The 4th C, Sil Valley Product Camp Style

I had the honor to present to the Silicon Valley Product Camp yesterday. Amazing event, over 600 Product mgrs, mktrs and related folks. Had a packed room of about 40 or so in the room, very positive reception, except for a few engineers who thought I was going to talk about how to build SaaS apps, not the Go To Market of them.

Anyways, I've taken the BackofTheNapkin drawing approach to this preso, and I even think I now have an "iconic" drawing of GTM in the Cloud Era...

One attendee tweeted it best, "I've seen the future of Go To Market, and it's circular". Also, a bit an epiphany, this is all driven because -aaS offerings are SERVICES, not products. But our Go To Market mindset is a product one.

So without further ado, here's the link, enjoy!

Over and out...Ken

KJR Associates Year End Update

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

2010 has been an incredible year in technology and for KJR Associates. I've been blessed with AMAZING clients, GREAT projects and SPECTACULAR colleagues and partners. It's been a thrill to help my clients accelerate and grow their go to market initiatives and valuations.

Some of the highlights of 2010 for KJR Associates were:

1) Client Nimsoft Acquired by CA for $350M - Read all about this story here.

2) I moved offices sharing with a great new colleague Kate Healy of Healy Consultants. Our new space is private, comfortable, and really productive.

3) I joined two boards, the Advisory board of my client Eccentex and the Encinal School Site Council, my first "pro-bono" role. Look for great things from Eccentex as they disrupt a multi-billion $ Case Management market with their -AAS offering.

4) I entered a formal partnership with Opsource. KJR is offering its ISV SaaS GTM Transformation Service in partnership with Opsource, and I expect this to be a very fruitful relationship.

5) I added a v. large networking company to my client list, and was thrilled to find a great fit working for a giant as well as smaller and mid size B2B technology vendors.


2011 promises more excitement, as the Cloud continues to transform Enterprise computing, and KJR helps its clients to position and execute for growth and share. One exciting event on the near horizon is a panel that I am moderating on Cloud Go To Market Strategy at the Silicon Valley Cloud Computing Meetup on Jan 18 in Mountain View. Gary Read, CEO of Nimsoft, Jon Beck of Opsource and Sam Boonin of GoodData are the panelist. Sign up here!

Throughout the year, I've reconnected with old colleagues and met new. I'd love to keep that trend up in 2011 so drop me a line if you'd like to grab a coffee or a drink, either to catch up or discuss how KJR might help you, your portfolio or your clients.


Finally, I wish all of you and yours a healthy, prosperous and fulfilling 2011. Cheers and I'll see you in the "Cloud".

Cheers
Ken

Polar Opposites? Why Product Marketing and Product Management Must Engage...

I've been watching with much interest the lively conversation on Product Mgmt V. Product Marketing on the 280 Linked in group. And while I do plan on linking in (yes, pun intended) this blog to that discussion, I think the general sentiment raises a big set of questions for Sr mktg and engineering executives.

For if, as the consensus goes, Product Management is "Inbound", from customer need to product delivery and Product Marketing is "Outbound" from product Delivery to customer purchase, whick is a logical starting point, why do so many organization struggle with:

1) Under-performance of one or both functions
2) Fighting between the functions
3) Turnover and lack of visionary leadership in product delivery AND go to market...

Though there are doubtless a LOT of issues here, I think the very first goes back to this consensus definition of the two roles. This conventional wisdom often leads to what I call a regression to the poles in both roles. Let's look at what happens when each of these species when they regress to their poles:

The Regressed Product Manager - or the Engineering Program Manager in disguise.

• When a product manager gets myopic inbound vision, they quickly become little more than engineering program manager, which while a necessary role, isn't what he/she is paid to do
• While the next release will be on time, if often won't be right
• When the product COGs get's too high to support a market price, the features will still get delivered.
• When the field says they need X, the first answer will always start with the schedule
• Even in Agile environments, the focus is on releases and dates, install base commits and legacy markets
• Innovation is never the result

The Regressed Product Marketer - or the Marketing Program Manager in disguise

• When a product marketer gets myopic outbound, they quickly become little more than Marketing Program manager, which while a often necessary role, isn't what he/she is paid to do
• While the next collateral piece may be on time, it often won't be unique and powerful
• When the product's price is established, it will often leave value on the table, after all, sales says we are too expensive!
• When the field says they need X, the question won't get answered well
• Even in Sales driven environments, the focus is on price and features, not value!
• Innovation is never the result

So what I call for is a new, holistic view of these roles. There is NO distinction in today's market between inbound and outbound. And while I am NOT advocating for merging these roles, I am advocating for convergence to the whole.

Whole product managers have a CLEAR understanding of market dynamics, messaging, positioning and channels. Whole product marketers have a CLEAR understanding of the technology, the features, the engineering constaints and trade-offs, etc. Innovation comes when great customer and understanding MEETS and EMBRACES engineering constraints and possibilities. GREAT teams meet in the middle every day, NOT just at MRD review meetings...

Thoughts? I'd love to hear yours...

I declare the Whitepaper Dead! RIP YAWNERS!

I have blogged in the past about YAWNERS, Yet Another Whitepaper Nobody Ever Reads, and today, I want to go another step further and declare the whitepaper dead!

Why? Simply because we don't need to settle for generic, one size fits all content anymore. Customer have always wanted more, they've always said, "Hey, but what about me?"
Well, the great news is that we can now deliver technical marketing materials that are:

1) Relevant
2) Customized
3) Meaningful

Not only is this great for the customer, it provides our sales-teams with prequalified leads, and the knowledge to engage the prospect in a MUCH more meaningful and successful conversation.

Today, Nimsoft launched a great example with their new Nimsoft Cloud Readiness Assessment, a simple 5 minute online tool that delivers a customized PDF to the prospect minutes after completion. This allows Nimsoft to educate their potential clients by tailoring this deliverable to the specific situation of the client. Wow!

Here's another great example from FireEye, an innovator in Next Generation Malware Protection. Like the Nimsoft example, this allows both the prospect and the vendor to zero in on areas of need where there may be a fit.

These innovative programs are a sign-post of the future, a future of engaging content, tailored to the B2B buyers need. Wow, doesn't that sound cool. Whitepaper YAWNERs- RIP

Hybrid Service Delivery, 2 yrs later...

I posted this vision piece 2 yrs ago. I still think we are a ways from realizing this vision, but I think it still rings true....

Thoughts?

http://www.zdnet.com/news/new-hybrid-delivery-security-architecture/211127

“In the past, CIOs deployed their own self-contained application architectures on their own servers and storage systems. This old model is giving way to a hybrid application architecture that combines hosted functionality with in-house applications running on consolidated and virtualized commodity servers. We believe that this transformation will drive efficiencies across the full stack, from business processes to physical infrastructure, while increasing IT's ability to meet new demands in a rapidly changing business environment.” - Kishore Kanakamedala, Vasantha Krishnakanthan, and Roger Roberts, McKinsey Quarterly, 1
Commentary--Software as a Service (SaaS), virtualization and integrated IT appliances are creating new and powerful service delivery models for IT managers to leverage. One only needs to look at the success of SaaS companies such as Salesforce.com and WebEx, the robust growth of integrated appliances in spaces ranging from security to data warehousing, and the meteoric rise of VMware’s adoption in the enterprise to see that all these models deliver significant “utility-like” benefits and cost savings.....

Built to Last Programs - Great marketing has legs

Quick note...when I was at Actional, I wrote a whitepaper and built a model on Web Services Management ROI that was used for 5 yrs!!! Good content has long shelflife.

At Secure Computing, we launched the SWAT initiative in 2008. This week, McAfee (#mfe) updated the Forrester Research and the core Whitepaper behind this initiative.

Lessons:

1. Do less, but make it impactful
2. Great content has longer than expected shelf life
3. Great content focuses on the customer's needs and challenges
4. Market ahead of the curve (Web 2.0 in 2008) and the market will come to you, creating leverage...

Over and out!
Ken

451 Recognizes Nimsoft's innovative go to market

Nice article from 451 today. You can read it in it's entirety on Gary Read's blog here.

Here's a couple of great quotes:

"In any case, it seems clear that innovation and aggressive channel and product marketing will continue to be hallmarks of Nimsoft’s business strategy going forward. "

and

First came the April release of the Nimsoft On Demand IT management SaaS offering...July brought usage metering that reports on actual usage to facilitate a pay-as-you-go business model across product lines so that Nimsoft can manage customers’ elastic cloud and virtualized workloads.... Then late last month, Nimsoft announced monitoring support for Vblock Infrastructure Packages,"

Nimsoft on Demand, Usage Metering, Vblock monitoring = innovative product marketing = programs managed by KJR Associates! - had to brag a bit!

K