Monthly Archives: July 2014

Thanks to U2, Everyone Remembers Bloody Sunday. But 80 Years Ago Today Was Bloody Thursday!

The Industrial Revolution was not easy. It was a difficult time in American History. It was a time when workers’ rights had not yet been formalized, when unions were being formed, and when America was working hard to become the world leader it is today. It was a period of progress broken up by turmoil when America was going through its growing pains.

Part of this turmoil took the form of regular labour strikes by newly formed unions trying to bring workers rights to hard labourers and some order to the chaos that accompanies rapid industrialization. This included the Wheatland Hop that occurred 101 years ago in Wheatland, California that resulted in 4 deaths and Bloody Thursday that occurred 80 years ago today as part of the 1934 West Coast Longshoremen’s Strike.

This strike lasted eighty-three days and began on May 9, 1934 when longshoremen in every West Coast port walked off the job. They were joined by sailors a few days later. It was a heated and aggressive strike on both sides. As per the Wikiepedia entry, the employers recruited strikebreakers, and in response to this, strikers attacked the stockade housing the strikebreakers on May 15. This resulted in employer’s private guards shooting and killing two strikers.

Due to the impact of the strike (as a significant amount of trade has passed through west coast ports for the last century, which is also why Billions [are now] at Risk as West Coast Port Contract Ends), the Roosevelt administration tried to broker a deal to end the strike, but the membership of the newly formed unions rejected the agreements brought to them twice.

This resulted in the employers deciding to force a reopening of the port in San Francisco on July 3, sending trucks through the picket lines which resulted in fights between police and strikers. Then, on July 5, eighty years ago today, the employer’s Industrial Association tried to force a further re-opening of the port. In this attempted reopening, which started in the morning, police shot tear gas canisters into the crowd of strikers, picketers, and supporters, and charged with mounted police. Picketers threw the canisters and rocks back. Both sides then suspended aggressive actives, refortified, and took stock.

But then hostilities resumed in the afternoon outside of the ILA strike kitchen. Eyewitness accounts differ in the exact accounts that transpired next, but the end result was that police ended up firing shotguns, striking three men, and killing two — and giving us Bloody Thursday.

At this point, the California Governor called in the California National Guard to patrol the waterfront and federal soldiers stationed at the Presidio were placed on alert. The picketers pulled back and trucks and trains were, after 58 days, allowed to move without interference. But the strike didn’t end. On July 8, teamsters in both San Francisco and Oakland voted to strike. Then, on July 14, the San Francisco Labor Council voted to call a general strike, and the Mayor declared a state of emergency. This was probably unnecessary, as the Labor Council strike only lasted four days.

When the Labor Council voted to end the General Strike, it also recommended that unions accept arbitration of all disputed issues. This resulted in the National Longshore Board making the same proposal that passed in every port except Everett, Washington. At this point, only one point and striking seamen were left in the lurch. This was the beginning of the end of the strike, and the arbitration award on October 12, 1934 cemented the ILA’s power, which still exists today in the ILWU, which was formerly known as the ILU which broke off from the ILA in 1937 and which covers the west coast district.

The ILWU continues to recognize this day by shutting down all West Coast ports every July 5. Let’s hope they, and the employers, never forget what happens if both sides don’t sit down for as long as it takes to resolve disputes and work out a deal.

It’s Been Eight Days Since the First Procurement Independence Day

Eight years ago, Procurement Independence was Declared at the Coupa Cabana Cafe. Since then, there has been a surge in Enterprise e-Procurement Applications on both sides of the Atlantic, and many can be deployed to all employees across the global organization to handle requisitions and procurements.

In other words, an average organization has no excuse to be a slave to old MRP and ERP systems and the slow and inefficient procurement processes they enforce upon you. But many organizations still are slaves to broken systems that cost them over $100 to process an invoice (compared to the $30 to $40 average and the $3 to $4 average for a modern e-Procurement system with end-to-end invoice automation) and 30% to 40% leakage on negotiated savings due to overpayments and maverick spend.

So this year, make an Independence Day resolution to achieve Procurement Independence. Then your organization will have a real reason to celebrate.

Enterprise Software Companies Do Need Media Relations

In yesterday’s post, we insisted that Enterprise Software Companies DO NOT need Public Relations, because they do not. Why? Simple. They DO NOT sell to the public. They sell to big corporations. Big corporations are not the public.

Also, the messaging that you need to sell to a CFO is nothing like the message that you need to sell to an impulsive consumer. Good business is all about productivity, progress, and Return On Investment. Good public relations is all about feeling, connection, sexy, environmental responsibility, or anything else that happens to be the buzz of the day. Good enterprise relations is all about results. Public relations, like consumer advertising, is in constant flux. But the basics of good business never change.

However, the advertising channels through which business advertising have exploded, not only as a result of the rapid expansion of the ubiquity of the world wide web, but of social media as well. As a result, the complexity of media management has increased dramatically. The fundamentals haven’t changed, but the amount of work required to coordinate and manage the effort has. Not to mention the knowledge required to strategically place your advertising and messaging to stand out amidst the noise, which consists not only of a constant stream of advertising and messaging from your competitors but analysis, third party reviews, and random comments. It’s a media jungle, and unless you have a team of full time pros to manage it 24/7, you need help. Even if you do have a team, you probably need guidance.

A good Media Relations Team will help you:

  • Identify the Right Channels
    Which traditional print and online web publications are right for you?
    What are the right channels to advertise your coverage?
    Who are the right people at these outlets to reach out to?
  • Tailor the Message
    While you need to craft and own your message, you also need to recognize that different individuals at different publications who control different channels are interested in different parts of the message you have to deliver. To get your message heard, sometimes you have to focus in on the part that will get a crier’s attention.
  • Spread the Message
    Parts of your message have to spread through others, but thanks to the social media revolution, other parts have to be spread by your organization through social media channels. Managing these can be a full time job, and not the best use of your limited resources. This is best left to an expert.

In other words, you need help, but the help you need is not Public Relations. It’s Media Relations.

And if you really need someone to talk to in order to help you elicit your messaging in a collaborative fashion, hire a subject matter expert (SME) whom can also offer you project management, product development, or thought leadership consulting services. This will jump start those efforts as the subject matter expert will not only be fully familiar with your messaging, but with your modus operandi as well. As a result, there will be little to no learning curve for the SME when it’s time to start the project management, product development, or thought leadership creation. This will pay off in spades as you’ll get your project, product, and/or thought leadership done faster, hit the market faster, and see a significant return faster.

So when it comes to getting help, get the right help. Even if you don’t thank me for it.

Enterprise Software Companies DO NOT Need Public Relations!

Since we’re on the topic of what really grinds the doctor‘s gears, another thing that really grinds the doctor‘s gears is the incessant insistence by public relation companies that they need to be ingrained in all communication activities undertaken by an enterprise software company. To this I say, BullCrap!

Let’s start by defining what public relations is. As can easily be read on Wikipedia, public relations is the practice of managing the spread of information between an organization and the public. Let’s dwell on this. It’s the management of information flow between the organization and the public. Now let’s dwell on what enterprise software companies do. Enterprise software companies sell software made by their organization to their client organizations. Now let’s dwell on this. They move software from one organization to another organization. Not to the public. As a result, the accompanying information flow is between two organizations, not between the organization and the public. So where does public relations enter the mix?

Let’s dive into what modern Public relations organizations do, or at least try to sell perspective clients, to see if we can make any sense of this.

  • Audience Targeting

    While it’s important to sell to the right audience, enterprise software companies have a pretty good idea of who their audience is. It is companies with a potential need for their software that is their audience, and not only does marketing have a pretty good idea of what their audience is, it is their job to know what that audience is.

  • Messaging

    Messaging is of the utmost importance, especially with so many other vendors also hawking their wares, and in a world where many customers are looking for partners, or at least software providers who can offer a complete solution (software, services, and training), the messaging often has to be perfect. But this is why you have Marketing — this is their primary job.

  • Social Media Marketing

    Since many of the decision makers at a potential customer are on social media, this is an important channel in which to place your messaging. With so many social media networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and so many different individuals in the target organizations to target (employees, directors, C-Suite, etc.), this is a lot to manage, and secondary to the messaging and audience targeting responsibilities of Marketing. So it makes some sense to get some help here — but this help should come in the form of organizations that specialize in social media marketing for B2B organizations, not Public Relations firms that specialize in information flow to the public for B2C organizations.

  • Media Relations

    This is important for any organization that does business and needs to get its message out to the world, even if it is just the corporate sector. However, this relationship should be controlled by marketing, not some third party with a watered down message.

Now it’s no secret that the doctor does not like PR, for a host of reasons (chronicled in his Blogger Relations series), but this has nothing to do with his like of PR. This has to do with his dislike of many PR firms telling enterprise software companies that they need to be embedded in all of their communication processes and work with those companies in a collaborative and consultant manner for months and months to define their targeting, messaging, (social) media, and relations strategy and do all of the work that should be done, or at least managed, by Marketing at a very high cost to you. Not only are you shelling out 10’s of thousands of dollars for them to walk you through an exercise where you do all the work (because, let’s face it, they don’t have a clue what you’re selling, what’s unique about it, or how to uniquely position it), but you’re losing two, three, and sometimes even four quarters of momentum while you go through this drawn out exercise to get a message that your marketing team, possibly with the help of some subject matter experts, could figure out in a matter of weeks! It’s the oldest consulting trick in the book after making up a fad you don’t need — take your money to listen to you elicit what you need. (If you need to talk through your strategy to elicit your messaging, the doctor is certain a quack psychologist will be cheaper.)

So Fire That PR Firm and put your money where you need it:

  • Subject Matter Expert Consulting

    to help you figure out what is distinct about your solution and missing in your solution space

  • Thought Leadership and Expert Writing Services

    to help you get your message crystallized and down on (white) (e-)paper and in appropriate training materials for your clients

  • Social Media Campaign Management

    to manage your messaging through social media and on-line channels

Just like you shouldn’t get taken in by companies selling infinite scrolling websites that you don’t need, you shouldn’t get taken in by companies selling your collaborative PR services that you don’t need either.