Shape of Things

You’re the expert.

You’re the one who knows how to position the product.

You know how to tell the story.

You know the buttons to push: benefits, benefits, benefits.

But what’s that language you’re speaking? Is it marketese? Is it generalism? Is it how you would explain it to your family and friends? Is that a Facebook hook or an Anandtech hook?

If you are talking to people like yourself, you’re likely speaking a foreign language to the engineers, developers or R&D people with whom you want to engage.

To communicate in the same language as those you want to reach, you need to reach out yourself. Interview people from the target audience. Immerse yourself in their culture. Find out their pain points and what they consider their victories. Put yourself in their position and feel what they feel.

Most of all, get technical. If you don’t understand the concept or terminology, get someone to explain it to you. Be the person who makes the technical understandable, without patronizing anyone.

It’s hard work, but it has immense value. We need people who can bridge marketing, engineering and upper management. You can be one of those rare people.

Isn’t it time that we celebrate the people behind the technological success stories?

If you’ve been a part of a marketing, PR or news organization involved with technology, you’ve dealt with press releases, case studies, technical articles and white papers that purport to show how a product makes a breakthrough in solving a vexing problem.

I’ve been on both sides of the desk, as a journalist and a content provider for technology companies. Beyond the task of convincing marketing managers that superlatives and hyperbole  simply don’t work for jaded engineers, developers, researchers and others on the front lines, there’s the challenge of injecting the human element into corporate content.

We get it that technology is the great enabler, but sometimes technology stories are the equivalent of giving credit to Aaron Judge’s bat, Serena Williams’ racket, Jimi Hendrix’s guitar or J.K. Rowling’s word processor. 

I’m not talking about praise for the achievements of the CEO, but recognition for how people are applying technology to solve day-to-day problems: The people who are discovering new ways to adapt technology-driven processes to make their organizations more creative, productive and cost-effective.

For some reason, the victories of these people — the unsung heroes of technological revolution — are largely missing from case studies, blogs, websites and other corporate communication channels.  We get it that technology is the great enabler, but sometimes technology stories are the equivalent of giving credit to Aaron Judge’s bat, Serena Williams’ racket, Jimi Hendrix’s guitar or J.K. Rowling’s word processor.

The logical question, of course, is this: What’s in it for the organization to shine a light on its innovative users or best technological minds? There are many benefits, but here are a few:

• It creates a story-line for which everyone can identify, but especially your current and potential customers.
• It positions your company as an organization that has a culture of sharing credit for achievements.
• It brings the rare element of emotion into the story; something sorely lacking in most technology company content.
• It allows the story recipient to share his or her achievements with families, friends and others who might not understand what she or he does.
• At the most commercially crass level, it makes your organization stand out from your competitors.

So, hooray for technologically innovative humans. Now give them their due.

There are two types of companies: those who care about the quality of their content and those who simply follow a PR or communications template.

The former develop content based on the need of their customers for information that will help them do their jobs better. The latter do it because they feel obligated to check off a box in their marketing/PR to-do list.

First option or distant runner-up?

It’s difficult to directly prove the benefits of great content. But it’s like great design: you know it when you see it. Or more importantly, your customers know it. And it will be reflected in the incoming traffic to your website and your website’s stickiness — how long your target audience lingers on your site.

A well-researched, well-written and cogently stated case study, technical article or white paper might not directly translate to sales leads, but it builds trust, confidence and a sense of identity. It can be the difference between positioning your company as the first option when a potential customer is making a buying decision or being considered a distant runner-up.

A matter of choice

Who do you get to generate compelling content? Again this separates the committed from the window dressers. Almost always the best choice is to have content generated by an internal engineer or developer — a peer of your target audience — and then have a skilled editor mold it into shape.

Another choice is to hire an outside consultant with proven writing skills and deep knowledge of your industry. That person will cost you a lot more than a generic writer who might only dabble in your particular field.

When hiring a writer, think of hidden costs. The writer who has both skills and industry knowledge will likely get it mostly right in the first draft, and completely right by the second draft, sparing review and rewriting time from your highly paid technical and marketing people. Although more expensive initially, that person will save a lot of money in the long run and give you something likely to resonate with your target audience.

What’s your company?

How you communicate says a lot about your company and its culture. Are you a leader or follower? Are you a partner or exploiter? Are you distinctive or generic? Are your customers worth the extra effort and expense or not? Do you want a relationship with your target audience or a one-night stand?

What you say and how you say it means more than you might realize.

A recent article in the New York Times documented attempts at Yoplait to imbue its yogurt with authenticity to ward off competitors such as Chobani and Fage. After experimentation, focus groups and name changes, corporate researchers uncovered a story about Yoplait making yogurt in small batches, just like French farmers did for centuries. Voila, instant authenticity!

“Instead of culturing the ingredients in large batches and then filling individual cups,” the company’s news release reads, “Oui by Yoplait is made by pouring ingredients into each individual pot, and allowing each glass pot to culture for eight hours, resulting in a uniquely thick, delicious yogurt.”

So, you can reverse-engineer authenticity. Brands for years have traded on nostalgia and history to become hip even when they never were in their heyday (PBR, anyone?). But do people really believe the stories?

Authentic doesn’t necessarily cleave to history, of course. Something new can be authentic. That’s what I think about American Giant, a company that makes honest, high-quality t-shirts, sweats, jackets and hoodies. They don’t exaggerate who they are. They stand for good things: quality, durability, fit. Their story is well-told and free of hyperbole. It feels genuine.

My life was marked by skepticism at an early age. Perhaps that’s why I gravitated toward journalism as my first career choice. It’s a trade where you need to be suspicious; lies are everywhere and your mission is to uncover truth. I don’t think I’m alone in bringing a similar attitude to my life as a consumer. There’s a lot of fake stuff out there and we’ve learned not to be taken as suckers (at least not repeatedly).

I think we all have finely tuned shit detectors. Fabricated stories — like lip-syncing, synthesized horns or butter substitutes — might pass muster for some, but for the rest of us they will always make the needle jump into the red.

Try all you want, but you cannot manufacture authentic. You can build it into your company’s culture, but you can’t retroactively bend a suspect culture to resemble authentic. It’s either there or it’s not. And we know the difference.

I was talking with a friend this morning who is selling his company on the idea of internal branding. It seems everybody in this fast-growing company has a different story on who the company is and what it does.

On the surface, this doesn’t seem like a bad thing. After all, if it’s internal, who cares? Let everyone make up their own stories about their employer.

Only problem is that there’s no such thing as internal when it comes to communications, especially now when everyone has personal broadcasting channels and the enterprise might be spread throughout the world. So, as controlling as it might sound, spreading the brand identity internally is just as important — perhaps even more so — than what a company says externally.

Given this environment, companies have to ask themselves: Do our major shareholders, our employees, really know our story, and are they invested enough in it to spread the word?

Anaheim brought back memories.

I was there two weeks ago to write about SIGGRAPH 2013 for Develop3D, but my mind drifted back more than a quarter of a century.

My memories are of computer graphics shows — first the National Computer Graphics Association (NCGA) in the late 1980s and 1990, then Siggraph in 1987 and 1993.

My first show in Anaheim was NCGA ’86, attended by 35,000 people with nearly 300 exhibitors taking up every bit of space in the convention center, then one of the largest in America.

“West End Girls” by the Pet Shop Boys was sitting on top of the Billboard charts, “Top Gun” with Tom Cruise would be released later that week and become the world’s number-one movie of 1986, and a standalone CAD station from Computervision cost $65,000.

Not yet ready for prime time

I was editor-in-chief of a tabloid called Computer Graphics Today that year and the CAD products I was writing about were from companies such as Intergraph, Applicon, SDRC, PC Productivity Systems, MCS, Tasvir and Cordata.  Autodesk was around and held 41-percent of the PC CAD market, but AutoCAD was considered not suitable for serious design and engineering work.

One of the more unique products at NCGA ’86 was Softplot 2122 (forward thinking!) by Greyhawk Systems.  As I reported at the time, it “displays a full-color D-size drawing with the image quality of a pen plotter and the speed of an electrostatic printer.” Basically, it was a big-ass 400-dpi display. Price: $46,176.  In the same issue was a new HP laser printer that output eight pages a minute in 300-dpi resolution for $4,995.

From industry to critical tools

Computer graphics was considered an industry then, although folks such as the late Carl Machover were already predicting that these products would soon become everyday tools. Proprietary systems ruled and information exchange was problematic, as exchange standards such as IGES were still in their infancy. Solid modeling was relatively new; images were flat and without shading. Even on the fastest systems, a rotating 3D image looked like a spastic robot dance.

NCGA ’86 and Siggraph ’87 the following year in Anaheim were in many ways the apex of computer graphics as an industry, with attendance and exhibitors decreasing in subsequent years.  As computer graphics technologies progressed through the 1990s, they migrated from the hands of specialists to the desktops of design and engineering professionals of every type.

Nostalgia need not apply

While there are many things one can be nostalgic about, the state of computer graphics is not one of them.  Where we might not see progress measured in large leaps like in the early 80s, there is a steady, inexorable march toward better, cheaper and faster.  The net result, when measured over time, is astounding.

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For the curious, here are my blog postings from SIGGRAPH 2013:

http://www.develop3d.com/blog/2013/07/siggraph-2013-3-immersive-heads-to-the-mainstream

http://www.develop3d.com/blog/2013/07/siggraph-2013-5-rendering-star-power

The Greyhawk Systems Softplot 2122

We see them and marginalize them: Those street vendors offering phone cards, knock-offs and overtly fake fashion accessories.  But, as Robert Neuwirth points out in an interview in this month’s issue of Wired magazine, these unregulated economies have a collective GDP of $10 trillion a year.

It got me to thinking about how most high-tech companies do marketing and PR: It’s almost always about people coming to them, not the other way around.  And, it often involves the grand gesture.  The big advertising and PR campaign. 

What if, like street vendors, we went to the places people hang out.  No, not the big trade shows, but to home-town markets around the globe, inviting people to see our wares and spend some time with us.

OK, I know what you’re thinking: big bucks.  But it doesn’t have to be.  It can be one man or woman and a laptop (or whatever other equipment your technology requires) on a tour of underserved, but significant markets.

This isn’t about the New Yorks, San Franciscos, LAs, Londons, Parises, Hong Kongs and Berlins of the world — those cities are already served by major conferences and waves of sales troops.  It’s about having feet on the street in cities that don’t get a lot of high-tech suitors.

In the U.S., that could include places like Boise, Idaho; Wichita, Kansas; Durham, North Carolina; Houston, Texas; Salt Lake City, Utah; and others a bit off the usual high-tech conference circuit.

Recruit locals from your customer base, find out the cool places where customers and potential customers hang out, book the hottest local band or DJ and have a workshop followed by a party.  Give out swag. Buy beer. Make friends. Be personable.  Generate fun. Tweet and facebook about it.

People will love the fact that you came to them and delivered an experience that reflects their needs and culture.  And, it sets up a foundation for that most important business-builder: a relationship.

While not everyone appreciates a Gucci knock-off, most people will approve of a company that brings a good product and a good time to their fair city.

A friend of mine once called someone we know “snubbable.”  He probably meant that this person was too sensitive for his own good, but it could be taken in a positive way: The only way you get snubbed is if you put yourself into the fray.  People standing on the sidelines don’t get snubbed.

Some of my most painful experiences revolve around being snubbed, but I was never sorry for the experiences that preceded the snubs.

Once when working for an association, I developed and executed an award-winning, national PR campaign.  But, I wasn’t invited initially to the awards program.  I knew what was happening: My boss needed to solidify her position, and also justify the six-figure retainer for the PR agency that worked on the project and whose biggest role was submitting the award nomination.

In this case, it bothered me to the point that I spoke calmly, but forcefully, to my boss about my role in the project and my desire to receive recognition for it.  I received an invitation to the awards program and a small version of the Heisman-like trophy given to my boss and the agency.  The biggest consolation was that I always knew what I had done.

Another snub happened just after I started my own business and took on the PR job for a regional conference.  I put in so much work that I was probably being paid the equivalent of $10 an hour by the time it was over.  Still, the conference director didn’t mention me when handing out credits in his opening speech.  This time I said nothing.  I knew I didn’t want to work with that organization again, and I learned a good lesson about what kind of projects to take on.

In both cases, I was glad I put myself in a position to be snubbed.  After the pain, came some wisdom and a lasting pride in a job well done. 

Conformity is a bit like heroin: comforting, but extremely addictive.

If your company or clients value conformity over creative, it’s your role to try to break the chain of addiction.  Then again, maybe you are the pusher.

About a decade ago, an innovative 3D graphics company I was working with was sold to a major computer company.  I was entrusted with preparing a brochure and poster that conveyed the excitement of a new product. It shouldn’t have been hard: the images generated by this computer were stunning, and its capabilities singular.

The challenge was overcoming the rigid standards of the parent company: Use one of two typeface choices and one of a few design templates. Exact color and positioning for the logo. Reference the company name in the exact same way all the time.

The pieces ended up looking and sounding fine, but they took three times as long to produce and involved four times as many people as they should have. And, they could have been much better. I vowed never to do a project for a company like that again; I’m glad to say I’ve stuck to that vow.

About five years later, what a relief it was to see Google snub conformity. Silly company name. Logo that it changed daily and had fun with — in fact, playing with the company logo became part of Google’s corporate identity and a subject of discussion.

Think about things you do to conform to some rules that were written years ago and might not be relevant, or are actually dragging down your corporate image. Like that boring standard paragraph at the end of your press releases.  Or the corporate-speak that saturates your marketing materials. Or those quotes from the CEO that sound like they came from an automaton. Or using trademarks when they aren’t needed. Or the staid design of your web site.

Conformity sends a message: “We’re like all the rest and we don’t care if you think so.”  Is that the corporate message you want? If so, fine.  If not, time to get the conformity monkey off your back.

Is social media the new web 2.0, a term that’s absolutely meaningless?

In practice, social media is often a new form of interruptive marketing. The vast majority of companies are tweeting, linking in and facebooking just to broadcast messages, without regard to discussion or conversation. Most corporate messages in social media are the equivalent of truncated press releases.

Indulge in social media if you want, but if you really want to deliver value, establish a community for customers, partners and potential customers. Provide an outlet for technical information, peer-to-peer interaction, customer stories, surveys, Q&As, interviews, blogs from your product developers, commentary and other content people in your industry can’t get anywhere else.

You have a choice: Add to the cacophony or establish a welcomed outlet for constructive conversation.