Re: Do you read the emails - Revisited!
On Aug 5, 1:17 pm, "Art Kagel" <art.ka...@gmail.com> wrote: > I won't get into a pissing match, and I don't disagree with much of what has > been said about IBM's handling of IDS, however, complaining about the IBM > Database Magazine's contents is undeserved. In this month's edition, > emailed out today if you haven't seen it yet, you will find the following > statistics if you look: > Art, If you didn't want to get in to a pissing match, you would have responded just to me and not to the entire c.d.i. So I guess I should actually set the record straight.... If you bothered to read my posts, you would have seen that I talked about the e-mail announcement for the mag. The e-mail had 5 highlighted URLs for "must read" articles. (They didn't highlight all the articles.) 4 of the 5 highlighted articles were specifically for DB2. One was for IDS. Now the math is pretty simple, but please pull out that calculator and tell me that 1/5 = 20% and 4/5 = 80%. I think what I wrote was accurate and factual. [SNIP - list of articles in the mag] As to the content of the mag, that was irrelevant to the point. The point was what was sent to xxx number of people and beyond. Even before reading the mag, I see only one article about Lester's "e- book". Everything else was DB2. THAT WAS THE IMPRESSION LEFT ON THE AVERAGE READER. 80/20. Sorry to shout but I wanted to make sure that you and everyone else understood the issue. Its perception vs reality. And perception is more important than reality when it comes to marketing. Just look at Oracle. ;-) > > Yes, it's slow going, and we (the Informix user community) won't let up the > pressure to give us more support, but IBM is coming around! Yes lets talk about that for a second. IBM funds the IIUG. The IIUG is in fact IBM's only "grass roots marketing campaign". The IIUG has attempted to launch a "viral" video campaign. Not a lot of really cool videos getting done or capturing the attention of viewers on YouTube. So I wouldn't call it a raging success. But even that's not the point of the thread. What is the point is that these efforts by IBM are not focused and ineffective if their goal is to reach out to new customers and to grow the net new license count and the net new customer count. (Heck Home Depot and Wal*Mart aren't opening new stores like they used to.) 8^0 ;- P I don't have Dr.Dobbs in front of me, so if I screw up Scott Ambler's name, I do apologize up front. Scott's writing are in the general mags. So when he talks about software development methodologies, the Rational sales rep can point to his articles and say "hey we have a solution!". I don't see that anywhere. Blogs? The IIUG just pushed out its latest e-mailing. I forget the count, so please correct me... 8 IBMers have 8 different blogs all on IBM. There's JGP's attempt at an Informix web site, and then there's Erics. Nothing else outside of those sites mentioned. So if I was in a position to buy a new relational database, would I know that IDS existed? No. Not unless I went to IBM's website and specifically looked for a database. AND THAT'S THE SUBTLE POINT MISSED! Jerry K. was upset with me for bashing them for not doing anything. He said that they were working with the sales staff, getting the message out. YET AGAIN, HERES A FREE CLUE... Mandatory "all hands" sales calls DO NOT WORK. Trust me, I used to sit on them all the time, and I had to run a couple calls. Sales critters have a 15 min memory. Unless there is money involved, after 15 minutes they tune out. THE POINT: YOU MAY BE DOING SOMETHING, BUT YOU'RE WASTING YOUR TIME AND YOU ARE NOT BEING EFFECTIVE. Now I've told Alyse, Jerry, etc on what they needed to do to get the sales teams attention and interest. Hasn't happened yet. I guess it takes time for it to sink in. > -- > Art S. Kagel > Oninit (www.oninit.com) > IIUG Board of Directors (a...@iiug.org) > > Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that my own opinions are my own opinions and > do not reflect on my employer, Oninit, the IIUG, nor any other organization > with which I am associated either explicitly or implicitly. Neither do those > opinions reflect those of other individuals affiliated with any entity with > which I am affiliated nor those of the entities themselves. Now that's funny. ;-) But hey! What do I know? ;-)