Yesterday, I had the opportunity to hear Yousef Khalidi from Microsoft talk about Azure. I think the presentation was weak, though I really appreciated the long and honest QA at the end of the session, and wish more presenters had made time for one.
In particular Yousef missed a great opportunity to educate and differentiate. By creating a presentation that was at least 90% either publicly available information on his product or established information about cloud computing, his session added very little value and left people wanting more. This feeling was apparent in the both the content and tone of the questions he received.
3 things jumped out at me that we can all learn from, Read more…
I think Todd Biske was bold in writing a book around SOA Governance that focused mostly on the people side of things. From memory, two key points Todd made were:
- Educate people on the governance policies, and
- Manage services like a product, rather than a project.
I’ve thought quite a bit about the book, which I liked a lot (and reference quite regularly), and the things I learned came out in yet another form at today’s Cloud Computing Expo. I was talking about a best practice for successfully implementing cloud computing in the enterprise. In particular, how to build momentum and drive a culture of collaboration… and I said:
Tell them what you want them to do, and they’ll resist. Tell them why you want them to do it, and they’ll amaze you with the ways they get it done.
Read more…
Well, that was fun. Spoke at 7PM this evening, at the end of a long day of presentations at the Cloud Computing Expo. I was a little afraid of a 7PM speaking slot, thinking people would rather be at the bar, than listening to me talk. Boy, was I wrong. Apparently, people were people standing in the hallway. Had I noticed, I certainly would have rearranged furniture to get more people in, even if it meant more people sitting on the floor!
First, as promised, here are the presentation materials:
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I deleted my Plaxo account today. I don’t think I’ll look back. I only ever logged in to accept connections to people who I was probably already connected to on LinkedIn or Facebook. Recently, I got a message from someone saying they saw my update on Plaxo (I guess it linked from Twitter), and I realized I really didn’t need another place where people could learn about me. Each of these sites takes time and effort to manage, and I want to make sure I control the message that is “me.”
I’ve seen friends get more involved in blogging as a way to have a creative outlet, or a journal of their ideas. I also have friends who are writing books and making movies and see their online personality as being important to their overall success. These friends look to me for ideas. Where online do they need to be? What should they be doing? Why?
Well, when you’re selling something – the goal is to get your visitor to click on the “buy” button. All online activity should drive people to that button. If only life were always that easy. As a professional, well, we’re trying to sell ourselves. The face I put online, is how people will know me. And, either I’ll control that message, or someone else will.
That said, here are the four tools that I’m choosing to represent me, and how I approach using them:
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Ego.
Well, that, and it’s hard to have a bad day. You see, in my personal motivation folder, I have few notes to myself. One describes my thoughts on leadership, and they’re boiled down to three:
- First in, last out. No one’s ever alone. It’s amazing how much more people will achieve when there’s someone at their side.
- Say what you mean, do what you say. People, like dogs, feel emotion. The contradiction between words and actions torpedoes trust faster than an over-weighted scuba newbie sinks in the ocean.
- Be authentic.
It’s this last bit, be authentic, that tends to get me in trouble, and for which I find myself, like now, apologizing often. See, part of being authentic is letting yourself show through. It’s challenging in many ways because we (us Type A ENTJ’s) all want to be polished and excel. For example, when presenting. I’m a great presenter (that ego thing again, let it go). But… even just the other day, at a customer, I had the opportunity to see one of our DXSI guys present who was totally the opposite. He was clearly an expert, charming, and adorable. The customer loved him and he did a fantastic job. But, he wasn’t polished. He was great because he was authentic. Polish him up, and make him less authentic, and he’ll be less effective. Clearly, that would not be the right thing to do.
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Read a Business Week article this morning in which Jack Welch elaborated on a recent interview he did with FT discussing shareholder value. When asked what he thought of “shareholder value as a strategy,” he replied “[it’s] a dumb idea, shareholder value is an outcome — not a strategy.”
I put a couple of, IMHO, insightful tweets today about cloud computing. Things that popped into my head as I was preparing for the Cloud Computing Expo at which I’ll be speaking.
One tweet in particular caught some people’s attention.
“Moving to the cloud will force IT to be about integration and application delivery, instead of ‘infrastructure babysitting,’ as it is today”
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Just had the opportunity to sit through a particularly bad presales presentation of my product, and have been fuming. Trying to understand how this kid could be up in front of prospects all the time, and have kept his job. Truth is, I’m sure he’s good at something, he comes highly recommended. And, fortunately, it was an internal meeting, so not too much damage done.
Sales Engineers are a hard nut to figure out. If they’re too technical, they usually don’t have the polish they need to speak to prospects in the context of selling. If they’re too polished, they struggle to succeed in organizations that value technical skills. Soft skills are hard to quantify, so they’re hard to screen for, and even harder to cultivate. Probably why most of the really polished SE’s go onto become highly successful sales guys. Commissions are a great way to quantify results.
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