Welcome to MSDN Blogs Sign in | Join | Help

November 2007 - Posts

Friday, November 30, 2007 2:08 PM

Marketing Blocking and Tackling

Strategy is sexy. "Envisioning" is fun. Too often, though, marketers (hey, I'm guilty like everyone else) forget or downplay the critical element of tactical execution. Was talking with Drew yesterday about football (I've been a fan for as long as I can
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
Wednesday, November 28, 2007 1:59 PM

Book Review: Bit Literacy

I didn't get a whole lot from Bit Literacy , but after 20 pages, I quickly realized why. It's not written for me. It's written for you. How do I know? When you shut down your computer at night, how many emails do you have in your inbox? I have zero. Mark
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
Filed under: ,
Tuesday, November 27, 2007 2:47 PM

Blogging ROI

Nice post from Avinash on how bloggers can measure the ROI of their activities . For people new to the blogging world, it's a tough idea. I've touched on anecdotes in the past, but this is a good metric-based approach.
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
Filed under:
Saturday, November 24, 2007 9:26 PM

Book Review: Linked

Originally, I thought Linked would be more thoughts along the lines of Never Eat Alone and the value of networking, but boy, was I wrong! It was that and MUCH more. An in-depth investigation into network theory running the gamut of subjects from physics
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
Wednesday, November 21, 2007 1:14 PM

Misogyny, Misanthropy, Both, or Neither?

I saw this ad and thought, "how offensive to women, it implies they can be bought." (For more on my perspetive, see the end of misogyny in advertising ) My wife's reaction: "the only way a man can become valued to a woman is through the purchase of a
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
Filed under: ,
Monday, November 19, 2007 5:11 PM

Microsoft, Harley-Davidson, and Brand Passion

A few years ago, I went to Daytona Bike Week. The first time I saw it, I did a double-take. A guy had the word "Harley" tattooed on one arm and "Davidson" on the other. Talk about brand loyalty. Harley doesn't send letters to bikers with guidelines about
Posted by jerman of the board | 4 Comments
Monday, November 19, 2007 11:35 AM

What role a portal?

One of the assets we have is the Microsoft Public Sector Partner Portal . My inclination is to make this the resource for static information and one-way communication, moving the live events to a more two-way format. The question, however, is how to add
Posted by jerman of the board | 2 Comments
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 5:23 PM

Revolutionizing the Newsletter...

Most newsletters are boring, aren't they? As Mike Guzzo (on my team) says, "they are so 90's." Yet, MSFT continues to inundate our customers and partners with them. They are, frequently, multi-page long compilations of the interests of many different
Posted by jerman of the board | 2 Comments
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 9:55 AM

Book Review: Secrets of Consulting

I'm of the opinion that pretty much everyone in the "knowledge economy" is a consultant. What Secrets of Consulting does -pretty well-is boil down a lot of the truths about working with people (his first rule is, "no matter what, it's ALWAYS a people
Posted by jerman of the board | 2 Comments
Filed under: ,
Tuesday, November 13, 2007 10:59 AM

Marketing in a Nutshell..

Don't let anyone ever tell you that marketing's job is to only deliver "qualified leads." That's ridiculous. Drucker says it better than anyone and a call out to Brand Autopsy for the inspiration today.
Posted by jerman of the board | 2 Comments
Filed under:
Monday, November 12, 2007 10:47 PM

Zune School Marketing...

In many respects, the Zune campaign represents traditional Microsoft marketing thinking. And Dim Bulb's analysis has a lot of merit. It's about the product and the full experience. The campaign is secondary, if it is even relevant at all.
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
Sunday, November 11, 2007 12:03 AM

Get Customers Talking...

Much of the blogosphere has been lit up with Facebook's new ad platform. It's pretty impressive. It's an automated, scaleable Raving Fan Strategy that can lead directly to sales. The other night, I made a car reservation on Hotwire and as I checked out,
Posted by jerman of the board | 2 Comments
Filed under: ,
Saturday, November 10, 2007 11:40 PM

Are All Customers Equal?

Old school marketers pull lists. New school marketers use smart data to drive their decisions (at least for the 50% of marketing that is 'scientific' ). Started diving into the data that surrounds Public Sector so we can figure out how to target our marketing
Posted by jerman of the board | 4 Comments
Filed under:
Saturday, November 10, 2007 11:14 PM

Do You Read Your Customers' Blogs?

If you are a service provider, you should. Angie Robar of Extra Mile Marketing does and she comments as well. A little background, first... There's a mentality among Microsoft employees in the "field" (read: outside of Seattle) that the folks "in Redmond"
Posted by jerman of the board | 3 Comments
Friday, November 09, 2007 2:44 PM

Blog Value Proposition...

Last night, lying in bed (hey, where else to do solid thinking), I outlined the three focus areas for the blog.... A Play by Play (with color commentary :-) of the evolving process I hope to use to build community and leverage smart data to help revolutionize
Posted by jerman of the board | 5 Comments
Thursday, November 08, 2007 10:51 PM

Building a Public Sector Partner Community, Part 1

Let's review the assets that the Public Sector partner marketing team has. a newsletter that has 1300 subscribers (we're just talking raw numbers here) two portal sites (here's one and here's the other --more control over the former) A " Get Engaged"
Posted by jerman of the board | 4 Comments
Tuesday, November 06, 2007 8:44 PM

Building Community...

Too often, Microsoft puts the cart before the horse. We ask partners to make investments up front; invest time in readiness, training, competencies, or whatever. Microsoft's partners who sell into State, Local, and Fed Gov't, plus Academic institutions
Posted by jerman of the board | 4 Comments
Thursday, November 01, 2007 4:42 PM

Web 2.0 for Business ROI

There are two sides to the ROI equation for today's conference. On the one hand, we generate positive, but unmeasurable, vibe in terms of " buzz" and word of mouth . We had 25 people put on the temporary tattoos and another 120 or so with the stickers
Posted by jerman of the board | 2 Comments
Filed under: ,
Thursday, November 01, 2007 12:42 PM

Little Details...

Let me start off by saying that I have a TON of respect for Google as a company. They've done a HUGE number of innovative things and their competition is forcing Microsoft to deliver more value to customers. I think MSFT views GOOG as a competitor and
Posted by jerman of the board | 2 Comments
Thursday, November 01, 2007 12:37 PM

Tattoos to generate "Booth Buzz"

15 people are wearing Vista removable tattoos... It's lunchtime at the Web 2.0 conference and we're definitely generating some booth buzz . My goal was to get 1 person to wear a tattoo to win the grand prize , and we've destroyed that goal, with 15 people
Posted by jerman of the board | 3 Comments
Filed under: ,
 
Page view tracker