Some of us like to name things in BI
Posted in BI industry, in media, marketing/PR on Jan 6th, 2009
Stephen Few’s damning review of a new BI tool prompted a weeks-long discussion-turned-scholarly-fistfight over definitions.
Category Archive for 'marketing/PR'
Escaping the ghosts of BI marketing past
Posted in marketing/PR on Dec 23rd, 2008
How sweet is is to escape, if only momentarily, from BI marketing that seems intended for techies. Just across San Francisco Bay from me, Birst made its point and made me laugh with a holiday-season three-panel comic strip.
Marketing director Barbara Lewis emails me that the artwork’s by illustrator Kevin Pope, and the idea came from [...]
Does jargon sell tech products or not?
Posted in marketing/PR on Nov 25th, 2008
Those of us in the tech world who shun jargon may forever remain an underclass. We may never rise to the mainstream, where today tech-centric vendors rule. So I’m delighted when I meet another one of our clan who declares proudly his rejection of tech-speak.
Don Farber, vice president of sales and marketing at KnowledgeSync, says [...]
Play terminology by ear when selling to the mid-market
Posted in marketing/PR on Nov 19th, 2008
Those who sell BI software to mid-size companies get to be good at nailing down what shoppers want. These shoppers are smart and hard working. But when they shop for technology, the shopping list may be just a problem, a wish, or a fantasy—known only by a description.
I just spent Monday and Tuesday helping a [...]
There’s always a food angle, even in text analytics
Posted in marketing/PR, storytelling on Nov 11th, 2008
Text analytics was one of those things I heard about every so often. Like so many terms in this business, the term comes out of a speaker’s mouth or PR person’s press release only to blow away. There’s no story, no context, nothing to chew on.
Then came a press release at BI This Week with [...]
Stories that tell the bigger story
Posted in marketing/PR, storytelling on Oct 6th, 2008
In a good example of “show, don’t tell,” Tableau Software’s weblog demonstrates the power of its product with a story: how rich, middle-income and poor voters compare in liberal, conservative and battleground states. The political story is awkward to tell in words, but it’s easy in pictures. Pictures that tell stories is what Tableau’s all [...]
The trouble with IT marketing
Posted in marketing/PR on Sep 23rd, 2008
Why does so much IT marketing put features out in front instead of benefits?
A word from the marketing-crimes division
Posted in marketing/PR on Sep 8th, 2008
This public service announcement opens on a CSI-like scene. Let’s call it “CSI: Marketing Crimes Division.” The lieutenant asks the lab guy, “What have you got?”
“It’s a tough one,” says the lab guy.
Lying before them under bright lights on a stainless steel examination table is the weapon: an email printed on plain white paper. The [...]
A short leap from good PR into the fire
Posted in marketing/PR on Jun 26th, 2008
I started getting phone calls from a certain BI bigshot’s public relations firm after I mentioned his firm in a story. The woman who called every few weeks seemed too sweet for the job, but some days any friendly voice gets in. I always talked to her but always held her off.
My god, a BI ezine I’ve actually read
Posted in Uncategorized, marketing/PR on May 12th, 2008
So many ezines, so many pitches, so much color, so much urgency, so much of so much. And then along comes—let me check the name—yes, Gordon Daly with a little ezine that’s nothing but a short letter (look it up: letter!) and I actually read it.