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CA World Update - Guy Kawasaki, Don Peppers, Ryan Morris

I apologize for not posting in the past few weeks. I was on vacation, and then in Las Vegas for CA World. Below are some comments on a few of the sessions that I attended.

GUY KAWASAKI - The Art of  Innovation (10 tips)
As I mentioned previously I was looking forward to seeing Guy Kawasaki's keynote. It was an energetic, and inspiring speech on "The Art of  Innovation". I was already familiar with Guy Kawasaki from reading his blog and book (The Art of Start), but it was great to see his passion on stage in front of about 5000-6000 people.  I could also tell that the audience was very engaged - it felt like he was really talking to us. His presentation was easy to digest (he broke it down into 10 points), and for each point he had a great story.

UPDATE (Jul 28, 1007):  View a similar presentation to the one I saw live at Zentation.

Denise Dubie from NetworkWorld covered  Guy's 10 Tips on Innovation.  There was actually a bonus  tip called "Don't let the Bozos grind you down" which Guy wrote about earlier in his blog. This was probably the most entertaining part as he used an example from his own life about an idea that he didn't get at the time, but he also provided some interesting quotes by other people such as:

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" - Thomas Watson, Chairman IBM [1943]

Relating his own experiences in life and at Apple and Garage Technology, he made the points very personal, relevant and entertaining - the crowd broke down into laughter several times!   If you ever have a chance to see Guy speak, don't miss it!

DON PEPPER - Who Moved My ROI:  Building the Value of the Customer & the Company
Don Pepper from Peppers & Rogers gave an interesting presentation on ROC (Return on Customer):

"Today's most forward-thinking companies are focused on creating enterprise value by getting the greatest return on their scarcest resource - their customers. By measuring Return on Customer(ROC), the rate of change in customer equity, these companies are actively demonstrating a calculated choice between immediate earnings and permanent value creation. " [CA World Session Description]

I thought this was an interesting perspective and was shocked to hear that 4 out of 5 CFO's are willing to give up their customer equity for immediate gain to meet their numbers. Ok I'm not shocked but disappointed. He said that bad management decisions and marketing can bring down Customer equity -- or the lifetime value of all current and future customers. Learn more about ROC
 

RYAN MORRIS - Adapting to the Evolution of the Technology Market (IPED)
This was my 2nd time seeing Ryan speak and it was just as awesome. His presentation was so relevant to today's Solution Providers. He spoke about how the market had changed because of what customers demanded. In the old model, customers wanted better technology and vendors and solution providers knew all about features and technology, but now, customers want better business results. Thus the Solution Provider's most important skill is translating what we sell (from technical products) to what customers want (business value). Ryan described a 5-step systematic approach to becoming a Best-in-Class Solution Provider (from IPED Best-In-Class Methodology). He also provided key performance indicators (KPI) on the Best-in-Class vs. Average Solution Providers based on a benchmark study.  These figures (such as EBITA, Gross Margin, Investment in Services etc.) are very interesting. To learn more about the 5-step approach and the KPI's -  view the presentation.

IPED (The Institute for Partner Education & Development) is the professional services division of CMP Channel group. Through access to exclusive data and expert analysis, they apply proven best practices to deliver recommendations and that accelerate channel  revenue. To learn visit IPED's website.

I was very impressed by the attendance and organization of CA World. I wasn't expecting 8000 people (customers, partners, media) to be there. It was great that they had a Partner Track, and a focus on Marketing Intelligence (with 3rd party Industry speakers such as Don Pepper, and Ryan Morris). I was able to learn not just about the products but came home with ideas on how to market them.

Seth Godin's presentation to Google

The other day, I was at the grocery store buying a tiny can of gourmet cat food in turkey and sweet potato flavour and thought; oh my cat is going to love this! ! I couldn't help but chuckle remembering a point that Seth Godin made in his presentation to Goggle. Cat food isn't marketed for cats. If it were, it would all be mouse flavoured <chuckle>, as Seth says.

Be a fly on the wall at Google, and watch Seth Godin's presentation to Google. Seth talks about why Google has been so successful and how they can keep being successful. Advice we can all gain from! This video also ties into Seth's book All Marketers are Liars which is all about the power of storytelling.

One point that really stuck me was what Seth said is the core of what’s driven revenue for Google. It is the ability for Google ads to deliver anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them, when they want to get them, at the right place, in the way they want to get it. This is what he says is permission marketing – selling to people that want to be sold. 

I will follow-up on how this point translates to B2B Marketing later. It translates very nicely!

The video is 45 minutes, but worth every minute of it.

Digg twitter, or just wilfing around?

Everyday new terms are popping up on the internet. View this BusinessWeek slide show to catch up on 12 terms (with etymology and examples).

CA World with Keynote - Guy Kawasaki

I am going to CA World in Las Vegas from April 22-26.  I am specifically going for the Partner Symposium and am very excited about it.

But I almost dropped my jaw when I saw that one of the keynote speakers was Guy Kawasaki. I follow Guy's blog reguarly and enjoy it, so this is a very special treat for me. I will report back to you on his keynote.

Good stock business images

In the mid-nineties, I worked for a company that represented commercial illustrators. Most of the work was commissioned by advertising and design firms who needed illustrations for their client's advertising, packaging, and corporate communication projects.

Back then the word “stock” had a very negative connotation because it devalued creative work. It wasn’t very common for companies to buy stock photography or illustration. As well, since stock images were not in great demand, the selection was limited.

Today is a different story. Companies are still commissioning new work for certain projects, but stock images are in great demand. Especially for online projects where there is no time or money to create new images.

Working for a small B2B company, my creative resources are scarce. A few years back I purchased a photo service subscription for my marketing collateral needs. I liked the photos at Getty Images but found it too expensive as a pay-per-photo model. I wanted the freedom to download as many pictures that I wanted for a set yearly subscription.

Lately however, I’ve been disappointed at the selection of images at my service (especially with Information Technology themed photos). I started to see a lot of other sites popping up. Garr Reynolds at Presentation Zen has an excellent list of sites in his post “Where you can find good images”. I had a quick look at iStockphoto.com, one of the sites that Garr mentioned, and was very impressed with the quality and prices.

Interestingly iStockphoto.com is owned by Getty Images. In Business 2.0 I found an article about the giants of the stock photo business, Getty Images and Corbis. They are being challenged by a flock of tiny "microstock" agencies. In the article it explains that:

“Klein's [CEO of Getty] initial plan for dealing with the microstock revolution was to buy into it. In early 2006 Getty purchased iStockphoto for $50 million. As he tells it, the revolution is a blessing in disguise. Most of iStockphoto's customers could never have bought an image before, and many probably simply copied what they needed. If Klein can bring them in the door with iStockphoto, he might get some of them to consider Getty's better images, and to this end he'll introduce a new line of photos that is more expensive than microstock but cheaper than the company's other offerings.”

"Our aim is to provide imagery for every budget," Klein says. "I want as much share of each customer's wallet as possible." 

iStockphoto is interesting as anybody can submit their photographs and earn some revenue. They also have user reviews and ratings. As well you can see how popular images are from downloads and view statistics.

If you have the budget, you might go with the bigger guns like Getty Images, but for smaller companies, or smaller budget projects, the microstock agencies provide a great option. I’m looking forward to researching my options for good images!

Incidentally, the company that I used to work for have since changed their business to remain competitive. They expanded into the US that still commissions a lot of new creative work, and they have made a business from selling their own stock images.