December 15th, 2008
By Renn Vara
Cisco recently announced new products to help companies deliver video to their customers and stakeholders. They believe that 90% of Internet traffic will be video in the next few years. That’s a lot of corporate video. Scary.
This got me thinking about an interesting conversation last week with a senior executive from a top security software firm. His team had conducted an internal survey to determine what employees and sales people wanted from their intranet. Most of the usual stuff came up, like refreshing the content, having a good search tool, better categories, and in general making it more user-friendly.
One of the questions asked was whether they’d like to have audio and video content on the site. Only 1 in 5 said they would. This was considerably lower than most any other category. So my customer said his team is now questioning whether to use video for communicating or for product training at all. It got me thinking. (more…)
Filed under All, Corporate Media.
December 8th, 2008
By Renn Vara
We’re offering our customers free weekly Headliners during the months of December and January.
A Headliner is a two-minute, tactical audio message distributed via the internet and/or mobile device giving direction from the executive or director level. We launched this idea during the dotcom bust, and because it was so effective, we have continued to produce them for our customers.
Headliners take no more than 15 to 30 minutes to create soup-to-nuts, and they’re cost-effective. Whether communicating to a sales force, partners, customers, investors or the overall employee base, leaders find Headliners to be essential to effective leadership. (more…)
Filed under All, Corporate Media, Leadership.
September 25th, 2008
By Renn Vara
One of our long time customers speaks passionately about how times like these create the opportunity for firms to take market share. His point is that when facing financial hits, most companies naturally adopt the bunker mentality and pull back. That means that those companies which do the opposite can take ground much like pulling on a rope in a classic tug of war. So here’s what we’re doing in the next few weeks:
1. We’re meeting with each of our customers to find out how this financial crisis is impacting their business and how we can help. In the past, we’ve been able to keep projects going through creative options. We’re good at it.
2. We’ve targeted a number of prospective customers to introduce them to SNP and our services. The whole SNP team is getting involved. The point is to help them get their work done during these difficult times.
3. We’re aggressively meeting with other firms like ours to discuss partnership ideas so we can better serve all of our customers. Finding ways to package solutions to eliminate duplication helps. It’s what we do.
You get the idea. Along with this, we’re increasing our commitment to sales and sales people. Time to take some ground. What about you and your team? Let us know. But don’t tell bunker-mentality competitors what you’re doing. Who reads blogs anyway?
Tags: corporate communications,
innovation,
management
Filed under All, Corporate Media.
September 23rd, 2008
By Renn Vara
Today I had a minor epiphany. It’s been a week of sales and customer meetings, which I really enjoy. Different personalities and business needs and challenges. All levels of responsibility from directors to senior VPs, even a CEO or two. On one plane ride back to San Francisco, I thought about my role in all this. Where’s my place? I didn’t come up with an answer but it got me thinking:
1. I don’t like working with business people who are political. For that matter, I don’t like political people who treat politics like business.
2. I like people who focus on their job rather than focusing on their next job.
3. I like to be of value and hate when I’m not.
4. I like being busy doing cool stuff and helping people be successful.
5. I’m not very good at office work, finding that I’m better meeting and working with customers and potential customers. (more…)
Filed under All, Corporate Media.
September 16th, 2008
By Renn Vara
With yesterday’s financial news, I’m having déjà-vu all over again. Could it be that we’re facing another drastic fall out in the current business cycle? Having been here to some degree a few times in the past, let me steal some unattributed quotes as a guide for getting through the next few months. (more…)
Filed under All, Corporate Media.
August 5th, 2008
By Renn Vara
When we had our first baby, we weren’t prepared for the onslaught of unsolicited advice. We got it from anyone and everyone. Of course we expected it from the grandparents but not total strangers standing in line at our local Safeway. But that’s where the best advice I ever received came from. And it was this, “Love your kids like crazy and do what works.” (more…)
Tags: corporate communications
Filed under All, Corporate Media.
June 10th, 2008
By Renn Vara
That’s right. And we don’t have clients either, we have customers. My team knows this is a big pet peeve of mine. To me, consultants advise but don’t necessarily do, and the term clients infers dependency while using the term customers clearly states who’s in control. Subtle but important.
This regularly comes up in our business. Traditional corporate communicators and trainers have the habit of calling themselves consultants and refer to customers as clients. So when we hire someone from the industry, they invariably cross swords with me over the subject. It’s a fruitless debate often conceded because “the boss is just a bit nutty and what do I care.”
Well, it’s bigger than that to me. And fundamental to how we view who we are, what we do, and how we do it.
At SNP we’re big believers in being paid for what we actually do versus what we know. That means we don’t charge for advice, meetings, consultations, or anything that involves the sharing of our expertise. That’s free. Why? Because everything we know was funded by customers. We learn from them, we learn from our work with them, and we learn by serving them. We’ve even gone as far as designing a training program without being hired to deliver it. Not good for the bottom line but it fits our long-standing values. (more…)
Filed under All, Corporate Media.
May 6th, 2008
By Renn Vara
Sure. Let’s create another place for people who have too much time on their hands to waste it listening to other people who have too much time on their hands. Sorry for being the cynic. But these people bore me to death with all their babble. Shut up please. Thank you.
There are a number of blogs, podcasts, vidcasts, webevents, and channels trying to duplicate what CNET and TechTV (remember that group of losers?) have both failed to do on the web. We don’t need more TechTV on the web. We do need forums for self expression and for developing micro audiences. Yep, a YouTube for technology companies and their stakeholders. Have you ever wondered why YouTube doesn’t hire technology “broadcasters” to host shows? (more…)
Tags: business communicators,
corporate communications,
corporate media
Filed under All, Corporate Media.
March 20th, 2008
By Renn Vara
Having gone through the dot com era with all its talk about things being different this time, I have mixed feelings about saying the same about what’s happening today in corporate communications. But here goes: (more…)
Tags: corporate communications,
corporate media,
executive communications
Filed under All, Corporate Media.
March 6th, 2008
By Renn Vara
At the risk of being political, we can learn a thing or two about communications in this campaign. Presentation styles, the use of the web, even their content development teach us a lot of the good, the bad, and the ugly of executive communications. (more…)
Tags: election 2008,
executive communications,
leadership training,
presentation skills
Filed under All, Corporate Media.
