You heard it here first!
Now I don’t normally get into the whole joke forwarding Internet meme thing, but this has got to be one of the slickest viral campaigns I’ve seen in a while.
PalTalk, the ancient video IM platform that has been around in some shape or form for the last 7 years is responsible for this one. Looking to cash in on a topical event and some cheap laughs to get some much needed eyeballs onto the site.
I’m on Twitter!
In an effort to try a few more communication tools, I’ve created a Twitter account. You can find me at https://twitter.com/dan_mchugh.
Be great to hear from any of you who are using it, or let me know what your twitter ID so I can stalk you in the nicest possible way 
So what cave have I been hiding in for the past five months?
So I’ve been a little quiet over the past few months.
Why? Well my new role at Microsoft has been kicking me around a lot, challenging a lot of the pre-conceived notions I’ve had about bringing market research and competitive intelligence to an IT audience.
Some of those pre-conceived notions include how people consume research, helping to provide research and intelligence, rather than creating it myself (working with research vendors and data providers) and selling (and reselling) the value of the research that’s been bought to a fairly wide audience, both from a product and regional perspective.
I do have 101 ideas for this blog, so the remit still remains. How to leverage Competitive Intelligence for maximum impact, especially if you’re doing it on a very limited budget.
Some of the posts coming up include:
- The Sponsorship Triangle
- Knowing your business planning process
- The first 90 days at Microsoft and how I’ve used some of my own tools
I’m really looking forward to getting back in the swing of things. To my current readers, thank you for sticking with me during this absence. To new readers, welcome to the blog!
The 1,000 mark and news
Things have been quiet on the blog, but not in the McHugh household!
Firstly, this humble little blog has just gone over the 1,000 page view mark. I wanted to say a big thank you for taking time out of your day to read and comment on some of the posts here.
Secondly, I’m preparing to change companies and roles somewhat. I have accepted a role at Microsoft here in Singapore, working within their Market Intelligence group. This is certainly going to be a challenging role and one that I’m looking forward to.
The nature of this blog will remain the same as what I set out in my very first post. How CI is being used, or misused in Technology companies as well as advice for lone-wolf CI practitioners.
Get off my lawn kids!
I had a good friend forward me this exceptionally funny, albeit scarily accurate poke at the friction between Generation Y and Baby Boomers.
Now I’m a crusty, old Gen X guy, but I would be interested to hear from any Gen Y’s out there who are beginning their careers in CI or Market Intelligence. Promise not to get too jaded or talk about the good ‘ol days!
The Three A’s of Competitive Intelligence – Attitude
Why it’s important?
I’m big on attitude. I’m sure a lot of people are too and that’s why I’ve added this section. Attitude can not only help open doors, but it can help create a sense of action and ownership.
Some of my own personal experiences:
- Attention to detail: One of my earliest experiences with attitude was some advice I received in my first job, contracting with Microsoft, way back in 1998. I’m going to paraphrase but the advice was, “When engineers get things wrong, people get hurt.” The context was that, regardless of the job you do, do it right. When engineers get their sums wrong, bridges collapse. The same rigor and attitude towards analysis and research should be taken. Get your analysis wrong and you’re going to give bad advice. The business will get hurt. Take it personally, your attitude should reflect your passion for irreproachable analysis.
- If you want it, own it: You want to raise awareness to competitive issues, do it. You see a new competitor that you know is a threat, raise it, start coverage. Don’t wait until someone asks you to cover a competitor, be proactive. This can be a balancing act though. I know from past experience pressure of being asked to track too many competitors. Everyone thinks their patch is the most important. Ranking your competitors with respect to threat levels can help make people aware of what you are tracking.
- Listen: A lot of what I’ve been writing in this blog has been about how to get “your” message across to an audience. This is only half the battle. Being willing to listen to sales reps, partners and users experiences with your own product as well as competitor’s offerings is a key attitude trait for CI professionals. Being able to listen to dissenting points of view is often valuable when you’re building consensus.
- Share: Dealing in information can lead to having “silos of data” and, in some extreme cases, “silos of insight” where information is hoarded and used as an internal bargaining chip. Being aware of what information you have, and what information other lines of business may need can dramatically raise your awareness within an organisation. Can public relations use the latest market share or growth figures within a press release or as spokesperson soundbites? Can your marketing group use the information you have gathered on competitors upcoming events to plan better event timing themselves? Your data, may have more than one audience when you think about possible, proactive uses.
That’s it for the Three A’s of CI. I’d really appreciate any feedback on these points, plus any of your own experiences. Should this list be bigger? Smaller? All inputs welcomed!
Will It Blend? Painful!
No doubt you’ll see this link in every second blog, and I’m not one for jumping on bandwagons, but this Blendtec video is just too painful not to share!
I could go on about how these guys must have sat around going;
“You know, every one of our competitors makes a damn good blender – customers just wont care if ours goes an extra 5 rpm, or has interchangeable widgets.. We need to try something that our competitors can’t replicate”.
But I wont. Just sit back and enjoy the carnage!
Interns – not just for making coffee
I’ve tried hard to work out where Eileen Yu at ZDNet Asia is coming from when it comes to interns in the workplace.
On one hand, interns in some companies (that know how to use intern resources) get plenty of resources and an environment where they can truly push themselves and discover what that want to focus on in their careers.
I’m sure there are also plenty of horror stories of interns being used for nothing more than glorified secretaries or gophers.
I’m a product of the Technology Intern system. While I was still studying in Australia I worked at Microsoft covering market intelligence for ANZ as their MI intern. Now we weren’t paid that much, we often worked horrendous hours and often were pushed to be contributing members of the extended marketing, sales and developer groups we were assigned to.
But the thing I remember most of those twelve months was not the long hours or being bribed with t-shirts to do front of house at marketing events. What I remember most was the comradery of the 14 or so interns that were part of the program. Interns from Finance, PR, Marketing, Development, Channel management and so on. All of us focused on one area, but all with a common goal of learning all we could about the organisation.
Because of this comradery, we got together often as a group, talked about things that were happening in our teams and generally thought of ways to save the world. Importantly, as a group, we shared ideas across areas of the business that rarely talked to each other. There was a cross-pollination of ideas and, in a number of cases, those early relationships helped our managers up the chain to solve problems merely because we broke down some of the barriers within the company.
I learnt more about market research from those twelve months than I did from three years of university.
Now I’m getting the chance to hand a little of that learning back to a group of interns within Oracle. Same situation, a group of smart, enthused, talented guys and girls. All of them with a unique and fresh view of the market and the ways things could be done. It’s infectious to say the least.
I know my Intern buddies from back in the day would agree with me.
I disagree that Interns are a hassle. If you’re looking for minimum wage fodder, you’ll burn out these bright sparks and dishearten them faster than you can blink. Interns are an asset and should be seen as such, but you have to put the effort in to have the right framework to take those new minds and harness that energy. Better to not have a program than go in half-heartedly.
Think statistics are boring?
Aaron Koblin looks at 15,000 flights that flew in and out of the USA over a period of 24 hours. You would think that would be pretty much the end of the story. Click to see just how exciting statistics can get!
PowerPoint presentations may never be the same (we can only hope)!
Do you want to be just "a"?
I love Jessica Hagy’s work! Always insightful, quirky and the right mix of dry, black humour that I really get a kick out of.
It also reminds me that we can look at this posting as a representation of what CI practitioners have to do. One commenter got it spot on. B should equal “what you have to do”.
Being in CI often means you have to reach out of that comfort zone to connect with people who have the information you need. Expanding your network, and your workload or coverage is fantastic insurance for any lone-CI practitioner.
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