Design Thinking: 1+1+1=5

Tim Brown of IDEO recently delivered a tremendous presentation at TED on  ”Design Thinking” or System Design and System Thinking.  His ideas focused on design “interactions” versus just individual design “points”. Basically the system is more than the sum of the individual components. The concept really resonates with Rule #5 for successful Social Media: Be Excellent . Let me...

A SaaS Go-To-Market Segmentation Framework

While SaaS is a relatively new deployment option (since ~1998), it is still governed by the fundamental rules of B2B marketing: understand your customer (research), make sure that you connect with them (lead gen), and then provide them with a value proposition that they can’t refuse (product positioning). Sort of like the Godfather movie but without the terminal consequences. It’s a terribly summarized...

Only Possible With SaaS………

In a couple of my past posts, I pointed out that SaaS is not a one-size-fits-all deployment option. However, I do believe that there are some types of solutions that can only be effectively delivered as a SaaS solution – call it the “SaaS only” option. Typically, “SaaS only” is applicable when the software/service meets one of four functional criteria: (1) “SaaS only”...

SaaS, Governance & The IT Bypass

My last SaaS posts were mostly about SaaS from a SW company’s strategic perspective. This one is as a SaaS consumer – from the viewpoint of business and IT users. As a business user, SaaS represents a wonderful opportunity to find and start using new applications that make my job easier. All I need is a credit card, a computer and an internet connect. Great – after 10 minutes I can hit the ground...

Marketing Organization Structure 2.0

For the last decade or so I have successfully used the same marketing organization structure. With all the changes going on in marketing (e.g. new mediums, metrics driven evaluation, etc.) and the internationalization of my team, I’ve decided to spend some time analyzing and validating the structure. I organize based on the following work breakdown structure: Corporate / Group...