A few years back, I worked with this guy who had a very healthy ego. For the purposes of this blog, let’s call him Bob. Well, Bob would just go on and on about how great he was. He had an MBA from a top business school. He had great work experience. He had worked internationally. He wore custom-made suits. He chatted with the CEO daily. He had a hot wife. And on and on and on.
Does this guy sound familiar? I think every office has a Bob. Or as I call him, “That Guy.” You know about him—the one who is offensively arrogant, and at the same time lacks all self-awareness of how others perceive him.
I actually didn’t think Bob was a bad guy. He was pretty smart if you could get past his constant chest beating. And he was good at his job. But, everyone hated Bob. Why? Because he was just too full of himself.
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This classic scene from Office Space always makes me think about the everyday challenges we have with technology at work.
Several years back, AutoTrader.com had a technology problem. We had hundreds of sales reps all across the country, but we didn’t have a good way to get them sales materials they needed to do their job. So we set up a company “shared drive” to distribute collateral, contracts and presentations.
The dream of the shared drive quickly turned into a nightmare. It was impossible to keep everything updated and organized. People would delete critical documents, alter presentations and then save them over the master documents.
Not having a way to get quality marketing assets to the field was a problem. Sales guys didn’t want to go on an archeological dig through thousands of documents on a shared drive, so they built the assets themselves. We started seeing a lot of homegrown marketing materials coming in from the field. Now, I don’t want to denigrate the graphic design skills of our sales reps, but I’ve never seen more Microsoft clip art used in my life. Read More
I’m excited to be speaking at a BtoB Magazine webinar on March 21st, sponsored by Marketo. We’ll be talking about how creating high quality content can help brands attract and retain more customers. It should be a great discussion. I’m excited to hear what Tom Stein from Stein + Partners has to say. If there are any topics you’d like me to cover, let me know. I still have to build out my slides.
Content Marketing Webinar on March 21st at 2pm EST
My latest article from March 6, 2013.
In addition to SingleMindedProposition.com, I also write monthly articles for my friends at BtoB Magazine (btobonline.com). Today they just released my latest article about the limitations of quantitative surveys and the everlasting importance of live focus groups.
Click here to read the article.
If you like it, feel free to post to your social network of choice. Thanks.
My name is Jeff and I love Bon Jovi. Yeah, I said it. Maybe it’s the Jersey in me. Maybe it’s my fondness for 80s hair bands. Whatever it is, Bon Jovi holds a special place in my heart.
When I was twelve years old, I remember buying one of my first vinyl albums, “Slippery When Wet”. It was Bon Jovi’s second album and featured several songs that have stood the test of time – “You Give Love a Bad Name”, “Wanted Dead or Alive” and my personal favorite, “Livin’ on a Prayer” (which was actually my Bar Mitzvah theme song).
Fast forward 27 years later. It’s February 27, 2013 and I’m at a Bon Jovi concert in Phillips Arena in Atlanta with 30,000+ screaming fans who know every word to every song. Read More
single-minded proposition 
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