This isn’t because they aren’t using Amazon at work but because their employer hasn’t updated their internal applications in 10 years.

I get frequent requests to provide some sort of “private” Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn to large enterprises. Their goal is to provide some sort of social experience at work. They want to do this “in house” because of two reasons. One, they are afraid of the employees “wasting time” not interacting with their co-workers. And, two, they are worried about corporate data getting “out”.

Regarding the first objection, locking down the employee online experience isn’t going to prevent them from using their time as they choose. You can’t create rules that will create good employees. There are many more and much better ways to get employees to _want_ to behave appropriately. Moreover, these “new” social tools are not the only way an employee could squander company time. They already have lots of ways to do that, if they’d like.

As for the second objection, this reminds me of the early days of content management systems (CMS). A while back, companies would spend lots of time and money creating their own systems because off-the-shelf, customizable software wasn’t exactly right for them. In reality, they had different process, to be certain, but they were no better. Most enterprises seems to suffer from a “not invented here” syndrome regarding tools like that. And, so long as the implementation is left to technologists, they have a vested interest in keep things like this.

Regarding security of such social networks, they are no less or more secure than the average enterprise. It’s a mistake to think that, just because a tool is created in-house, it’s more secure. Indeed, it might even be less secure, because in-house technologists have to learn everything about the type of application all at once, and just for one application. They are unlikely to have the same skills as a technologist at a dedicated application provider.

Social media and networking can definitely benefit the average employee. And, I hope that companies will give the “standard” tools a chance before they start creating their own.

One of the most difficult changes to manage is that from a nurture status to an active status. Assuming you got a prospect into a nurture status without too much process friction, it will be twice as hard to get them out. This is so because of two factors: inertia and sales-resistance.

Transition from nurture to active status is, put simply, putting someone back in the “ready to buy” bucket. And most people are nervous about spending money. So, even if the _need_ your product or service, they will be reluctant to start talking to a sales person. They will put off this transition as long as they can. No one likes to go car shopping, even if they need a new car.

Moreover, most prospects are in the nurture status for months before they become sales ready. During this process, they have become accustomed to a regular flow of valuable, no-strings-attached content. When nurture ends, they know they will lose this low-impact, high-value information sources. And they don’t want to. We have prospects who have _requested_ to be “nurtured” forever.

But, nurturing is not a newsletter. The goal of all nurturing is to return a prospect to the active sales process. And prospect who resist this change are to be encouraged or even pushed into the sales process.

Sometimes, we have to care more about what our customers need than they do. And in those cases, it is up to us as marketers and salespersons to help our clients take that step. Selling is helping, and we need to be active helpers.

But, is there a way to enliven this process?

I’m not talking about team building exercises or issues meetings. I’m thinking about how we can enhance the information flow (both ways) so that the employee’s (work) life is better _and_ the company’s operations are improved.

Primitve examples of this sort of communication are sales force automation (SFA), customer relationship management (CRM), and (typically executive) dashboards. All these tools are slowly migrating across the enterprise as ways of sharing information. But, even if these tools were perfected and fully adopted (we’re not in danger of either of these events), I don’t think we’d have 10% of what’s needed to move operations to a new level.

In order to move operations to a new level, we need a dynamically adaptive communication system. Something like a _semantic intranet_. We have just in time, just in place logistics, why don’t we have that in information flow? And beyond mere delivery, why don’t we have just in time conversations? And just in time meetings?

Many of the barriers to this sort of thing are cultural. Many people dislike or even resist change.

There are also technology challenges. Implementing tools like this oftern require upgrading your infrastructure as well as your staff.

But, someone in your market isn’t resisting. Someone is adopting these tools and thus is outpacing you. And so this isn’t optional, if you want to not just survive but thrive in your market. Creating a free-flowing information infrastructure is the first step to exponential growth.

In the end, only results matter. Research is designed to increase the likelihood of success while cutting down the time to execute. Unfortunately, research often takes a lot of time and headache. And it’s often inconclusive, providing no clear tactical or strategic path.

It’s tempting to try to overcome this by (trying to) get better at research. But, I think this doesn’t work. All research is subject to doubt of some kind because it’s all hypothetical. There is no definitive research. There can’t be, because research is conducted before success can be measured.

Rather than lament these shortcomings of research, I suggest we give up on it as the primary means to improve results. Instead, I prefer quick launches with very robust measurement. This has the advantage of measuring reality, not some hypothetical audience target segment. With real measurement data, we can feed that back into the system and improve results.

In the end, I think that this approach will provide a much faster path to good results.

First of all, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t even know if this is a real question. This question came up at the intersection of two contexts. One is this article in Wired on a LinkedIn-related laysuit. The other context was a project where we’re doing a LinkedIn social media plan for a client.

To begin, I’d like to define some terms. By “expressions” I mean anything on your LinkedIn profile that could mean anything about a company. By “own” I mean have legal control over. So, my question amount to this: can a company control expressions about it on your profile? There seem to be 3 levels of expression.

1. Outright trademarks

It seems obvious that clear, trademarkable material is owned by the company. This is true in just about every instance. So, if you put the IBM logo on your website or use any of its material, they might be interested.

2. Direct Claims

What about claims you make about a company? If I said that Company X was great (or not great), what could Company X do about that? Could they make you change it? Assuming it’s not true, then I think that they definitely could. What if it’s true but different than what they want you to say?

In this case, could they make you use their own formulation?

If controlling brand-related materials or trademarks can be controlled, then why not other expressions? It could just as easily be argued that any expression is central to a company’s brand or trademark.

Fair use?

Does fair use come into this at all? Could it be said that an expression about a company is just a quotation or sorts?

3. Indirect Claims

What about implied claims? Implied claims could exist in your own text. I am thinking here of job descriptions and professional specialties and goals. To the extent that this text means something, then it just seems to be a less clear case of expressions of type 2, q.v. It’s no different to mean indirectly than to mean directly.

The Argument

So, my argument is this:

Your current employer can control not only anything you say about it directly but also anything you imply about it in your job description or anywhere else.

So, if this is true, then a company could make you alter your text to reflect their own. I suppose you could just refuse to talk about the company, but that would mean you can’t say that you work there. Nor could it be reasonably known that you work there because then, by implication, people would know what company you are “talking about” when they read your job description.

This seems like a strong claim. There must be something wrong with it. But, what?

Combine all of these needs and communication breakdowns, and it’s suddenly much easier to realize why web refresh projects, large or small, bog down. Thus, the requirements laid forth in a business meeting aren’t always found in the final digital project. Thus, the artistic layout created by an external party (typically disconnected from the rest of the process) can not be applied to the chosen technology infrastructure in the manner it was designed. And, in the end, the content stays confusing, the navigation isn’t clear, and users still jump out to use Google to find pages on your site instead.

If this situation sounds familiar, it’s because most people involved in any marketing or general web redesign project have seen these issues time and again. This most happens when the process is purely internal and led by a few people with a specific agenda to address their personal needs. This unknowingly overlook concerns or people who need to be involved–people and issues which someone outside the organization could instantly recognize as crucial to the process.

The only way around this impasse is to bring key people from all groups involved early in the process together and discover whether the core working group is capable of communicating clearly. Business, marketing, design and technology can work together. But each role unconsciously assumes the others have an understanding of their operations and only certain details need to be remarked upon. In reality, a much more robust information sharing needs to happen. Technologists are often the worst in this respect, and many in our field must work hard to overcome this deficit.

And if the internal project group can’t do that, punt early and bring in outside help.

Many times the sales teams and the marketing teams are under different mandates and use completely different metrics as well as different forms of communication. Recently a number of very intelligent people spoken about how the marketing and sales teams at their respective companies function in a closed loop. Thinking harder about this closed loop, what would happen if it was decided to eliminate the two separate spheres, thus having a closed-loop system as a starting point?

With this model, there would be no “lobbing” leads over the fence in blind hope that they are good. This model would also eradicate the repetitive echoes: “Well, I did my part,” and “What am I supposed to do with this?”.

This one group’s goal would become client acquisition, and this group would be named as such: “Client Acquisitions.” This group’s one concern will be bringing in new clients. The newly formed group, now titled “Client Acquisitions,” will be challenged by the same MBOs, only in this scenario the individual will be measured for results. Our ability to produce actionable pipeline assessments would be greater, and the client’s ability to make quick changes would be easier. At any point in the funnel, a company can thus measure the success of a team and its members. In addition, gap analysis will return much more precise data. The dynamics would change from finger-pointing to finding the right contact point and person for a specific stage of the deal that is in the process of being worked out.

In addition, without a full understanding of these two things, it’s hard to connect them. As we all know, strategies are all too often shelved or ineffective. And tactics are all too often directionless. That is, strategies are often empty and tactics are often blind.

In the end, not fully understanding what these things are and aren’t can easily result in wasted time and money as well as in frustration and indecision.

In this presentation, I will offer definitions of strategy and tactics. Based on this, I will discuss the features of good strategy and good tactics. And I will add to this a crucial missing element, often overlooked: measurement.

Account managers are often considered to be nurturers. They show concern for their clients. They help them get what they need out of projects. They look out for their clients’ interests. Hence, we have the term “client partner” as a synonym for “account manager” in some companies.

On the other hand, salespersons are often considered to be opportunists. They sell what they can when they can without regard for the long-term benefit to the client.

So, the argument goes, sales is very different from delivery.

And if sales were about opportunism, then I would perhaps agree.

But, of course, sales is not about opportunism. At least it’s not properly so. Rather sales is about fitting a solution to a client need. And this naturally requires understanding a client’s needs. And this in turn means that a salesperson has to have empathy with the potential client. Such empathy is exactly what that account manager is supposed to possess exclusively.

So, i don’t agree with the distinction. And i don’t agree with account managers when they claim to dislike sales. To show your concern for the client is to also be able to sell them things that they need to help their business. Thus, all good account managers are good salespersons.

Printer spreads. Image size. Resolution. System fonts. Color mode. There are a multitude of factors that can be controlled during the design and prepress process that will greatly improve a design’s usability in the real world. These rules vary for print and Web design, and it is important to learn them for both mediums. That being said, it is equally important to realize that a designer rarely gets exactly what they want. Sometimes visual perfection is not possible. There are always going to be compromises to be made, but a smart designer knows how to carefully weigh each factor and make an educated decision that benefits the design.

Part two of this blog will focus on “Ensuring your Print Design Can Be Realized in the Real World”.