Archives for 2006

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Creative Way to Fight Spam

Posted on May 25, 2006 ·

Now that the Blue Frog is officially dead, I’ve come up with a creative way to fight at least some of the spam we all receive.  It only works with otherwise legitim products where you can identify not the spammer, but the company whose product or service is being pushed.  Find the email address of a company executive; send a polite email telling them from now on you will forward all their spam until they can stop it; then set up an autofilter to do just that: forward all spam to the individual’s email address, deleting the original from yours.

Please note, I’ve only said it’s a creative way, as a theoretical approach,  I have no clue about legal ramifications, so am not recommending you follow this method.  Perhaps a lawyer-reader can jump in here (?)

Thanks to Panda software for providing the inspiration. (scroll down to updates).

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Filed Under: Marketing / PR, Misc ·
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BOSE: Buy Other Sound Equipment

Posted on May 25, 2006 ·

I love it when consumers give new meaning to acronyms, expressing their view of the product, service or company.  I’ve always thought BOSE speakers were overhyped noise-boxes, but that was only my subjective feeling, now here’s a very thorough analysis.  I have to admit I don’t understand half his technical discussion, but just because I am a dummy, he could be right: BOSE means: Buy Other Sound Equipment.

I’m glad my stuff would pass David’s judgement: I only have NHT‘s in the house, which, incidentally is quite an interesting acronym itself: Now Hear This.  I had them direct shipped over a decade ago when I lived in Pennsylvania, and had no clue until today that we’re almost neighbors, since they are located in Benicia, CA.

Anyway, feel free to add other acronyms re-interpreted by customers.

Update (7/10):  Why Bose Sucks Review Resources

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Filed Under: Bay Area, Misc ·
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Wiki Could Have Saved School $250K

Posted on May 24, 2006 ·

This must be my wiki-morning, the second story in a row.  I have a backlog of posts to finish and I find myself reacting to news instead.  I should follow Stefan’s example, and stay focused .. yet the opportunity is too good to miss.

“At Cobb County school system in Georgia,a spam filter is causing a political dust-up.

Officials say a bid to provide telephone services to the system was gobbled up by the filter, and the bidder was subsequently disqualified, according to a report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The term “long distance” was apparently what triggered the block.

The school system had requested an e-mail as a follow-up to the formal bid, which had previously been submitted on paper. When they didn’t see the reply, officials dismissed the bidder and awarded the contract to another–more expensive–contractor. Now the bidder and the school system are arguing over whose fault it was.” (source: Blogma)

Here’s a wonderful showcase that calls for a wiki.   Set up separate pages for each participating vendor where they directly upload all relevant documentation.  If they make changes, the wiki keeps track of versions and shows what the changes are.  School district officials who have a role in the decision-making process have access to all vendor pages, so they can compare the bids, plus they can set up their own internal workpages where the create notes, discussions, tables .. i.e. collaborate easily.

At the end of the process they have one compact site, the wiki that includes the official bids as well as all supporting documentation instead of hundreds of emails, cc’s, untrackable attachments.

(I have posted parts of this article on The SME Blog where I am a guest blogger)

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Filed Under: Collaboration, Software ·
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JotSpot Marries Salesforce

Posted on May 24, 2006 ·

In late 2004 I implemented JotSpot and NetSuite about the same time. The wiki project was a few weeks ahead, and within days of starting with NetSuite it became clear that there are potential areas of overlap between the two. For example we had already started to maintain competitor-, trade association info on the Jot wiki, also managed our marketing and sales collateral there (version control is a lifesaver), and all of a sudden we realized there is a more structured home for this information within NetSuite.

So early on we had to make decisions on what information should live in the wiki or the CRM system, and we took care of the “integration” by cross-linking such pages. As rudimentary this approach was, it worked well, and both being hosted applications we could surf back-and-forth seamlessly .

The experience was an eye-opener to me: all businesses have a need for both structured and unstructured (OK, semi-structured) data management, collaboration, and this means a potentially huge channel for the wiki guys: their product should be a natural extension of all Enterprise Applications (ERP, CRM, Accounting …etc).
These are seemingly two different worlds: traditional enterprise software is process-driven, while the wiki guys consider process dead, it’s all about freewheeling, creative collaboration of independent minds. Well, businesses need both.

Back then we were Jot’s first corporate customers, so I had direct channels to Joe, and recommended him to team up with the likes of NetSuite, Salesforce ..etc. The idea was not a winner, they were busy building their word-of-mouth, bottom-up, quick-signup pipeline, and Enterprise Software appeared to be a strangely different world.
I’m glad to see they have come around, as expressed in Joe’s excellent writeup, as well as their partnering with Salesforce.com. Congratulations!

And to the rest of the Enterprise Software world (my old world): you guys ALL need a wiki.

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Filed Under: Collaboration, ERP / CRM, SaaS ·
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AntiSpam Software Maker the Worst Spammer

Posted on May 23, 2006 ·

(Updated)
Panda Software offers “protection against viruses, spyware, hackers, spam and other Internet threats“.

I find it ironic to receive on average two spam emails per day from the spam-protection company (it’s just the average, on 5/17 I received 5!).  Or is it some twisted logic that says eventually I surrender and buy their product, then, and only then I can stop their spam?  C’mon guys, I am used to receiving spam from others, but not at this rate…   Let’s suppose I am in the market for antivirus software, and let’s suppose yours the best, I would still not buy it after the way you treated me!.

What kind of idiot does it take to think that making customers hate them will drive them to buy their products?

Update (5/23):  Apparently I am not the only one. There is a whole thread on Panda Spam at the PC Pitstop:

“I responded to their Unsubscribe address, but it didn’t help at all. I

went to Panda’s site and wrote to a few of their support and sales

email addresses, explaining the situation and asking to be removed from

all of their marketing lists. No response, and the emails keep on

coming.
I set up my spam filters to stop them, but they still

keep coming almost daily! (Using K-9 with Pocomail) How do they do

that? I guess that they are, after all, experts in the spam department

and would know how to circumvent such filters. But why would they?”

Update (5/23):   After all the bad experience a pleasant surprise: Carolina, PR Manager at Panda emailed me in perhaps less than an hour, apologized and promised to fix it.  Kudos for paying attention and being so prompt.  Of course, ideally, it would not take PR’s intervention to fix this … and  again, what happens to all the other people complaining on the PC Pitstop?   Carolina, again, thanks for helping me,  but the real nice solution would be to revise your spam and opt-out policy. If you do, I’ll write about it.

Update (5/25):  Well, whatever Carolina did, had no effect, I am still receiving Panda Spam.  To her credit, she responded to my email in less than a minute: “I’ll contact the marketing again. I will walk over there

myself.”  Thanks, Carolina.  Just so you know, I took out a little insurance: set up a filter that forwards all Panda-mail to you, deleting the original copy.  Don’t worry, you won’t get a lot of spam – if you can stop it, that is.

Update (6/2):  Panda is unstoppable.  It no longer bothers me, since I have it auto-forwarded to Carolina. She is clearly motivated to stop it, but apparenly can’t – I can still see the forwarded copies in my trash folder. Perhaps she gave up, too, and created an auto-delete filter.

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Filed Under: Marketing / PR, Software ·
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Evolution of Dance

Posted on May 23, 2006 ·

This hilarious video (thanks, Ben!)  is making the rounds in the Blogosphere… so far it’s been  viewed 13,670,175 times (yes, that’s 13 million), and it has 2811 comments – good luck reading it.

 
Should the embedded video not work in the feed, click here to watch it.

Filed Under: Misc ·
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Startup Names Have Changed…

Posted on May 23, 2006 ·

Here’s the list of  ‘Connected Innovators‘ picked for SuperNova 2006. (hat tip: Alexander Muse)

Can you pick the odd one out?  Click for clue.

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Filed Under: Bay Area, Business, Humor, Startups ·
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Government Officials Get Into Fistfigth on TV

Posted on May 23, 2006 ·

A brief fist-fight between Czech Health Care Minister David Rath and an adviser to President Vaclav Klaus made front-page headlines in Czech newspapers Monday after film of the weekend incident was broadcast on television.

Filed Under: Humor, Politics ·
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How SAP Ended up Promoting NetSuite

Posted on May 22, 2006 ·

NetSuite, the provider of perhaps the best hosted integrated software solution for the SMB market tried to rain on SAP’s parade during SAPPHIRE 06 in Orlando. They planned to host a cocktail party in a hotel suite right across the Convention Center. The party’s theme was “SAP for the rest of us” and the email invitation posed a question/answer: “Who will become the SAP for the midmarket? (It Ain’t SAP),” Cute.

Of course SAP got p***ed and enforced it’s contractual right to cancel competitive events in any of the SAPPHIRE venues. SAP’s Spokesman Bill Wohl called NetSuite’s move “guerilla marketing“.

Now, what’s wrong with Guerilla Marketing? It’s fun … if you have humor to appreciate it. Last week SAP didn’t. The result? NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson laughed off the “loss” and will hold a web-conference instead. This being a juicy story of course it got picked up in the media and quite a few blogs – the media blitz lasted a few days, then will start again around the web-conference … so basically SAP’s decision to kill the party provided NetSuite with a fair amount of publicity – exactly what it needs as it ramps up for its IPO planned later this year. Zach should send a thank-you note to SAP.

Here’s what I think SAP should have done: let it happen, and set up their own counter-party. Had it been allowed to proceed it would have been a noon-event. Not that NetSuite is a negligible company, in fact they have an excellent product. Some say Salesforce.com is just a glorified contact manager relative to NetSuite, and I tend to agree. (I put my money where my mouth is: in my last corporate job I became a NetSuite customer, after careful comparison to Salesforce). That said, NetSuite is targeting strictly the SMB market, in fact more the “S” than the “M”, while SAP despite all their SMB initiatives is still largely the Enterprise Company – SMB is just not their sweet spot. SAP had their own SMB people in Orlando (I interviewed Gadi Shamia, SVP for SMB Solutions, and intend to write about it soon) – they should have set up their own party right next to NetSuite, and present SAP’s vision for that market segment. In fact they could have embraced the NetSuite event (steal their show) and make up SAP logo’d signs pointing to both events.

The impact of the NetSuite party, especially in an environment where most participants are already biased towards SAP would have been minimal. In fact NetSuite had more to gain from the cancellation and the resulting media blitz then actually proceeding with the party … so much so, that I wonder if NetSuite intentionally leaked the news to SAP – a brilliant PR coup, if you ask me.

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Filed Under: Business, Enterprise Software, ERP / CRM, Marketing / PR, SaaS, SMB / SME · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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SaaS – Something as a Service :-)

Posted on May 22, 2006 ·

SaaS, for Software as a Service is likely the single most used acronym in the software industry.
Vinnie is talking about HaaS, as in Hardware as a Service.  (Or is he promoting the Haas School? )
Wow, before this trend takes off, I better remind everyone that I have ZaaS reserved.

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Filed Under: Humor ·
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