That "vision" thing and the significance of scale
A few weeks ago I went to the Software 500 conference in Cambridge, MA and caught Larry Weber's keynote on the new world of software marketing. I know a summary doesn't do his presentation justice, but in essence Weber said the old world of sales, direct, brand advertising and PR is giving away to an omnipresent digital marketing universe of "virtual" communities constructed through websites, online forums, blogs and other Internet-related tools.
It was an impressive show and probably right on target, yet when it came to Q&A, the room (of about 200+ people) was oddly silent. Why?
I probed a few attendees for their impressions. Most were quite impressed with Weber's vision. But a few common concerns emerged, time and again. Who's going to do all this work? Where will the money come from? Where do we start?
In general, Weber spoke from his experience working with the top handful of multi-billion dollar, money-is-no-object technology enterprises. But at the conference, his audience was made up of professionals from much smaller companies, many with what I call "slash" titles: marketing/sales; investor relations/communications; PR/marcom; etc.
Their concern? How to translate a grand vision into a practical plan a smaller company can implement. Unlike the giants, they have to make hard choices about where to put their money, who to assign to various projects, and how to determine priorities.
I see this dilemma all the time. Big ideas are fine. But for most of us, most of the time, they aren't useful until they're translated into practical tactics.
How are you applying the latest "visions" for the future?
It was an impressive show and probably right on target, yet when it came to Q&A, the room (of about 200+ people) was oddly silent. Why?
I probed a few attendees for their impressions. Most were quite impressed with Weber's vision. But a few common concerns emerged, time and again. Who's going to do all this work? Where will the money come from? Where do we start?
In general, Weber spoke from his experience working with the top handful of multi-billion dollar, money-is-no-object technology enterprises. But at the conference, his audience was made up of professionals from much smaller companies, many with what I call "slash" titles: marketing/sales; investor relations/communications; PR/marcom; etc.
Their concern? How to translate a grand vision into a practical plan a smaller company can implement. Unlike the giants, they have to make hard choices about where to put their money, who to assign to various projects, and how to determine priorities.
I see this dilemma all the time. Big ideas are fine. But for most of us, most of the time, they aren't useful until they're translated into practical tactics.
How are you applying the latest "visions" for the future?
1 Comments:
I'm not applying anything yet, but in the last 9 months I've looked at a LOT of copywriting/advertising websites. And I have to agree with the folks you polled who asked, "Where do we start?"
All of this information at our fingertips is such a grand thing, but without a viable means of navigating it, it's about as useful as a cat with a calculator. Google is always touted as THE search engine, but I think maybe what we need is something modeled more along the lines of IMDB, which has a mind-boggling amount of information stored in such a way that you can actually find what you're looking for.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home