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December 2007 - Posts

Sunday, December 30, 2007 10:41 AM

What I should ask for in my annual review bonus package...

The Seth Godin Action Figure . NO joke.
Posted by jerman of the board | 2 Comments
Wednesday, December 26, 2007 3:36 PM

Scalable Partner Marketing Engines...

I'm opinionated. I guess every blogger is. :-) But I have particularly strong feelings about the critical components to a scalable partner-led marketing engine. First, we don’t want to guess where the opportunities are. Nor do we want to guess which products
Posted by jerman of the board | 3 Comments
Friday, December 21, 2007 12:51 PM

SuperCruncher and Citizen Marketer...

What's the holy grail of marketing? To not spend any money and have your customers do your marketing for you. I call them " raving fans ." My buddies Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell call it " Citizen Marketers " After reading Ian Ayres book, Super Crunchers
Posted by jerman of the board | 3 Comments
Friday, December 21, 2007 12:38 PM

Book Review: E-Myth Revisited

Michael Gerber's book The E-Myth Revisited offers up "an old Chinese proverb that says When you hear something, you will forget it. When you see something, you will remember it. But not until you do something, will you understand it." Which he uses to
Posted by jerman of the board | 2 Comments
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Friday, December 21, 2007 12:05 PM

The 4 year old test...

When you prepare a presentation, er performance, for any group, may I suggest this: Prep as if you were going to talk to a class of four year olds Adults need the same thing, though you won't get the same instantaneous feedback, in terms of involvement
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
Tuesday, December 18, 2007 12:10 AM

Building a Partner Community, Part 3...

When we talk about a "community" of partners and how we want them to market with us, we need to understand that community and marketing go hand-in-hand. A breadth partner community, by definition is a 1:many relationship. These partners don't have the
Posted by jerman of the board | 4 Comments
Saturday, December 15, 2007 8:52 PM

Free Advertising to 13,000...

Here's the offer...help us redesign the masthead (pictured here) for our Pu blic Sector Partners Newsletter . (We think it needs a new look.) If we go with it, I'll include a link (and a write-up) about your skills/firm mention you on the next WIN Webcast
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
Thursday, December 13, 2007 2:33 PM

Not Presentations, Performances...

Another way to make your events REMARKABLE? Think of them as PERFORMANCES. The Brand Autopsy blog has done it again .
Posted by jerman of the board | 0 Comments
Thursday, December 13, 2007 2:19 PM

Book Review: Super Crunchers

We know a computer can beat a chess grandmaster. Can a computer more accurately predict how the Supreme Court will rule on cases than a group of Law School Deans, former Supreme Court Clerks, and Federal Judges? What about predicting better than a movie
Posted by jerman of the board | 4 Comments
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Wednesday, December 12, 2007 11:42 PM

Building a Community That Builds...

The ideal scenario, IMHO, of a partner community is where the partners themselves are involved in building the marketing and communications vehicles that they will use. So, when I see a glimmer of hope, I am PUMPED UP. Example #1. Fredrik read my post
Posted by jerman of the board | 4 Comments
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:31 PM

The LinkedIn Business...

People OFTEN ask me about the value of LinkedIn Here's a testimonial from a guy whose entire business is based off of it. HT to Andy Sernovitz-it's his interview
Posted by jerman of the board | 2 Comments
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 8:01 PM

URL Basics...

Your web address is the easiest way for someone to find you...so why make it difficult. I can't stand when I see a URL like this one on a PowerPoint, http://www.msreadiness.com/competency.aspx?cid=500 where we tell people "Just go to this webpage to get
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 7:32 PM

Eco-Friendly Marketing...

An irate partner sent an email into Microsoft last week attacking us for sending out a " big plastic toy, with only one disc of information. It’s not as though you are going to start distributing training materials on view-master slides or anything, so
Posted by jerman of the board | 5 Comments
Saturday, December 08, 2007 10:18 PM

Loyalty Doesn't Cost Much...

A big call out to Liberty Mutual for reminding me why they are my insurance company. I got this letter today telling me that they owed me $141.65. It would be so easy for them to not tell me (like I would notice) and there are hundreds of ways they could
Posted by jerman of the board | 2 Comments
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Saturday, December 08, 2007 9:52 PM

Two-Way Webcasts and Co-Revolutionaries...

Webcasts are notoriously broadcast events. A hallmark of community building is that there be two-way dialogue (trust and transparency are the other two). Well, lookie here, because Eric Robertson, Shawn Ammons, and Marjorie Givarz on the EDU side along
Posted by jerman of the board | 4 Comments
Saturday, December 08, 2007 9:34 PM

Positive Energy Blogging...

I'm going to re-devote this blog to positive energy. As Andy Sernovitz writes in " Cheer Up Blogosphere " Blogs should celebrate. They should celebrate freedom and openness. They should revel in the joy of fresh ideas. They should be fun. Here we go..
Posted by jerman of the board | 2 Comments
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Saturday, December 08, 2007 9:25 PM

Are MS bloggers' days numbered?

An interesting post: Is a muzzle being tightened around Microsoft bloggers?
Posted by jerman of the board | 2 Comments
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Friday, December 07, 2007 12:17 AM

Best Buy-More on Details Matter

I think Best Buy is a pretty good store, so this isn't a rant, but a parable to demonstrate how, when it comes to the customer experience, there are so many angles to think about. All you can do is...keep asking your customers, whoever they are, what
Posted by jerman of the board | 0 Comments
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Thursday, December 06, 2007 11:50 PM

Working in the Data Mine...

In building a Breadth business, one of the key things is to really dive into the data . With over 250k customers in State and Local Government and a boatload more in the Education realm, you need to, somehow, make sense of what is out there. This helps
Posted by jerman of the board | 3 Comments
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Thursday, December 06, 2007 9:41 AM

Events Drive the Business....

I have some data to back it up so I feel comfortable saying that, for most types of IT-related sales, doing a customer event (however you want to define that) is going to be one of the best ways to generate new business. Of course, you need to do the
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
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Attachment(s): CCF12052007_00000.pdf
Wednesday, December 05, 2007 11:41 AM

Online Community and Online Conversations...

One of the risks that some perceive in terms of transparency and inviting the "community" in to help author ideas and debate them is: what happens when things go awry? when some jerk takes over? Yes, it's a risk. Here's a good post on how to deal with
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
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Tuesday, December 04, 2007 3:14 PM

Blogs in Plain English

These guys do great work. For others, see: On RSS: http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english On Social Networking: http://commoncraft.com/video-social-networking On Social Bookmarking: http://www.commoncraft.com/bookmarking-plain-english Wiki: http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-englis
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
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Tuesday, December 04, 2007 3:04 PM

PR in the Web 2.0 Era

I just love this post from Scoble about a more open, authentic, and honest approach to PR. One more step in the revolution! :-) Imagine getting your customers and partners involved this way.
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
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Tuesday, December 04, 2007 12:02 AM

Building a Public Sector Partner Community, Part 2

A community needs to organize around something , or as Hugh MacLeod would say, " the social object ." So, what is the object around which Microsoft partners who sell into State & Local Governments and Academic might organize? If we can provide partners
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
Sunday, December 02, 2007 12:23 AM

Why A Blog...

Sometimes you make mistakes, but when you do, what do you learn from them? I've gotten a fair amount of feedback (and a fair amount of fallout) on my post (since modified) about Microsoft logo policy . I admit, initially, I made a mistake and violated
Posted by jerman of the board | 3 Comments
 
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