Evolved Thinking

This post was originally written and pared down for the LeftBrain DGA blog Demand Gen (r)Evolution – ME

Behind every news junkie or voracious reader is the know-it-all kid in school who always had his or her hand up to share the answer.

You want to know the know-it-all’s biggest secret? They spend less time searching for information and more time consuming it.

And that’s the coolest thing about information management in digital age. Now we all have the same tools at our disposal to be just as knowledgeable and, hopefully, the good sense to be a lot less annoying.

Here are the 10 steps I take before embarking on a research project to get smarter faster on a desired topic, customer segment and any relevant discussions occurring online.

Step #1 Give your research its own email address.
A single inbox for your topic or relevant discussion keeps them out of your existing workflow and gives you a place to consume when you’re ready. I’d suggest using Gmail to create this only because it will be easier to integrate into my other steps below. Something like <topic>@gmail.com to sign up for eNews and LinkedIn alerts will keep you focused.

Step #2 Use a news reader online to automate the news gathering process
After logging into Google using your new email address, you are automatically logged into Google Reader. Here you can pre-select existing topics, create your own using simple or advanced search logic, import RSS feeds, or bring in any Google Alerts as newsfeeds – all on a single online dashboard. Trust me, this will become your knowledge hub, if it isn’t already.

Step #3 Set up Google Alerts that align with topics and audiences.
This has become less of an email deluge by creating alerts as RSS newsfeeds. Check this out:

Creating News Alerts in Google and delivering them to Google Reader (Click to enlarge)

Subscribing to a Topic of Interest to Track (click to enlarge)

A News Dashboard with Key Topics (click to enlarge)

Step #4 Look for groups in LinkedIn with people talking about a key topic
Where appropriate, I have participated. If it’s likely to be intrusive, I’ve watched discussions unfold, gleaning key insights into not only who is having the discussions but what is working or frustrating the heck out of them. If you’re a member of a topical LinkedIn Groups, be sure to sign up for their email alerts – forwarding them to your topic-specific Gmail account.

Step #5 Monitor social traffic on the topics of interest
If you’re lucky, you have Radian6 and a team of social media users who alert you to key conversations and places to engage on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook and other communities. If you’re like the rest of us, however, you MacGyver everything together with tools like TweetDeck , HootSuite, your news reader and your topic-specific email account for anything else you’ve missed. Sounds messy, but with a process in place it’s infinitely doable.

Step #6 Set up a Readability account to quickly push information you discover in your Google Reader that appears relevant into the “Read Later” bin. You can also send the most relevant eNewsletter content directly to Readability when you’re done gathering.

Step #7 Engage with people online in the social streams or communities relevant to the subject matter – See Step #4, but also pay close attention to leading bloggers in the area you are researching. Mine the comments sections to see who is seeking additional insight or offering their own. As you begin to understand the subject matter, this can also be a venue to ask questions or share knowledge. If you do decide to share, speak as a human being with a level of interest or expertise – not a brand megaphone. If your company has a relevant video, Slideshare presentation or white paper that honestly contributes to the discussion, go for it, but tread lightly.

Step #8 Set a time to review information collected – and stick to it.
What works for me is starting my day with a quick scan of about 30 minutes or so for any information gathered overnight – flagging seemingly relevant news using my Readability app. I’ll do a similar sweep at the end of the day to flag new items online and in my topic-specific inbox. I’ll also use Readability to narrow down the best of the bunch to review in-depth after the research phase ends.

Step #9 Look for patterns, odd ducks and hot data points or quotes.
After amassing this content and combing through it, you’ll start to see similarities emerge, as well as a few eyebrow raisers or quotes that set the tone for your work. I’ll bring these forward to breathe a little life into my findings.
Step #10 Put these discoveries into an outline.
Something as simple as:
I. Key Insights
II. Industry Trends
III. Quotes & Comments
IV. Conclusions
… gives me the structure I need to group findings in a way that is easy to communicate when called upon.

The key takeaway for all of this is to set up a system that delivers the right information to you so you don’t have to spend countless hours looking for it.Reach out to me if you want to chat about this or share your insights below to make us all a little smarter. You can also learn how LeftBrain blends deep demographic, psychographic and sociological research into its strategies for clients here.

Until next time.

Mark

The Year of our Lord 2011 is a tough one to box in.

Is it the death or birth of innovation (Steve Jobs and the vision he left behind vs. the birth of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as Steve Jobs Jr.)? Or, the year that the world woke up by laying down in parks across our great land, taking the occasional walk around to find a TV camera — that is until Christmas and the cold weather rolled in? OR … just more of the same good, bad and ugly. The words Sandusky, Casey Anthony, and  Republican Idiot Droids like Bachmann, Perry Overdrive and painfully vocal news readers who should find a new script like Megyn Kelly left a dent in my brain that will be hard to hammer out in the coming year.

Only the Lord himself knows for sure, but one thing I do know, 2011 did a lot to activate my senses in a good way. I’ll boil it down to my Top 5 — one for each of my senses collectively and individually overloaded.

Enjoy! Numbers 2 through 5 are actually safe to do yourself. #1, well, take a look. Happy New Year! I hope we actually connect in human form in 2012!
Cheers.

1. Sight. “I couldn’t believe my eyes.”
Garrett McNamara’s Monster Ride

2. Sound. “Pure Ear Candy.”
Blitzen Trapper — American Goldwing + Furr (yeah, I know only AG came out this year, but both were good to me in 2011)

Singles:

Lonely Boy – The Black Keys

Ain’t Fit to Live Here — Graveyard

Face to the Floor — Chevelle

The Ruminent Band — Fruit Bats

If I Had a Gun … Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

Holocene – Bon Iver

Head is a Flame (Cool With It) — Portugal, The Man

The Suburbs — Arcade Fire

Get it Daddy — Sleeper Agent

Is And Is And Is — White Denim

Pumped Up Kicks — Foster the People

The Kooks — F*** the World off

Moves Like Jaggar — Maroon 5 (Admit it … this song is like crack on ecstasy!)

And … the Welcome back Award goes to Brian Jonestown Massacre after I finally heard them this year in the Boardwalk Empire intro with “Straight Up and Down.” Yes!

3. Smell. A Tie: Paul Mitchell Awapuhi Shampoo & Jonathan Antin’s Silky Dirt (R) hair product. These provide a complete Jedi Nose Trick at the start of every day that fools my brain momentarily into thinking I live somewhere warm and tropical.

4. Touch. The Kindle Fire — Finally! Something that responds well when I poke or swipe at it — and keeps coming back for more! It is worth every damn penny for that reason alone.

5. Taste: The Beef Brisket Flatbread w/ Onion Rings Tongue-gasm from Eat This! in Portland, Oregon 

EAT THIS! Even better now that it's loaded it with Onion Rings!

Seriously … no, SERIOUSLY … so good you make happy noises with every bite.

To an equally activating 2012.

Happy New Year!

Mark

This blog post inspired by Welcome to the Machine by Pink Floyd. Refurbished from Dec. 21, 2010 post for @TripwireInc

Someone recently posed this question to me and a few cohorts here at Tripwire, the IT security company where I work:

What are your Top 5 IT Security Events for 2010?
At first, I responded with RSA, Blackhat, Infosecurity Europe,  B-Sides, etc., then realized the question attempted to get at incidents or interesting developments in the last year. That task proved to be much harder.

Any time I’ve been asked to cobble together a list of “Top anythings”,  it has always been  akin to “What are your Top 5 bands or movies?” By that, I mean,  they usually change George Costanza-style  on the drive home (video) (ohhhhh, I should’ve said < Insert obscure, uber-hip band name here>).

With that in mind, here are my Top 5 IT Security Stories/Incidents worthy of consideration in no particular order, with a detailed rationale for each of my choices. Agree? Disagree? Think of one on the drive home? Fire away in the comment section.-ME

The “Stuxnet Effect” on Cyber Security
In 2010, “Stuxnet”

1. Captured media and global governmental attention because it was the first high-profile case of a dramatic shifting of war from on-the-ground to the cyber world. While the republics of  Georgia and Estonia had illustrated this shift first in 2007, the Stuxnet attack in the Spring/Summer of 2010 brought the new battlefield home to the U.S. Government because it attacked Command and Control (SCADA) systems responsible for regulating the energy grid.
2. Showed, through its combination of four  Zero-day attacks  that very talented, coordinated and probably state-financed groups can wreak global havoc on really old equipment. Some energy grid systems are 50-80 years old and rife with vulnerabilities that are ripe for  current attack methods or modern advancements in  malware development.
3. Taught an important lesson: If you are a target of  this type of attack, it will happen and it is next to impossible to prevent.
4. The countermeasure for high profile targeted attacks such as these is to return to the basics of info and system security:
   1. Protect (monitor all systems around the clock for up-to-date patches and configurations across the entire IT infrastructure)
   2. Detect patterns of behavior that are suspicious using a correlation of suspect log events, system changes and near real-time alerting of configuration errors that attackers exploit
   3. Resolve compromises as fast as possible with the ability to find the breach and return systems to a secure state by combining a pre- and post-breach cyber forensics program and automating the system baselining process.
5. Another key lesson with Stuxnet that will hopefully have a lasting impact was the realization that an attack of this kind in one place is a global event that will require a global response and the cooperation of governments and businesses around the world.

Security & Compliance in The Cloud
Much like the concept of cyberwar in the Stuxnet example, “The Cloud” is here to stay. Your first clue is “The” in “The Cloud.” It’s kinda like Madonna, Cher, Prince or The Hoff. (No, not that “Hoff” ). Love ‘em or hate ‘em, once they’ve attained “The” status,  they’re not going anywhere. Why?

1. The Cloud  is largely perceived by business users as a lower cost, environmentally responsible alternative to cash- and energy-sucking server farms that are holding an exponentially growing deluge of data that exceeded the storage available in 2007 (See image).
2. Large cloud providers like Amazon have rushed to become PCI compliant in an effort to protect sensitive data, namely cardholder data, but the cautionary tale here is that providers, particularly small and medium businesses using The Cloud to cut corners and save money have to realize that they have a responsibility to secure their own systems and sensitive data as well or it can be compromised where it lives in their environment and on user systems
3. One other critical issue that security experts point to is that by storing sensitive data in one place, and sometimes in a shared environment with other companies, they have unintentionally created a very rich singular target for a patient, deliberate and well financed cyber crime organizations.
   
4. The key, and this is certainly true of where Tripwire is working to address security in the cloud, is to monitor the critical systems, infrastructure and sensitive data stored with cloud service providers, alert on high-risk behaviors in the public, private and hybrid cloud environments and resolve anomalies on demand to guard against cyber attacks of this kind.

Cyber forensics as an emerging industry

OK…I have to admit, I see a David Caruso spin-off here in our future, complete with aviator shades, IT-flavored one liners (“His Java Script didn’t have a happy ending”) and a screaming Who song (in my Top 5, btw).  Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing,  but that digression aside, for me, the driving factors behind cyber forensics are:

1.    Rapid evolution of attack methods and malware have created the need to approach threat detection beyond the old signature-based model of known vulnerabilities to real-time behavioral analysis of anomalies  in an IT environment across systems, files and security controls already in place (firewalls, anti-virus, security policy frameworks like CIS, etc.).

2.    A desire to be proactive on IT security rather than reactive to breaches. Cyber forensics enables pre-breach analysis that can identify risks  and in most cases guard against a breach.  In addition, it improves incident response by delivering post-breach analysis for reporting purposes and identifies how sensitive data or systems were compromised to harden the environment against future attacks.

3.    Technology advancements that enable real-time, continuous monitoring, alerts based on suspicious occurrences and automated, intelligent resolution: Tripwire’s behavioral approach to detecting threats includes monitoring the IT ecosystem around the clock for incidents that weaken a company’s security posture, correlating suspicious log events and suspicious file changes in near real time to identify threats faster and on-demand remediation of any configuration errors in the environment that contributed to the breach.

SMBs taking a big-boy beating on the cyber attack front

1. Recent reports are pointing to a growing trend that cyber attackers are seeing the complex traps being set for them in the enterprise space with seven layers of security defense, complete with firewalls, IDS, IPS, Access management, threat behavior analysis via the correlation of file changes and suspicious log events, etc., and opting  to go for the easy pickings in the education, nonprofit and SMB sectors.
2. In complex DDoS attacks or  sophisticated botnets, these easier-to-access servers and machines are being used to attack larger targets en masse or providing simple, unfettered access to the sensitive data available and letting attackers collect data from a multitude of weakly guarded targets Examples include Zeus and its financial account access-stealing malware that continues to plague non-enterprise organizations.
3. While an IT budget vs. mission or security budget vs. headcount seesaw will always be at play in these cash-strapped and often technically challenged environments, it’s important to keep hammering on the fact that attackers see them as the path of least resistance for obtaining social security numbers, health records, financial accounts and/or an entire zombie army of machines poised to do their dirty work because  they are mostly likely  misconfigured  or poorly managed. All security do-gooders need to band together in the years to come to stem this rising tide.

Recent news feeding my fire on this trend:

Education sector most affected by malware

AmeriCorps Security Breach

SMB Cloud Is A Hacker’s Paradise

Cyber Criminals Now Target SMB Bank Accounts

Security industry consolidation
Point solutions like Arcsight (now a part of HP) and even larger security luminaries like McAfee (now a part of Intel) got gobbled up by larger mega corps to build out their portfolio in the white-hot security space.  In fact, according to my fingers and toes, in the last 5 years alone, 26 smaller companies Tripwire used to compete with head-t0-head are now part of the machine. In my view, this changes the landscape in two ways:

1. Security solution buyers will be tentative in buying yet another technology to throw into their security mix and seek out comprehensive security suites to address a multitude of their security and compliance challenges related to protecting sensitive data and critical systems.
2. Security solution providers, in their efforts to meet this buyer desire and address a complex threat landscape, will find themselves partnering with former adversaries to create super solutions in the security space built on providing better visibility into true threats, real-time detection and rapid resolution to avoid cataclysmic breaches with massive data losses.

I can hear you all now. What about Aurora? (Ohhhhh! Jerk Store!) What about WikiLeaks? What about…? Share your wisdom and defend it in the comments section below.

I hope you had an incident-free holiday. Welcome to 2011.

Heckling the dumb in the land of Lost Wages

This blog is inspired by Paranoia by Black Sabbath.

Las Vegas was full of a whole different kind of sin last week.  (Is SYN too on-the-nose for you IT security vets? SYN…ACK! ACK! ACK!)

SANS Network Security 2010 was the first of hopefully many conferences/classes for me to learn about the best and worst in the world of IT security. Great presentations. Eye-opening exercises. Plenty of career-enhancing connections. And more than a little chest puffing.

I do have to say that while I moved from blind victim (on the casino floor and off)  to keenly aware malware target after my week in Vegas, I hopped on the plane home thinking that some of the most talented security practitioners, penetration testers, and provocative presenters the IT world has to offer didn’t do much to change my perception held since the days of Y2K that those who make and break the rules on the Interweb are separated at birth or at least genetically aligned with Nick Burns, Your Company’s  Computer Guy. Brash. Caffeinated. Eager to prove worth. Equally fired up for the putdown of the uneducated.

The event brought IT security neophytes like me together with a cadre of command-and- control smarties to seemingly perpetuate inferiority complexes, self-proclaimed guru statuses, cyber terror bed wetting and group basking in schadenfreude for middle school years gone wrong.

That’s not to say that instructors and classmates in total weren’t welcoming, helpful or accommodating. In fact, it was a lot like speaking broken Spanish in an English accent while on a week-long sabbatical in Cancun. “Oh..look, he’s trying. Isn’t that cute? Bien Bien, Pobrecito.”

Layer 8 is People! It’s People!

But what stuck with me more than a corn syrup-soaked “Ctrl” key was the rampant use of the word “Stupid” when referring to people who use computers…business or personal keytappers.  “End Users” – Layer 8 in a Seven-Layer Security Model—are perpetually on the outside looking in through a technically opaque window of safe and sane computer usage.

OK, admittedly, “End Users” like me, mom, dad, my Facebook and LinkedIn buddies and eager-to-assist Tweeps, aren’t doing ourselves any favors in the IQ elevation process when we send money to Nigeria or naively become money mules despite an email rife with typos and the hard-to-fathom promise of a few hundred bucks for a few minutes’ time.

That being said, it would be cool if The Lords of LAN and WAN would drop a few non-malware laden breadcrumbs of Internet security  wisdom to make our computers, companies and governments a little smarter at spotting the worm on the hook.

Ya feel me:

• Person who plugged in the USB Flash Drive into your Energy Grid SCADA system to unleash Stuxnet?
• The poor sap at the DoD responsible for the worst U.S. military data breach with another shiny, yet polluted USB stick?
• My LinkedIn faithful who just got to meet ZEUS up close and personal?
• My Twitter comrades who saw a virus take down their character-challenged world, not by clicking on something they shouldn’t, but by simply mousing over linked text?

Let’s just agree now.  Nobody benefits from stupidity.

Stupid may seem like job security at first for the SysAdmin or his bosses who know all the answers. That is until he or she gets chewed out when a Distributed Denial of Service attack — unleashed when the uniformed click on “Funny Video.exe”attachements in their work Outlook account—keeps the boss from sending an important e-mail.  Let’s all take a page out of the stupidity-killing handbook of Chris Hadnagy, operations manager at Offensive Security,  and his Social Engineering 101 Q&A with CNet Senior Writer  Elinor Mills earlier this summer.

Another guy to lean on is former Washington Post reporter and IT security demystifier Brian Krebs who always manages to do his job without the slightest bit of condescension.

I’m pretty sure all of us in IT security are only as smart as our least informed coworker, which may just be the person signing your checks. Or your recently socially engineered Halo 3 cohort and IT security pal. See you in the shadows.

This blog inspired by Steve Ray Vaughan’s “The Sky is Crying” and Louis Armstrong’s “When You’re Smiling the Whole World Smiles With You.”

OK…seriously…6 months since my last blog post?@?@?@? I’m surprised this thing even works anymore. Cause-based marketing keeps you hopping…that’s for sure.

But to be honest..the previous Grampa post just took a lot outta me. I looked at it every time I tried to write and didn’t have anything else nearly as relevant or heartfelt to really add after that.

That is until someone mentioned the book “The Secret.” I’d be lying if I said I read it, but I’ve gotten enough book reports from key advisers to get the central premise. You attract how you act. If you are a force for change and get white-hot pissed when people don’t follow, you attract a like-minded crew of malcontents and beehive bashers. So “The Secret” for me was to retire “Pessimism” and Evolve.

Evolved Thinking isn’t so much a measure of my evolution from troglodyte to upright warrior  to compassionate cogitator to Bubbly Brad Garrett as it is celebrating others for smelling the roses through the hot mess of sewer sludge all around us.

One thing I’ve tried to do during my busiest of moments is at least stay plugged in through Twitter, Google Buzz, Facebook and other key blogs to remain current.

Speaking of which, good God, can someone help a brother out on incorporating my Twitter feed into this blog through a sidebar! I’ve uploaded and downloaded Twitter plugins to the point of Supreme Twitdom and can’t for the life of me figure out how to make my Tweets  flow into my blog. HELP!

I hope the next 9 months of 2010 brings a little clarity and priority to my life and yours.

One point of clarity, priority and purpose so far has been my work on a new social media monitoring and content creation start-up EVolution Communications Group and two non-profits — Wish Upon A Wedding Portland and  Special Olympics Oregon. It’s been a whirlwind tour, but I remain fascinated by people who make  organizations move, raise money, cultivate legions of loyal consumers and  catalyze indefatigable volunteers or unsung (unpaid) helpers.

Whether it’s ensuing that a deserving couple gets their dying wish,  a uniquely able athlete gets the chance to compete and apply lessons to everyday life, or a corporation looking to build equity in doing the right thing and then using a content monitoring and creation practice to support it — I’m all in. Suffice it to say…I’ve found something that inspires me to get up in the morning, work harder than I ever have before, and still want to come back for more.

Where ever you are in life,  rest assured getting involved in something bigger than yourself and the day-to-day grind will sustain you and turn you from pessimist to at least a reluctant optimist.

Until then…here’s a person and a few organizations that through their big hearts, big brains or both that have blown me away.

1. Chris Brogan — An early supporter of my work at Special Olympics Oregon, Chris continues to impress me personally by wearing his heart on his sleeve. This recent post on not fitting in a box of someone else’s creation, but building one of your own reinvigorated me at just the right time.
2. Wish Upon a Wedding – Fulfilling someone’s dying wish to be together — or potentially empowering a miraculous recovery through the healing touch of love is a cause that tugs at the heartstrings. See it in action.
3. Clothes Off Our Backs — This great nonprofit gets celebrities to literally give the shirts (and pants, and dresses, et al) off their backs for a rotating list of charities each year. Purely awesome concept.
4. Mercy Corps — Anybody notice how this Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit raised bucketloads of money for relief in Haiti and hit the ground  in-country ready to help?  If you didn’t it’s because they’re not self-promoters. They’re doers. What an amazing group. Help them in anyway you can.

I’m watching, learning and will abscond with every great thing you are doing–giving you full credit, of course.

To an optimistic 2010 from here on out — from a newly invigorated,  rapidly evolving thinker and retired Cockeyed Pessimist.

Mark

…And a Better Man.

The Marlboro Man Prequel (mouse up to the top of the page after clickthrough for the full obituary)

Jack Norman Evertz (March 8, 1927 – July 27, 2009)

The words “They just don’t make ‘em like that anymore” come to mind when I think about my gramps. Part redneck, part roughneck and all man in an increasingly domesticated man’s world, Grampa Jack was quick with opinions and head-shaking dismay despite his lack of a high school diploma to back him up. Common sense ruled — in the shop, around the card table, on the porch and anywhere else he chose to plant his Size 12 Tony Lama boots. A simple wisdom left permanent marks, like these gems:

Grampa Jack on Stress:
“I just never could understand why you and your dad always worried to high hell about everything. More than half the time, it never turns out that way and the rest of the time it’s not nearly as bad as you think. And if it is ever that bad you’re too damn worn out from worrying to do anything about it.”

Grampa Jack on Women:
“Nothing’s harder on a man than an angry woman.”

Grampa Jack on Manhood:
“The world doesn’t owe you anything and it will knock you on your ass every chance it gets. Your job is to keep gettin’ up.” His favorite movie was Cool Hand Luke if that tells you anything.

He laughed at the pussification of the American male and would routinely harken back to his Golden Era of the’50s and ’60s where smokin’, drinkin’ and raisin’ hell were a man’s God-given right –  and anybody who said otherwise could go straight to hell.

Some of that tenacity and toughness no doubt makes you strong on the battlefield or in the bar room, but I had the hardest time convincing Grampa Jack that his Advanced Coursework in Manhood for his only grandson was losing the battle in the boardroom. “There’s ego, politics, turf wars, and hurt feelings that come into play. You have to be nice,” I told him.

“What the hell does nice have to do with business?” he asked. “And, did you say hurt feelings?”

Never did give him any good  answers on why brains had rapidly replaced balls for dominance in the American West, except to throw another cliche at him that got him to come around half way. “You get more bees with honey, Grampa.”

Well, with him cashing in his chips at the end of July to spend the rest of eternity with my Gramma Grace (a tough cookie in her own right), here are 5 things Grampa Jack taught me that make me a better man and a better marketer.

1. If you don’t mean it, don’t say it.

2. Shut up. You just might learn something. (Still working on this one)

3. If you make a mistake, own up to it. Then work like hell to fix it.

4. If you believe in what you’re doing, don’t back down.

5. A man is only as good as his word.

T-5. Outwork your co-workers. Outsmart your enemies.

R.I.P. Gramps. You were a helluva lot smarter than you gave yourself credit for.

This series of personal palpitations is inspired by this relevant rock block: Too much Time on my hands by Styx (as the 1000-word blog will attest), Don’t Fear the Reaper by The BOC and Pearl Jam’s Unemployable –which is actually pretty enlightening despite the title.

A prelude to an actual point
Before I figure out where I’m going, I’d like to take a peek back to where I was the last time we crossed paths in this here wordslinger’s outpost OK…Done. Hmmm…All I can think of is: Who the hell pissed God off in June?

Michael Jackson - R.I.P.
Farrah Fawcett – R.I.P.
Ed McMahan - R.I.P.
Billy Mays – R.I.P.
Karl Malden – R.I.P.
My Job – R.I.P.

And July’s off to a grim start with Steve McNair and Arturo Gatti. All I can say is: Hang in there Patrick Swayze!

This recent foray into obitu-tainment and an air of professional vulnerability at the moment have made me take stock in a few things — as death and loss have a tendency to do.

Family – Seeing my kid swim for the first time and hanging out with my wife at a movie on a Tuesday afternoon were life-affirming ( Go See Public Enemies!) .

Remembering the world through the eyes of a child – Just watching my kid react to something and then ask “Why?” has re-educated me on the importance of not taking anything at face value. And the whole wonderment thing he’s got going  for the seemingly inconsequential…I want more of that, for sure! Check out this dispatch from Braden Kelly (www.twitter.com/innovate for you Tweeps) Innovation Through the Eyes of a Child. Get your inner child back via this recap with vids featuring Gever Tulley @ the TED Conference on Tinkering School. And for a longer leap into this idea, Watch Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture — Achieving Your Childhood Dreams video (76 min. of pure gold). Still blown away by the personal and professional lessons in his presentation/book.

Connections with people of like mind — I can’t believe how many people want to help me or need help themselves when it comes to marketing, social media strategy, sales lead generation, Green business communications or health care research. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the kindness and opportunities.

A strict,  bullshit-free diet — Seriously, just tell me what you have, what you want and why you think you need it. If I can help I will. With brevity, sincerity and transparency, people will likely be willing to join your parade by being followers, evangelists or customers.

The last life lesson re: avoiding b.s. is hard to do in an uberconnected, socially explosive and largely self-serving world. I don’t spend a lot of time on social psychology but one name that always sticks out is Abraham Maslow and his Theory of Human Motivation, aka Hierarchy of Needs. Sales guys and gals grinding it out day-to-day know this theory all too well. Marketers are trained these days to call them pain points and my guess is that sales reps have adopted the language out of sheer acquiescence borne from too many deer-in-the-headlights interactions with doe-eyed corporate do-gooders.

Putting the pain point out of its misery
Maybe in these dark times filled with grief, fear and  financial uncertainty  we should pick a new rallying point for how we engage people who don’t know us very well and probably don’t care. The video on David Meerman Scott’s recent blog post Times Change. B2B Fundamentals Do Not says it all (worth the 2 minutes, but basically…Who are you? What do you want and why should I care in both  GrumpyVision and BusyVision). Be concise. Be relevant. Be helpful. Or Be Gone. This isn’t about you convincing people you understand their pain with limp phrases like In this tough economy… or a  data point from a well-paid analyst that says 80 percent of their peers fear losing their jobs and are eating  Xanax by the handful.

Trust me, your prospects know money is tight, that  their job is harder than it was a year ago and that their bosses are way too interested in  showing  hotshot summer interns the ropes in marketing and sales departments all across the country.

Enough with trying to sympathize. Do something or sell something that assuages fear or boosts confidence.

The Maslow Mashup
Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy lives in the textbooks of many a marketing student but slowly leaks out of the brain over time due to stress, forced servitude and/or organizational compliance under the heading of “We’ve always done it this way so you will too.”

If your sales pitch to prospects doesn’t somehow tell a good story using at least one of these 5 needs, you need to talk to someone in your marketing department. If you’re in the marketing department and you have no idea what I’m writing about, then we need talk, tweet or telepathically connect.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Take note of the fact that if your product helps people breathe, eat, drink, have sex, sleep, stay chilled out, or poop you are likely going to make a very good first impression. Good for you!

If not, then you need to: Be Concise. Be Relevant. Or Be Helpful.

So let’s put the pain point to bed and try to be a little more reaffirming, huh? I vote for PuppyPoint: Warm fuzzy ways to trick the heart into buying something you know you’re going to have to clean up after, but just can’t resist.

I’ve been part of the problem for about 15 years now, but moving forward I’ll try to market and sell products, services, causes (myself!?!?) in  ways that help people keep their jobs, feed and spend more time with  their families, save or make money and have more sex. Before you think I’m on the road to door-to-door perversity, remember that even if your product isn’t Viagra or some jaw-dropping gadget, it is likely to have the capacity to help someone in some way to afford a new car, buy a nice place to sleep or grab just the right body spray to get the girl or boy. If you can make that connection with a level of relevance and sincerity in any industry from Agriculture to Zoology, then you’ve done your job.

Let me know what you’re doing out there to make a difference. And if you’re in sales or marketing and want to tell me “DUH!” then feel free to do that below. If you need me, though, I’m ready to help.

Cheers,

Mark

T.C.P.

I’m telling you…over the last month I’ve tried to, as they sing in “The Life of Brian” Look on the Bright side of Life. (whiiiwhoo…whoo whoo whoo whoo)…but when a  crazy lady in a custody battle threw her kids off the Sellwood Bridge in Portland a few weeks back and a father pulled the same exit strategy to parenthood and life a week later,  I moved swiftly back into the People Innately Suck camp again. Can we somehow convince these people to exit first and leave the innocent behind, please?

I’m on a desperate search for  people and information that contributes to a greater good. You are out there. Bring me something uplifting and real to share that isn’t a Twitter tip, a video of your cat, or a marketing trick to get me to buy something that we both know I don’t need.

Knock me on my ass with value. Get me to say, wow, this makes me smarter and empowers me to help others. Introduce me to people, causes and stories of gut-level inspiration.

Until then…I remain a reluctant pessimist, mystified by shitty behavior that lives at the DNA-level in some, is well-coached in others or so masked in self-absorption that it goes unrecognized. I’m confident that fear, ignorance and weakness of mind and spirit are at the root of this.

Let’s turn the tide together with ways to quell the concern, smarten up the masses and feed the soul with something that sustains. Here’s a little something to start the ball rolling.

Bob Dylan
Shelter From the Storm

Cheers, Ev. T.C.P.

(FYI…Republished and amended from a recent post while on the clock at Babcock & Jenkins on April 14, 2009)

This Post Inspired By I’ve Seen All Good People — Yes.

You and your sales colleagues call them leads. Some call them prospects. Others suspects. Whatever you call those who you believe absolutely need what you sell—take a breath.

Think for a minute before you go headlong into strategies, tactics and buying cycle position assessments. These are people.

Just like you and me. We all hold the same fears of making bad decisions, losing respect or getting fired. The same needs for validation. Similar desires for adulation.

With that empathy in mind, now take a look at your current sales funnel. Some people are waving a big red flag saying “Help me right now” by phone call, e-mail or Web site visit. Others were kind enough to respond to your BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing) profile questions on a microsite after you reached out to them via direct mail, e-mail or online.

Tire-kicking isn’t a crime
All others who showed interest in your message but didn’t meet your sales teams’ BANT criteria have been relegated to the tire-kicker position—doomed to languish into perpetuity in your CRM database.

This decision just cost your company big money. Research indicates that 80-90 percent of those “tire-kickers” will buy a product similar to yours in the next 12 months. It’s likely that product won’t be yours unless you keep your company top of mind. Turn your info seekers into buyers by becoming a genuine business decision collaborator.

Prospect-to-lead tip: Restraint
But…wait! Back away from the phone or keyboard for a minute. Before offering more brochureware or demos, put yourself in your prospect’s shoes. What would you want? If you are actually having an internal dialogue right now, you’re likely saying “Something relevant. Something actionable. Something that helps me take one step forward—not retreat in fear from a full-frontal marketing assault on my senses.”

Here are four steps.

First: Be relevant
Your marketing materials in all media formats sent out via every communication vehicle at your disposal is not relevance. It’s carpet bombing. Find thought leaders outside your company to talk about solutions to broader industry challenges. A simple, timely, “Did you see this?” with a one-sentence description, a link to the article, and a one-sentence explanation of why this is relevant to previous interactions with your company will suffice.

Second: Be timely but considerate
Again, put yourself in the shoes of the person you are engaging with. How many times would you want to be contacted in this manner or another mode of communication and what makes it less intrusive? Once a week? Once a month? Once a quarter? Don’t know? Ask.

Here’s a great article forwarded to me recently by a colleague that has two industry leaders answering questions on B2B best practices, reading “Digital Body Language” and nurturing prospects to become leads: When Is It Nurturing, When Is It “Big Brother”?

Third: Set expectations
On that first communication with your new acquaintance, set the ground rules for any outreach going forward. Tell them you are contacting them based on their expressed interest in the subject matter and that you intend to send news and information that could help them stay abreast of key issues and solutions in the industry. Set a delivery expectation timeframe and enable them to say “No.”

Fourth: Request feedback
Set up a feedback loop for prospects to either ask questions or update their current interest or buying status related to your products. The key is patience. Help them arrive at decisions based on knowledge.

Lead cultivation resources
Marketing Sherpa has a library of strategic documents on proven approaches that gingerly move people through buying decisions. Lead Nurturing Best Practices: New Data, Charts, Tips to Put More Punch in Your Cultivation Tactics provides great guidance.

Ann Handley from MarketingProfs is another marketing/buying behavior guru worth checking out. She can be followed on Twitter here.

Good luck and stay positive.

Mark

(FYI…Republished and amended from a recent post while on the clock at Babcock & Jenkins on March 12)

This post inspired by The Fleet Foxes — Ragged Wood.

Being in the marketing department during a budget crisis is like being a cornered fox in a foxhunt. All eyes are on your next move. If you’re not faster and smarter, the dogs are going to get you.

Any time I’ve been the cornered fox (lots), the only way I’ve ever survived is by feeding the dogs something other than me. Only actionable leads will get them off your tail and help you be viewed as an indispensable revenue partner.

How you ask? 4 Steps: Assess. Target. Connect. Execute.

Assess
Reflect on your current situation. Assume you’re being watched. The leaders in the C-Suite and the sales team are waiting to see which way you’ll go. Innovative contributor or continued drain on the company? Don’t be tentative. Take control of your fate with campaigns that turn leads into sales.

Target
A quick look at your competition will reveal companies and people who are dissatisfied with their current level of service or quality of product. Go to Twitter Search and put the name of your competitor in the search bar to see who’s unhappy, why they’re unhappy and any bad news the company’s trying to hide.

You should also consider getting a Twitter account for yourself to enter some online discussions that center around your company or industry to build a stronger sense of the business challenges your prospects are facing. Bloglines is a great way to aggregate Web chatter and build a library of bloggers or people espousing opinions and influencing decisions in the blogging community.

And…don’t forget to mine your own network on LinkedIn!

Connect
When you have built out messages targeted by job role, perceived business challenge or industry vertical—or really any criteria that fits your research—then you can begin thinking about the most effective means of reaching your audience.

Recent work with Fortune 1000 clients, guidance from really smart co-workers and copious amounts of research all tell me that an integrated approach yields leads that turn into sales. As an example, my current employer deploys tactics that acquire, profile, convert or cultivate leads. We do this by tying together these outreach tactics through message and a singular call to action.

Execute
The components of a successful connected strategy that I’ve witnessed and participated in are below. The most important takeaway for you is don’t get mired in the tactics themselves. Just make sure they all work together and support each other in a logical, impactful way. A logical order example might be:

First touch: Direct mail—Despite its reputation for being a bit old-school in a Web-driven world, printed, tangible pieces that scream out from the mail stack still lead the day in terms of lead performance.

Second-Touch Follow up: Email
At my current company, some of our highest performing e-mails are links to breaking news or industry reports that are available for download.

Concurrent: Digital/social media cultivation
Go where the eyeballs are! In some venues, like virtual tradeshows or third-party publisher webinars, you can get guaranteed leads out of the experience.

Concurrent: Link-tracked microsite
This is the hub of all outbound, lead generation efforts. DM, EM and digital actions are fed into this media-rich, hyper-relevant knowledge center with a front-end that captures prospect data and a backend that tracks clicks so you know who’s acting and what they’re acting on.

Final interaction prior to sales hand-off: Telemarketing follow-up
Take the time to write a quick follow-up script to help your biz dev team further qualify the leads that will be immediately actionable by sales. Then hit the phones. Forget this step at your own peril. A bad lead delivered to sales will hurt you more than no lead at all.

The bottom line is, downturn or not, people need to buy products and services that help them do their jobs better, smarter and more efficiently, so they too can avoid a nerve-rattling visit from the CFO. If you can position yourself as their savior, you can feed your sales dogs the leads they need and live to see another foxhunt.

Here are a few more resources to keep you ahead:

Inspiration & Good ideas –Terry Starbucker’s Ramblings from a Glass Half Full & MarketingProfs, respectively

Articles
5 Tips: Lead generation lift-off – DM News

Tips for b-to-b lead acquisition – Multichannel Merchant

B2B Marketing 2.0: How to Engage Social Buyers and Break Marketing/Sales Gridlock – CustomerThink