Fall Marketing Stories. Product Launches and New Clients.

Fall in DC is my favorite time of year.

Football.

Lower humidity. Normal, comfortable temperatures.

Product launches and new clients.

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” — Albert Camus

All good things.

As per usual, take a quick break from your busy fall schedule and check out these articles:

1. Why big companies squander brilliant ideas, Tim Hartford
2. The Long Goodbye (To Facebook), Om Malik
3. Pivot to traditional: Direct-to-consumer brands sour on Facebook ads, DigiDay
4. LinkedIn Lead Generation: Definitive Guide (Updated 2018), Angelo Sorbello
5. Sunk Cost Sinks Ships, Medium

If you need help reaching your sales and marketing goals, email me and we'll schedule a free consultation.

Worldly Marketing Wisdom- What is the One Key to Marketing Success?

So why am I sending you this newsletter? 

My goal every day is to try and live up to the advice of Warren Buffet's business partner. 

“Go to bed smarter than when you woke up.”
— Charlie Munger

I try to read as much as I can. About marketing. Sales. Design. Startups. Software. Business. Economics. Personal improvement. 

Some of the things I read are crap and not worth sharing. Some, however are pretty good.

With that in mind, take a quick break and check out these articles:

What caught my eye in the past month?

1. Tesla, software and disruption, Benedict Evans
2. How the Blog Broke the Web, Amy Hoy
3. Building a Storybrand: The 7 Prospect Desires Your Business Depends On, MarTech
4. 50 Split Testing Ideas (You Can Run Today!), Neil Patel
5. The Websites Of 35 Unicorn Startups Before They Became Billion-Dollar Companies, CB Insights

If your marketing plan isn't functioning as well as you'd like, email me and we'll schedule a free consultation.

Marketing Links for August

This post will be short, as I'm sure most of you want skip over this part and click on links to five awesome marketing articles. 

What caught my eye in the past month?

1. 100+ Blog Post Title Templates That Grab Attention, TwelveSkip
2. How Long Should Your SaaS Software Trial Period Be?, Tomasz Tunguz
3. The Hyperfragmentation of Retail and Why the Biggest Winners are Digital Ad Platforms, not Microbrands, Namrata Patel
4. 15 Mind-Blowing Stats About GDPR, CMO.com
5. Ultimate Cognitive Bias Survival Guide, Geek Wrapped

If your marketing plan isn't functioning as well as you'd like, email me and we'll schedule a free consultation.

Honeycomb Consulting Covered in Washington Post

So...I'd like to brag a little bit. LOL.

I was asked to appear on a panel for DC Entrepreneur Week. The topic was on branding and marketing a startup, something that I love to talk about. The other panelists were super engaging and intelligent, so it was a great discussion. Anyway, the Washington Post wrote a short overview of the event, with a quote from yours truly.

Read it here: 5 take-aways from DC Entrepreneurship Week’s panel on “Creating a Loyal Brand”

Tuesday Reads: Inbound Marketing, Housing Bubble

Marketing Research Chart: What are the most valuable inbound lead sources? - Kaci Bower, MarketingSherpa

The fine folks at MarketingSherpa released a new report on inbound marketing and surprise, surprise inbound marketing if effective.

Leads obtained from inbound marketing tactics, such as SEO, social media and blogs, have increased in importance over the last 12 months, particularly when compared to leads from outbound marketing programs. Inbound marketing tactics tend to be cost-effective, and offer an efficient option for generating highly qualified leads.

Twelve Facts That May Surprise You About the Housing Bust - Nick Timiraos, WSJ

A new paper was released by the Federal Reserve that analyzed the housing bubble/crash. Their viewpoint is that the commonly accepted reasons for the bubble aren't really true. Agree?

Fact 1: Resets of adjustable-rate mortgages did not cause the foreclosure crisis.
Fact 2: No mortgage was “designed to fail.”
Fact 3: There was little innovation in mortgage markets in the 2000s.
Fact 4: Government policy toward the mortgage market did not change much from 1990 to 2005.
Fact 5: The originate-to-distribute model was not new.
Fact 6: MBS, CDOs, and other “complex financial products” had been widely used for decades.
Fact 7: Mortgage investors had lots of information.
Fact 8: Investors understood the risks.
Fact 9: Investors were optimistic about house prices.
Fact 10: Mortgage market insiders were the biggest losers.
Fact 11: Mortgage market outsiders were the biggest winners.
Fact 12: Top-rated bonds backed by mortgages did not turn out to be “toxic.” Top-rated bonds in collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) did.

New SIIA Webinar: "The New Marketing Paradigm: Social Media in a B2B Setting"

I'm announcing a new webinar series, "The New Marketing Paradigm: Social Media in a B2B Setting", to be held over the next four months, sponsored by my firm, Strategic Communications Group, in conjunction with the Software and Information Industry Association. We will explore the many business applications of social media in a business to business environment. Some of the topics will cover how and when to use social media for:

• Lead generation
• Enterprise sales support
• Competitive intelligence gathering
• Deal capture
• Distribution partner identification and cultivation
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Executive visibility and thought leadership
• Reputation management
• Employee recruitment
• Team, culture and morale building

Click on this link for more information and to register: "The New Marketing Paradigm: Social Media in a B2B Setting"

Webinar #1: Overview of Business Applications of Social Media
Price for All: Free
Tuesday, September 8th - 1:30pm - 3:00pm EDT
Social media has already begun the transformation of how we interact, and has the potential to transform the way we do business. Understanding and effectively implementing a social media strategy can have a major impact on how businesses are perceived and how they interact with their customers. Nowhere is this more evident than the PR, marketing and sales departments. In this 90-minute webinar, you'll hear how social media tools can be used in lead generation, enterprise sales support, competitive intelligence management, employee recruitment, team culture & morale boosting, and branding & awareness

Moderator:
Karen Leavitt, CEO, Marketing Fusion
Panelists
Jeff Majka, Director of Marketing and Business Development, Strategic Communications Group
Gail Nelson, SVP, Marketing, BurrellesLuce
Angela Lauria, CMO, AppAssure

Webinar #2: Enterprise Sales Support - Using Social Medial to Support the Enterprise B2B Sales Cycle
Price for All: Free
Monday, October 5th - 1:30pm - 2:30 pm EDT
With new service-based models and the rise of "freemium", the sales cycle is getting complicated -- and every advantage counts. Social media has the potential to connect these new models to the customers that want them, but how do you implement it? Where do you start? Hear how social media can transform the way you approach lead generation and sales cycle support.

Webinar #3: Using Social Media to Target the C-Suite and Close Deals
Price for SIIA Members: Free, Non SIIA Members: $89
Monday, November 2 - 1:30pm - 2:30 pm EDT

Many of your customers are using social media to communicate with THEIR customers. How can you tap into their social media programs? The first step to closing the deal is to conduct a social media audit of your principal prospects. How can this be completed efficiently and comprehensively for a large number of prospects? How can you facilitate social media for deal capture?

Webinar #4: Social Media for Brand Awareness, Thought Leadership and Other Traditional PR Activities
Price for SIIA Members: Free, Non SIIA Members: $89
Monday, December 7th - 1:30pm - 2:30 pm EDT
Social media should be an integral part of your PR strategy, not just your sales function. To run a successful campaign Marketing, Sales and PR need to be integrated using today's popular social media tools. How can you effectively integrate your social media strategy across the enterprise?

Moderator:
Robert Carroll, VP Marketing, Clickability
Panelist:
Richard Dym, CMO, OpSource, Inc.

I'll be updating this page as we add more speakers. If you'd like to submit your name as a possible speaker, or if you have any other topic suggestions, please don't hesitate to email me at jmajka@gotostrategic.com.

Super Bowl!

So...the exciting part of the my little vacation was that my Dad and I scored two tickets to the Super Bowl this past Sunday. Obviously, this was a can't miss game!



I'm not a Patriots or a Giants fan, but this Super Bowl was going to be historic one way or another. Either the Pats were going to go undefeated or the Giants were going to overcome a 12 point underdog spread and have one of the bigger upsets in Super Bowl history.

To those of you who watched the game on TV, let me say that it was even more exciting in person. The Crowd was half Pats, half Giant fans and each group was cheering pretty much the whole game. Everyone stood for the last 15 minutes of the game. I can't believe how lucky I am to have witnessed such a great game in person. Life is truly good!!

The FBR Open

I was on a little vacation last week to visit my parents in Arizona (which is why I haven't been posting). I had high expectations of wearing shorts and getting a nice tan while playing lots of golf. Sadly, the weather was cool- mostly in the lower 60's. Not too bad, compared to some other places, but not what I was hoping for.

We spent a couple of days at the FBR Open, a PGA Tour event, held at the TPC Scottsdale each year. It was packed with people- the crowds set an all time record, over 170,000 people were there on Saturday. Known as a party with a bit of golf thrown in, I had heard stories about the rowdy crowds at the famous par 3 16th hole. Surrounded by hills, grandstands and skyboxes, 20,000 fans cheer good shots and boo bad ones. Not normal behavior for the PGA Tour- so bad in fact, some golfers refuse to play the FBR!

All I can say is that the stories are true. I spent Saturday afternoon in the crowd at the 16th and we all cheered, and yes, booed the golfers depending on how close the hole they got. It was all good-natured and a lot of fun. From what I could see, the golfers seemed to be enjoying it too.

New Site to Me: Gooruze?

I spent far too much time today reading blogs in Google Reader. I find it endlessly fascinating how this new-ish medium (Social Media- in case you're not following) is impacting traditional PR and how it's not impacting it. During my reading, I saw a link to a site called Gooruze. I went a checked it out and decided to become a member (jmajka.gooruze.com).

Gooruze is a social networking site for marketing and PR professionals where they can interact, share advice and rank news, blogs, and other content. A very cool idea that I've seen executed in number of other verticals. I'm hoping that I'll find it as valuable as I hope.

Overselling Wiki-search?

Wikipedia has launched a new search engine that it hopes will compete with Google. Here is an article about the launch of the alpha version of the service- http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ed891746-bd8a-11dc-b7e6-0000779fd2ac.html

Normally, I don't pay any attention to the comings and goings of various search engines. Google is the 9,000 pound gorilla and will be for the foreseeable future. But when the founder of one the fastest growing, most transformational, and biggest websites puts his rep on the line for a better mousetrap, you need to at least pay attention.

Economics Post!

I have economics degree from American University (go Eagles!) so I try to keep up with the latest economic news and I tend to view business and commerce through a more objective economist's viewpoint (well, I try anyway). Sometimes this is helpful and sometimes not so much...

Anyway, I read a really good, concise, easy to understand article in the WSJ just now on our current economics situation- credit crisis, slumping growth and all that. A subscription is required to read it (for now anyway). But go buy the dead tree version- you'll thank me.

Here is a juicy quote:

What's with all the gloom about the U.S. economy? The problem is that we have two problems. One is that the economy is slouching toward recession or, at best, slow growth. It's the consequence of falling house prices, higher energy prices, flagging consumers and shrinking profits.

The other is that the market for credit, the lifeblood of a modern economy, isn't functioning well. That problem is amplifying the pain caused by the first.

Just a few weeks ago, a lot of folks were arguing that the worst was behind us. Housing was still ailing. But after a big wallop, markets for credit seemed to be moving toward normalcy. The Federal Reserve ended its Oct. 31 meeting declaring that the "upside risks to inflation roughly balance the downside risks to growth." If Fed officials truly believed that then, they no longer do. They'll likely cut interest rates again on Tuesday. Only the most optimistic observers expect the U.S. economy to rebound quickly from its fourth-quarter slump. The argument now is between those forecasters who expect growth to be so slow in early 2008 that the unemployment rate climbs a little, and those who see a recession in which it climbs more.

In ordinary times, this would be unpleasant, but not so frightening. The Fed knows how to treat this condition: cut interest rates.

Sure, it's tough to get the timing right. And administering the remedy is more complicated with the dollar drooping and inflation returning to the Fed's agenda for the first time in years. Still, this is a familiar disease. Although the Fed has not and cannot abolish the business cycle, the U.S. has suffered from recession only 16 months in the past 25 years. (In the quarter-century before that, there were 64 months of recession.)

But these aren't ordinary times.

For years, banks and investors lent freely. They took big risks for surprisingly little reward (known as "low risk premiums" in the patois of the trade). Now, they're shunning risk. Big banks are reluctant to lend even to each other for more than a few days, and are hoarding cash. In a symptom that the financial fever hasn't broken, interest rates for one- and three-month loans among banks are up sharply. The Fed and the European Central Bank are now forced to consider the economic equivalent of alternative medicine.

"History," Alan Greenspan warned back in August 2005, "has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of prolonged periods of low risk premiums." He wasn't right about everything (and, yes, he may have contributed to today's problems by keeping rates so low for so long). But he was right about that.

Just a friendly update on today's world from your friendly neighborhood, amateur economist/PR blogger.

You may now return your attention to tonight's game between the great Chicago Bears and lowly Washington Redskins.

The Walled Garden Crumbles...a little

Well, here is some interesting news...Google is having an influence already in the mobile industry. Verizon announced today that it will start allowing third party apps and any phones on its network and will reach out and open its network to developers.

Here is the story (WSJ- subscription required): Verizon Wireless to Offer Open Access to Network

Verizon has been known historically as the toughest carrier with regards to protecting its walled garden, so this is some pretty major news. Think Microsoft is excited? Check out their quote:

"Microsoft is very excited to see Verizon Wireless make such a bold move to satisfy the demands of wireless customers," said Peter Knook, head of the company's mobile communications business.

I've had a Microsoft Mobile powered phone (a XV6601) on Verizon for years now and have been a generally pleased costumer. Apple's genius at rolling out a average product with great design and great marketing is well-known. It continues to amaze me how slow Microsoft and its carrier partners are to trumpet the capabilities of its devices.

But Google announces Andriod...and wow, do things start to get moving.

Happy Thanksgiving (Belated)

Hey y'all...it's been a busy few weeks for me, so I spent the Thanksgiving weekend relaxing and it felt great.

Added to the joy was the satisfaction of seeing my op-ed article appear in the Bulldog Reporter, a great informative PR industry trade journal. As I mentioned in an earlier post, FEMA got in a lot of trouble over a fake press conference a while back. PR ain't rocket science- it seems to me they could head off a lot of problems by increasing their transparency and engaging their constituents and coalitions more often and more effectively

Anyhoo, here is a link to the article: Who Wants a FEMA Blog? The Time Has Come to Teach an Old Dog New Media Tricks Be sure to check out the good looking dude in the pic!

And...also adding to my good mood is the come-from-behind victory my beloved Chicago Bears pulled off yesterday over the Denver Broncos. Go Bears!

Link to An Interesting Article

I couldn't find a more creative title than that...so you'll just have to bear with me. I've been browsing through my feedreader and want to share an article I found interesting...

Steve Rubel has decided not to drink the Kool-aid. And I quote:

1) Study History - The history books are littered with manias (both financial and otherwise) that followed by reality setting in. The dot-com crash, of course, is only one. There are many others. Study them. Humans created human nature.

2) Diversify Your Sources of Information - God bless Techmeme. It does a fantastic job of tracking what the blogosphere is thinking about. But what if the global brain is dumb? Diversify your sources of information. Seek out those who at first you may disagree with. Nicholas Carr and Robert Cringley are two to start with. Find new blogs, ideally those written outside of SillyCon Valley and consider what they say.

3) Question Conventional Wisdom - Conventional wisdom is always right, right? Not. Read Freakonomics. If a lot of people start saying something is true, look behind the curtain and poke at what's there.

4) Don't Ignore Data - I didn't think it would ever matter, but my lack of love for math makes me wish I spent a little more time in school. Today, data rules. I am reading an awesome book on this subject called Super Crunchers. Skip what pundits are forecasting and look for hard trend data that shows how people are interacting with the Net. I keep a good collection here. Also take a look at Google Trends too. It conveys a lot about our interests. Notice how Second Life searches, for example, plummeted.

5) Talk to Real Humans - One of my favorite bloggers is Dwight Silverman. (I used to pitch Dwight during the Web 1.0 era.) Hailing from Houston, Dwight has seen many technologies come and go over the years. He constantly reminds me in public and private conversations to talk to real people - from Iowa or Planet Houston. When some of my colleagues started telling me to do the same, I got with the program. Do your sister or brother's friends Twitter? Probably not. Now that doesn't make it unimportant. Why? Because they all Google. Talk to both humans and geeks for broader perspective.

All very sensible stuff...a bid odd coming from the #1 Kool-Aid mixer and promoter, but hey, we'll take common sense wherever we can find it.

PR Pros Versus PR Flacks

I speak with marketing executives all the time about their horrible experiences with lazy PR flacks who think that PR is merely the act of blast emailing a press release to a list of editors and journalists. These marketing leaders complain endlessly about how the agency they pay is a bunch of order takers with no creativity or understanding of the marketplace.

Why is this important? Well, for one thing, editors and journalists love to hear from PR pros with a well thought out, well researched pitch that will resonate with their specific beat and tie into the current trends in the market.

Don't believe me? Then read what Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, has to say:

Sorry PR people: you're blocked
http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2007/10/sorry-pr-people.html

So fair warning: I only want two kinds of email: those from people I know, and those from people who have taken the time to find out what I'm interested in and composed a note meant to appeal to that (I love those emails; indeed, that's why my email address is public).

I'm lucky to work for an agency, Strategic Communications Group (mind the plug), that does things the right way. We don't have a bullpen of twenty-somethings banging away on their keyboards mindlessly, spamming the tech journalists of the world. Which is why our companies email address is not Chris's list of PR flacks...

Wanna Get Fired? Stage A Fake Press Conference!

You really have to hand it to the fine folks at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Two years after the massive destruction of Hurricane Katrina exposed the incompetence and disorganization at DHS in general and FEMA in particular, FEMA had been getting its act together and by all accounts acquitted itself alright in response to the southern California fires over the last few weeks. Now, we find out that these geniuses decided to organize a fake press conference.

oh. my. god.

From Time:

FEMA held a press conference on Oct. 23 to respond to fake questions about the real wildfires in California. Here's how it happened: Real reporters were only notified 15 minutes in advance, so all they could reasonably do was call in to a conference line. But the line was set to "listen-only" mode, so asking questions was out of the question. Only the people there — a group consisting almost entirely of FEMA public affairs employees — could grill FEMA representatives.

None of this was disclosed by Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator of FEMA, who dutifully responded to the softballs from his underlings (i.e. "Are you happy with FEMA's response so far?") as if they were real.

To his credit, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff lambasted FEMA after the story broke in the Washington Post several days later. "I think it was one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I've seen since I've been in government," Chertoff said. "I have made unambiguously clear, in Anglo-Saxon prose, that it is not to ever happen again and there will be appropriate disciplinary action taken against those people who exhibited what I regard as extraordinarily poor judgment."

From MSNBC's First Read:

John P. "Pat" Philbin, the now former FEMA director of external affairs who participated in FEMA's fake press conference last week by posing as a reporter and asking a question, has reported to work today at the Director of National Intelligence headquarters in Washington, according to a DNI official.

Philbin was tapped to take over as the head of public affairs for Director of National Intelligence Admiral Mike McConnell before the controversy erupted. But now his new job could be in jeopardy. "He is in meetings" and those who hired Philbin "are looking into the situation," the DNI official said.

*** UPDATED *** Philbin will NOT be director of public affairs for Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell.

Philbin was hired to be Director of Public Affairs for the Director of National Intelligence before the fake FEMA news conference ever happened. His first day was always scheduled to be today.

But when he showed up to work today, instead of being sworn in, he went straight into meetings with DNI officials

Now, according to the DNI statement just released, Philbin will not be taking over the job. The statement does not say why, but privately DNI officials say the feeling at DNI headquarters was there was no way he could assume public affairs duties after what happened at FEMA.

Statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence:
"We do not normally comment on personnel matters. However, we can confirm that Mr. Philbin is not, nor is he scheduled to be, the Director of Public Affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence."

This is a satellite shot of FEMA personnel's careers going up in smoke...

Walt Mossberg Raises the Red Flag of Revolution

A colleague of mine pointed out to me an interesting blog post by Walt Mossberg this morning:

http://mossblog.allthingsd.com/20071021/free-my-phone/

A shortsighted and often just plain stupid federal government has allowed itself to be bullied and fooled by a handful of big wireless phone operators for decades now. And the result has been a mobile phone system that is the direct opposite of the PC model. It severely limits consumer choice, stifles innovation, crushes entrepreneurship, and has made the U.S. the laughingstock of the mobile-technology world, just as the cellphone is morphing into a powerful hand-held computer.

Up until the 1970s, when the federal government intervened, you weren’t allowed to buy your own landline phone, and companies weren’t able to innovate, on price or features, in making and selling phones to the public. All Americans were forced to rent clumsy phones made by a subsidiary of the monopoly phone company, AT&T, which claimed that, unless it controlled what was connected to its network, the network might suffer.

Well, the government pried that market open, and the wired phone network not only didn’t collapse, it became more useful and versatile, allowing, among other things, cheap connections to online data services.

I suspect that if the government, or some disruptive innovation, breaks the crippling power that the wireless carriers exert today, the free market will deliver a similar happy ending.

At the SIIA Changing Landscape seminar on mobility last month, D. P. Venkatesh pointed out that Apple is a odd choice to lead the anti-oligarchy charge. It's model is based on it owning the entire software stack to the exclusion of anyone else. Although, Apple just announced that they will eventually allow third party programs, this seems like too little to late. After all, my three year old PocketPC (on Verizon, widely acknowledged as the "worst" carrier in terms of openness) easily allows third party applications.

Now, switching it from one carrier to another might prove a challenge...

However, Walt's economic instincts are correct. More competition will bring more innovation, and greater value at lower prices. And you can bet that the carriers will fight tooth and nail to prevent that from happening...

More Proof for the Power of PR

As far as I'm concerned, the real utility of public relations is the simple act of getting a third party to vouch for your client and help validate his/her message to the audience. All the things that PR firms do boil down to this one simple act. Positioning, branding and purple cows, etc just increase the likelihood and/or persuasiveness of that validation.

There are any number of scientific studies showing how people tend to believe those perceived to be experts. Gartner, Forrester and any number of think tanks have whole businesses based on this insight.

Now it seems, people tend to be persuaded by mere gossip as well.

Study: Gossip Trumps Truth

People are influenced by gossip about others, even when it contradicts what they see with their own eyes, suggests a new study.

Past research has found that gossip—those juicy tidbits of supposed fact we share about a third party—serves many purposes, including strengthening social ties, spreading social norms and helping others avoid double-crossers and other risky partners.

Hearsay can be the most reliable source of information about situations with which you have no experience. But when you hear gossip that's incongruent with a person or incident you are familiar with, you'd be smart to throw that chitchat out the window in favor of your own direct knowledge, right?

The new study, published this week online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals individuals sometimes place so much stock in gossip that they accept it as true even if their own observations and experiences suggest otherwise.

I've read some interesting articles about how blogs are rated at the top of the trustworthy scale, along with analysts, scientists and reporters. This fact seemed a little out of whack to me, but after reading about the influence of gossip it seems to make more sense...

Apple PR Crisis?

Everyone knows that Apple has been on a tear since 2001 or so. First the iPods sell like gangbusters and now the iPhone is one of the most remarkable product launches in a long while. Apple seems to have dodged a number of bad PR bullets during this time, but due to the strength of their whole brand (products, design, customer interactions, stores, history), nothing has done much damage.

Now, not being green may hurt. Apple's brand has a strong dose of counter-culture, lefty, hipster to it. Getting attacked by Greenpeace cuts the core of how their customers feel about Apple and how they feel when buying Apple's message. It'll be interesting to see how Apple's PR team responds to this...

From StrategyEye:

Environmental campaign group Greenpeace is attacking the iPhone and claims by Apple CEO Steve Jobs that his company is committed to environmentally friendly business practices. Greenpeace has released a video clip showing the deconstruction and analysis of an iPhone, demonstrating that the device contains toxic brominated compounds, possibly including hazardous brominated flame retardant compounds, as well as environmentally harmful PVCs. In addition, Greenpeace says the pthalates found in iPhone headphone cables are banned from all toys in Europe and questioned the environmental commitment of the firm in the lead up to the iPhone's European launch. The report also notes that analysis of other handsets showed that no PVC chemicals were found in Nokia phones and that Sony and Motorola devices showed a commitment to removing brominated flame retardants.

New Event with the SIIA- Security

As I mentioned a while back, I've partnered with the Software and Information Industry Association (www.siia.net) to develop a series of events that will take a look at the transformational changes occurring right now in three critical areas. Each of these areas are wrestling with dramatic change that is raising technology, regulatory, and cultural issues while generating tremendous business opportunities and creating real value for customers. Each of these events will spotlight panelists with differing perspectives on all of these issues as well as give insight into what the future might look like given today’s trends.

Our next roundtable will shed light on issues and trends in the changing landscape of security. Enterprises are wrestling with a variety of ever growing challenges such as identity management, mobile security, managed security services, and regulations (Sarb-Ox, FISMA, HSPD-12). We'll take a practical look at how these challenges are being addressed by enterprises.

Panelists: Dipto Chakravarty, Vice President of Engineering for Identity and Security Management, Novell (Confirmed)

Lyall Venatta, VP Marketing, Sigaba (Confirmed)

Paul Innella, CEO, Tetrad Digital Integrity (Confirmed)

Moderator: Jeff Majka, Director of Marketing and Business Development, Strategic Communications Group

Date: October 24 2007
Time: 8am to 10am
Location: SIIA DC office, 1090 Vermont Avenue, 6th Floor, Washington DC
Attendees: 30-40 people
Registration Fee: SIIA members $20/non-members $40

Click here to register: http://www.siia.net/events/prereg.asp?eventid=758