Yesterday, I went to a luncheon put on by Qlikview at the Seattle Yacht Club. love these vendor luncheons, not because of the free lunch (though it was delicious), but to keep up on the BI industry and hear first hand from other BI users and managers. really didn’t know much about Qlikview. Oh, I’ve heard the name now and then but still hadn’t heard anything of substance. Turns out they’ve actually been around since the 1993 and have been headquartered in the US since 2005. They have a nice reporting and analysis product that replaces the need for cubes and their associated processing time. MORE >>

It used to be that if you were selling technology, you talked to IT. They were the ones who understood and controlled the role of technology, and they knew how to select a product that would support the business needs and still fit within the technical architecture. Technology vendors typically only called on IT with messaging focused mostly on technology and not so much the business value. Then things began to shift. The “consumerization of IT” put technology in the hands of everyone. Apps and technology crossed the barrier from consumer to enterprise. It’s not an either/or. MORE >>

I recently watched a Ted Talk video of Seth Godin discussing tribes. As Seth so clearly describes it, we are at a pivotal moment in time, where we are changing the way ideas are spread. No longer is it about money or power. It’s about leadership—the ability to organize passion. And, social technologies allow us to do that quite easily. We can now find and align large numbers of people and create our own movement. Being the serious animal lover I am, I was particularly drawn to his example of Nathan Winograd, a former animal control officer in San Francisco. But Nathan didn’t give up. MORE >>

I’m very pleased to have my white paper chosen as the winner of the 2011 Apex Marketing and PR Publications Award. have written several Verizon white papers for my client Pivot Communications (who is terrific to work with by the way). The winning white paper is Verizon’s “ The Identity and Access Management Imperative.&#   The paper speaks to enterprise security issues as organizations expand their boundaries globally, move data and applications outside company walls to the “cloud,&# and extend access beyond employees to vendors, partners, and even customers. MORE >>

I just finished reading this year’s latest marketing survey results over at the Junta42 site. It’s interesting to see the popularity of different marketing content pieces as part of the overall marketing strategy. You can download the report for yourself here. Social media marketing (with the exception of blogs) is now in the number one spot. 72% of those polled have now incorporated social media into their marketing activities. What I’d be even more curious to know though, is have they seen and improvements? More hits to the website? More inquiries? Even more sales? Typically 6-10 pages. MORE >>