Most people in the marketing, technology or social media worlds have seen the Marketing Technology Landscape graphic. This super-large graphic shows over 5000 players in the marketing tech landscape.
Jeremy Epstein, former Sprinklr executive and current Never Stop Marketing president, has built a version of this graphic for the blockchain marketing world. The BlockChain Marketing Landscape is an eye-opener, even with fewer than a hundred or so companies on it. It shows the initial, growing stages of a future marketplace, and the potential for a transformation in the way marketing technology works in the future.
Click to see the full version at Never Stop Marketing
I believe Jeremy is onto an important trend here, and this Venture Beat piece seems to agree. I’ll be watching as this chart grows and looking for interesting companies who can help me and my efforts to communicate more effectively with supporters, advocates, and others in the nonprofit world.
If you’re brand new to the concept of how blockchain can help marketers, Never Stop Marketing’s CMO Primer for the Age of Blockchains (which includes forewords by the CMOs of Nasdaq and Dun & Bradstreet) highlights how multiple functions of marketing including loyalty, customer experience, and brand may be impacted.
On the Harbrooke Blog, I’ve announced two contests.
1. From Thursday 2/24 at 8 am Eastern through Friday 2/25 at 8pm, the folks at Dell and Zócalo Group will be looking at tweets that are sent that include my Twitter handle, @howardgr, and the #tradesecrets hashtag***. People sharing their tips on how to make a great first impression will be eligible to win a Dell Vostro V130. Please only share one tip during this time for your entry. If you have more tips, see below.  (Please RSVP in my comments if you’ll join us for this)
2. On Monday, 2/28 at 2pm Eastern Time, I’ll be holding a Twitter chat, discussing the same subject. Anyone who participates during the time stated when we start, also using the #tradesecrets hashtag will also be eligible to win a Dell Vostro V130.  (UPDATE: Please RSVP in my comments and tweet it if you’ll join us for the chat – Sample tweet: †I’m joining @HowardGR on Twitter on Thur, Fri, Mon http://bit.ly/gV77yT to share tips + a chance to win a Dell Vostro V130 #tradesecrets “)
My version of Quickbooks 2007 for Mac is basically having errors on Snow Leopard. Things in my American Express expense ledger are showing “Overflow.” Otherwise, the program works just fine, as far as I’m concerned. The fine folks at Intuit tech support tell me I have to buy a new version (>$199). Glad to know that the Apple system upgrade changed the way math works. Thanks.
As it is the end of the year, and I’m trying to close out my books, I run to Staples, where Quickbooks was on sale for $50 off. (It is also on sale at Amazon, but I needed to do my books that day.) I decide, since my account has trouble with my Mac-based QB file every year, to get QB 2010 for Windows, and run in in Parallels. This works fine, and I’m able to install and upgrade my QB Mac file with no problem. The program keeps asking me to register, and it won’t take no for an answer. So I start to do so.
Whoa. They want a LOT of information about my company, just to register their software.Name and address is mandatory – everything from size of business and number of employees is mandatory. Not even WINDOWS made me give this information as mandatory, and people complain about it all the time (and yes, I’m an MSFT stockholder in my retirement accounts).
I frankly don’t want to give them that information, as they’re just going to use it to market to me, and frankly, if I want their extra services such as Payroll, I’ll click the button and ask for it.
I go to the Amazon.com Reviews for Quickbooks 2010 and wow, I’m not the only person who thinks this is the case. Reviewer “R. Pink Floyd” said “Intuit has their head up their bank account” and “my biggest problem with it is that the entire program just seems highly focused on sucking money out of the customer.” P. Rudy “Adventure Traveler” asks ” Does Intuit Work Day and Night to dream up new ways for customers to hate it?” and “They must. Decent accounting program that everyone knows about, yet each year, they work harder and harder to get more of your money and to piss you off. Intuit has one plus — I will NEVER complain about Microsoft. Could you image using Windows where there was a pop up every 15 mintues to sell you an add on service?”Stephen J. Fotos “Stephen” says “Quickbooks is a marketing machine, more than a functional program.”
So I’m wondering how I can skip this registration process. And then I read the End User License Agreement {emphasis is mine}:
You hereby grant Intuit permission to use information about your business and usage experience to enable us to provide the Intuit Services to you, including updating and maintaining your data, addressing errors or service interruptions, and to enhance the types of data and services Intuit may provide to you in the future. You also grant Intuit permission to combine your business data, if any, with that of others in a way that does not identify you or any individual personally to improve services and to compare business practices with other company standards. We may use your data to create, market or promote new Intuit offerings to you and others.
So, in order to have the privilege of paying to use their program, I have to bend over and let them send me marketing information. And, I have to deal with pop-ups every time I log in. The program has a 60 day money back guarantee. I’d immediately try Freshbooks but it doesn’t seem to have a full Bills and Expenses system – I could be wrong – let me know.
How does this tie into VRM? Well, my understanding from speaking to Doc Searls many times, including in this interview at Supernova, is that VRM is the way I give my data to companies I want to have it, so they can sell me more services I want, and not the other way around.
Frankly, this entire experience with the new Quickbooks just makes me feel icky. And that’s not what you want your customers to feel like.
I’ve Tweeted Intuit http://twitter.com/howardgr/status/6836077895 and asked “Hey @Intuit, how do I opt out of giving you all my registration data for Quickbooks 2010. You are asking for too much private biz info.” I’ll publish any replies I get here.
Tonight I went to an event sponsored by Inc. Magazine (where I write for the Start-Up blog). The event featured Norm Brodsky, a serial entrepreneur and writer of the Street Smarts column, and Bo Burlingham, Inc. Magazine Editor at large.
I ran into Lauren Solomon of LS Image Associates, whom I worked with several years ago, and haven’t seen in good while. She introduce me to Elyissia Wassung of 2 Chicks with Chocolate.
We went inside, and here are my live blogging notes (excuse typos and partial sentences – this is raw note-taking).
Start Up: A Twitter Success Story (How to Use Twitter as a Marketing Strategy)
Chances are, if you’re not an early adopter type, you may not have heard of Twitter, the online community that is a kind of instant-messaging social network. Users send updates of up to 140 character (about 2 sentences) out to their followers–people who choose to receive their messages–and read the messages of those they follow.