Archive for January, 2009

Posted on January 30, 2009 - by Nate

DigitalSignage.com Finally Goes Live w/UGC Aggregation Tool

DigitalSignage.com Releases User Generated News Aggregation Tool for Digital Sign Industry

In an effort to bring industry articles, blogs, news, and information into one place, DigitalSignage.com has created a custom news aggregation site for the digital signage industry.  Interested Digital Signage users and consumers alike can now submit news stories, comment on recent articles, and suggest interesting and relevant information be posted to the news feed.

“The site’s software seamlessly aggregates multiple feeds which are managed, filtered, and approved by an administrator,” said Nate Nead, company President. “In addition, users can submit industry stories, news, whitepapers and articles they have discovered from across the web. Essentially, the site is similar to Digg or Slashdot, but with a narrow focus on the digital signage industry.”

Registered users are able to submit their own press releases, unique stories, news, and industry insights as well as provide commentary on articles and other user postings within the site.  In this way, DigitalSignage.com aims to educate readers and facilitate greater discussion for the emerging digital signage industry.

The release of DigitalSignage.com also comes complete with a digital signage industry glossary, directory, blog, and a guest article feed. The new directory contains complete information for approximately 2,000 industry leading businesses which provide services and products for digital signage consumers. Also contained in the site’s features are two article feeds where digital signage leaders can share their insights as the industry continues to evolve. 

Posted on January 24, 2009 - by Nate

Chrossing the Chasm, Review III

I never did finish up my favorite quotes from the Geoffrey Moore’s book: Crossing the Chasm. I finished the book, but never finished with my favorite quotes. Here they are. Enjoy!

“The chasm separates not only visionaries from pragmatists- it also separates the companies that serve them.” 

“It is the move from being pioneers to becoming settlers.” 

“They want to do great deeds, and when there are no more great deeds to be done, they want to move on.” 

“Nonetheless, once you have crossed the chasm, these people can become a potential liability. Their fundamental interest is to innovate, not administrate.” 

“It is critical, therefore, that as the enterprise shifts from the product centric world of the early market to the market-centric world of the mainstrem, that pioneer technologists be transferred elsewhere–ideally, into another project within the enterprise, but if necessary, to another company.” 

“WIthout them [the pioneers], achieving early market leadership is all but impossible.” 

“The key to leaving the chasm behind, however, is to stop custom developments and institutionalize the whole product, to build to a set of standards that the marketplace as a whole can support.” 

“There are two sets of people–high tech pioneers and pioneer salespeople.” 

“And they build fences and create laws (called procedures) and do all the things that created range wars between pioneers and settlers back in the Old West.” 

“…At the beginning of the chasm period, the organization is dominated by pioneers, with strong powers invested in a few top-gun salespeople and product managers. By the time we are into the mainstream market, that power should be distributed far more broadly among major account managers, industry marketing managers, and product marketing managers. This gradual dissemination of authority will ultimately frustrate the pioneer contributors, hampering their ability to make quick decisions and rapid responses. Ultimately, it will make them want to leave.” 

“The key to discriminate between account penetration and account development: the latter is more predictable, less remarkable achievement. It is also the more lucrative.” 

“Compensation for the pioneer salesperson should have the opposite characteristics. It should provide the bulk of its rewards immediately, in recognition of a single key achievement–winning the account.” 

“What the pioneer technologist does have a right to is a large share of the early market returns, because here it truly is the core product that drives success. The problem is that cash is typically so tight during this period that there is none to throw off in the form of a reward. So equity is the usual fallback.” 

“Like authors [pioneer technologists] are compelled to condust their craft regardless of whether anyone will pay for it.” 

“To sum up, improper compensation wastes dollars and demotivates people.” 

“[R&D’s] heroes are less like Einstein, who developed a whole universe out of his own head, and more like George Washington Carver, who discovered over three hundred different uses for the same peanut.” 

“Target the point of attack…assemble the invasion force…define the battle…launch the invasion, selecting our intended distribution channel and setting our pricing to give us motivational leverage over that channel.” 

Crossing the Chasm Review I

Chrossing the Chasm Review II

?ÅT? NÆd 

Posted on January 15, 2009 - by Nate

What is Digital Signage?

“Digital Signage utilizes both local and wide networks to upload and schedule content for display on digital billboards such as LED, LCD, plasma, and projector screens. The content is used to advertise, inform, and educate people in an out-of-home environment. Targeted and impacting content can be distributed to large audiences in a timely way via a network of digital screens . Televisions connected real-time via a network are being placed in multiple venue types across the nation by multiple content providers.The medium of digital signage offers greater flexibility and control than standard signage. Advertisers can specifically target messages like never before. In addition, digital signage has enhanced reach, awareness, acceptance and recall as a content distribution channel. As a medium, digital signage advertising is in a growth stage, and will be for some time as firms continue to deploy massive signage networks. Early adopters stand to make incredible and impressive sales gains as they utilize this effective advertising tool.”

Posted on January 14, 2009 - by Nate

I bit the bullet: I’m now on Twitter

I’ve been following the Twitter craze on the blogosphere for quite some time now, especially with my intresest in mobile marketing. However, I never joined….until today. 

you can follow Nate Nead on twitter my feed is http://www.twitter.com/natenead

My reasoning for not joining was simple. 

1. I’m all thumbs. I work better with keyboards that allow for use of all my fingers (I mean isn’t that why I have 10, instead of two thumbs, so I can type?). 

2. I would rather call than text. 

3. I would rather be called than texted. 

4. Texting isn’t free. In fact texting is quite expensive. 

5. I like networking, but for some reason Twitter didn’t appeal to me. 

So, now that I have it. Feel free to follow me. I may not update as much as others. Like I said, I like full conversations, so blogging is more my thing. However, as I update on twitter, you can see the latest and greatest of what is happening in life and business…

Posted on January 3, 2009 - by Nate

Crossing the Chasm: Part II

Here are some more great quotes/words of wisdom from “Crossing the Chasm.”

“For those who wish to take a more prudent course, however, whole product planning is the centerpiece for developing a market domination strategy. Pragmatists will hold off committing their support until they see a strong candidate for leadership emerge.”

“The contract does not require the company to deliver on this promise–but the customer relationship does. Failure to meet this promise in a business to business markethas extremely serious consequences.”

“By solving the whole product equation for any given set of target customers, high tech has overcome its single greatest obstacle to market development.”

“Every additional new target customer will put additional new demands on the whole product.”

“If you leave your customer’s success to chance, you are giving up control over your own success.”

“The fundamental rule of engagement is that any force can defeat any other force–if it can define the battle. If we get to set the turf, if we get to set the competitive criteria for winning, why should we ever lose? The answer is depressingly enough, is because we don’t do it right…we misinterpret what our target customers really want.”

“If you are fresh from developing a new value proposition with visionaries, that competition is not likely to exist–at least not in a form that a pragmatist would appreciate.”

“Unfortunately where there is no competition, there is no market.”

“Resistance has been a function of intertia growing out of commitment to the status quo, fear of risk, or lack of a compelling reason to buy.”

“Pragmatists work to educate the company on the risks and costs involved. Visionaries counter with charismatic appeals to taking bold and decisive actions.”

“…there are not enough visionaries to go around.”

“In the pragmatist’s domain, competition is defined by comparative evaluations of products and vendors within a common category.”

“Pragmatist buyers do not like to buy until there is both established competition and an established leader, for that is a signal that the market has matured sufficiently to support a reasonable whole product infrastructure around an identified ceterpiece.”

“Competition, therefore, becomes a fundamental condition for purchase. So, coming from the early market, where there are typically no perceived competing products, with the goal of penetrating the mainstream, you often have to go out and create your competition.”

The four domains of value in high-tech marketing:

1. Technology

2. Product

3. Market

4. Company

“Skeptical generalists may not take an interest in an unproven company buy are always interested in new market developments.”

“Develop a mainstream market by demonstrating a market leadership advantage and converting it to company credibility.”

“We must shift our marketing focus from celebrating product centric value attributes to market centric ones.”

“You choose your competition to help you define the niche market you will dominate. As long as they are well behaved and stay out of your niche, you go out of your way to honor their achievements elsewhere. If they should stray into your niche, on the other hand, you must defeat them totally. The beachhead segment must be your niche and yours alone, separated from all others by tall barriers to entry. Just remember your Robert Frost–’Good fences make good neighbors.’”

“Just as football coaches have to make half-time adjustments to their game plans, so do marketers.”

“Marketers revisit the same audiences many times over during the life of a product. Establishing relationships of trust, therefore, rather than wowing them on a one-time basis, is key to any ongoing success.”

“It is not that we lack for ideas, usually, but rather that we cannot express them in any reasonable span of time.”

“A product with an uncertain position is very difficult to buy.”

“The key is to define your position based on the target segment you intend to dominate and the value proposition you intend to dominate it with.”

“Remember, the goal of positioning is to create and occupy a space inside the target customers’ head.”

“It’s like a telegram with less than one line. If you don’t make the choice to fill the space with a single attribute, then the market will do it for you.”

“Positioning is not about hype. It is about clear and precise direction.”

“The toughest thing about high tech marketing is that just about the time you get the hang of something, it becomes obselete.”

“To the pragmatist buyer, the most powerful evidence of leadership and likelihood of competitive victory is market share.”

“Finally, communicating via the business press has to be done within the framework of a big idea.”

“For a technology story to be a business story, it has to be about something that transcends high tech.”

“Decisions in both distribution and pricing, therefore, have enormous strategic impact, and, with distribution in particular, there is typically only one chance to get it right.”

“The most consistently successful channel in high tech has been the direct sales force.”

“The direct sales force is optimized for creating demand.”

“When functioning at its best, within the limist just laid out, direct sales is the optimal channel for high tech. It is also the best channel for crossing the chasm.”

“All other things being equal, direct sales is the preferred alternative because it gives us maximum control over our own destiny.”

“Retail distribution is structurally unsuited to solving the chasm problem.”

“Retail simply cannot sponsor discontinuous innovations.”

“Today, the domain between $10k and $75K is where the structural problem is high tech distribution is taking its greatest toll.”

“There are not enough VARs to go around.”

“VARs tend to be people who perceive themselves not as salespeople but as problem solvers. Often technical in orientation, they perceive selling as a necessary evil, what you have to do in order to get the “real work.” This service oriented rather than sales oriented self perception results in a channel that is not very good at selling, further contributing to its inefficiency.”

“VARs are problematic as mainstream distribution channels.”

“[Integrators] are…an important part of the mainstream marketing program.”

“It is critical for company crossing the chasm to work with systems integrators.”

“The most important marketing contribution to ensuring effective working relationships with systems integrators is a communications task, not a selling one.”

“Local VARs are not as a rule very good marketing organizations.”

“The OEM sales force is likely to be focused on the big-ticket products that come out of the company’s own R&D labs, not the add-on product coming in from another vendor.”

“Cosell with a whole product partner…sharing leads.”

“Selling partnerships, in other words, are good for priming the pump, but not for the long term.”

“Outbound retail sales forces…do not meet the chasm criteria.”

“The internet is a superb channel, for it gives visibility to no-name companies at a very low cost.”

“Crossing the chasm requires face-to-face meeting swith the target customer to help diagnose their problem and prescribe an herefofore unavailable solution.”

“In sum, it is hard to imagine going to market in high tech without making the internet medium part of your marketing mix. But for direct sales of chasm-crossing offers, you can ignore this channel entirely.”

“You simply cannot afford to lose one day of opportunity, and the only channel that would ever be that responsive to your needs is your own.”

“You start the fire. Once the fire is lit, however, then your job is to spread it as rapidly as possible. This is a totally different problem, and often the people that are good at the one are not good at, indeed often resist transition to, the other.”

“They have waited a long time before buying the product–long enough for complete institutionalization of the whole product, and long enough for prices to have dropped to a only a small margin above cost. This is their reward for buying late.”

“Avoid making the wrong kind of commitments in the prechasm period.”

“The dream of getting rich on equity is only an excuse, something to hold out to your family and friends as a reationale for all this otherwise crazy behavior. So early market entrepreneurs are not called to focus on, nor are they oriented toward, making money.”

“Only the most successful high tech companies have achieved such a state; most continue to fluctuate more dramatically than the financial community can understand, with the result that their stocks routinely take a vicious beating at the slightest indication of bad news.”

“The great benefit of adopting the discipline of profitability at the outse tis that you do not have to learn it later on. All too frequently, even when they are led by experienced managers, enterprises that are funded for long periods of time fall into a ‘welfare state of mentality.’”

“The explosion of the internet has created a land-grab mentality herefofore unknown, and everyone is racing to beat out competitors in captureing market share.”
See Crossing the Chasm post I

See more information at the digital signage blog

Posted on January 2, 2009 - by Nate

Crossing the Chasm: Book Review

I recently finished (for the second time) Geoffrey Moore’s book entitled “Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers.” What a great book. Although it was originally written in 1991 and revised in 1999 (now ten years ago), it still offers some great insight into converting sales in the high-tech and emerging markets. I’m putting some of my favorite quotes from the book in this post. You’ll will also see me quote him regularly at the digital signage blog.

“The point of greatest peril in the development of a high tech market lies in making the transition from an early market dominated by a few visionary customers to a mainstream market dominated by a few visionary customers to a mainstream market dominated by a large block of customers who are predominately pragmatists in orientation.”

 

“If prudence rather than brilliance is to be our guiding principle, then many heads are better than one.”

“What happens more often is a desperate attempt to recreate momentum, typically through some highly visible form of promotion, which ends up making the company look like Tarzan frantically jerking back and forth trying to get a vine moving with no leverage.”  Just a caviat: This reminds me of Wireless Ronin, who is the lead sponsor of the next digital signage expo. It would seem that their bleeding company is currently acting as the frantic Tarzan…

“Each of the gaps [in the technology adoption life cycle] represents an opportunity for marketing to lose momentum, to miss the transitions to the next segment, thereby never to gain the promised land of profit-margin leadership in the middle of the bell curve.”

“The key to winning over [the pragmatist] segment is to show that the new technology enables some strategic leap forward, something never before possible, which has an intrinsic value and appeal to the nontechnologist.”

“Transitioning from the early to the late majority, has to do with demands on the end user to be technologically competent.”

“At a time of greatest peril, when the company was just entering the chasm, its leaders held high expectations rather than modest ones, and spent heavily in expansion rather than husbanding resources.”

“To reap the rewards of the mainstream market, your marketing strategy must successfully respond to all three of these stages.”

“Marketing professionals insist on market segmentation because they know no meaningful marketing program can be implemented across a set of customers who do not reference each other. The reason for this is simply leverage. No company can afford to pay for every marketing contact made. Every program must rely on some ongoing chain reaction effects–what is usually called word of mouth. The more sefl-referencing the market and the more tightly bounded its communications channels, the greater the opportunity for such effects.”

“In every case, [visionaries] took significant business risks with  what at the time was unproven technology in order to achieve breakthrough improvements in productivity and customer service. And that is the key poit. Visionaries are not looking for an improvement; they are looking for a fundamental breakthrough.”

“The key point is that, in contrast with the technology enthusiast, a visionary derives value not from a system’s technology itself but from the strategic leap forward it enables.”

“At the end, you need to be very careful in negotiations, keeping the spark of the vision alive without committing to tasks that are unachievable within the time frame allotted.”

“In terms of communications, typically you don’t find [visionaries], they find you.”

“Visionaries are the ones who give high-tech companies their first big break. It is hard to plan for them in marketing programs, but it is even harder to plan without them.”

Problem: “a company sells the visionary before they have the product.”

“It is crucial, therefore, for any long term strategic marketing plan to understnd the pragmatist buyers and to focus on winning their trust.”

“Marketing leadership is crucial, therefore, to winning pragmatist customers.”

“[Pragmatists] get measured year in and year out on what their operation has spent versus what it has returned to the corporation.”

“Overall, to market to pragmatists, you must be patient. you need to be conversant with the issues what dominate thier particular business. You need to show up at the industry-specific conferences and trade shows they attend. You need to be mentioned in articles that run in the magazines they read. You need to be mentioned in the articles that run in the magazines they read. You need to be installed in other companies in their industry. You need to have developed applications for your product that are specific to the industry. You need to have partnerships and alliances with the other vendors who serve their industry. You need to have earned a reputation for quality and service. In short, you need to make yourself over into the obvious supplier of choice.”

“It is to high tech’s inability to transition its marketing efforst effectively between the pragmatists and the conservatives that poses the greatest threat to its well-being.”

“In a sense, this is a pity because skeptics can teach us a lot about what we are doing wrong….Steamrolling over the skeptics, in other words, may be a great sales tactic, but it is a poor marketing one.”

“You must get into a mainstream market segment soon, establishing long-term relationships with pragmatist buyers, for only through these can you control your own destiny.”

“To enter the mainstream market is an act of aggression…You are an invader.”

“Focus an verabundance of support into a confined market niche.”

“Companies just starting out, as well as any marketing program operating with scarce resources must operate in tightly bound market to be competitive.”

“We do not have, nor are we willing to adopt, any discipline that would ever require us to stop pursuing any sale at any time for any reason.”

“The consequences of being sales-driven during the chasm period are, to put it simply, fatal.”

“Numerous studies have shown that in the high-tech buying process, word of mouth is the number one source of information busyers reference, both at the beginning of the sales cycle, to establich their ‘long lists,’ and at the end…”

“The key to moving beyond one’s initial target niche is to select strategic target market segments to begin with.”

“Make a total commitment to the niche, and then do your best to meet everyone else’s committment to the niche, and then do your best to meet everyone else’s needs with whatever resources you have left over.”

“The companies who failed had overdesigned for the target market because they were hedging their bets. Ironically, in the get act of trying to reduce their market risk, they actually increased it.”

“Applications are what an end user sees…Platforms, by contrast, are multi-purpose by definition…When markets go mass, platforms have the advantage.”

“You need to understand that informed intuition rather than analytical reason, is the most trustworthy decision making tool to use.”

“So the rule of thumb in crossing the chasm is simple: Pick on somebody your own size [when target marketing]”

“Create a marketplace in which your product is the only reasonable buying proposition. That starts…with targeting markets that have a compelling reason to buy your product.”

“Real techies don’t need whole products.”

Continue Reading with Crossing the Chasm Book Review part II and part III.