The blog articles I read this week worth commenting on and sharing:
111 Successful Plays That Led Salesforce.com from an Idea to $1 Billion in 10 Years – The company (and the man) that made the hosted-elsewhere software applications (whether you call it SaaS, Cloud Computing, ASP, etc) a non-issue with big business. Before <a href=”http://salesforce.com”>salesforce.com</a> there were too many concerns about security, up-time, bandwidth and more. After Salesforce.com paved the way, look how many sites are now in the clouds, including Google Mail, Quicken & TurboTax along with photo sharing and desktop hard-disk backups. You can put your customer data, every email, financial data and tax data all online and not think twice about it. Thanks to Marc and Salesforce.com
Have you met your competitor yet? Maybe you should. – Great article about the reasons why you should meet your competitor. Back when I was at Sybase, we were taught to hate our version of the Evil Empire, Oracle. Well, we all know how that battle turned out and many of my Sybase colleagues ended up working at Oracle. They didn’t suddenly become evil although we were both more careful about sharing war stories. Similarily, I’ve always been impressed at the end of hockey games when both teams line up and shake each other’s hands. Geoffrey’s reasons for meeting your competitor:
1) Learn more about how they sell
2) Use that knowledge to build credibility with your customer
3) Never know when you’ll be looking for a new job
For those of you in the US & Canada, enjoy the long weekend!
I had an amazing Blog Talk Radio with Jon Hansen of PI Window on Business last week. We spoke over our allotted time, almost an hour, on the emergence of reputation networks such as Inquisix. With it being so easy to make connections on the web and trade recommendations, how can people who don’t know you really trust what they read about you?
Topics we discussed included:
Value of References
Giving vs Getting
Political Patronage and References
Verifying References
Integrity of Referral/Reference Process
Does Social Media Help or Hurt
Extending Your Reference Base with Integrity
Emergence of Reputation Networks with Social/Business Networking
If BTR podcast doesn’t show above, please go to Jon’s site to listen to it.
On a side note, talking with Jon was one of the easiest and most enjoyable online discussions I’ve had. Jon prepared me for the call by sending me some topics to think about prior to our interview. He was calm when we had a few technical difficulties to iron out before we went on the air. And his engaging demeanor and conversation made the conversation lively, interesting and valuable. I was certainly surprised to learn later that Jon’s only been a BTR host for a short time. Jon has written a book, “Your Show Will Go Live in 5 Seconds” about his experiences as a Blog Talk Radio Host. If you’re thinking of becoming a BTR host or are thinking of your personal branding via Social Media, you owe it to yourself to read this book. An excerpt is available at no charge at Jon’s site. Not surprising, his book reads as breezy and well as listening to him online.
Jon Hansen hosts a Talk Radio Show, “PI Window on Business” that reaches an estimated 300,000 syndicated subscribers worldwide every month. The PI Social Media Network is internationally recognized for its ability to identify, structure and disseminate the ideas and visions that are reshaping the emerging global enterprise.
He’s talking with Michael Kreppein, Chief Sales Officer of Inquisix, to examine more closely the emergence of “reputation networks” and their effects on personal branding in the Web 2.0 world. Reputation networks, like Inquisix, are gaining ground to combat the growing problem within the realms of social networking, where references or testimonials are bartered by an ever-expanding network of interloping relationships between name collectors versus relationship builders.
