It is a testament to the times that as a new burgeoning technology is hatched by an ”army of geeks” in a caffeine drenched frenzy, I can have a conversation at a party with a lawyer from a completely different field and find that he already has a rudimentary grasp of that same technology - Cloud Computing. 

Even if I normalize for the natural demographic skew of my location (San Francisco), it is impressive to consider how quickly this phenomenon has progressed towards the mainstream.  Clearly, the message has a lot to do with the rate of transmission. 

“Software-as-a-Service“, or worse “SaaS”, didn’t catch the imagination as well as “Cloud” did.  Which is ironic considering SaaS is actually what the consumer/user really interacts with.  What was originally represented by “The Cloud” was a metaphor for all of the networking, server hardware, protocols, etc. that no user in their right mind would want to know even existed, never mind have to understand. 

Even Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, the original “Software-as-a-Service” company, writes in his letter to shareholders, “We have become the first enterprise Cloud Computing company to report more than $1 billion in revenue.”  He may argue that this is in line with their Force.com strategy - providing their compute power in the form of a “Platform-as-a-Service” (here we go again) – Sales Cloud 2.  But considering where the vast majority of those $1 billion came from, it more reflects the company’s savvy marketing team.  If a Cloud Computing company were to be defined as any company that provides compute resources as a utility, then wouldn’t Amazon have been the first $1 billion Cloud Computing company the moment they turned on AWS?  “SaaS” appears to have lost its luster and “Cloud Computing” is the “new black”.

The reality is, what you call something does matter.  And every successful company out there knows this.  To throw up your arms and quote Shakespeare is to miss the point, and likely doom your company/product to failure in the process.

To give something a name is to give it meaning.  Even better – a name should imbue the audience with a passion, an image, something that goes far beyond its function.  “Cloud Computing” does that, with very little effort….”SaaS” needed an education cycle, time, and resources, and the market really doesn’t have that kind of patience.

(If you’re curious, in 2006 SFDC was all about “CRM”, and press releases in 2008 described the company as “…the market and technology leader in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)”.)

Posted under industry, marketing

When I was in 11th grade, my Social Studies teacher, Mr. Lewis, took us on a field trip from Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan. That was the first time I ate “real” Chinese food and it was also my first time in a “real” bookstore, The Strand.

Back then, circa 1980, it was very common for people to go browsing in used bookstores, and I caught the bug real bad. Not only was it an affordable way for a kid to buy books, but there was also something exciting and addicting about the serendipity of the process, not the least of which was the intoxicating fragrance of those weathered and worn volumes.  It was like a treasure hunt.

I never went in looking for any one book in particular, but I always walked out with half a dozen or more books on totally different subjects. In fact, if you were to look at my bookshelf today, over 80% of the books were purchased as “previously owned”. That’s one of the great things about books … even when they are used, they still retain 100% of their value!

One of the books I’ve picked up over the years is “John Dewey on Education”, which is a compendium of excerpts of his various writings. For those of you who are unfamiliar, John Dewey was perhaps the most influential educational reformer of the late 19th and early 20th century, best known for his writings on the role of experience in education. In fact, several excerpts in this book are from Dewey’s other book, “Experience and Education“.

In this book, Dewey proposes 2 important ideas. First, that real learning only comes by connecting ideas with experience. Second, that every learning experience influences future learning experiences. For example, consider a child that touches a hot stove. Through that experience, he first learns that stoves are hot and not to be touched. A valuable lesson, indeed. Second, this experience teaches him to be cautious about touching objects he has not touched before. In that sense, it actually dampens his enthusiasm and curiosity for future experimentation, which can be harmful to future learning experiences. Not so good. As can be easily reasoned, the best learning happens through experiences that teach and also encourage future learning.

__________

Last week I came across a blog post by Jim Lipman entitled “So this is where Engineers get their Information“. It seems that Jim attended a seminar by eg3.com on how designers search on the internet. One portion of the blog post caught my attention:

In the “What do Designers Want” category, ‘hands-on’ items such as demos, software and evaluation kits rank very highly. On the flip side, vendor articles and webinars ranked moderately low and podcasts very low in response to a “What Information do you seek” question (the webinar response probably due to the same perception that I have that many are sales or marketing tools).

In other words, designers want to be educated through actual experience with the tools, not by listening to webinars or presentations or even podcasts. If you have spent any time around a teenager, you know that this tendency towards interactive experiences will only increase. No longer will designers be satisfied being passive receivers of information. Rather they will prefer, no, demand to be active participants.

Second, their experience accessing these forms of online learning will have an effect on their future learning habits. If they have to log in through several screens and enter personal information just to get access to a Webinar, fagetaboutit! They won’t come back. But if the process is simple and easy and the experience is smooth, they will come back.

That’s what we are trying to create at Xuropa. An environment where designers can learn by experience, by using your tools hands on and where they will come back again. We’re trying to make the process painless, just a simple password login and there they are using your tools in seconds. It’s not just another form of WebEx or VNC or any other screen sharing program as some have suggested, but a way for the designers to drive the tools themselves and learn first hand.

We’re just getting rolling and we’ve got a lot to learn by the experience as well. The process, although smooth, can still be improved. And we are working hard to get more valuable tools in place for designers to try out. If you are a designer reading this, go ahead and try out one of our labs and let us know what you liked and how we can improve. We really want to make this painless and rewarding for you. If you are in the EDA world, consider putting your tool in the hands of a customer and providing a learning experience whereby they fall in love with your tool.

It’s all about the Experience.

Posted under Xuropa, industry, marketing

I’ve been writing a lot about Twitter recently, as have a lot of other people as it continues to charge into the mainstream.  Read What is Twitter, and Why Should I Care? and you’ll get an idea of where this is going, but we have some recent data collected by The Nielsen Company that talks to its increasing relevance as a communication channel:

It’s growth in terms of users is astronomical:

Fastest Growing Community in February 2009

As Nielsen note, this growth does not take into account the number of mobile users, which could increase these stats incredibly.  Twitter’s use-model lends itself to mobile use perfectly, and is a very valid platform.

There is one piece of this story that I’d disagree with though: the title, “Twitter’s Sweet Smell of Success“.  While Twitter has raised an impressive $55M since its founding, it has yet to find a business model.  I’m sure there’s one out there, and it does not have to be solely ad-driven.  But until they have found the secret sauce to generating revenues, the sweet smell of success is still only appreciated by its users.

Posted under industry, marketing

Considering the number of open source tools available to create the basics of an online community site, it is tempting to go this route to leverage the ubiquity of the web.  Indeed, a couple of companies within electronic design have done this.  However, there are some fundamental reasons why this is a very bad idea and ultimately won’t work.

It’s only when you get into the web and community building business that you understand that there are two key elements to the process:

• Building the platform (software)
• Building the community (people)

It is easy to think that installing the software and configuring it is the hardest part.  This is the “build it and they will come” mentality.  Dead wrong.  If it’s on your own website there’s a great deal of work and maintenance required.  If it’s on an unrelated platform, you’ve just made your job harder for yourself.

If you’re a budget constrained organization take a look at the amount of effort and length of time it took John Cooley to build his audience (it’s not really a “community”).  A heck of a lot of guerilla marketing to get on everybody’s radar (and I would not want to maintain that site).  Or take Janick Bergeron’s Verification Guild.  It’s a relatively more modern web platform that allows interaction, but it has taken him years to build that community.

The problem is, you’re on your own.  Without some heavy duty marketing, how are you going to cut through the noise of the web?  It’s not the tool you use, but the fundamental marketing principles and effort behind the way you use the tool.

You on your own

There is another way  - to build your community within a group of communities with a point of commonality.  This way, there is a resonance from those around you that amplifies your efforts to build your own specific community.

So, for electronic design, you want to be building your community within a larger online electronic design community…this is Xuropa.

Your community on Xuropa

Building an online community is an on-going effort.  It needs to be fed and watered over time - daily.  This is hard to do when you’re a resource limited company.  But if you’re in amongst a number of other communities with a similar background, their efforts will help yours.  Leverage.

Of course, in addition to community functionality, you can have your software product at the heart of your community in an Online Lab.  That’s something that no other solution out there can provide.

So, please don’t waste your time, effort and money because the software’s “easy” to install and free.  You’re just taking a technical short cut that will make the whole process harder and the likelihood that you’ll achieve your objectives little to none.

Posted under Features, Xuropa, industry, marketing

My blog post about “What is Twitter, and Why Should I Care?” had not been up more than a few hours when the Twitter stream offered up this perspective from John Stewart of the Daily Show.

As usual, it’s hilarious, made funnier by the more-than-grain of truth to it.  The clip highlights the extremes of the Twitter spectrum.  Of course, the reality lies somewhere in between.

Twitter can (and is) used for banalities.  And Twittering while attending an important speech broadcast simultaneously worldwide says more about the Twit(terer) than anything else.

Mass communication tools, like email or SMS, can be used for spam.  But, that does not mean that they don’t have their place and their appropriate business use models.

Some basic professional uses:

• Product announcements (linking to a demonstration or blog post)
• Instant polls
• A low-cost help-line
• Focus groups
• Event announcements and simple coordination
• Build and simply engage your users
• Live streaming (of something that is NOT broadcast worldwide!)
• Event (seminar, presentation) question submission (can be very effective)

How have you used Twitter professionally?

Posted under industry, marketing

Twitter has been around for a couple of years, and is now starting to creep into the “main stream”.  There are regular mentions of it on TV programs like The Daily Show.  And now the CEO, Evan Williams, has been interviewed by Charlie Rose. 

This must mean something, but what?

Outside of the “web world” and the fringes of many demographic groupings (politics, technology, weather, physics, games, real-estate investment, you name it!) it is still looked upon with great puzzlement.  Many veteran executives that I run into either haven’t heard of it, or briefly wonder what it is.  Others are more recently dabbling in the technology with an open mind wondering how it can be leveraged as an effective communication tool.

So, what is it?

Essentially I describe it as “broadcast SMS messaging”.  Or you could think of it as a network of people with walkie-talkies….with everyone on the same frequency.

Well, it’s not quite “everyone”, it’s only those people you “follow” (think “tag” or “connect”).  So it is manageable at that level.  But other than that - that’s just about it.  There really is no magic to it.

You search for people or run across them, and “follow” them if you think they’re interesting.  Then you start receiving their messages (”Tweets”) in your Twitter feed reader.

There’s not much you can say within the 140 word limit, so there’s not going to be blinding insight delivered through this mechanism.  So what’s all the fuss?

There are potentially two aspects of Twitter that are attractive - immediacy and its egalitarian nature.  Specifically, as soon as the people you follow enter a message into the system it appears in your feed (well almost immediately most of the time).  And you can follow anyone - Barack Obama, Guy Kawasaki, Richard Branson…if they’re on, you can follow them.  So, when Richard Branson enters “Back in London having gone around the world for the first time on Virgin. It was great. Come fly with us and try it yourself” (he did) you can reply to him, (which I did.)

Real or not, and quite counter intuitively, the combination of these two aspects of the tool gives the user a sense of intimacy.  And there is its power as a marketing tool.

Why Should I Care?

There are lots of anecdotes of people that have twittered things like they needed a mac power cord (Guy Kawasaki) and he got one delivered to his door in an hour.  And they heard about a layoff before their manager did.  But as a marketing professional, why should you care?

The allure of intimacy is very powerful.  To be able to build a rapport with your market through high-frequency small messages that are essentially free is attractive. 

To write a thought provoking blog post can take time (I’ve spent a while working on this not counting the time thinking about it ).  Jotting out 140 characters or less takes a few seconds.  And because it’s so short it’s not really open to interpretation.  It’s clear, concise, and therefore open communication.

Because of this, the communication tends to be trusted.  Which again lends itself to building loyalty that can enhance your brand.

The Draw Backs

There are many reasons why I’m still not completely enamored with Twitter.  Mostly due to efficiency and focus.

Once you’re following over a couple of dozen people it’s hard to see the wood for the trees.  And you need to follow a lot of people before you start getting people to follow you.  (There are maybe half a dozen people I’ve come across that have more followers than people they are following.  It usually works reciprocally.)

There are some people that will insist on telling you they have “just got up”, but that’s down to you choosing who you follow.  (Don’t follow blindly, but look at the quality, frequency and type of tweets they post before you follow them.  It’s quality over quantity in my book.  However, how do you get people to follow you if you don’t follow them?  How do they know you exist?  There are methods, but that’s a different topic.)

This brings me to another drawback - if you’re only following interesting people, all of a sudden your tweet stream becomes quite a distraction.  You add into the mix the blog posts that people point to within tweets and you can be distracted very quickly.

The tweet “cache” is very small.  Meaning, your Twitter feed isn’t really an “inbox” that you can effectively scroll through and search.  If you missed something that was twittered while you slept… you’ve probably missed it.

Finally, filtering and search capabilities need to be enhanced to really make it effective.  But that’s just a matter of time.

Having said all that though, I need two things to really integrate it into my work day.  A process: a disciplined approach to its use.  A tool: something that can better draw upon this global stream-of-consciousness and harness it efficiently.  Sound familiar?

Conclusion

Twitter shows great potential as a means of mass communication and building intimacy within a community.  But as with all new social media technologies, it takes a different approach and different tools to make effective use of it.

It was only recently that “to blog” became a “normal” thing to do, even though it had been around for years.  The rate of change is increasing.

Posted under business, industry, marketing

I had lunch with a friend of mine last week - one of the best recruiters I know.  Obviously due to not many companies hiring, as effective as she is, she is not having an easy time getting paid for her services these days.  She was however bragging about a company that she’s still working with.  When I asked her how that company is doing, she responded saying “well, they had a great CES.”

I hear that all the time.  ”We had a great CES” … “We had a great DAC” … “We had a great SEMI” ….. And I always wonder what that really means.  To me it’s very comic because in none of these phrases the word “great” is defined, so no one is really wrong about the statement and it totally depends on their perspective and more importantly their (sometimes low) standards.

At the same time, I have heard a few VP’s of sales quoted saying “there are two types of leads: my contacts, and useless ones!”  I actually found that statement more ludicrous than the “we had a great CES” statement [No wonder sales guys get such a bad rap!].  This statement is merely an attempt by some sales VP’s to explain why they can’t start sales engagements with people they don’t already have a relationship with.  All a good sales guy needs to start an engagement is a phone number and phone.  Nevertheless, the industry is full of sales guys who constantly sell themselves based on their rolodex - and unfortunately the industry is also full of VC’s who buy that [stuff].

What everyone seems to miss is something that I have been using in my consulting practice.  There is a difference between “leads” and “touches”.  Most people who visit your stand at the trade shows are “touches”.  ”Leads” are those who 1) have understood your value proposition, and 2) would (at some point) fall in your target segment.  In consumer marketing, the difference between the two is rather small: value propositions are easier to understand, and based on demographics it’s relatively simple to know when and how to approach the lead.  In high tech marketing, the difference between the two is so large that it could cause startups to fail or larger companies to totally miss the market.

Unfortunately most marketing executives measure the success of a trade show by the number of “touches”.  Touches cannot be counted on as whether a target audience is grasping your value proposition and more importantly how it all translates into sales activity.  For the most part, the more gimmicky your stand is the more touches you’ll have.  Touches just represents how many people came to the stand (for whatever reason).  It could even include a lot of your competitors.

The real challenge is knowing shortly after a trade show who the leads were.  This requires knowing every touch’s profile, behavior, and experience.  If you knew someone who came to your stand was in the market for similar products, you’d immediately know that he or she is a lead.  This information is however not readily available till months after traditional trade shows.  So I personally believe the value of traditional trade shows gets diluted as more and more people (high quantity) attend them and as it becomes more and more difficult to know about the attendees (less quality).

What comes into picture is new technology.  With online communities and their trade shows, the profile, background, experience, (purchase) behavior of visitors is readily available.  These modern (online) trade shows also enable a wider reach, a 24/7 approach, and lower cost.  A good example of these online community and trade shows is Xuropa.  Xuropa has created a community of the individuals and companies in the electronic design ecosystem.  It also hosts many trade show style stands, suites, and labs for companies to offer a view into their technology - but the real difference is that companies can easily see who the visitors are and quickly qualify the right ones from a touch to a leads.

###

“We had a great Xuropa” - people around the industry will soon be saying!

Posted under Xuropa, business, career, industry, marketing

 There’s always a lot going on in the electronic design industry, but recently it seems particularly active.  It’s become a routine of mine to cruise the news feeds we bring into Xuropa to get a sense of what’s going on at different points in the value chain.

Here is a brief snapshop of what I saw today

Embedded Systems

Looking to the embedded world, there’s an interesting “the news of my demise is greatly exaggerated” post over at the Windows Embedded Blog.  After comments about how little Windows CE gets mentioned and a recent New York Times article focuses on Windows 7 for a “small world”, there was some “divining” (”wishing”?) going on in the blogosphere.

According to Mike Hall of Microsoft, they’re hard at work on a new release of the OS right now.  Hopefully it fixes all of the bugs that I ran into during my fated experience with it on the HTC Dash.  (Bad, bad memories.)

Bringing the methodology and tools of application level software and hardware platform development closer together appears to be paramount when the two are developed by different companies.  A point made by Jim Hogan in an interview with Ed Sperling.

Consumer Industry

Although news of the change in fortune of Steve Job’s health last week was sad, the amount of coverage it received was staggering.  Everywhere I turned my radio “dial” on the day of the announcement had it every 15 to 20 minutes.  Even the BBC was running it as the top or second news summary item throughout the day.

Now that the dust has settled and the reality of the situation has started to set in, speculation on succession has begun.  The clear lesson for the electronic design industry is the process of succession itself.  The development of a deep management bench and the instilling of a clear direction and set of corporate values are paramount.

EDA Industry

It was a breath of fresh air to read that OneSpin have spun their technology into a family of interoperable formal verification products.  The real news was the emphasis on usability they appear to have taken.  This is an excellent example of a company that has listened to their customer, really understood the reason for slower-than-liked adoption, and then has done something about it.

Too many EDA companies believe that it’s just “one more feature” that will make all the difference in the world.  When in reality it’s the usability of the features they already have and the company’s ability to communicate the value of them that’s at fault.

This reminds me of Beach Solutions, who unfortunately met their demise late last year.  They struggled for years with confusing messaging and a technology lead.  By the time the products were packaged into something comprehensible to the customer, and the emphasis was moved from “what it is” to “what it does”, it was too late.  They’d managed to go from little-to-no engagements to evaluations all over the globe in a matter of months.  Unfortunately the EDA sales process and the waning world economy appear to have taken their toll.

The curious thing is the acquisition by Duolog.  Given that their new marketing at DAC 2008 was almost identical to Beach’s one would have thought they didn’t need the Beach technology.

There are some more sobering words and grim interpretations about the industry from Gabe Moretti over at EDA Design Line. 

Semiconductor Woes

ChipMOS files a lien against Spansion inventory and equipment for the $18M it is owed.  That’s a tremendous amount of money in any economy, and a sure sign of trouble when vendors start suing customers.  There’s also a rumor that Spansion may file Chapter 11.

Technology Sector Jobs

There was some light at the end of the tunnel reported up in Oregon by Mike Rogoway.  According to his information, tech industry employment figures for Oregon improved in December.  He also has a tally of tech job losses in the state.  I wonder if someone is keeping score in Silicon Valley.

EDA Investment & Value

There was a great interview by Ed Sperling of Jim Hogan.  He covered many macro-level aspects of the EDA industry from the business model, technical challenges, and industry make-up.  More on this interview here.

Posted under business, industry, marketing

In response to a cloud computing question I posted to an online forum discussion a concern was raised about security.  Here is the unedited response in full:

“I think cloud computing is extreamly dangerous. There are enough problems with viruses now. IF people were able to exploite holes in componants use din cloud modules or even write systems with back doors in would anyone be sure thyey have a sucure or safe system?”

As I noted in previous posts, security is indeed one of the key drivers of the adoption of cloud computing.  And trust will be a crucial ingredient in the “crossing of the chasm” of this technology and use model.

There is always mistrust of new technologies.  (Did you know that in the very early days of the motor car some scientists believed that passengers would suffocate at speeds over 20 mph?)  Some mistrust is well placed and drives innovative counter measures.  Others will need greater familiarity with the technology and leaders to follow.

To address the first aspect of the posters concern though - viruses and their contagion.

For a virus to be communicated three things need to occur.

1. Placement of the virus at the source.
2. Inadvertent download of the virus by the user.
3. Execution of the virus on the local machine.

There are three parties one could imagine placing the virus within the remote hosted application in the cloud: the cloud computing host company, the vendor of the hosted software, and users of the hosted software.  For a cloud computing company to go to all of the time and expense in developing sophisticated cloud computing platforms such as Xuropa’s Online Labs just to spread a virus is nonsensical.  Like-wise, for the owner of the electronic design software to place a virus within the Online Lab they are using does not make any sense whatsoever.  The last suspect, other users, could have the motive, but they will not have the means.

Consider the use model of a Cloud Computing-based EDA tool in the context of a Xuropa Online Lab as an example.  Every time the remote tool is accessed through a lab session, the environment is provisioned fresh and new from an image that is created by the tool vendor and Xuropa engineers for the Online Lab.  This image is inaccessible to a user.

While the session is active, only users that are explicitly invited into the lab session can have access to the work being carried out by the person who initiated the session.  There is no way for someone to sneak in via a “backdoor”.

If the user was malicious and did upload a virus to the Online Lab they would be very disappointed.  After every lab session has ended all data is erased, all processes on the lab are terminated and a thorough clean of the remote environment is carried out.

The Online Labs hosted on the Xuropa Platform today are even more secure in that they do not provide any upload or download capabilities by design.  No code is executed locally.  This talks to the gradual progression to the cloud of a previous post.  There are great benefits to be gained by leveraging cloud computing without leaping straight into design and development.  Training, demonstrations, workshops, pre-evaluation, and technical support to name just a few.

Which brings me to a follow up observation: mailing of CD’s for evaluation.

Today I opened the EDA Tech Forum magazine and it contained a CD from a nameless EDA vendor.  At the bottom of the CD is written “Every effort has been made to ensure that this disk is virus-free. “XYZ Company” is not responsible for any disruption, damage and/or loss to your data or system that may occur while using this CD.  As with all software we recommend running a virus scanner before use.”

I’m sure that this CD is fine.  The probability of it containing a virus is very, very low.  However, the reason why the lawyers of XYZ Company told their marketing department to include that disclaimer is because of control.  More specifically, it is because of the lack of control.  Once that CD leaves the door of the vendor they don’t know where it could go and through how many hands it will pass.  It is highly unlikely that they burned the CD themselves either.  They will have used a service provider that stamps out CD’s with the label by the hundreds at low cost.  Again, another point of loss of control that keeps the lawyers up at night.

However, with a Xuropa Online Lab you not only have complete control over the environment and who uses it, you also don’t have to go to the wasted expense of sending out hundreds and thousands of CD’s to people that have no interest in the product at all.  (Not a very green approach either.)

So in summary, the cloud is extremely secure.  It is in everybody’s best interest to make it even more secure.  For those malcontents with too much time on their hands life will actually get more limited with a move to the cloud.

You can reduce your overall marketing costs, decrease your “carbon footprint”, and let your lawyers sleep easier by moving to the cloud.

Keep control and keep lawyer fees to a minimum - not a bad thought going into the new year.

Click here to register for the Xuropa Online Electronic Design Community

Posted under Features, Xuropa, business, industry, marketing

While doing some research recently I was amazed to find that there isn’t a single complete and accurate listing of all of the tools available in the EDA industry.  Did I miss something?

Gary Smith has a list of companies and where they fit within the design flow.  While a good starting point, there are no tools and unfortunately the list is “frozen in amber” as a pdf file.  There is a partial lists over at OCP-IP, but again it is semi-frozen as a static html page.

But of course, to build and maintain a list of the hundreds of development tools in the industry would be a monumental task!  Add in all of the new IP and embedded software tools and to accurately maintain this list would be a full-time job for quite a few people!

This is where the power of the community can leveraged!

There is an open, member-editable catalog of technology within the Xuropa Online Community.  Anyone can add a favorite tool, piece of IP or a chip or system.  A start has been made, but it needs your help!

Sign-in to the Xuropa Platform here and from the landing page go to Products>Add Product in the drop down menus.

The electronic design technology landscape is too dynamic for a static catalog, but together we can make a member managed catalog to bring greater visibility and understanding to the industry.

Register a product you’ve used or developed and be recognized as a contributor!

Posted under Features, industry, marketing