Blogging Advice for Karl

Posted: 11:14 am
November 21, 2007
Friends, SMB
1 Comment

Anyone that has ever met Karl will certainly claim he is one of the nicest people out there. He is. But when you blog, a lot gets lost in translation. Perhaps the reason most people don’t blog. I can tell you that most people think Susan Bradley blogs with a viking horn hat on, laptop in one hand and a pitchfork in the other. She is also one of the nicest people I know. Andy Goodman has on many occasions told me that there are people out there that are afraid to call / email me because they don’t want to be murdered over the phone. I don’t claim to be nice, but damn.. Check this one out:

First email:

Second, tell me about lunch. I only want to sound like the successful Vlad, not the guy who ends up pissing off more people before 7AM than most people do all week.

Second reply:

And give me credit for not using the phrase “All asshole, all the time.”

Every time you blog, your words are read in the context of the emotional state of the reading party. If they are having a bad day and you say “Indian” the wrong way, you just sounded like a racist. If they haven’t had a proper breakfast and read your blog post in the morning, you could be the guy that ruined their entire day by bringing them down.

Even if you had a grin from ear to ear as you wrote it.

So here is a little blogging advice: Anything negative you ever post will backfire on you one way or the other. There is no such thing as “constructive criticism online” or something you’re posting to get people to see things in a different light. People do not like change, people do not like to be told they are wrong, people don’t like to be criticized, put down, discouraged or encouraged to change.

So you should shut down your blog now, go to sleep, and hide in your little cubicle. Right? Wrong. For every 10 people that cannot look past the words and understand the message (the people that couldn’t think less of you) you will have one person that will now be your friend and your undying advocate because you can talk about both good and the bad. And perhaps people can respect you for being fair, not for being a fanboy. And perhaps those are the only friends that you want, that will give you the good and the bad, for the folks that just like you when you smile are going to be gone the moment you actually need to count on them.

So yes, all asshole, just not all the time.  Welcome to the club, Karl. Andy too. Thank you for making the SMB tech blogs less of a place for people to lie to one another.

Straight Outta.. Orlando?

Posted: 10:16 am
November 21, 2007
Misc
1 Comment

Woke up quick at about noon,

Just thought that I had to be in Orlando soon?

Ok, enough with NWA references but this probably means I can no longer make fun of Erick Simpson’s Compton back yard, I got my own little thugville here in Orlando. #1 in forclosures, #11 in murders.

Hell, even cops shoot other cops here!

So bring your kids to Orlando’s fine tourist attractions, they can meet Mickey Mouse and Spungebob Squarepants, just make sure you don’t go to the three o’clock parade, anytime you see a car creeping up with a bunch of people on the back of it you know some violence is about to go down.

The SMB Microsoft Partner Challenge: Understanding Competition

Posted: 1:29 am
November 21, 2007
Microsoft, SMB
2 Comments

Earlier today I had a chance to have lunch with one of my local partners. We sat around and chatted about Karl’s latest posts and he remarked how much Karl is starting to sound like me. Poor Karl. I laughed at first but then he threw two more questions my way:

Given what you know, how can you afford to continue to sell Microsoft software? Moreover, how can you continue to be supportive of SBSC, SMB partners, smallbiz in general if its all being obsoleted and consolidated?

Ouch. I know my answer, but that would be one hard kick in the balls if I were a Microsoft employee. I have always been able to draw the distinction between people that work at Microsoft, and what Microsoft sells itself as. And as I have proudly told you all before, I  copy Microsoft.

So while I know what my answer is, I want you to think of your own answer to the question above as we head into the Thanksgiving holiday. You may just either figure it out or have a sudden change of heart. For once, I leave you to this without my opinion.

Pardon The Bucket

Posted: 2:48 pm
November 20, 2007
Uncategorized
Comments Off on Pardon The Bucket

Pardon the bucket, just testing.

info@owndemo.com

mapstiab@owndemo.com

postmaster@owndemo.com

Rock on.

America’s Thanksgiving Tech Consumerism Yawn

Posted: 9:39 am
November 20, 2007
Misc
1 Comment

The consumer yawn over the big “Black Friday” sale grows louder and louder. Interestingly enough, nowhere is this more pronounced than in technology, the one thing people are actually willing to part with big sums of money for.

This year.. looks pretty pathetic. It is dominated by large screen television sets, which by the look of things just look way out of touch. Nobody is sitting around thinking they could use an extra TV in the game room for $1,000 or more. Meanwhile, the “laptops” they are trying to push this holiday season aren’t even appropriate for the third world use – get this, they are selling a Celeron with 512mb ram with Vista for $229. Good lord, and you think people hate Vista now, wait till they crank it on that Celery on battery-saving mode.

123-Reg Hosting Service Offline All Weekend

Posted: 5:00 pm
November 19, 2007
IT Business
Comments Off on 123-Reg Hosting Service Offline All Weekend

I tend to keep my company to a really high standard because not only is it my business, but my business rides on top of that infrastructure. So when someone has a problem, its my problem too. I tend to say we suck (though over 2007 we have fixed approximately 80% of the outstanding issues) but things happen to get much worse out there. Take a look at this story.

One of the ISPs in UK, 123-Reg, apparently (just guessing but their comments and commenters) had a DDoS take its name servers out of commission on Friday and they apparently had the weekend off and didn’t get around to recovering the service till last night.

But note the comments.. people are pissed not because the stuff crashed, not because the money they lost, not because of incompetence – they are pissed because there was no notice, no communication, no way to reach anyone.

This is a big problem, one that is very complex to fix. If you think it’s simple, you can probably count the number of customers on one hand. Establishing the communications channel is simple – you throw up a blog, podcast, video blog, newsletter, direct mail, print it on the back of the business card, scotch tape it to the bathroom door. The complex part is getting your customer base to adapt to the single, official communications process. Your customers have to adopt your preferred way of communication to theirs. It can be tough to do, but it has to be firm and it has to be consistent.

After all, you can’t order a Pizza at a McDonalds.. And you can’t request support through email. 🙂 (I’ve said this dozens of times and never had my ass kicked, your mileage may vary)

When conflict of interest strikes back: Apple, Amazon

Posted: 9:30 am
November 19, 2007
IT Culture, Web 2.0
2 Comments

Over the past few days the Internet has been full of the conflict of interest coverage, be it from jaded lovers or angry blog authors who thought they mattered.. and I suppose it’s a sad realization when you realize you don’t.

First up, Scoble seems to be surprised that his friends will not go on camera bashing Apple for their crappy products. It’s got nothing to do with Apple, it all has to do with self-interest: CEO’s of Web 2.0 vaporware have to be nice to everyone on the record because they want to do business or be acquired by those companies. Scoble, who gets a lot of press attention, is a blogger – not press, so he didn’t get the iPhone up front or a free PowerMac or whatever he wanted so he is calling Apple for what everyone already knows. Second, a whole slew of people seem pissed at Steven Levy, who gave a glowing review of what is one fugly, closed, DRM-ridden piece of trash product from Amazon that costs more than the competition. Who is complaining? Thats right, the guys that didn’t get a free one.

To put it in perspective, this is like me calling out Microsoft for Zune 2 sucking because I didn’t get one. And that Lamborgini Murcielago, what a joke!

So here is a lesson for the aspiring bloggers: You either have to be an undying, unquestionable fanboy, or you better hide from any camera / voice recorder / cell phone lest you be caught saying the wrong thing to the wrong people..

How do these folks sleep at night with all that ego and fear on their minds?

Who’s yo daddy now, bitch? (Microsoft 2, SMB IT Providers 0)

Posted: 7:50 pm
November 18, 2007
IT Business, System Admin
9 Comments

Mark says: “ODG, was Vlad actually right?”

Now Mark is a pretty smart guy but I get the “I hate it when you’re right” speach every other day from people that deal with me (as opposed to “OMG, you’re not a total ass I imagined!” that I get every day). It really pains me when you look at some of my posts and make it out like I was the first one to call the date of Christ’s return.

This stuff was apparent and obvious to everyone in this sector a long time ago. Yet, when I wrote that post I got slammed as I usually do. So let’s rewind:

Google emerges among Microsoft’s inability to dominate the Internet through its closed software and closed standards. Majority adopts open source and open standards, Google gives everything away for free and just drops a few ads on the side that nobody seems to mind. Google becomes a dominant force in the fight for Internet eyeballs, starts moving the software it beta tests on the consumers into universities and into companies. It starts building its suite off easy to use products while Microsoft suffers embarrasing product releases, support, pricing schemes and PR problems. Everyone except the privacy advocates love Google, hating Microsoft turns into a dominant smartphone, major switch PR campaign and disenfranchised partner ecosystem that sees a sunset to its business process as everyone enters the fight for the SMB customer.

And then that sound of inevidability, that nobody likes to believe is very loud for everyone to hear: Big companies like working with big companies.

You see companies hedging their bets and teaming up with one another for the be all end all goal of owning the largest piece of the audience – with it, their entertainment dollars, business dollars, service dollars, ecommerce dollars and so on. The race is on, current business models are changing at the top and that is something to pay attention to.

Yet, my dear peers beat me up when I said everyone needs to go to attend WWPC if they want to be at the front of the pack. Everyone discounts the posts about Google when the conversation about SMB is taking place. Everyone laughs when I talk about Microsoft..

Yet, Karl and I sat there at WWPC during Steve Ballmers keynote and watched him outline a 3 year plan to replace the only advantage IT solution providers in SMB sector currently have: direct access to the customer.

What’s your move? More importantly, who is yo daddy?

Update: I feel compelled to admit that I left one thing out:

This move does not make Microsoft the devil, they happen to be the victim in the current arrangement. Yes, even with 30 billion a quarter, their future looks grim. Their online services division loses a billion a year and they have made far too many enemies in every segment and every industry and each day makes them look worse while Google and Apple can seem to do no wrong. Microsoft is given 0 benefit of the doubt, while Leopard has worse troubles than Vista ever had, iPhone is more closed than anything Microsoft ever put together and guess who is the saint and who is the devil in that equation.

People are speculating that Microsoft needs to buy Yahoo to stay relevant in the Web 2.0 race. They are investing in Facebook. They are trying to do everything they can to remain on top and keep their investors sitting on their hands. If you invested in Google a year ago, your money would have doubled. If you did the same for Apple, your money would have tripled. Microsoft, you’d be lucky to cover the trade comission.

Microsoft has no friends. It has no loyal friends either – Dell is selling Linux and Solaris, Intel is powering their main competitors…. and in turn, as an organization it must do what it has to in order to grow, prosper and keep people from pulling their money out of Nasdaq: MSFT.

In the grand scheme of things, Microsoft just got a huge friend in Comcast and hedged its bets against its competitors in Google.

It’s a great day for Microsoft.

Sucks if you’re their partner that just saw the Software+Services replace your competitive advantage.

-Vlad

Office Space Moment of Smallbiz IT Consulting

Posted: 11:10 am
November 18, 2007
SMB
Comments Off on Office Space Moment of Smallbiz IT Consulting

I must admit that I am more of a fan of conversations that happen out there than I am of the “original” posts, so for a few people I subscribe to the blog comment feeds in addition to the article lists. Helps me see what others think in response. This comment in particular really made me think of Office Space, it’s of an IT consultant looking for Microsoft to paint a better “value proposition” picture for his clients:

“I guess the thing I struggle with is knowing *how* to engage with MS when MS are just one of my product stack. I reckon that when we put a proposal together we get stuff from about 8-10 different sources, one of them being Microsoft. Microsoft are basically box-shifters, they want volume and I can’t (and probably never will) give them great volumes. All their campaigns, go-to-markets etc all seem to be about shifting product whereas what we need is something that helps with blending all those disparate strands together to make a compelling message for our clients.”

In USA, Microsoft has gotten a lot better in helping smallbiz IT consultants paint a compelling picture of integrated services, software and benefits. They will help you market, deliver, support and even finance the solution.

That bold faced part in the quote above really made me think of Office Space where the two consultants look at the employee, puzzled, and ask: “What would you say it is YOU DO around here?” 

So allow me to help: You see, it is your job as an IT consultant to make a compelling message for me as your client, it is your job to do it based on experience with the product and not what the vendor cookie cuttered for you, it is your job to tie it in as to make the most benefit for my current problem and fit my business process, it is your job to make it happen and support it in my environment.

Otherwise, what is it you do? Sit around and click Next/Finish all day?

Food for thought people. You cannot just be a reseller anymore or an MSP that only claims to keep computers up and clean of spyware because the big boys are coming and you need a competitive edge. And you need differentiation, and if you’re all going into a pitch with the same Microsoft canned page then you’ll be judged by the only differentiating factor you present – your price. And when you compete on price, you always lose.

* P.S. Regarding the commenters “struggle with Microsoft” – give it up sir. Microsoft’s answer to being used with competitive third party software has been, is, and always will be “We have a product that will do that, why don’t you use it instead?”

CEO Gig: Optimization vs. Interaction

Posted: 11:11 pm
November 17, 2007
Friends, IT Business, SMB
Comments Off on CEO Gig: Optimization vs. Interaction

This week was supposed to be my first full week of work at the Atomic Tangerine studios.. Monday was a holiday, Tuesday was a sick day and week was more than half over by the time I finished hanging the whiteboard in the studio. And as I stood there, in front of my crooked whiteboard, doodling the week objectives that I could get done in two days, I started reminiscing about the very reason I moved downtown, to improve the interaction I have with my customers. In order for that to become reality I either need to clone myself or optimize the hell out of my daily tasks. I am not sure if I’m the only CEO that thinks about this and I’m sure I don’t have enough brilliant ideas to get this done, so I’m going to let you into my head and you let me know if you’re on the same page.

How do you improve interaction with your clients in a material way? I have two types of clients, technical and business driven. My technical customers include CIO’s, CTO’s, office IT administrators and network operators, they want documentation, howto’s, solution overviews. My business driven customers include IT Solution Providers, consultants and CEO’s who may have a problem in hand and want a blueprint of how to get it done the best way. When I start talking costs and productivity with the technical crowd the eyes start rolling, when I talk tech to the business crowd I see the bobblehead effect.

Point is, neither side wants to hear what the other side is concerned about.

But as this company grows beyond the infrastructure, development and services and now heading into hardware, the pressure I face to stay relevant to both crowds is rising.

It’s not an easy gig either. When these folks interact with me they expect professional delivery, courtesy, compassion… which in no small part makes Vladville an outlet for my alter ego and the reason its so god awful filthy and direct.

So.. over the past almost 5–6 months I’ve taken what I’ve learned on the road over the past two years from some of the very best people in the business and I’m slowly starting to implement it all. The “needs” analysis has been overwhelming to say the least but the challenge of remaining direct without adding in intermediaries (sales staff, partner managers, customer service reps and other relationship-inhibiting roles) is not an easy task.

I have two pieces of advice to offer based on my personal experience:

People want to hear from you. Not from your CTO, not from “The Genius Employee”, not from the bobblehead sales guy. They want to have some level of comfort in knowing that this company they trusted with a critical piece of their solution actually works on providing that solution.

Get a camera. I have a Microsoft face-tracking one that I record my blog posts (not Vladville) and PR pieces on and I do two exercises: ass-check and blabber-check. Ass-check is the feeling of sincerity I need from what I’m saying – if it looks canned or arrogant it gets chopped. The blabber-check is the scanning for answers to questions nobody asked – there is no need to ramble on about unrelated details when people just want an overview. Camera will unveil these personality (professional?) flaws immediately. You can flow face-to-face if you have any personality, you can’t judge body language, intimidation, concern or humor through the written word – you always come off like an ass, guaranteed.

The final bit of this puzzle is relevance. Who gives a s… what I think? If you asked ten of my clients if they cared, all 10 would say “none at all” because I am not addressing their complete and immediate concerns. This is one question that none of my peers could ever help with, so I looked at how one of the most irrelevant companies gets this done – Apple Computer. Apple has been irrelevant (market share) or on the verge of extinction for at least two decades yet they manage to get people to stop and pay attention to them whether they are launching a crippled iPhone or a more glossy laptop case. I’ve studied Apple very closely and seen just what makes Steve so powerful – They are about one thing and one thing only. All seemingly done by one guy. Seriously, Apple Computer is a one man show that at any time talks about only one product. Go to their web site – easy, they released an OS. Now, go to Microsoft’s – holy clustercfuck, mobile phones, office, Live Search, articles, screen savers, livecare, Silverlight? What is this page designed for, a cow inflicted by ADD? Now, guess which company is more successful..

Point is, Apple makes the audience care about what they are talking about, whereas I am about whatever you want me to be right now. While the hooker approach works in person, indirectly via the web (newsletter, video, podcast) you pick a story and beat the crap out of it. I chose to copy Apple. I feel it is the only way for people to stop and hear you out, because anyone will spend 10 seconds to get your take from your area of expertise – but they won’t spend 30 seconds to hear the top 10 list.

How do you stay relevant in your customers face? Food for thought…