

Ted, I’d agree with you that 24 hours a day will be a constant until God decides to change it. Lots of information–too much, means prioritization becomes even more important.
The concept of “dashboards” is really overdone, but there’s some relevance to tracking KPIs, and data that impact the business.

By: Ted Mininni

Ted Mininni — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:24:29 +0000

Nice post, Paul. Even with good information, and so much technology available to marketers now, I wonder if many aren’t simply overwhelmed by it all. You know: so much information, so much new technology, so little time to assimilate it all. I wonder whether that doesn’t lead to some of the “paralysis” Claire alluded to, as well.

By: Paul Barsch

Paul Barsch — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:21:09 +0000

Claire, thank you for commenting. As you point out, information is only so valuable, as when it’s acted upon.
I also have a wealth of articles I’ve captured over the years about the art of “indecision”. It’s the old CYA adage–”If I never stick my neck out and make a tough call, I’ll outlast those who are making the tough calls.” It’s an interesting career strategy…

By: Claire Ratushny

Claire Ratushny — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:09:17 +0000

Paul,
I don’t know what happened to my comment–it disappeared.
Let me try again. I liked your statement from the Marketing Profs conference: “Better information leads to better decision making.” Agreed.
However, having worked in a fairly large company recently, I’d like to make two observations. First, if great information has to be taken to a committee meeting format where there has to be consensus before acting, there can be lots of discussion as a result, sans any action. Secondly, I’ve observed managers who really loathe making decisions of any kind. God forbid, they might not be the right ones, or they might not be taken at the appropriate time. This mentality persists in many companies, hence, nothing gets done. To your point: business simply doesn’t have the luxury of not acting anymore. That means information had better be timely and better be gathered in such a way that it represents important data, worth considering in the decision-making process.
Thanks for another well-thought-out, well-articulated post, Paul.

By: Claire Ratushny

Claire Ratushny — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:01:15 +0000