AI
I'm a big fan of Dave Gerhardt and the Exit Five marketing community he has built. While I have always liked the idea of peer-networking communities, I think they change from vitamin to painkiller in times of rapid change. Why? Because the playbooks haven't been written
Branding
Every day I hear more and more about the “sea of sameness” from founders, CEOs, CROs, and CMOs. The dialog goes something like this: * There are so many products out there, * They are getting more similar, * Customers are more confused than ever, * Unable to see the differences between them. * Thus,
Communications
[Cross-posted from LinkedIn, see note.] <rant> I can't tell you the number of times I applied this rule when I ran marketing from $30M to $1B at Business Objects back in the day. It's 1:00 AM, I'm doing final edits on
Communications
While I don't do politics on Kellblog, I do analyze messaging, including political messaging. My point is not to change your mind on a given issue, but to study what works in the major leagues [1]. Towards that end, I wrote a post back in January entitled Analyzing
Communications
Sometimes. But make sure it's not out of laziness or ignorance. Increasingly, you’ll hear the term “business outcomes” popping up in software marketing. While I initially loathed the phrase for its vagueness, over time I’ve come to believe that, much like the frequently-abused word “solutions,” there
Communications
Once in a rare while, I address political issues in my blog. Why? Well, because when it comes to messaging and positioning, it's the big leagues. Politics is Major League Baseball, consumer packaged goods (CPG) is AAA, and here in Silicon Valley we're only AA. It&
Communications
After a negative customer experience on a recent fishing trip an old friend of mine said, "I judge people by the quality of their apologies." Interesting idea, I thought. This led to a discussion about the apology given to us by the proprietor of the ranch at which
Communications
Carta, an otherwise boring company solving a mundane-if-important problem, managed to get itself in the news this past week for all the wrong reasons. The fiasco was the result of CEO Henry Ward writing a post on recent negative press that was presumably intended to inoculate his audience, but instead
Marketing
Silicon Valley marketing communications are, simply put, not the major league. By comparison to Washington, DC and political communications, we are AAA baseball [1]. In fact, to be less kind, if DC communications are the major league, you could argue that consumer marketing is AAA, and we in Silicon Valley
Communications
While I don’t normally entertain guest posts, once in a rare while I hear an old friend ranting about something and the rant's so good that I offer up Kellblog to help share it. Today’s rant comes from Lance Walter, who recently finished up a four-year
Communications
Whenever I have the chance to watch a big league politician at work, I always try to study their communications skills in an effort to learn from the best. In a previous post, I presented what I learned watching Congresswoman Jackie Speier work a room, a pretty amazing sight, in
Communications
The other day I saw this tweet from my friend Nick Mehta, CEO of GainSight, and it got me thinking. It turns out that in addition to making fun music videos for company events, that Nick and I have another thing in common: we both wrestle with finding the right