42.0 101 How to: PR for startups

2011-01-25T15:42:00.006+01:00

When your company is a startup, ie extremely innovative, potentially disruptive and absolutely money deprived, getting noticed on your market is key. And PR appears to be the most obvious and the fastest way to reach this objective. So they say. But when, what, how and with who should you start? Here are some key steps to those meaningful questions.

Getting noticed isn't that easy on crowded markets and the first main issue for startups is double: a) there are many other exciting startups trying to grab the media's attention b) the David vs. Goliath syndrome makes it even more difficult for your voice to be heard when your market's incumbents have entire hordes of communication experts discussing on a daily basis with key editors.

Keep in mind that as a startup your company has inner strengths that you should leverage: more agile and faster to react, to name a few. So let's start with the obvious.

Define your objectives. Sounds obvious, right? Well, not that obvious, actually. Whatever you are aiming at, wether BusinessWeek's front cover (the Iron-Man syndrome) or increasing your website's traffic or recruiting rock-star engineers, implies specific media, a specific timeline, and specific journalists to target.

Positioning you company on its market is only a matter of being smarter: leverage the work that has been done by other actors of the market.

1 – observe and acquire the incumbents' lexicon: as journalists know it – being so regularly in touch with their communication hordes – they'll understand right away where to position you.
2 – observe and react to major statements / announcements: write a tribune, post it on you blog and link it to the announcement, comment on the initial announcement and link to your post. You can even propose your tribune to editors. They want to give their readers the big picture and a comprehensive presentation of it: you can benefit from this. Few tribunes of the kind will de facto position you and your company on your market.
3 – keep your communication flowing: schedule your announcements to make sure you'll be communicating a least once every 6 weeks.
4 – iterate.

Logistics is key in the communication field. Make your announcements easy to access to editors some of whom receive over 200 emails a day... ban email attachments and favor links to the resources attached to your announcement (pictures, videos, screencasts etc.)

It's human, baby! Build a relationship with the editors you discuss with. Don't hesitate to give them some unofficial information using the sacred “this is off, but...”. The “off” brings both parts many advantages, the main one being it gives perspectives to the editor writing on you. Even if some of the information cannot be used in his/her first article, it'll enable him/her to get back to you on other articles and it'll enable you to get back to him/her later when this information becomes official.

Leverage social media. Social media and online communication have brought many new ways to communicate and to get to the exact person you want to talk to. Spend time on forums, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin etc. and find the appropriate and professional way to get your messages across.

Here are the slides of the presentation I give to Startups. What do you think? Any other hints to share?

PR for Startups: when, what, how?

View more presentations from Anne de Forsan.

How to benefit from major industry events... when you cannot attend them?

2010-12-16T15:35:00.013+01:00

Where were you last week?

Where you one of the lucky ones, attending LeWeb'10 in Paris?

Oh. No. You couldn't.

I can get that. But did you benefit from it?

You should have. Here's an example of "how".

As other key industry events, LeWeb'10 attracts hundreds - if not thousands - of people that, as a startuper, you must meet. I'm talking journalists, bloggers, VCs, angels and influencers.

But because your company's a startup, you have to allocate your (scarce) resources in the best possible way, on a daily basis, and to make a long story short, you had to (reluctantly) decide not to attend. Ok. Not THAT big deal. That would have been a major error if you hadn't take this opportunity to meet all those influencers and present your company.

That's precisely what I've organized for one of my beloved customer: Kwaga, the SmarterEmail semantic toolkit. We've organized a private tour of the Opera Garnier, home of the famous Phantom of the Opera. Key bloggers, influencers and journalists just looooooved it, and so did Kwaga ;-)

This opportunistic operation allowed Kwaga to meet key people and to establish relationship with them, while sharing a unique experience. This is exactly the kind of operation I encourage my fellow startupers to organize, think about, share and benefit from.

When you don't have the resources, think leaner ;-)

Do you have any other ideas of the kind to share? Please do so in the comments!

See the full picture gallery:

101 How-to: 3 Clichés about Homo Journalicus

2010-07-23T10:28:00.002+02:00

Let's eradicate!

This is the first part of how-to get a nice article when being interviewed by the most worshiped dude of your galaxy: the journalist. Next one will cover the actual how-to prepare and conduct the interview.

Maybe I should point out that, as a communication person , I've been dealing with journalists for the best of the past 20 years (do I have to be THAT transparent???). Some are very nice fellas, and some are not. As in any other areas of our lives. My point here is to give a clear picture of the people we're (desperately) trying to reach to get the press coverage that will skyrocket the product/company/person we want to promote.

Note: feel free to search/replace "journalist" with "blogger"

Cliché #1 - Journalists are Divas

Wrong: they got bosses to whom they must sale the idea of an interview before actually carrying it. It takes them time and energy. I feel deeply sorry for you if you try to grab them when they just got their asses kicked by their boss... Or worse, by an infuriated someone they interviewed recently...
Although I'm not saying that some aren't true Divas :-D

Cliché #2 - Journalists keep on trying to set you up

Wrong: they got that story that their boss is expecting (remember? they sold it hard, explaining why they should interview you...) and they're only trying to find enough matter out of the conversation to write a story - as interesting as possible :-s

Cliché #3 - Journalists are clueless dumb-asses

Wrong: you are the expert. That's basically the reason why they are seated in front of you, btw... So if by extraordinaire, the person in front of you doesn't seem to understand the idea that you're explaining, maybe you should ask yourself "why"... and try to re-formulate it in other words, with examples. Doesn't it sound wise?

Any other clichés that you can think of? Feel free to share!

This is not Rock & Roll, this is #irby

2010-07-07T13:36:00.004+02:00

Some of you may know it, as I claim it and shout it quite regularly: I'm a rock&roll addict.

Cant' help it.

Not that I haven't try other musical style - currently discovering metal -, but my heart belong to R&R...

However, when I happen to stumble upon good music, I share it.

So here is I Really Blog You aka. #irby on Twitter

I Really Blog You by I Really Blog You

(you can download it and watch the video here)

It's fun, incredibly catchy and it's... 2.0!

The story behind the song is one of those very nice reunion that happen by chance with almost forgotten friends. Michael (@michaelbechler ) currently CEO of Webagoo (web site online services & apps for SMB) and Franz (author and singer) used to be best pals at school... 20 years ago.

After they caught up, they realized that Franz had fantastic songs and Michael decided to produce them.
I really blog you is a 100% web song, that'll catch you - Watch out!

If - as I did - you fall in love with it: download it, share it, promote it to your friends... Make it spread!

love

101-How-To: Presenting live - 6 steps to survive

2010-07-04T14:56:00.000+02:00

Let's face it.
The cruel, naked truth is: when presenting live, we ain't all equal.

This second post of the series "101-How-To" summarizes a training session I've created and animate with innovating companies (email me if you're interested;-))

Being a decent speaker is all the more important when your project is really innovative and disruptive: the more innovative the harder it is to make a project understood.

The idea here isn't to compete (yet) with presentation Gurus such as Steve J., Guy K. or Dave McC. No. The idea is to give you some strong foundations to build a meaningful, understandable and concise presentation of your project.

Step1: Prepare Jedi-like
I know this sounds funny... but you know what: some people still don't ;-)

People you're going to talk to, know you should
Google them! LinkedIn them! etc.
The comprehensive story, telling you cannot
Define up to 3 key messages. Max.
Universal ability to get understood, as birth gift you received not
Test the accuracy of your messages with friends & co-worker: if they don't get it go back to bullet 2 (secret: avoid jargon)
Your jungle landscape, perfectly you will know
It's human: whenever you present a new project, the person you're talking to will try to understand/position you in comparison to what she/he knows. To make sure you're well understood, study your competition to be able to answer "yeah, we can sound like CompanyA, but unlike them we're providing so many cool features to this precise scope of population, that it'll blow your mind away"... See what I mean?

(and that'll be it for the Yoda Touch)

Step2: Organize your information
Let's make it easier for your kind listeners to memorize what you're saying.

Don't save the best for the end
Shout out loud what's really soooo cool about your company right at the start and then explain it twice or three times during your talk
Get your self a tagline
... but a concise one ;-) Not a mission. A tagline! Start and conclude with it.
Get yourself some illustrations
While presenting new concepts, illustrations and anecdotes do help your audience understand what you're saying :-)
The Declare-Illustrate-Conclude Mantra
Be realistic and focus. Truth is: you'll never be able to explain all subtleties of your project in 10 minutes. Pick out the 3 key elements of your project and mention them several time under the declare-illustrate-conclude mantra.

Step3: Get neat & appealing slides
it takes time, but it's definitely worth it!

Make slides that promotes listening vs. reading
... well only if you want your audience to listen when you speak ;-)
Make yourself a favor and buy "PresentationZen"
The 10-20-30 rule
This is a hint from Guy Kawasaki: 10 slides, 20 minutes, Font size=30 pt

Step4: Identify and master your own Clandestinos
Get yourself a video to spot and identify things you could/should change

A (controversted) study says that the words you're pronouncing only count for 7% of the meaning understood, the rest being carried out by your tone of voice and your nonverbal behavior. Beyond the controversy, the idea here is for you to keep in mind that your body and facial expression say a lot, as well. (see: Nonverbal Communication)
The "fillers" hunt: er, hum, like, you know, well, let's say...
when repeatedly used, the fillers can parasitize your talk. Spot them and tame them :-)

Step5: RE-HEARSE
Did you know that a (very) large chunk of the people whose presentation skills impress you actually know their stories by heart? This may not suit everybody, but at least:

Write down your text and say it out loud
in front of a mirror
again
and again
and (got it?)

Step6: Survival Kit
Now you're on stage, this is D-DAY.

Listen thoroughly to the questions... don't interrupt ;-)
a) it's not respectful
b) you may not actually know what it is that this person want to ask you
Rephrase
a) to make sure you've got the question right
b) to bring the discussion to a topic you want to cover
c) to help other people in the room to follow the discussion
Stay focus on your key messages
Read carefully the body language of your audience
Make sure they "stay" with you. In case they don't, change the tone of your voice, ask them questions, ... manage to get them back on board.
Oh and: don't forget to say the name of your company (or project) :-)

Bottom line is: presenting live requires hard work and preparation. And is FUN!

Hope you enjoyed the ride! Don't hesitate to share your tips, to say you agree or disagree with all the above. I'd love to read your feedback on this!

See ya soon!

101-How-To: Write and Distribute a Press release

2010-06-14T12:05:00.013+02:00

Sometimes I forget the basics.

Since I started working with startups, I've discovered and exchanged a lot on various topics, among which social media, PR, websites, lead management, SEO, traffic optimization etc.

Enlightening.

And that's obviously one of the best part of my job.

However a bunch of recent work sessions made me realize that some of what I consider “basic stuff” and took for granted, actually were not.

That's why I've decided to start this “101-how-to” series of posts.

Here we go: #1 - How to write a press release?

Title: work hard on that one, and keep it concise. This is the 1 second chance you have to grab people's attention. It should be short and should content all key names / topics at once.
Example: Kwaga selects StoriesOut to handle its worldwide online and offline PR.
Subtitle: Once you've grabbed the attention, expands the title with subtitle. Give more info based on the title.
Example: The startup fighting email-overload wants to expand its international reach as its market traction is skyrocketing.
Date/place: Do I really need to explain? ;-)
Press release body: Develop your points in small paragraphs. 1 idea each. Use bullet points to structure the message. Keep in mind that most people "skim-read" press release. Make it simple to them to get your point.
Quotes: If you add any, make sure they appear distinctively from the rest of the text. Use italics and indentation. Content of quotes must give an extra angle to the announcement. Prefer figures and real facts to emotions.
Boilerplate: this is your company's standard presentation. It is the last paragraph of your press release and presents your company in 6 to 10 sentences. Again, work it out carefully and make sure to keep it up to date.

How to distribute a press release.

Distribution wires: there are huge differences on these types of services, mainly based on geography and on the industry your company is.
Basically in the US no one would email a journalist directly to distribute a press release but would rather use services from Marketwire or PrNewsWire.
In France is it not that obvious. Even though these international wires do propose their services here, I find their reach to the IT press pretty poor. Now, there's another one: Hugin Group but never tested it. BTW, I would appreciate any feedback from actual experiences of it ;-).
However, keep in mind that these services cost money and that prices vary with the word count of the announcement + the press target + regional target.
The services often cover both distribution to information sites and to journalists. But you'd rather check their lists before committing :-)
Free websites to post your announcement to: there are many of them in each country. A simple Google search would give you an idea. In France I found a nice post listing the main ones, it is here.
Emailing a journalist list: few tips here

If you do it manually, use BCC ;-)
There are quite a bunch of platforms that you'd like to use for your emailings, ranging from free to not-that-expensive. My favorites are: iContact and MailChimp. Great thing with these platforms are the tracking and analytics they provide you with. It really helps enhancing your reach. Strongly recommended.
Put the text of the press release directly into the email. DO NOT attach it!
Complementary resources: Screenshots, pictures, videos etc. should be mentioned and linked to. Do not embed them in the press release itself, a) there are too many email clients out there for you to make sure these resources would display properly on each of them b) firewalls may well just spam your message c) it would make your email too cumbersome to open.
Post your press release online on your blog or website so that you'll be able to direct people to it via other media such as twitter, Facebook/LinkedIn status etc.

I think I covered most of the key points, if you think of any other please tell me, and above all, tell me if this post is of any use to you!

Any other topics you'd like to read about in my forthcoming post ? Tell me.

Let's save time: share your experiences!

StoriesOut - Week #7 to 10 - The trick is to keep breathing

2010-05-30T18:43:00.011+02:00

Amazingly dense weeks

Well to be quite honest, coming back from 1 uninterrupted sunny week in Spain to find my self under the rain with a loss of 10°C has been pretty challenging for my fighting spirit... But the good news is that rather quickly business and activity took over. So here's what happen during these 4 past weeks.

Another product launch with Kwaga: Kwaga Context for Google Apps users, brings thread history and social information of email senders, directly in your inbox! Huge step forward in email productivity. If you're on Googel Apps, you MUST try it a) because it is amazingly usefull b) beacuse it's free ;-) - download it here : http://kwaga.com/KwagaContext.html
Bunch of very useful working meetings with great people: Sébastien Renault, President at ClubNet, Renaud Finaz de Villaine, Marketing Director at Micropole univers, Stefane Fermigier, Founder and Chairman at Nuxeo, Véronique Borel, Marketing Manager at Red Hat,
Biz dev was dense and tricky too: not always easy to find the magic balance to fit into budgets...
I did 2 videos for Nuxeo: Damien Metzler, Software architect at Leroy Merlin and Jean-Marc Orliaguet from Chalmers university in Sweden. That was quite funny and gave me the opportunity to use the Flip camera that Geeknius-the-Great offered me for my birthday ;-)
And finally I had the chance to attend Microsoft BizSpark European Summit and listen to a Guy Kawasaki presentation. Huge! Discovered as well Restopolitan and Captain Dash, two amazing French startups.
20 check-ins on Foursquare ;-)
868 views on my youtube channel

Montjoie Saint Denis!

StoriesOut - Week #5 & 6

2010-05-06T08:10:00.008+02:00

Fabulous weather for two awesome weeks

Hard work on StoriesOut new Website - It's gonna be awesome! I mean it! Can't wait to launch :-)
Trying to find interested people to sponsor a Startup Village on a tradeshow in October
Wasted an enormous amount of time trying to have my bike fixed (I hate garages)
Relentlessly trying to reach journalists :-s
Wrote a great case study on one of Nuxeo's customers
Wonders of mobile workers: attended 2 conf call from awesome places
637 views of my 17 videos posted on youtube (youtube.com/user/annedeforsan)
21 check-ins on Foursquare

StoriesOut - Week #4

2010-04-21T08:37:00.006+02:00

More startups!

Week#4 has been incredibly intense:

My goddamn bike refused to work
I presented the 16 videos I did of startupers from Incubateur Telecom ParisTech at the entire crew of the incubator (they are available here: http://www.youtube.com/user/AnnedeForsan)
Then one full day of prepping with @dealmeeting to pitch @seedcamp
The entire Thursday, I was at Seedcamp, presenting and discussing Dealmeeting with other startups and mentors - Kind of exhausting & exciting
The wrap-up party, sponsored by Elaia Partners was a relief : fun talks, drinks and again
On Friday, Reshma Sohoni, Seedcamp CEO came to the incubator and kindly accepted me to shot a short video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXFjlHGqyuI)
Only 5 checkins- on foursquare and 1 mayorship lost- duh!

See ya next week for more exciting adventures!

StoriesOut - Week #3

2010-04-13T08:29:00.005+02:00

4-day weeks make it hectic

Week #3 begun odd: Monday was bank holiday or I should say Egg & Chocolate holiday.

Then my bike refused to work and forced me to subway all short-week long. For the record, when on saturday I decided that I should try to fix it, it was perfectly working... How odd?

Anyway, week#3 has been:

a lot about thinking,
1 interview for Nuxeo
1 negociation pending
only 6 4sq check-ins
many awesome people met
creation of my youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/AnnedeForsan)
sushi-work session on my forthcoming web site
intensively tweeting :-)

Let's keep it rolling !

see ya!

StoriesOut - Week #2

2010-04-05T10:59:00.005+02:00

Another intense week at StoriesOut:

Kwaga Gmail OAuth support announced and a bunch of very nice clippings (TechCrunch EU, Jean-Marie Gall's blog, Astuces informatiques, NetEco, WebEphemere, ...)
1 sales negotiation
2 customers meetings
7 check-ins on Foursquare
Over 120km rode on my bike

One regret: I couldn't make it for the Allmyapps beer party on Friday night!

StoriesOut - Week#1

2010-03-27T17:26:00.009+01:00

In case you'd ask yourself how it looks like when you create your company.

The following items are a digest of what happened this week :

1 product launched (Kwaga BirdsEye and some very impressive clippings on TechCrunch, Silicon Alley Insider, Jean-Marie Gall's blog, ...)
5 meetings with prospective customers
2 meetings with actual customers
1st sales proposal created and sent (panic!)
2 impressive business meet-ups attended (Cafe du eCommerce and TechCrunch Paris)
3 missed lunchs (Hadn't been told creating your own company was a VERY efficient diet)
zillions of great people met IRL: @pegobry @mounir2012 @moumsinette @mikebutcher @roxannevarza (TechCrunch France is re-launched! Yay!) @laurentk @bjonathan @cgiorgi @pictarine @hypios @allmyapps @qameha ...
and all the usual suspects: Hughes and Pascale from the incubator, @kwagaproduct @PhilippeLaval @MichelRacat @dealmeeting @TeamKadeal @leezamstrories @wwipolo @coletteballou ...
+100 tweets
6 check-ins on foursquare

And last but not least: I received my NexusOne!

Now, question is: how to keep this level of intensity?

'Cos truth is: I just LOOOOOVED it !

How was your week#1?

Last Day at Nuxeo - Here comes StoriesOut!

2010-03-19T11:41:00.004+01:00

Hi all,

Today is my last day at Nuxeo. I'm leaving this great company to create my own: "StoriesOut".

StoriesOut proposes communication services to innovating IT companies, both startups and more established ones:

PR and press management
Communication Strategies for Communities (customers, internal communication, online social communities)
Communication Coaching

I'm delighted to announce StoriesOut's two first customers: Nuxeo and Kwaga !

From Monday 22nd, you'll be able to reach me at:

mail: annedeforsan@storiesout.com
cell: +33 6 07 67 30 38
twitter: @adeforsan

I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

Ground Control to Major Tom, Commencing countdown, Engines On

2010-03-16T09:57:00.004+01:00

6 days to go for a brand new adventure to start (hence the attached pic).

I'll be leaving the comfort of the employee position on March 19th to start StoriesOut, my own company the following Monday.

StoriesOut will be about Social Media, Marketing, PR and Communication services & coaching, primarily to exciting innovating IT startups and incubators. The baseline is "Let's write your story".

Huge excitement and stress.

The past few years have been tremendous. I've learned a lot, discovered even more and met stunning people.

I can't say there's been only one trigger for this shift, probably more the addition of experiences and thoughts. I've been fascinated by the energy of the entrepreneurs I've met. By technology and its ability to disrupt and change any "established" market. By the speed of high tech market and the actual real time assessments, decision-making and measurement.

I felt it was time for me to tell those stories and to create my own.

I can't wait to say more about StoriesOut!

Stay tuned.

Aggregate or die!

2010-02-18T16:30:00.002+01:00

I woke up this morning feeling an irresistible need for an information aggregator.

On a daily basis what I use the most are: Google Reader, Twitter, Google alerts. In an attempt to organize, understand and sort, I use Google Analytics and Delicious.

And I feel like I'm loosing and missing a lot of information, time and at the end of the day, I don't have the "big picture".

So, I woke up moaning about how hard it is to cope with so many info and how frustrating it is to miss so much.

Quite patiently - it wasn't 7:00am yet - my personal geeknius (geek+genius) advocate for a thorough market survey: "you may like to try this and that, probably that you'll find something to meet this need".

I did as told. Didn't find my solution yet, but felt it was worth sharing my first findings:

- uberVU (I love the name) - social info on key words displayed in a (very) nice dashboard - realtime
Here's a quick demo:

There's a nice "Trial for free for 30 days". Cost is pretty fair as well:

- Wikio - blog & news syndication
seems pretty thorough in the aggregated sources and allows you to popularize them through votes. And it's free. Basically, it provides you with "what's hot".

- Newscred: Then a tweet from @nicolasgamard led my to NewsCred
Basically I found it a Reverse Google Reader: instead of following a given media, you type in a topic and newscred displays related news in a "your own newspaper"-way.
See mine: http://adeforsan.newscred.com/#

OK now, let's test them on a given topic. I looked for a synthetic view on Kwaga.
Results:

on UberVU: http://www.ubervu.com/kwaga/social-media/
on Wikio: http://www.wikio.com/search/kwaga
on NewsCred: http://adeforsan.newscred.com/kwaga

Comments:

Only uberVu provides multi-languages results
None drag info from Feedback-type of forum
I got aggregated info by media type, but I'm still missing the cross-media syndication I'm looking for. Not mentioning the associated dashboard.

What trick do you use to get all the info you rely on for your job/life at a glance ?

Thanks for sharing.

Mantras for entrepreneurs

2010-02-16T14:25:00.000+01:00

My post from yesterday raised some great comments and discussions, among which the lonelyness of the entrepreneur generates many exchanges.

Here is my proposed "zen cure": Mantras for entrepreneurs.

A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that are considered capable of "creating transformation" (from wikipedia).

Here are some of mine:

Reed: be reed-like went you create a brand new service or product, based on your own personal conviction and belief. Anchored on your rock-solid-yet-flexible self foundations.
Exchange: be evangelist-like and faithfully present, explain and convince anyone you come across. And yet listen.
Sieve: listen sieve-like and sort all given advises and keep the best nuggets
Echo: strengthen your foundations in integrating new valuable ideas to your own personal convictions

Which are yours? Contribute!

Is pairing impairing?

2010-02-15T14:04:00.000+01:00

You need shareholders, for sure.
Do you really need co-founders?

Saturday was Third shooting session of The Big Project aka TBP. Out of the four originally planned, only three startups showed up. Not that I'm complaining, three stratups were far enough for my SaturdayStartup delight.

The reason one of the startups didn't show up is because the three co-founders couldn't agree on the message they wanted to present.

It made me think of entrepreneur and leadership. And what stroke me was that quite often, once entrepreneurs have their "Great Idea", they start with selecting a co-founder (sometimes several) and then eventually they build a team around them.

Probably because at the early stages of the company, entrepreneurs a rarely able to propose any salary. So they propose bits of their Great Idea, and end up with co-founders instead of shareholders.

We all agree that startups require the combination of complementing skills. And quite often it goes like "the tech genius & the sales wizard" are proud to present you...

But then, the startup has to pitch in front of VCs, customers, potential partners etc. and the need (and the demand) for THE startup representative rises and could strike hard.

Who's going to be the Startup Spokesperson?
The Tech Genius (most of the time the core idea's genitor) or the Sales Wizard (whose best friends are often the first customers/partners)?
And then eventually - hopefully - who's going to grab the laurels of success?
(I have to admit, I never saw an argument about who's endorsing failures...)

Shareholders are proud of your success and encourage it. It grants them with great ROI.
Co-founders work hard and want their share of spotlight.

I believe and have seen it several time: the success of a company, its growth and expansion, is a single-person story. The story of the founder, the leader able to build a strong team around his/her ideas, with people excelling in areas where he/she doesn't.

On the other hand, I have witnessed extremely frequently the failure of great ideas and companies, due to resentment and fights for power between founders. It's sad. And could be avoided.

Sorry guys, but there aren't that many successful "tandem-like" companies.

That's why I think pairing can actually impair your company.

What do you think?

The Big Project - Let's meet innovators and start with video games

2010-01-31T19:35:00.000+01:00

Here's a big project of mine: over a month and a half period, I'll be interviewing and shooting videos of startupers from Paris. I call this project "The Big Project" aka TBP.

While moving forward in my geeky-2.0-life, I met those guys through my personal connections (no comment ;-)) and a couple of discussions were enough for me get fully enthusiastic about their projects and to propose them the "Big project". It somehow pleased them:-)

Now, we're just in the early stage of TBP and written impressions and videos won't be ready before a while, but I want to share my first impressions after the first round of videos.

Shooting are scheduled on Saturdays, (as I do TBP on top of my job :-)) and therefore have been baptized the SaturdayStartups.

Prepping & shooting have been... EXHAUSTINGLY FUN! First impressions so far:

First obvious common factor is enthusiasm - Well, of course it is. Those guys (very dramatically sorry but no gals met, so far...) just want to change the world. I mean what the fuss of creating a company if you only want to duplicate something existing, duh?
Second: innovation - The four first startups we videoed on SaturdayStartup#1 , have come up with never-seen-before ideas, products and services. Either B-to-B niche solutions or B-to-C services that will - I swear - really stun you.
Third: diversity - Yesterday I met startups working in very different fields: B-to-B, B-to-Xpert, B-to-C in the field of finance (ThinkStraight), telco (stealth mode...), IT (Hereda Technologies), process automation (Kedeal). Their profiles are also stunningly different: from fresh-graduate to over 30-year experienced guys, each of them dropping (very) comfortable employee positions, to make their project come true. Wow.
Richness directly linked to the diversity of those founders' profiles. Some of the entrepreneurs we met yesterday have been head of development in some of the most famous international companies, consulting / legal practices... Makes you feel humble(r) and is extremely energizing :-)

I knew the risk existed. But here I am: contaminated.

Keep posted to see how illness develops.

I want my iPad

2010-01-31T18:54:00.007+01:00

Unlike most the comments I've red since THE keynote, I want my iPad!

But I remain puzzled by the quantity of moaning and bitching comments that overflowed the internet, while "mass media" such as TVs and radios were so embarrassingly enthusiastic.

Being the mother of an adorable, though noisy teenager tribe, the online world reaction really sounded to my ears as the reaction of a spoiled child.

My favorite comment remaining: it's just a big iPhone that doesn't allow you to phone.

Duh!

Anyway, I can't wait to get one! Maybe just one thing to fix before I buy it though: how to print ?

lol!

One size doesn't fit all

2010-01-17T13:01:00.014+01:00

I've been recently discussing a lot with friends of mine launching their own startups. I love those guys: they are full of an impressive positive energy, each of them working hard to change our way of working, living, inventing new ways...

Sooner or later I'll have to present them in this blog.

For now, I want to talk about one of the (many) common issues they are facing: recruiting talented people. They find it a nightmare... at best.

Key pain points:

- Lack of the startup culture that blossoms in the Valley - particularly in Europe.
- Existing job boards misfitting their needs: overload of out-focused resumes for any open position posted and lack of internal time and resources to sort and deal with them
- The inner time of startups ticks far too fast for most applicants: the job was to be done yesterday, so how could startup afford to wait for an extra period of 1 to 3 months (common length for periods of notice) for the person to come on board
- Looking for highly skilled and experienced people while the standard startup package can't compete with the apparent security of working in a big company.

Keeping the discussion further with my enterpreneur-friends, they all confess that higher the position they want to fulfill, the bigger the nightmare.

And then eventually, they identify the right person. Most of the time she/he holds a similar job in a huge company. They must recruit this person: she/he is the "Messiah" who will solve all current issues and enable the startup to cross any chasm and eventually succeed to change the world.

The seduction game starts.

It takes them weeks, if not months - but they keep on - The Messiah MUST join. And eventually he/she joins.

Here starts the real trouble:
When you've spent many years in big companies, you're accustomed to processes, to precise job description, to structured annual planning, to deal with budget, resources and support teams. Not to mention car allowance etc. Basically everything that a startup cannot / shouldn't have.

From Day #1 the Messiah gets on board, disillusion strikes hard:
- you're now on the fastest track of your industry: little time to assess, evaluate, discuss every single decisions
- you're on your own to produce and deliver
- you must re-invent your job along with the evolution of the product and its market fit
- you get little to no support
- your budget is a joke

When everything turns that sour, there's only one solution: stop the experience and go on each one his side.

Well then the TRUE nightmare begins: it costs huge time, money and energy to get rid of a Messiah-type of co-worker. Exactly what a startup cannot afford to waste.

Listen to Hjalmar Windbladh CEO of Rebtel, while presenting his experience as serial entrepreneur at Seedcamp in 2009. It's hilarious

Seedcamp Week '09. Day 1. Navigating the Start-up Rollercoaster with Hjalmar Windblah from Seedcamp on Vimeo.

Truth is: One size doesn't fit all :-)

Survival Kit: How to be 2.0 parents in 8 steps

2009-12-06T10:16:00.002+01:00

Along with the invasion of the 2.0 shebang in our lives, my tribe develop some ackward behaviors together with the most repetitive & cryptic yells (kids usually don't speak - they're more comfortable at yelling). Usually it goes like that

- "Muuum can you tell Doris to give me the computer - It's my turn!"
- "Muuuuuum! computer's dead: I cannot install the ultimate extension of my *IM* (replace by any - we have them all) - C'mon , Mum! How can I dare writing without the latest emoticon set?"
- "Muuuum! computer's dead again: it says I cannot access the "latest ultimate gore" site, my schools pals told me to look at"
- "Muuuum! Help! for god's sake, somebody, heeeeeeelp!"

After a while of the kind, I've come to consider that I should put together the ultimate survival kit for us, poor savvy-elders, facing when not fighting against the tide of juvenile 2.0 experience.

First let me tell you what DOESN'T work
My great experience in IT project managements, quite naturally led me to set the standard dumb-user procedure. The one that goes like :

Learn to categorize demand (from real disaster recovery to nice-to-have user experience enhancements)
Attribute tickets (from "Time to go to bed! -meaning 'gosh, that one is tricky, I have to think about it" - to "calm down, here is your math exercice", not forgetting "How on earth do you think you'd fail being a better person if I don't buy the newest WoW extension?')
Enrich the knowledge base - ask each ticket holder to fill in a form and only answer the repeatable bugs
Close tickets

And you know why it doesn't work? Well... it's far too "1.0" oriented. You cannot answer them if you don't actually learn from them and share true experience. Being 2.0 parents or just parents of 2.0 kids is the same matter as usual: protect, upbringing, set and discuss limits, keep the line open of ANY discussions.

Now, here's the 2.0 parents Survival Kit:

Explain and Demonstrate: take time to present how you think things actually work. "My teacher says Wikipedia's rubbish. Information isn't certified nor verified. Unreliable." Don't go nuts. No harsh word to the teacher. Take some example out of a field he/ she knows by heart and check.

Share: the latest blog post you've read on Swine Flu / How to be a rock star using the Internet / what's Social Media / coolest tool you've find while browsing during lunch pause at the office... Surprisingly enough, sharing good stuff usually lead to receiving, in return, good stuff they've come accross :-) and ultimately - believe me or not - to passionate discussions.
Engage vs. respect: Would you even think about opening the letters your kids receive or sneak into their diaries? Of course not. Now, how do you handle it when you're on the same social network (ie Facebook)? The most efficient solution I found is to apply the same respect you have in real life (letter, diaries etc.), while sharing as much as you do in real life: publish pictures upon common agreement only, comment anything "public" status etc. and to try to go any further. Keep the communication going :-)
Bashing management: Guess what? Kids are as nice and gross on social networks as they are in real life. Can you believe it? Yes, I'm sure you can. Now when we learned about an anti-my-beloved-daughter facebook group, the situation had to be managed right away. Good thing is there's always a real person behind things like that. We discussed a lot about it and my daughter just went and talk about it to the FB group owner, who turned to be a girl from my daughter'sclass. Let's call her "Jennifer". Actually Jennifer felt really sorry about how things had turned and amplified - out of control she said. She removed the group the following day. Interestingly enough, both girls are now friends and have turned into kind of FB sentries, trying to regulate their environment on Facebook...
Real life stalking: while we could handle bashing with discussions, actual stalking couldn't be handle like that. Twice, one of my kids has been harassed via phone texts and the bad guy was lingering in front of school, following up to the front of our house, and insulting. We tried discussion and then eventually fix it with the police.
The tricky thing about real-life stalking based on 2.0 life is that kids don't necessarily feel at ease with mentioning it. As in real-life they feel they are responsible for it.
2.0 parents MUST tell them, and infinitely repeat this CANNOT be admit. Give your kids any means / ways to let you know... share, engage, keep the line open :-)
e-reputation management: based on the two latest items, the e-reputation management is a logical next step to discuss and clearly establish. Don't mention their future professional life - They are teenagers, remember? Do they give a damn about their future professional life? And, do we have any clue about what it'll look like, anyway?
As I present it in a former post of mine, 2.0 life is just a natural expansion of their real-life: just explain they should behave online the way they do offline - with the highly-acceptable exception of being a powerful bad witch on WoW :-)
Anti-spam education: the hell with chain letters! They're about to get there... harsh work, I can tell you!
Highly responsive customer service: yeah, parenthood is a full time job. Now it goes to 2.0 life as well. Don't let them down while they experience trouble with the 2.0 shebang. They won't forgive you :-) And if you can't help them straight forward, you can bet someone else had met (and hopefuly solved) this issue before: google it :-)

Huh well, nothing real new, just new tools, new experience, extended privacy... Just don't miss that train. They're going so fast on these tracks that you might well lose them if you don't bother assisting.

Drawing from "geek and poke" - extremely funny blog- I'm not sure I attributed correctly it's CC work - if not, my apologies, the licence was written in German.

Social media vs. Propaganda

2009-11-23T15:00:00.002+01:00

Hey guys! You know what?

I got a great news for you!

Social Media holds social in it... and therefore relates to individuals... with (most of the time) more than one field of interest. No kidding.

(Yeah I know how you feel, no need to thank me. I'm proud to release this secret to you, to bring some light in this age of darkness).

You think I'm overstating this?
Well, I wish I was.

I recently had intense discussions with friends, who were literally sick of the non-business related tweets of some of the folks they're following on twitter which I was claiming as "salt of the info", the extra compound that makes you listen to what another person's saying.

One of the major argument was based on: on social media, one must keep a strong firewall between personal and professional life. I have to admit that I had ignited the discussion with one of my recent re-tweet of a statement of the kind, adding in my RT that I violently disagreed.

So let me explain this in two steps:

1 - Social media relates to individuals not to propaganda.
Most companies on twitter / facebook etc. do take advantage of their employees' own pages / network and followers. Aren't they?

Even though companies do have a corporate account, it is their employees who actually enrich
any announcement thanks to the comment they post on their personal accounts. Leveraging their own network to deliver the info.

Right?

In my profesional life, I follow quite a bunch of marketing, social media, Open Source and ECM experts. Those I'm really fond of are those who, on top of their area of expertise, tweet on what really matters to them.

Here's a recent example (Damien is one of Nuxeo's customers and an active community member). His initial tweet enabled me to discover about a worldwide 24-hour observation campaign simultaneously conducted by 35 radioastronomy observatories, in order get redefined, global and extremely precise space map.

(More info in French here and here in English)

2 - Imposing rules to an evolving phenomenon is at best a waste of time, at worst an incredible waste of time.

I'm not comfortable with the emerging trend that accompanies emerging social tools: declare and impose rules and code of acceptable (and non-acceptable) behaviors.

Very not comfortable with that. Going this way is missing the point of what social media is about.

Social media are new channels for individuals, allowing real-time one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-one exchanges vs. the asynchronous tools we had so far (email, "static" websites...). We shouldn't expect the former behaviors of asynchronous tools to duplicate with social media.

My feeling is it'll settle accordingly to the way each of us behave in real life: by field of interest, by geography, by gender, by music preference, by family... and if you don't actually go naked to fill in the tank of your car in real life, I doubt you'll pose in the nude on your Facebook page. And even though I deeply regret it, deviant behaviors will exist on social media the way they do in real life.

To wrap-up with my inital RT that allows such (great) discussion, let me tell you:
If my boss / company/ RH people / recruitment company (past, present and future) solely base their perception of my value as a professional on comments or pics I would have broadcast on my Facebook pages / Twitter / LinkedIn... then at least they'd get a comprehensive picture :-)

(popart pic from: http://popartmachine.com/machine/daily/092208/Lichtenstein-style-pop-art/Woman-Whispering-to-Man-pop-art.jpg)

What if good enough was actually enough?

2009-11-14T12:29:00.009+01:00

I went lately to one of Eric Ries's leanstartup seminar, in Paris.

Very inspiring and thoughtful as expected. Some of it reminded me of Balzac's "The Unknown Masterpiece": an artist, never satisfied with what he considers his life's masterpiece, keeps on amending it during years. When half mad he finally shows it to a friend, the poor fellow has to face the lamest doodle ever.

The Unknown masterpiece is amongst the most famous novel challenging the sense and the meaning of Arts.

Now, transpose it to IT. Especially to innovative IT. You know, those products and services that have and will undoubtedly change the way we work, the way we communicate, our relationship to others etc.

- Craiglist: the most popular online classified ad site in the US ? The poorest UI and functionnalities we've ever seen = 20 million people visit the site each month, viewing and self-publishing more than 17 million ads and forum posts (check this Wired story)

- Twitter: a limited number of caracters to tell everyone non-sense all day long =
and the list goes on like that.

Now I've been recently talking to a bunch of startup-ers and, as so funnily illustrated by Ries, they're all of them more or less stuck with existential issues of the kind:
- my product/service isn't ready - I must add features
- I have to delay the launch
- How can I raise interest (not mentioning money) with semi-finished product?
- I need 10 extra genius-developers to finish it
...

Basically those guys are changing the way we will buy on the Internet, travel, manage our inbox, manage and animate our community, and obvisouly invent a new way for us to do so.

How on earth could the know how we - users- will react to it?

Well they can't.

Ries best advice remain: try, fail, ask your users, correct, try again...

As one of those happy "early adopters" of those new services I'd love to say:
1 - Don't forget that we -the users - have, first of all, to understand your product
2 - Need support to use them
3 - would love to exchange with you on our experience
4- would then, and only then, love to have more features :-)

Time Warp - The Kwaga example

2009-10-25T20:26:00.006+01:00

Here's a new example of how a website can evolve.

Kwaga's the great start-up of Mr Fabulous Geek aka @PhilippeLaval :-).

What I think very interesting here is the start-up way: when creating a 2.0 company from scratch, everything has to be invented along while the product itself is developed.

The inception of Kwaga is late december 2008, the period of this time warp is therefore very short: february 2009 to october 2009.

In 9 months, 3 different versions of the site have been released. Well actually not all of them: the "April version" hasn't. Why? Because they thought they would wait for the beta version of the product to be ready... and in the turmoil of the development, they re-thought the site.

Could mean that design has a kind of inner "use-by date" limit or that there are so many things at stake when creating a product, one can loose focus and must re-think so hard to get it back that the loop must go back to step zero before moving along.

Any way, enjoy this time warp!

The Early Adopter Manifesto - Curiosity kill the... product

2009-10-24T12:42:00.009+02:00

"If they can't install our product, they don't deserve it"
"The hell with dummy users"
"Refesh. Re-install. Re-launch.Drop it."
"Try ssh."
"Does your id appear in the dropbox?"

Grrrrrr.

How is it that the brightest engineers produce the smartest and most helpful products and don't give a damn about end users?

How is it that WE, adventurous early adopter users when not beta users do not get the best support?
Aren't we the fuel of any disrupting innovative product success?

I know for sure that engineers, developers, sales rep, marketing people are key to your success.
But believe me (and so many others): you should take the highest care of your users!

So here's what we want from you bright guys:
1 - answer our questions
2- if you can't say by when you will
3 - if you still can't when you said you will: explain!
4 - assist us
5 - help us use your prowerful brain offspring
6 - tell us you care
7 - mean it when doing so

Hey! I feel a bit better! I didn't solve my twitterfeed problem though :-(

Special thanks to www.wordle.net (Warning: this is very addictive)

Digital Shebang - the Plumbing - "How to deal with your lamest user"

2009-10-19T08:00:00.001+02:00

OK, now that you have created your blog, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, you'd propbably love to connect them all.

Don't you ?

I've spent hours on the web, talking to my own family Geek, to my co-workers and other fellow geeks and ... didn't find a simple straightforward post/scheme/description of any kind describing how to do it, in which order, what tools to choose and why.

Pleasure of Digital Life: let's stay messy, cryptic... reward is in deciphering... yeah... talk to me about it.

So here's what I've (finally) mastered - or so believe I have :-)

Basically all exchanges rely on RSS (really simple syndication - hahaha: I love it). Whenever you want one content to feed another of your applications, you need the RSS from the platform where the content has been create and "plumb" it in to the destination platform. What??? Do I need to draw it?

The trick lies in the plumbing tools - which one and why and HOW?

1 - Automatically feed your twitter and/or Facebook account with your latest blog post:

I recommend: Twitterfeed.

Create your account in twitterfeed , select the destination platform:

Now you need to give your Twitter/Facebook accounts [The new OAuth protocol seems to ease even more the process (hurray).]

And the funniest is ALWAYS to find the rss feed from your content platform. The first 3 or 4 times, it just drove me crazy!
The trick is: on the right hand-side of your blog url, click on this icon , select either RSS or ATOM format (my geeks say ATOM is MUUUUUUCH better - I believe them) and on the next window, just copy the url and paste it in Twitterfeed.

Done !

Breaking News: Nice thing is Twitterfeed allows to do this to your Facebook account AND to your Facebook page (as long as you're administrator of the facebook page), a well. Which wasn't the case 2 weeks ago when I first thought about this post:-) It says a lot about how long will my present post remain accurate

Bonus: Twitterfeed can ALSO feed your twitter account/ Facebook account with the posts and blog you read and want to share - same process from your content aggregator (Google reader/netvibes)

2 - Feed your Linkedin status with your twitter account

Most the posts I read on this subject converge to "are you sure you want to do that?" - Keep in mind that more and more recruiters check your social avatars as part of the regular recruitment process. Are you sure you want them to discover the last MAJOR announcement you made on you twitter account, that early morning, after partying like hell??? probably not.

However there's a trick - Mickael Bentz found it for me on the LinkedIn forum :

As far as I know there is nothing that will insert your latest Tweet into the "What are you working on?" status of LinkedIn. However, you can easily post your latest Tweets using the BlogLink application in LinkedIn.

Click on the Applications link in the left hand column. Add the BlogLink application. Now go to your profile page and edit your profile. Add your Twitter address (in my case http://twitter.com/grahamjones) as one of your web sites.

The BlogLink application will automatically then collect your Tweets and post the most recent ones into your profile.

3 - Feed your linkedIn group news with your blog content

You need to be administator of the group to access the "manage pages" . You just need to add the RSS url from your blog, here :

4 - My personal failure to understand: FeedBurner

If any one can explain WTF this does apart from nice and clean URLs, please do :-)
The minimum I can say about feedburner is... I enjoy the user experience much less than with twitterfeed - to put it nicely.

Special note to vendors and online platform providers: for god sake, guys, do you really think that I am the one who should write this? How is it that this:
a) isn't available from each platform?
b) is a hell to find/understand, anyway?

Digital life is spreading out of your control (and basically, that's what you expect): adapt your customer service to your users. Better: to the lamest of your users. Stop the non-sens: if you can't figure out how to use it, then you shouldn't use it.

I've head this sentence so many time that I can say it backward without thinking : ti esu ton dluohs uoy neht, ti esu ot woh tuo erugif ton nac uoy fi!

As life 2.0 expands so a dedicate efficient customer support should. And an automated plumbing in would be appreciated - special kudos to Twitterfeed, by the way.

Anyway, now everything is connected: your blog feeds your Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, enjoy!

And get ready: next step is find the applications to access all this from your smartphone- hahaha! (evil laugh) :-)

My KIDS' Digital Shebang

2009-10-11T22:54:00.003+02:00

Discussing with my kids about the previous post, it appeared pretty quickly that their world isn't exactly mine (duh!)

There were only 4 of them, but we decided to draw their world. Here it is. Hahaha!

The differences are very interesting (skyrock vs.blogger, deezer vs. spotify, dailymotion for streamed tv shows, etc.). Would I be a marketer of 2.0 XYZ tools aiming at teens, I would love this one!

Enjoy!

Master the Digital Shebang

2009-10-11T12:50:00.006+02:00

I keep on praising the wonders of 2.0 world and life, but to be honest, the setting up of a smart traffic and flow of information remains something close to a nightmare.

Here's a view of the tools I use on a daily basis... WDYT?

Yeah, pretty scarry.

I can tell you that having all of those working smoothly together has been quite an experience :-)

That's why my next post will present some hints that I gathered while drifting in the digital matrix, presenting possible business strategies and the related plumbing.

Keep posted.

The curious blossoming of 2.0 - part 2

2009-10-07T20:39:00.009+02:00

Today I saw my lawyer (again) - yeah I now, ongoing omen as well.

Good news: he hasn't got swine flu - just sore throat - therefore, if I can't swallow tomorrow, I know it won't have anything to do with any pigs of the world - big relief.

The reason why I'm talking (again) about him is because I didn't tell you how I (finally) got his dictated email (see previous posts). Any guess? ... You're right! On paper! Thanks to the great national regular mail service (which BTW, should remain public service). HaHaHa.

Some more news from the 2.0 world: connecting and reconnecting with RL people. Yes RL.

Some years ago I reconnected with my best friend ever through the phone. Yesterday I reconnected with a too-silent friend through Facebook and LinkedIn (she doesn't have a Twitter account - yet). And while she didn't replied my previous mails, in less than 2 hours she called me back after the pressing posts I sent her.

Obvioulsy to some of us, being repetedly pinged by friends through digital networks express a higher level of urgency :-) That's great.

Not being an expert in digital footprint and digital identity protection - not that I want to become one, though - , I've also been recontacted by long-long-long time friend.

And reading tweets from my extended tribe, I discovered Ustream. (better late then never) and partyontheinternet from the amazing Amanda Palmer and 69 almost free tools to enhance your website and, and of course: the amazing Gmail plugin Kwaga. Which, btw, is a big relief too: my mails finally recover their marbles, long lost under the daily flood of new messages.

2.0 life amazes me. Every day.

Now, one of the next posts, I'll present a map of my digital world.

Keep posted.

Time Warp - The Nuxeo example

2009-10-04T12:03:00.000+02:00

We've just released the new verison of Nuxeo's website check it out : www.nuxeo.com

And for the fun of it, here's a time warp on Nuxeo's home pages since inception in 2001.
Enjoy!

(special thanks to The Internet Archive)

Time Warp Nuxeo

View more presentations from annedeforsan.

Corporate websites... the ongoing omen

2009-10-04T00:12:00.000+02:00

Every single time I entered a company in the past 10 years, one of the hottest objectives I was assigned to was the corporate website.

And there you go with the profound, definitive, thoroughly thought-over briefings:
"We need to have it evolve"
"I want it to look like XYZ's"
"It should should be updated"
"We've to think it over upside down"

:-)

Basically anything ranging from correcting typos to brand new corporate identity and messaging.

Every single time in the most urgent ways.

So here are some random observations, point of views and ideas gathered along this digital road.

Let's start with the 3 first tools one must add to its marketing emergency kit:

Mock-up
Dare
Measure & Iterate

Mock-up: sketch you needs before trying to design them; sketch your present and foreseeable resources - Are you sure you'll be able to handle and have evolve this funky breath-catching features your bold e-agency is so thrilled about?

Dare: say yes and say no :-) And dare be humble. Don't reinvent the wheel. Browse the web, grab ideas, trends, look & feel. Check-out what's going on on the competition's sites: you want their visitors' to become yours. Don't confuse them with a brand new design approach. This is your product's job. Not your site's.

Measure & Iterate: Go online. Measure. Correct, reinforce, enrich. I'm pretty sure the smartest combination can't be found at once. There are tons of amazing tools available to measure your site's efficiency, beginning with Google Analytics, which by itself would require an entire post. There are tools to engage with your visitors (and therefore measure their acceptance of your site's design, content etc.) such as Get Satisfaction, there are tons of online surveys tools as well (check these). Basically, name your need, and you'll find the tool on the Internet. And the best part is, not only they are powerful tools, but most are free.

The history of any company's websites are rather insightful in that respect. I'll demonstrate this in a series of posts called "time warp".

These are the very first things that stroke me. I can think of many more. Don't hesitate to share your opinion and comment :-)

Keep posted.

The curious blossoming of 2.0

2009-09-24T12:43:00.014+02:00

Yesterday, I spoke to my lawyer.

Great guy, funny and pretty smart.

He was supposed to send me an email a couple of days ago, but I hadn't received it and therefore I called.

He explained that the reason why I hadn't got it, was because his assistant wasn't working on Wednesdays.

That puzzled me. Didn't get the link between "not sending me the email" and "my assistant is off on Wednesdays".

Understanding that his explanation didn't bring any light, he added: "well, I did dictate the email but she probably hadn't enough time to listen to the tape on tuesday".

Wow.

He dictates his emails.
On a small tape recorder.

Left me speechless.

Marketing moral: when working in a technology company, be it a start-up or a maturer innovative company, one shouldn't forget how immersed in technology we are, how much we love it and how most our counterparts are very much less in it. Forgetting this simple fact can annihilate the most brilliant marketing strategy we can come up with.
Even our most adventurous early-bird customer is probably not as "geek" as we are. Not to mention the more conservative ones.

Later that very same day, one of my beloved teens called me "Hey Mum, just received an hilarious text on my mobile", she said and explained: "it said do u wanna date me? answer quick. And you know what? I didn't recognize the phone number - I had to text back who R U!"

Yeah, 2.0 is oddly blossoming... :-)

Done - AFG wins Procrastination 1 to 0 (actually 42 to 0)

2009-09-22T12:32:00.001+02:00

Right - Here we go.

It's been ages since I 've been thinking of my own blog.

But you know, it always ends to the inextricable questions:
- personal stuff vs. business matters
- written in English or Klingon
- whining or moaning
- sincere or bogus
....

well, usual false self excuses.

So now, here we go.

Why did I - finally - make it ?

Because I have few challenges in my life that are worth writing about:

A - living with a serial entrepreneur currently launching an online service that stands as NEXT MAJOR shift in email management - both for business and individuals

B - living with geeks: I'm surrounded by them and I don't surrender - I believe I love it - Anyway, I might as well give you precious hints on "how-to-live-with-them" and even on "how-to-become-one-yourself"

C - working with geeks - see above. Tricky part: on the average, they are 15-year younger than me.

D - being a marketing and communication expert in a highly technical and innovating company. Which has basically turned me into a mobile computer-to-human translator, able to explain any wonderful technical masterpieces into solid-down-to-the-earth answers to critical business needs. I love it too. And I've been doing it for quite a while now :-)

E - last but not least, being the mother of a wide tribe of fabulous teenagers.

F - and finding time to play music, see concerts, watch movies, read books... yeah ok, just the regular super-woman stuff.

I hope you'll enjoy reading as much as I'll enjoy writing.