Ken Rutsky

In my recent article on High Impact Cloud Marketing, I said: Viewpoint is a framing of the market in the context of your uniqueness.  The uniqueness of your team, your capabilities, and your vision.  Some call viewpoint thought leadership, some vision with a capital V, and some brand. and I called on providers to set a unique and compelling viewpoint to create breakthrough for their marketing efforts. While there are many frameworks and techniques to capturing Viewpoint, however defined, one of the simplest and most effective way I have, and one the first I usually pull out of my toolset, is to simple create an X and Y set of axis and coordinate labels for the market.  A simple 2x2 matrix which will then set your view firmly in one corner of the world, the best one! There's a running joke in MBA circles that no presentation is complete without a 2x2 matrix.  This date... (more)

Don't Punt - Winning the Cloud Marketing Battle

Unless you are a hardcore (American) football fan, or happened to just catch the latest episode of HBO Real Sports,  you may have never heard of Coach Kevin Kelley of Pulaski Academy in Little Rock Arkansas. But if you are a football fan, I'd imagine you may hear about him soon even if you forget about this blog. You see, Kelley's teams haven't punted since 2006.  And in that time he has taken his small 350 kid school into the national top 100 rankings and to three state championships while winning well over 90% of his games... You can Google him and easily learn more...here's a... (more)

It's Not Just the Cloud - The Re-invention of Everything

Look around and be amazed, everything is being re-invented.  From the tablet computer to the thermostat, from cars to enterprise software, from incubators to light-bulbs.  We are living in an amazing time.  Opportunities abound to capitalize on the biggest industrial change since electricity. While those of us in Cloud and IT tend to focus on a few ideas like Cloud and Big Data,   we are at the the convergence of 6 megatrends, some new, some old, that when taken together create this incredible rush of innovation and opportunity.  The megatrends are: Microelectronics - Moore's Law ... (more)

High Impact Cloud Marketing - A Formula for Success

Most CEOs I talk to have a jaded, if not skeptical view of marketing. While they recognize the importance of marketing to their long term success, they have a hard time understanding and measuring how well marketing is doing. And while more mature organizations have a good handle on very well tuned marketing metrics and measurement, the question is still always out there. With the advance in marketing automation, new channels of communication, and the avalanche of marketing data now available, marketing has evolved, in many CEOs view, from a black art, to a black science. Hidden... (more)

Why Experience Will Be Key to 2012 Cloud Sales and Marketing

When I was a wet behind the ears sales rep in the Rolling Meadow's Illinois branch office in 1986 (yes, they had computers back then :)), I remember the big sign that hung on the wall: Calls + Demos = Sales Our office sold everything from PCs to copiers (yes, IBM sold copiers) to mini computers (S34, 36, 38, and later AS/400 and RS6000s) and the biggest S360 Mainframes. Though the sign belonged to the "Office Machines", i.e., Copiers, team, I quickly learned in my territory of small manufacturers and distributors, the key to selling the minicomputer lay in not just having the r... (more)