Jott.com

Chris has a post that points us to jott.com.

Thanks Chris…I think I am going to check it out. Heck I am a way better talker than a writer

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jott.com, raw stylus, speak, blogging, productivity, software

World of Warcraft and Second Life……

I am beginning to think that world of warcraft and second life are the same thing in terms of people playing and living out their fantasies online. Granted one is a role playing game and well the other is an open ended virtual world.

What ever happened to reality? What ever happened to just sitting around and playing a game of catch in the yard? What ever happened to sitting around the TV for 6 hours a night watching shows? What ever happened to board game night with the family?

Call me old. Call me a loser. Call me anything you want…but soon enough we will all have virtual friendships and there will be no need to see or speak to anyone.

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world of warcraft, second life, virtual, role-playing

Are you influential people?

Ron McDaniel has an awesome post about looking within yourself to be an influential person.

Thanks Ron for your insight.

Do you use Toad?

Do you use Toad for Oracle? Are you an oracle developer? Are you an Oracle DBA?

If you answered yes to any one of these questions above……just wait…in 30 days or less we have something ultra cool for you coming.

Nope..not gonna tell ya..but it is way cool and its a secret..but just watch……

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toad, toad for oracle, oracle, developer, dba

Help Prospects Forward In The Software Sales Cycle

Peter Gillberg has a great post on producing an online video ad of your product.

I know that we should do more and more of these at Quest, but sometimes the mentality is to host a live demo of the software because folks are convinced that the live Q&A helps the prospect. While I would agree with that in certain situations, I am a true believer in offering folks flexibility.

Anyway..thanks Peter for the post.

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peter gillberg, softwaremarketingsecrets.com, softwarecasa.com, video demos, software, marketing

Bad Powerpoint

Chris has a great post that came from Bert van Dijk and Seth Godin on a bad powerpoint slide. I have seen alot of ppt. presentations in the last 8 or so years and I have seen some really really bad slides. This would rank in the top 10 however.

Again I am a simple man who appreciates simple things. Perhaps I am dense or maybe I just get it…..but I have to tell you simple is the way to go.

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powerpoint, bad marketing, software

Real IT Heroes: Mr. Overconfident DBA

A little Tuesday Humor for all you IT folks out there. Its all about you Mr. Overconfident DBA.

For those who want to access directly: http://www.quest.com/Quest_Site_Assets/podcasts/OverConDBA09.mp3

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oracle, sql server, DBA, IT, Network, software, database, database administrator, mysql, fun, parody, microsoft

Geek Furniture

I am a geek and proud of it.

Check out some Geek Furniture. My favorite it the office chair……wonder if my wife is reading this as my birthday is coming up soon.

Wanna Chat with my Cybertwin………

Check it out: http://mycybertwin.com/chat/scrappysoftware

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cybertwin, buzzmarketing, unique, fun

Buzz Culture at work..

Ron McDaniel has a great post on creating a buzz culture at work. Since we have over 130 people in our marketing org at Quest, I wonder if Ron would give us a discount if we bought the book

Also any tips on getting 130+ to think like this small accounting firm is greatly appreciated. Can you imagine…even if I were to inspire 55 people to wanting to create buzz….how much more powerful we could be as a company.

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buzzmarketing, ron mcdaniel, buzznoodle, buzz culture

Email and unprofessionalism…

As a company we do a fair amount of email marketing. Just the other day we sent and email out to the DC Metro area to promote a really great seminar featuring some really heavy hitters on the Identity Management Front. Weeding through the normal amount of bounce backs and correspondence, I ran across a very unprofessional email. It stated

“Leave me alone. Your software sucks. I work at NIH and have to live with it because they were foolish enough to fall for the joke. I surely don’t want to listen to you talk about it.”

So being the consummate professional that I am, I responded back with:

“Hi Joe,

Thanks for you email. I have removed you from our database, but out of curiosity were you not able to access the link at the bottom of the email to unsubscribe yourself? If not, let me know and I can investigate.

 

Thanks for your feedback as I will be sure to pass it on. If you require any further assistance, please feel free to contact me.

Regards,

Andrew”

 

When I logged on this morning I found this reply back from this individual:

 

“Fuck that link. I’m not doing any work cause you’re spamming me. Why don’t you just stop the shit ? Idiot.”

Now I am normally not the one to cry wolf or complain, but this is a little unprofessional. At Quest, we follow all of the Can-Spam Act procedures and make it very easy for people to opt-out of our mailing. (by the way, we only email those folks who have had interaction with our site and have accepted our privacy policy) He mentions to me in his response that he is not doing work cause I was “spamming him”. Interesting that he sent this from his yahoo.com address which means he was using his personal email while at work to correspond with me.

So on a whim I look this gentleman up. Guess what, this person has downloaded 23 assets from us in the 2 years and most recently (march 16th) downloaded a piece of trial software. What makes this more interesting is that he uses 2 separate email address to mask his identity when downloading our assets. If our software “sucks” so much, I wonder why he is trial downloading a new piece of our software.

Anyway..Joe N. at NIH if you read this, I am not mad. I am not bitter. In fact, I am a pretty happy person. I just wish you would exercise more professionalism and class when you send email to folks.  Wonder what the head of IT or your boss at the NIH would think about your emails?

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NIH, email marketing, unprofessional, email,

Reputation Monitor from Distilled

A dude by the name of Will commented and pointed me to a newer reputation monitor available. I just wanted everyone to know that I will be checking out the free version for accuracy and seeing what this is all about. Stay tuned and if any of you are doing reputation monitoring at your organization, check it out with me and let me know your thoughts.

If you already use these guys, let me know as well.

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reputation monitoring, distilled,

Mycybertwin.com

My director pointed me to this new site that just went live: mycybertwin.com

Over the course of this week, I am going to check it out. If any of you have any experience with this site, please let me know, but once I do a full on trial with them, I will give you my thoughts.

Happy Monday.

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mycybertwin.com, marketing, software, internet

21,000 and counting

On March 6th I posted that we had 15,000 views as a company on YouTube.  Since then, we have topped the 21,000 mark.  6000 in one month is pretty good traction.  Would love to see what its going to be at the end of April.

Have a great Easter everyone…..

Podcasts Promote B2B IT

I read an article from eMarketer this morning stemming from the same report that TechTarget and the CMO Council put out on “IT Media Consumption Trends and IT Buyer Purchase Intention” Basically it points out that IT buyers are leveraging Podcasts more in their evaluations.

This article and study screams one thing to me: WAKE UP….what we did 3 or 4 years ago may not work today. And we as software marketers need to adapt to this.

I am 100% convinced that those companies that don’t adapt to this new way of marketing will be left in the dust. Old school folks who believe that what was done 3 years ago to promote software will work in today’s ever changing landscape will quickly and painfully learn that the IT buyer wants more flexibility. They want the software vendors that they deal with to be the educators or “trusted advisers” in their fields. They typical “in your face”, download, try and buy mentality is slowly dying. Heck…even live webcasts are losing their appeal….people want it “on demand” and don’t want to be tied down to a particular time.

Wake up marketers of software………overcome your fears and doubts.

Adapt or step aside…….

Sendio..whatta ya know..whatta ya say…

A former colleague of mind asked what I thought about Sendio. Since I deal quite a bit in spam and challenge response in our email marketing efforts at Quest she thought I would be a good person to ask.

I had a chance to check out the site and products offered and have come to the conclusion that I have no conclusion. Although I am not highly technical by nature, I guess I am wondering why the enterprise world needs another spam killer. I deal alot with web based challenge response systems along with a host of sophisticated corporate anti spam solutions in order for our legitimate email to get through. In addition, it appears that you have to purchase the hardware and configure the software in order for it to work. We use postini at Quest and I rather like it. Every once in a while I get some spam, but not enough to cause me pain.

Sendio indicates that they use SAV in their solution which is a great thing, but then there are a ton of companies in the spam fighting business these days. So Sendio…..what is it that differentiates you from everyone else out there? Give me something that your site doesn’t. Also any readers our there who use Sendio, please feel free to give the differentiators…as I would love to hear from you.

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email, spam, marketing, software, sendio, SAV