JT Pedersen

4 Ways iBooks is One of iPad’s Best Apps

JT — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:23:54 +0000

Really, I think it is. Normally you hear people talk about ‘best apps’ in the vein of ‘other than those that came with the device.’ It’s as if, because Apple created them the apps are automatically disqualified from consideration.

For those of you having followed me a while, you know I do a fair number of book reviews. In the interest of continual self-improvement I am constantly reading new books. Shortly after I finish each (business) book I generally post a review. After all, why not share?

Some have commented that my reviews are almost always on the plus-side of neutral. That’s my parents’ fault. I don’t always succeed, but in general, if I have nothing good to say, I try not to say it. And so it is with my book reviews. I think I’ve only done one, practically speaking, negative review of a book.

My technique for doing book reviews looks something like this:

Read the book through, cover to cover.
Take notes, underline key text, jot down key segments (in the book or on separate paper)
After first (occasionally second) reading:
- Review Table of Contents
- Review notes
- Flip pages to capture key ideas highlighted.
Write the review
Find some cover art or suitable imagery

Generally I’m doing this every 3-4 weeks. You’ll note a lag sometimes; I do enjoy a good novel from time-to-time…

iBooks on the Apple iPad makes the entire process paperless!

Consider it a necessary evil, collating my notes is the least productive part of writing a review. Not to overblow the issue, but making sure you’ve got all your notes, flipping pages, and putting it together could be easier. Even with my first ereader, the process wasn’t that much different. It didn’t let me do anything more than create generic bookmarks.

Bookmarks

Bookmarks are easily created while reading. Just touch the upper corner to toggle placement of your bookmarks. Think of this working very much like folding the corner of your book. As you create your bookmarks, the TOC|Bookmarks section is populated with your bookmarks. Not only is the page section annotated (the current Header section), but the date the bookmark was created is also displayed.

I like the bookmark creation date being captured. There are times where knowing the date can help you recall other events that day that set the context for why you might have created a given bookmark. In some cases, its because the spot in the book dovetailed with a current event.

As with the traditional TOC page, click the bookmark, jump to the section. Still, seems trivial, but if you’ve been writing down page notes and thumbing to the pages in the book again, this little self-organized time saver is really appreciated.

Now, here is my favorite part.

Highlighting

Used to be, I treated books as pristine things never to be abused. I prided myself on reading paperbacks without ever creasing the binding. (Don’t ask why, I just did) This also meant never writing in a book.

Well, somewhere along the way that went by the wayside. Now, I feel free to use my mechanical pencil (preferably) to underline, call out, or otherwise annotate key passages as I go along.

While useful, it still requires you keep a separate index of notes on paper and go back to them. Or, thumb through the book, hoping not to miss any of significance.

With iBooks, as you read, you can directly highlight passages of interest. Simply select the passage of interest (as you would for cut/copy/paste in iPad/iPhone). You are then given the option (among other things) to highlight the text.

When highlighting, you can also choose from 5 different colors. Or, you can choose to underline. I like to use the different colors to color code my highlights: General note, Important, Action Item. Action items are often things like calling out other books I’d like to read that the author mentioned.

As I read, my collection of highlighted passages grows quickly. As each is created, they too, just like Bookmarks, are added to the Notes TOC automatically. One unexpected feature, even though I may highlight a sentence fragment, only that fragment is highlighted in the TOC, but the entire sentence is still displayed for context. Cool!

Notes – The 4th Dimension

If you weren’t already pleased with the preceding, you’ll really like Notes. When you go to highlight a passage, the same popup menu also gives you the chance to create a note.

Exactly like a Post-It™ or say a Sticky Note in Windows, you can go ahead and add your textual annotations.

When you’re done creating the note, the note window closes, and a simply Post-It™ like icon is placed in the margin. Tap it to open the note again.

The notes are then associated with the highlighted text in the Notes TOC.

Here, rather than an icon, you get the actual note text displayed immediately under the highlighted passage.

Tip: Don’t want a highlight/note any more, just do a Swipe|Delete in the TOC and it’s gone.

For me, iBooks really streamlines the process of collating notes, highlights, and bookmarks for later reference. If you have an iPad and haven’t tried using it to read books yet, or, you haven’t experimented with highlighting and notes, you really should.

Bonus Items

What I’ve described above, on the iPad, works on the iPhone as well. Here are three bonus items:

When your iOS devices sync, they update your place in the current book you’re reading, as well as all TOC entries (notes, bookmarks, highlights).

On iPhone, you only get one color (yellow) for creating highlights. The multi-color notes from your iPad efforts are preserved.

Finally, on both devices, there is a Night theme. If you like to read in bed, your partner will appreciate the fact you can dim the 40 watt light bulb in your hands.

Elegantly implemented, simple to use, iBooks is more than ‘just a reader’ application. In the right hands, it is a tool you can leverage to really make life easier.

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What I’ve Read Lately: Why People Fail

JT — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:53:10 +0000

“Why People Fail: The 16 Obstacles to Success and How You Can Overcome Them”
by: Siimon Reynolds
ISBN: 978-1-118-10617-4

Why People Fail is actually a twist on words. It could just as easily been titled along the lines of How to Be Successful. Siimon provides an easily read book that highlights 16 key points underlying how people set themselves up to fail.

Step by step, Siimon discusses ways readers can incrementally work to improve themselves, from self-image, through proper health and exercise, to rituals and persistence…to name a few.

The notion of kaizen came to mind shortly after starting into the book. So it was with a smile, about a quarter of the way in, that I saw this excerpt:

You may be familiar with the Japanese concept of kaizen. it’s a philosophy that has been central to Japanese manufacturing for over fifty years… The English translation for kaizen is “small and continuous improvements.” The Japanese believe that if the spirit of kaizen is applied to any area with regularity, that area is sure to get better.

Lest you be concerned, this isn’t some gushy, wishy-washy, make you feel-good book. Siimon describes how he has spent years studying the topic of success; how he has applied it to himself (personally, not in some abstract fashion); and offers what I feel are fairly pragmatic tools for the reader’s own use.

Many of the suggestions made are also tied to research, surveys, and other scientific studies. One of my favorites has to do with the 350 year-old music genre, Baroque. Listening to baroque music while you work has been scientifically proven to increase your concentration, lift your creativity, and make you perform better. Siimon points out that baroque music’s 4/4 time beat has been proven to relax the mind and improve synaptic connections in the brain.

Normally, I like listening to solo pianists. Not having my own collection of baroque music, I decided to see what Pandora had available. (Side note, I love using Pandora.) Now, I routinely am including some time for baroque music. For me, it works quite well. And, this is one of the many suggestions the book holds for the reader.

Here are the 16 areas discussed:

Unclear Purpose
Destructive Thinking
Low Productivity
Fixed Mindset
Weak Energy
Not Asking the Right Questions
Poor Presentation Skills
Mistaking IQ for EQ
Poor Self-image
Not Enough Thinking
No Daily Rituals
Stress
Few Relationships
Lack of Persistence
Money obsession
Not Focusing On Strengths

If you struggle, or seek to improve in any of these key areas, this is a book worth reading. I really enjoyed how Siimon approaches the topics. He’s not condescending. He doesn’t look down his nose at you. And, he shares how he uses his suggestions personally—conceding that some people find him strange for doing so. I appreciate his courage in sharing with all of us.

Do I recommend the book? Yes, I do. Even though his publisher sent me a copy for free, to review, I thought enough of it to buy a copy for myself, for use on my ereader, so I could more easily mark up key areas of interest.

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How To: Get Your Sales Team Onboard with SaaS

JT — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:21:06 +0000

Your Sales team is where your company’s efforts meet the world. They’re where the rubber meets the road. Your organization’s efforts can live, or die, based on the performance of your Sales team. The happier they are, the more positive they feel, the more confident they are in your offerings, the better they sell. And the better revenue flows.

But what if the apple cart gets upset?

This is a challenge currently facing a lot of companies, particularly in the B2B (business-to-business) space. As SaaS offerings become more common-place, traditional software sales models are being upset.

Two things need to happen at the same time.

Compensation: How Sales teams are paid must change to reflect the new delivery mechanisms; and,
Education: Your sales teams (direct and in-direct) need to understand the benefits of moving from selling traditional licenses requiring on-site installation, to (typically) lower-cost web-based equivalents.

Fortunately, the transition has been under way for a while now. The initial transition took the form of moving from selling traditional licenses, upgraded annually, to selling Maintenance or Subscription contracts. In the following discussion, we’ll discuss Compensation first, Education second.

Compensation Concerns

While I have been in sales organizations, I have not led them. So I asked Ed Flaherty, President at Flaherty Advisory Services, if he cared to comment. Ed has been involved with SaaS for almost 10 years.

On compensation concerns, Ed notes:

…there are key components to balance the Company and sales team’s interests—there must be:

A reward for signing a contract upfront (although it can be small);
TCV (total contract value) must be considered in the compensation;
Commissions should be paid over the contract term based upon cash collected; and,
[consideration toward] paying a higher rate in year 1 vs. later years.

Other areas requiring careful consideration can include, "…rewarding new contracts more than renewals which is always a difficult conversation." Harder yet, Ed notes, "…is what structure to use for new contracts within the same corporation to different business units or divisions.

Ed described how one of their compensation experts compared licensed software sales vs. SaaS contract commission structures, to that of the insurance industry with life insurance contracts vs. automobile insurance contracts.

"The challenge is that most software sales team members have grown up selling traditional licenses making the discussion of commissions over time and more contract closes vs. less an "interesting" conversation."

My own experience with this migration occurred while at Autodesk. We migrated from selling purely perpetual (traditional) software licenses, to selling ‘maintenance’ or Subscription services. The transition was certainly awkward at first, and a number of iterations occurred, before the ‘change’ started to feel comfortable.

Maintenance (aka Subscription) deliverables became important for two reasons. First, they smoothed out annual cash flow. We became (over time) less dependent on ‘Big R’ annual releases causing most of our annual revenue to occur in a single quarter. Second, the new ‘term’ contracts let us engage our customers more persistently compared to simple one-time transactions.

And, today, given the very strong similarities between Subscription sales and SaaS, those are still very valid reasons why any company today might want to consider SaaS.

The SaaS delivery model smooths annual cash flow and changes customer revenue engagements from a one-time transaction to a recurring revenue model.

Education

Beyond compensation issues you still need to help your in-house sales teams, and your extended teams (e.g. VARS, Distributors) understand the changes. And, you need to do it in a way that motivates them.

Rather than write a book on the topic, I’ll skim the high points for your sales teams…

Channel

The first one, is touchy. Migrating from traditional (physical) products to SaaS will directly impact your distribution channels. These can include managing channel inventory, Cost of Goods, staffing levels, and perhaps even the very makeup of the channel itself. In my past, sales spent significant amounts of time simply managing the channel. Decreasing the amount of channel-focused effort may be motivating for your in-house staff.

Updates

SaaS updates are quicker, more frequent, and generally far less expensive than with on-site equivalents. This might not be exciting if a lot of your on-going revenue is derived from on-site maintenance.

On the other hand, being able to sell an Operational Expense item, rather than a major Capital Expense, might outright eliminate certain road blocks in your sales process.

Mobile

Business solutions are increasingly mobility oriented. Outline how your solution can do more, go more places—anywhere network connectivity is available. iPads, iPhones, and Android solutions get your customers excited—finally having an answer will likely get Sales excited too.

As I allude to above, the Channel has its own host of concerns. Here are a couple thoughts to get you started, some will vary by country of course:

SaaS frees up space previously set aside for inventory.
No annual property tax due for inventory maintained in stock.
SaaS offerings may make possible supporting ($$) more customers, with fewer staff.
Commissions (situation dependent of course) can be paid faster. No waiting for customers to register software, pass along payments, etc. It can be done in a more seamless, more easily accounted-for manner.

Sales/Partners will trade off some of their past points of friction. For instance, they will worry less about customer compute infrastructure. Instead, they’ll become acutely focused on things like network bandwidth, redundancy, and saturation. Prepared for the ‘new’ potential ‘gotchas,’ the issues will be largely disarmed when they occur.

These are some items I’ve been involved with in the past. The key is education, transparency in communication, and a modicum of hand-holding.

Bonus Point

SaaS let’s you see what your customers are truly doing with your product.

This gives both parties (sales, customer) strength in future negotiations. Every customer I’ve had, with more than a handful of licenses, was hard-pressed to accurately identify their usage. Oh, the time lost trying to validate licenses/use. Being able to do away with the ‘guesses,’ negotiating for a mutually acceptable number, and move to hard cold facts is really nice.

Special thanks to Ed Flaherty, President at Flaherty Advisory Services, for his contributions.

image credit:
Compensation, Tino Smith
Stick Figures, Arte Ram

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Costa Concordia: Lesson In Failed Leadership

JT — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:26:37 +0000

By now, if you’ve tapped into almost any media source, you’ve heard of how the Costa Concordia ran aground, sank, and created a world of mayhem for all involved.

The initial cause as I read about it in the media, is,”…made an unauthorized, unapproved deviation from its programmed course, a “human error” that led to the grounding of the vessel…,” says the chief executive of the ship’s Italian owner.

We all make mistakes. To do so is to be human. And, while tragic, that mistake is not itself where the real failure of leadership was demonstrated.

Here’s the initial sequence, and thoughts, as I first learned of the event:

A ship, Costa Concordia had run aground.
Thought: Ship’s Skipper’s responsible for everything involving the ship, what could’ve happened?
Heard the, “…the command and crew were sluggish in responding to the crisis.”
Thought: Slow, disorganized crew response…the crew was properly trained, educated, prepared for such an eventuality. Making sure the crew’s ready is one of a ship captain’s primary responsibilities.
Various reports have alleged the captain abandoned ship hours before the evacuation was complete.
Thought: Not present!? Absolute dereliction of duty…whether you’re Captain or not, the crew is responsible for the welfare of its passengers.

As this story continues to evolve, I am really surprised that though there is a preponderance of evidence, no one has picked up on this seemingly complete failure of leadership.

We will continue to learn more. We need be careful not to prosecute the Captain and his crew in the media inappropriately: the black box recorders’ contents have not yet been revealed; the Captain has not spoken publicly; and, even the Costa Concordia’s owners are providing inconsistent stories. For instance, Costa Crociere chairman and CEO Pier Luigi Foschi, “…praised the crew for its handling of the crisis.“ Sorry, it doesn’t work both ways.

Whether your job is to run a ship, or run a business, leaders have certain responsibilities. Chief among them is to:

Remain committed to your cause (no abandonment);
Ensure your crews, your teams, are prepared for the task at hand;
Be accountable, see it through to the end, whatever that end may be; and,
Above all, provide leadership, direction, and ensure execution.

My condolences go out to everyone involved. This has certainly been a tragic event and lives have been irreparably harmed or lost. However grim, this event will serve as a leadership case study for decades to come.

source image credit: Bloomberg
modified image: JT Pedersen

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The Making of Squishy History

JT — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:23:23 +0000

As we move forward, history’s solidity will become increasingly squishy.

As digital books become increasingly popular, so does awareness that a medium we once considered immutable, no longer is.

Nicholas Carr penned an article for the Wall Street Journal, “Books That Are Never Done Being Written.” He highlighted how, having published his own book on Amazon, he decided a tweak was needed, and how easily he did it. No one but Amazon’s database and he knew that the book had changed.

The article points out, “Digital text is ushering in an era of perpetual revision and updating, for better and for worse.”

I agree, for better and for worse. My personal, primary concern with after-the-fact book updates is the potential for revisionist history. The potential has always existed but remained largely muted because its hard to overcome a million hardcopy books once in circulation.

Now, with the flick of the wrist, or tap of a button, entire paragraphs can be deleted, replaced, or flavorized. And you might not know it. The ability falls right into the hands of people like Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. What about your government?

There are certainly cases where book (i.e. ‘content’) updates are not only reasonable, they’re desired. Encyclopedias, research studies, technical journals, and other reference sources are simple examples. Course textbooks are a popular example.

However, updates to ‘history,’ revisionist history if you will, are cases demanding special consideration. We will fight this battle interminably. What we consider yesterday’s editorial piece, or today’s research study, is tomorrow’s history.

My strong view is that revision updates should be an opt-in scenario for the content’s purchaser. Update notifications should be mandatory, with an option to override. Fortunately we need not reinvent the wheel. Updating user-side content (e.g. something you downloaded) is no different than software. The software industry already has well-established best practices.

Clearly different types of content warrant updating over time. It may even be eagerly sought after. However in some cases, it is important that we reserve the ability to just say No to updates, enabling us to preserve original flavor, intent, and focus. Otherwise, we need to learn to live with squishy history.

Share your own thoughts. How do you feel about this? Is it a valid concern or no, or do you care?

image credits: We Can… Mike Licht, See…Holger Selover-Stephan

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Product Visioning—How Often Do You Do It?

JT — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:25:11 +0000

Product Managers need to define, own, and communicate the dream they have for their product(s). The process they go through in developing the dream, can be referred to as Visioning. Earlier this week, Dr. Jim Anderson discussed the process in, Why Product Managers Need To Learn How To Do Visioning.

The question was then asked, how often should you go through the process? In discussions that followed, it was interesting to see the range of responses. Some suggested quarterly, others more frequently.

Visioning, defining the dream, for me is a function that varies by product, by industry. Moving at different rates, some demand change more quickly than others.

A well-described vision defines a clear focus. As I discuss in Picked Your Fencepost Yet?, If you’re in the middle of a field and want to get out, you need to pick a point on the fence, any point, and keep heading toward it. Getting out of the field is your vision, your dream. Working in the software industry, I have found formal visioning works best as an annual process.

Changing industry or market conditions are key factors suggesting more frequent visioning exercises. However, Organizational size often acts as a throttle, retarding your rate of change. Changing product vision too significantly, too often, creates havoc and/or disengagement in larger organizations.

Imagine an organization with 2,500 sales people globally, along with tens of thousands of partners (e.g. dealers, distributors…). It takes a while to communicate the message; to get everyone to simply understand the vision; to feel good about it; and, then be motivated to support it. Change your product’s vision more than once a year and they’ll wonder if you’ve a clue what you’re doing. Worse, they’ll get frustrated, demotivated.

Of course, on the way to your chosen exit point, you’re going to find rocks to avoid, creeks to ford. How you choose to deal with these impediments are your strategies, your tactics. These, may end up being reviewed weekly (or however often). Strategy and tactics are never to be confused with your dream, your vision.

To go through the visioning process too often, suggests the original focus was not set out far enough. Remember, the vision is not to move forward 6′. The Vision is to exit the field—via the point you picked—way over ‘there.’ Discounting the obvious impact of a game changer (e.g. earthquake destroys the fence), the ‘general direction’ you want to head in, shouldn’t be changing all that often.

image credit: Jef Bettens

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Happy New Year!

JT — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 01:56:00 +0000

I’m tickled to have all of you with me as we venture into this new year. Thank you, to each of you, my readers and subscribers, for having been with me in 2011.

You have probably already noticed, JTPEDERSEN.NET’s seen significant change over the past week or so. It was time. Nearly 3 years since the last major refresh, it seems almost everything continued to evolve.

Most of you won’t be interested in gory details, so I’ll keep it light. The prior theme had issues. It served its purpose but, using an older architecture, it just couldn’t keep up with all the changes going on around it. Now, I’m using a new platform (Genesis Platform) that will let me keep infrastructure and cosmetic layers separate, allowing continual updates moving forward.

And, since I didn’t have enough fun for last week, this week, jtpedersen.net also moved to a new ISP.

If you have an opinion on the new site (looks, functionality, whatever), please leave a comment.

Over time, I have evolved through three different email subscription services. I plan to consolidate on just one for a while. For the next couple weeks I will be evaluating Feedburner. If you want to try it out with me, go ahead. Use the new Email Newsletter sign-up widget to the right. Let me know what you think.

If you are receiving my posts by email, via AWeber, I anticipate migrating you to the new service. More on this later. Just know I’ll do the heavy lifting for you.

So, now its time to get on with the Show! I’m eager to get back to writing, sharing my thoughts with you. New posts, on their way real soon.

Thanks!

JT…

(image credit: mokra)

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Need a Job? Should Personal Ethics Be an Issue?

JT — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 19:12:59 +0000

A friend recently received a call from a large tobacco company. The product she would would be leading is fantastic. The kind of work being offered is even more fantastic. But at its core, the business represents something which is against her personal ethics. Is she being inappropriately biased, debating whether to accept the job?

This might seem one of those rare occasions wherein having to ask the question itself, begets the answer. Taking a step back though, she might also need to ask:

If I get the job, will my value system impede my being fully effective?

If you face this situation, this is an issue only you can decide. You need to be comfortable with yourself regardless of what anyone else thinks. That’s not to say I (and many others) do not appreciate the quandary though;)

In my region, a similar issue surrounds General Motors. A lot of people that despise the company for having been bailed out…more importantly the ‘way’ they were bailed out. I know more than one automotive engineer who wants work, feels very strongly about GM, and struggles with whether to go work there.

The challenge with a tobacco company is that, while you may not care for what ‘some’ of its products may do to its clients, it is not forcing their products upon them. The customers consciously decide—at some point in their life—they’re going to smoke tobacco.

They might die as a result. Their choice, not yours.

The argument would be exactly the same working for Smith & Wesson. Great company. Makes great products. Some of which aren’t used just for sportsman-like activity. Does that mean you don’t go work for them?

In the end, you cannot make everyone happy. If ‘you’ are happy with the opportunity in front of you, then go for it!

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Merry Christmas!

JT — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 13:43:44 +0000

What is Christmas to you? A time for celebration, for gift giving, for reflection?

Perhaps its simply looking through favorite pictures and seeing one, slightly out of focus, of your daughter, herself, enjoying Christmas in all it’s glory.

Today, we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. However you celebrate, I pray you find joy and happiness in this grandest of days.

My favorite blessing, for you:

May The Lord bless you and keep you.

May the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you.

May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.

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Unraveling B2B and B2C Marketing to Crank up ROI and Drive Profitable Growth

JT — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 18:53:49 +0000

This is the second, and likely last, guest post from Sean Geehan. His book, The B2B Executive Playbook, is one every B2B business leader should get. I found it reflected well on many of my own experiences in the B2B world, put a face to many of the seemingly chronic problems that, in hindsight, you should be able to readily overcome.

Unraveling B2B and B2C Marketing to Crank up ROI and Drive Profitable Growth

One of the biggest differences between B2B and B2C worlds is marketing. Many marketing leaders have a difficult time making the much-needed adjustments to be successful when they move from the B2C to the B2B world. Understanding the differences is essential to yielding predictable results and maximizing ROI.

For instance, I’m a living case-in-point. I drink more Diet Coke than I do anything else. I have it stocked in my home fridge, in my work fridge, and I order it every day at lunch. The image of the Coke brand, for me as the customer, is defined entirely by the advertising, package design, and my experience with the taste. I have no personal relationship or connection with the organization itself, and yet I am entirely loyal to that brand. If the package is damaged I assume my local grocer dropped it while putting it out on the shelf. If it doesn’t taste right at restaurant, I assume the restaurant messed it up.

B2C companies invest millions to understand the various personas, segments, demographics, and geographical nuances to help them determine how to position and manage their brands to appeal to these masses. In the retail category (e.g., Starbucks, Disney, Target), the brand is also impacted by elements such as the store (look, experience) and the people (knowledge, culture, and interactions). B2B companies invest to understand their customers as well, but the path they take is very different.

While the fundamentals of marketing are universal, there are three key factors that require different applications of these fundamentals in the B2B arena to maximize ROI.

They are:

· Number of customers — B2C firms usually have 100 to 1,000 times as many customers for a similar amount of revenue. Williams Sonoma has 33 million customers with $3 Billion in revenue, while HCL has the same revenue, but less than 500 customers.

· Multiple buying levels within a B2B customer — As my coke example above, I am the sole person in the buying process, In the B2B world there are three typical levels: user, influencer, decision maker and each level may have 1 to 1,000s of people involved which impact the purchasing process.

· Domain knowledge — The B2B buyer has the expertise and experience in the offering being considered. Think about the Boeing Engineer evaluating a GE jet engine for a new airplane…a CIO evaluating a new IT provider…or a CFO reviewing audit firms. They have a level of expertise that most consumers rarely have. Let’s face it, how many people can distinguish a $10 vs. $100 bottle of wine?

Understanding the key differences between the B2B and B2C worlds and applying the appropriate approaches will boost the overall ROI on marketing efforts and ultimately propel an organization towards Sustainable, Predictable, and Profitable Growth.

Sean Geehan is the President and Founder of Geehan Group, the premier thought leader in and provider of Customer Advisory Board research, services, and methodology. He is also the author of the groundbreaking new book, The B2B Executive Playbook the first book to address the critical differences between B2B and B2C operations and how those differences can cause companies to fail or flourish. Learn more about Sean at www.SeanGeehan.com