A tech whiteout occurs when your office experiences or you experience a complete meltdown of the technology you rely on to run your enterprise or life.
“All we did was call in one of our techies and the next thing you know we had a total tech whiteout in our office: our entire network crashed, our VoIP phones wouldn’t work, in fact, you couldn’t even log on to your own local workstation since even that is controlled by the network. These days the Internet is so in-grained into our work flow for: data storage, social networking, running our websites, operating our phones, running applications, communicating with our clients, etc., that when our network isn’t working, we might as well send everyone home. The only thing that was working was the one old analog phone line we keep around for our fax machine.”
by Prof Bruce April 03, 2010
In a tough, competitive world, it is crucial for CEOs to have direct and forthright conversations with clients and suppliers. To do that effectively, they have to disintermediate their direct reports and even their techies, which means that they will be able to get accurate information from the field without it being filtered or biased, say, by their direct reports who may only want to tell their CEO what they think he or she wants to hear.
“By using social media tools like Twitter themselves, CEOs can disintermediate everyone from the data stream. They can connect directly with customers, clients, suppliers and others and hear unfiltered reports of what is really going on in their enterprises. Just as importantly, they can make their views known to their followers and stakeholder group without it being filtered by their PR people or the media. In times of crisis, this might save the organization.”
by Prof Bruce February 21, 2010
A prime consideration for every enterprise, even not-for-profits and charities, is what their sales or distribution channels are or will be. These are channels that you sell into and can take years to develop.
If you can not acquire customers and clients in a cost-effective manner, your company is doomed. Sales channels can help you do that. They are a ‘Magic Marketing Button, MMB’—every time you find a way to effectively ‘ping’ a channel, new clients and customers appear, as if by magic.
Once you have developed these effective sales channels, you can also look for other products and services that you can resell or distribute through them—which will raise your margins since the cost to add products and services produced by others to your sales channels is usually small and quite often zero. You may also be able to thereby create new recurring revenue streams for your enterprise.
By bundling other company’s products and services with your own, it may also be possible to co-brand or co-promote with them—they can promote your enterprise to their clients, customers and suppliers and you can do likewise, opening up whole new markets for both.
If you can not acquire customers and clients in a cost-effective manner, your company is doomed. Sales channels can help you do that. They are a ‘Magic Marketing Button, MMB’—every time you find a way to effectively ‘ping’ a channel, new clients and customers appear, as if by magic.
Once you have developed these effective sales channels, you can also look for other products and services that you can resell or distribute through them—which will raise your margins since the cost to add products and services produced by others to your sales channels is usually small and quite often zero. You may also be able to thereby create new recurring revenue streams for your enterprise.
By bundling other company’s products and services with your own, it may also be possible to co-brand or co-promote with them—they can promote your enterprise to their clients, customers and suppliers and you can do likewise, opening up whole new markets for both.
“Craig Miguelez met up with Jack MacGregor to discuss Craig’s new auto feed system for major bulletin board and classified ad services. Craig realized at once that Jack had developed an amazing sales channel over the last four years—he does professional photography for REALTORS and has more than 1,200 clients. Craig’s pitch to Jack was simple: ‘You resell my auto feed system through your sales and distribution channel to your clients for $30 and you keep $10. My system will make sure that their listings are always up to date on these bulletin board and classified ad services, you’ll make $12,000 per month of recurring revenue with almost no marginal cost and I’ll be able to acquire 1,200 new clients in one fell swoop.’”
by Prof Bruce April 11, 2010
Today’s strict privacy laws require that you protect consumer information. For this and many other reasons, it is often necessary to anonymize a data set, a blog article, a media report or a case study. Anonomizing a story or a case study can also help protect a confidential source or informant.
“You are doing work for a private Foundation and you believe that their case would make interesting reading for your students. The only problem—you are under a confidentiality agreement. With their permission, you anonymize the information and data and write up their story on your blog—sans anything that can point back to the original.”
by Prof Bruce December 08, 2009
A co-opetitor is someone who competes with you but, sometimes, cooperates with you. Someone who engages in co-opetition.
“REALTORS are rivals for listings and buyer clients but when they put them on MLS, they cooperate which means that he or she becomes a co-opetitor.”
by Prof Bruce October 31, 2010
Today, pro teams are highly restricted in what they are allowed to do in their local markets by League head office. For example, fans are often not able to create images, merchandise, videos, mashups, stories or music about their favorite team without getting a ‘cease and desist’ letter from highly paid League lawyers who are looking to protect league licensees. So fans need to create underground websites, Twitter/Facebook/YouTube accounts, blogs, podcasts and other online as well as real life properties that hide their real identity—they are forced to become underground fans.
“A while ago I created a bunch of t-shirts with my favourite football players on them using the motif of the film 'SIN CITY'. The idea was to create cool stuff that folks could buy during the playoffs with all the funds raised going to benefit local charities. But after I got a bit of media traction, we received a cease and desist letter from a League lawyer and we had to stop. Now I am an underground fan of my team—if I ever do this again, I’ll do it anonymously. The thing that gets me is that league policies destroy any creativity by fans as well as local teams, everything is just the same everywhere.”
by Prof Bruce May 21, 2010
Triangulation is a geometric method of locating a point by first determining two angles on a fixed baseline. It is used in times of war to locate hidden radio transmitters, ships on the high seas or aiming an artillery piece.
In business, it is used in a different way—CEOs, for example, triangulate on employees or other sources of information to be sure that they are getting accurate information which is mission critical to any enterprise’s longevity and sustainability. CEOs know that direct reports often tell them what they think the CEO wants to hear instead of the unvarnished truth. That is a reason why many CEOs like to speak directly to customers and suppliers—they disintermediate everyone else.
In business, it is used in a different way—CEOs, for example, triangulate on employees or other sources of information to be sure that they are getting accurate information which is mission critical to any enterprise’s longevity and sustainability. CEOs know that direct reports often tell them what they think the CEO wants to hear instead of the unvarnished truth. That is a reason why many CEOs like to speak directly to customers and suppliers—they disintermediate everyone else.
“Tom Sanders (played by Michael Douglas in the 1994 film, Disclosure) is a manager at tech company, Digicom. He is told by ambitious executive Meredith Johnson (played by Demi Moore) that the drives they are working on are failing at an unacceptable rate due to Tom’s negligence (in software design). Only by triangulating on Meredith (by checking with two independent sources) does Tom discover the truth and save his career—that Meredith had authorized a cheaper solution (they are using a lower level clean room) which is actually causing tiny specs of dirt to foul operation of their new drives.”
by Prof Bruce February 21, 2010