Real IT Heroes Series: Mr. Overzealous SharePoint User

A little Friday humor mp3 from my company Quest Software.

Its all about you Mr. Overzealous SharePoint User

You can also find the file directly at: http://www.quest.com/Quest_Site_Assets/podcasts/MrOZSharePoint07.mp3

Technorati Tags:
sharepoint, microsoft, IT, technology, networking, quest software

Circuit City Petition to Stop the Firings

I recently started to read the :Marketing Hipster blog and found a post that I would like to share with my readers.

I don’t personally shop at Circuit City because I buy most everything online and I find their prices too high. Anyway check out the post and as always let me know what you think.

You can sign the petition here folks:

Technorati Tags:
circuit city, electronics

7th Place is not that bad……

CIO Magazine has a blog posting indicating that according to the World Economic Forum, the US ranks 7th in the use of IT. Denmark was first as a country “that uses IT to maximize development and increase competitiveness.”

Other big winners were: Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Netherlands and the UK. China and India both fell.

While this certainly does not have an impact on software purchasing behaviour, I find it interesting.

Technorati Tags:
CIO Magazine, software, IT, Denmark, USA, China, India, Sweden, Finland, UK, Switzerland,

As if we need more caffeine………..

What is this world coming too?

Coffee, Cola, Power Cola, Energy Drinks, Caffeinated Lip Balm, Energy Pills and now this:  Caffeinated Body Wash

You have to be kidding me……with all of the studies we read about how getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night, you would think stuff like this is just plain stupid.  Not too mention its $12.99 for a 7 ounce bottle…..its robbery of another kind.

Try this as an experiment:  Take 2 Lunesta’s with a Red Bull and lets see who wins.  Why is it that as a society we are advertised for such things as energy pills or drinks and then sleeping aides.  Could it be that we take too much of both?

How does this relate to software?  Simple.  Don’t you wish that when you need to do something on your PC or Mac and you waste your time trying to do it another way, only to find out that there is something out there that does what you need either for free or next to nothing that because the time you spent getting around it equates to the costs of the very piece of software that could do it and simplfy it.

Huh?  What the heck you mean you ask?  Look, we dont need to stay awake or alert for something all of the time.  Society invented the power/energy pill to give you a sense that you need it.   Society invented the sleep aid to give you a sense that you need either because you are coming down from the energy drink or because you are stressed and cant sleep anyway.

Inherently we as people look for the easy way out.  The cheapest way out.  We want software to simplfy our lives and most of us don’t want to pay for it.  If its free, its free for a reason.  Invest in your time…..dont look for a quick jolt or a way to snooze your inherent need to be more productive in the way of software.  You get what you pay for and what you put into it.

Software Downloads are HOT!

According to Marilou Barsam at My Educated Guess Software Downloads are HOT!  In addition, podcast usage is climbing.  (now if I can only get the folks I work with to understand that podcasting is a good thing)

One word describes this news:  sweet.

My Educated Guess has some great stuff in their blog……

Will Your Employer Start Checking Your Pulse At Work?

Interesting post on techdirt on the possibility of your employer monitoring your pulse at work.

I have a better idea.  Lets implant a chip into a person who starts at a particular company.  That chip records everything, from movement, to visuals to pulse..everything that we do.  Then as a requirement to leave the building after work we need to download all of the info from the chip so someone can see what really happened that day?

Big Message……..without the marketing…

I recently read a blog posting where the blogger made some absolutely valid points on software companies and the way that they market their products.  The gist of this post was that there was too much marketing speak…..to much “stuff” put into the collateral/site which would confuse most people….heck even those in the IT arena.

Enter a BIG MESSAGE:  Application and Services Management – The ability to Unify IT to the Business.

Wow….big stuff…..involves alot huh? Multiple layers, tons of people, lots of systems.  Plain and simple: ALOT OF STUFF..  So without alot of marketing speak here is my attempt at a big message in less than 6 words.

IT and the Business: Adaptive Solution.

I am a simple man, with simple words.  I like things nice and simple.   The point of this post is not to get caught up in making everything more complicated than it has to be.  Don’t go overboard and your audience will flock to you wanting more.  Make it relevant, strategic and simple.

Database Business Continuity

I have subscribed to Josh Maher’s blog for awhile now and ran across a recent post of his that I find fascinating. Its all about database business continuity and while I am not a technical guy by nature (yes I am one of those dreaded marketing guys I am going to watch and see how EMC’s presents and markets this concept to the IT world.

While I wont be attending EMC World, I would certainly love to see the decks and get a sense on their angle and perhaps get a glimpse of the marketing strategy behind it.

What a great technological time we are all in…..I love the landscape and this kind of stuff is refreshing to see.

Highrise

Anyone have thought on Highrise?

The company describes themselves as “Highrise helps you track communication and conversations with leads, employees, clients, colleagues, vendors, or anyone else that matters to your business. With Highrise you know who’ve you talked to, what you talked about, and what you need to do next.”

Anyone using it?

Technorati Tags:
highrisehq.com, highrise, contact management, crm

Word of Mouth Marketing…whats the latest…

Ron McDaniel points me to a worthwhile posting on the latest word on word of mouth marketing.

Good read.

Fire all the good sales people!!!

Seth has a great post about good vs. great sales people.  Here is a thought…..instead of taking all the money you save from firing the good sales people and stealing the great ones from other companies, how about giving 30% or so to the marketing department to do better marketing programs for these folks. Heck, we can always use the budget and it would be well spent.

Anyway…check out his post….good stuff:  http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/03/good_is_not_alm.html

I sent it to a couple of my sales buds…….lets see if fire back with any threatmail.

Does Technology really suck?

I ran across a few quotes about technology and thought I would share them with you.

The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers. ~Sydney J. Harris

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. ~Carl Sagan

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment. ~Warren G. Bennis

Technology presumes there’s just one right way to do things and there never is. ~Robert M. Pirsig

When a machine begins to run without human aid, it is time to scrap it – whether it be a factory or a government. ~Alexander Chase, Perspectives, 1966

While some of this stuff is inherently true, I am wondering if any of these folks would change their thinking if a computer or technology in general were to save their lives or simplify mundane tasks which seem to have consumed society over the last hundred years or so.

Wonder what it would be like to turn off all my computers at work (taking aside that I work for a software company) and see how much I can get done with a typewriter and a pad of paper. Anyway..just a little Friday fun. Happy St. Patricks Day and be safe.

The Toad is everywhere…………

Recently we had a contest for people to send in pictures holding a bumper sticker that says ” I (heart) Toad” from the around the world. (Toad is a product at Quest where we have over 1,000,000 users) We gave away prizes and such. Below check out a video montage that we did showcasing these talented and sometimes crazy acts showing us how they love Toad.

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags:
IT Professional, Toad, software marketing, marketing, oracle, pl/sql developer

We have come a long way……………

Check out the wayback machine and what some of our most popular sites looked like wayback when…

http://web.archive.org/web/19961022175331/http://www.microsoft.com/

http://web.archive.org/web/19961219144244/http://www.oracle.com/index.html

http://web.archive.org/web/19981202230410/http://www.google.com/

We have come a long way baby…..

Marketing and “leads”

IMHO marketing does not produce “leads” for sales. We produce hand raisers or “inquiries” for sales to determine if they are opportunities. The term “leads” no longer exists in my vocabulary. “Leads” is an old school, pre-web term.

As a professional marketer…..do people in the organization ask how many “leads” you produce?

Technorati Tags:
leads, software, inquiries, marketing, marketer

MarketingSherpa Email Summit Wrapup

Great article from MarketingSherpa today on their Email Summit.  Great takeaway notes.

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=29890

Open access ends soon.

Ready……Set…….SQL Server GO!!!

For the last several weeks a person on my team along with several other folks in the internet marketing and corporate marketing group have been working on a new campaign aimed at the SQL Server audience in the US, Canada and the UK. We are calling it the xBox a Day Giveaway. The premise behind this campaign is that we have this new bundled suite of software geared towards folks who work with SQL Server and we are giving away an xBox every day for 5 days to those that register their name with us to hear more about the new management suite. This is a different type of giveaway than we have done in the past in that we used to require individuals to download a trial of a specific piece of software.

So, rather than do the same old thing that we have done in the past, I recommended that we try something new and since there are 4 cool products in this suite, I thought it would be refreshing to have folks come and give us their info to learn about this suite all with a chance to win 1 of 5 XBox’s. While we are treading on new water here, I am confident in our ability to pull this campaign off successfully. The internet marketing specialist who has coordinated this whole endeavor has done a great job under difficult circumstances (time zones, multiple people, time frames etc…) to execute. While I will not disclose our entire strategy to everyone (since there are some things better left unsaid I do know that we have alot of things up our proverbial marketing sleeve to meet our lead or inquiry goal for this campaign.

So, if you develop, manage or are a part of using SQL Server, you might want to check it out. In addition, we are also going to have a webcast next week with the current PASS President, Kevin Kline

As the campaign concludes, I will provide all of you with an update.

Technorati Tags:
sql server, kevin kline, PASS, contest, tools, software, DBA, developer

15,000 and counting

I logged onto our Quest YouTube account this morning and found out that our videos have had over 15,000 views since we starting posting stuff on there. I think this is a great accomplishment given the fact that about 90% of our videos are educational in nature and are pretty technology specific. I think a good goal before the end of the year is to have 30,000 views which in my opinion will be a huge success.

Technorati Tags:
quest software, youtube, quest.com, software, videos, IT

Podcast Usage Up Tenfold in 2006

I read this really great posting from the folks over at TechTarget client consulting team about podcast usage up in 2006. You can find the post located at http://www.myeducatedguess.com/?p=70

I stumbled on their blog last week and subscribed to it. Its chock full of info for us software marketers so with out further adieu…..HERE IS TO YOU TECHTARGET CLIENT CONSULTING TEAM!

As always, let me know what you think.

Technorati Tags:
podcasting, IT, techtarget, marketing, software marketing, technology

Are you a microscope marketer or a telescope marketer?

Chris Hoskin’s blog is chock full of awesome stuff. I read a post yesterday which asks the question if we are a telescope or microscope marketer? I will let you read the entire post but one thing struck me was to “be big picture” and that too much detail might be a bad thing. Chris..you hit the nail on the head brother….now if I can only get the folks I work with to think that way!

Anyway..here is a link to the post: http://rawstylus.wordpress.com/2007/03/01/are-you-a-microscope-marketer-or-a-telescope-marketer/

Technorati Tags:
marketing, software marketing, software, high tech marketing,

Whats your most productive/cool piece of software?

I am sitting here thinking about what piece of software is either one I cannot live without or that its truly really cool.  While I cannot think of one here are a couple on my list:

1. Outlook

2. Firefox

3. Sharpreader

4. My instant messenger

5. iTunes

Whats on your puter that you cant live without?