Online Masters: Infographic

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Bottom Line Confidential – How to for Sales Growth: “A New Way to Increase Revenues”

By Bill Swanson, CEO Decisions

Revenue is down and so is profit. You listened to your customers, assessed the competitors, enlisted the brightest of your team, and sifted through the brains of the best external experts. You’re feeling good about your decision to signed-off on that five hundred thousand dollar Sales Improvement Program; you locked the door and made your way to the parking lot. It’s 6:30pm and you’re excited about a long holiday weekend with the family; a time to relax and renew. As you flip the steaks, cook the potatoes, and plan the weekend, the flames under the steaks bring to mind your hot new Sales plan. You begin to ponder… ponder if your market will alter their behavior and increase sales as promised by your team. Can we drive down the expense line using a new position in market strength? Will our up and down channels be convinced and ensure our new products will be supported by them? Will improving Field Sales capabilities and efficiencies do their share to increase revenues? Can marketing successfully define the improvement, and will the company become more profitable; or did I miss something…? The answer to these questions becomes personal. It’s my credibility with the Board, the Bank, and the sales force. Within the smoke of cooking beef lays two questions; questions that should have been asked at the beginning of the decision process: Was the decision making process fully correlated to the sales objective, and will the projects and programs produce recognizable value to the customer?

The Popularization of Analytics via the Cloud: Theme of Cloud Analytics Summit, April 25

By Jeffrey M. Kaplan

As a follow-up to Greg Sikes’ blogpost entitled, “Deep Analytics Become More Relevant In Daily Life”, on March 21, I’d like to suggest that the pervasive nature of today’s powerful new forms of analytics can be found everywhere in our day-to-day lives, ranging from fantasy sports teams to smartphone apps which can track our every move.

And, this ready access to data and statistics which is becoming an integral part of our personal lives is setting new standards for what we expect in our professional lives as well.

In the same way that the ‘consumerization of IT’ has transformed the way technology and business applications are being consumed in the corporate world, THINKstrategies believes a similar pattern is emerging in the BI, big data and data integration arena.

Deep analytics become more relevant in daily life

By Greg Sikes

If you have watched TV in the last two years, or walked through an airport, you have likely seen an IBM Smarter Planet advertisement.  At the core of this message is the idea that the world is becoming more Instrumented, Interconnected, and Intelligent.  Just take a look around your house, or at the communication device you regularly clutch in your hands, and you will see evidence of the first two points.  I looked up the word “intelligent” in the dictionary sitting on my desk; included in the definition was the text “the ability to learn or understand”.How does a device get the label “smart”?  Aside from good marketing intended to increase sales, smart products hold the promise of optimizing performance based on behavior patterns.  An example might be an energy consumption monitor that helps meter appliance usage such that it occurs during the lowest cost cycle within a given time frame.

Uh Oh: The personal information in our database has been breached

By Richard E. Neff

There is so much in the news about cyber-security. Much of the focus is on cyber war as a new and inevitable weapon, Stuxnet and the vulnerability of our national infrastructure. Some of the news is about use of computers to steal US technology and trade secrets, with culprits—if traceable—often located in China or Russia. It is definitely scary stuff, we all fear the prospect of several weeks without power, or endless gas lines should the oil pipeline infrastructure take a hit.

However, companies face a much more mundane and growing risk: personal information in their possession is being stolen by cyberattacks much more frequently than before. This is a form of cybercrime, not a new method of waging war, and the goal is generally identity theft, often an attempt to obtain credit (and debit) card numbers. All companies are vulnerable, but in the absence of required corporate standards, except in certain sectors (e.g., financial services/banking), some companies have done little to protect their personnel and customers from such hacker attacks. Moreover, these crimes are very difficult to prosecute; most originate from users in other countries. In the realm of data breaches and identity theft, we are truly One World.

Lead Generation Easier Today or Harder?

By Barry Lieberman

A “lead” means many things to many people. To some it’s a list of contacts based upon a specific
location, industry, age group or other demographic. While to others it’s the contact that has
completed an online form or responded to an advertisement. Yet to many sales people it’s
a person who has demonstrated need, budget, authority and a specific timeframe to buy a
specific product or service.

Technology Industry Awards Dinner – April 30

Join us at the 2009 TCOSC Technology Industry Awards dinner for the best companies, the brightest people, and the most fun!

The Technology Industry Awards is celebrating its 15th year of recognizing individuals and companies that have made significant, superior contributions to Southern California’s technology industry. This event brings together top executives from all aspects of Southern California’s technology industries to provide an outstanding opportunity for networking. Everyone involved in the technology industry should plan to attend and celebrate the best Southern California has to offer.

Learn more about this fun event:

Overview  |  Keynote Speaker  | Register to Attend  
Local Company Awards Finalists
Judges |  Sponsors  | History | Award Criteria

April 30, 2009
6:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Millennium Biltmore Hotel
Downtown Los Angeles

We’ve sold out for the past nine years, so get your tickets today!

Please reserve your tickets now by registering here.

Southern California Tech Central

The Technology Council of Southern California and TechEmpower are happy to announce the launch of:

Southern California Tech Central

This is a community of people in Southern California who have come together to help find and organize the best content from blogs, news sources and other web sites all around technology in So Cal.  The goal is to create a place where it’s easy to find current and highly relevant content.  And perhaps to stimulate new connections.

You can get a sense of the power of the site by visiting the site and clicking a keyword on the left.  For example, if you click on Startup, you find:

=> The most recent posts, announcements and web pages on the top of the page that relate to Startups.

=> The best (according to social signals across the network) content below that such as:

• Acting CTO Role in a Start-up
• The DNA of an A++ Team
• Startup Delta Force…

=> The keywords on the left are ordered according to their relationship to the current term.  So you can see that

• Entrepreneur (60)
• LinkedIn (15)
• Metrics (16)
• SEO (15)
• Company (141)

are all considered highly relevant to the term “startup”.

As the site runs, it will get better at finding great content.

You can find Featured participants listed on the right hand side of each page.  When you choose one of them such as Cliff Allen on Marketing, you will see the keywords are now based on what Cliff discusses more than other bloggers.  You can see that he talks about: Marketing, Metrics, Customer and Social Media more than most.  Lower on the page, you can find the best posts from Cliff based on social signals with the top spot belonging to his 9 Marketing Trends for 2009.

There is an impressive network of people who are bringing this content together.

• Ask the Angels
• Cliff Allen on Marketing
• eStrategy Partners
• OC VC
• Reputation and the Web
• Sid Mohasseb
• So Cal Tech Group
• SoCal CTO
• SureToMeet
• traction matters…

All of this technology comes from Tony Karrer.  If you have ideas on how to improve the site or want to do something similar, I know that Tony would like to hear about it.

Panel: Digital Content Distribution’s Brave New World

“Digital Content Distribution’s Brave New World: Trends & Issues” was our topic last Thursday night at the Doubletree Hotel in Santa Monica.

The first in what we hope is a series of digital media-related events for the Technology Council, this program focused on trends and opportunities in digital content distribution.

Turn-out was stronger than expected for this new topic area, with some attendees driving from Southern Orange County to get a taste of Hollywood’s business expertise.

After a networking happy hour mixer and dinner, we had an all-star panel that represented several different facets of the Los Angeles media and technology commmunity. Panelists included:

• Todd Mendeloff, Vice President, Digital Media Marketing and Distribution of Walt Disney Studios
• Richard E. Neff, Chair of the IP & Technology Dept. at the law firm of Greenberg Glusker
• Krishnan Rajagopalan, Vice President, Digital Media Technologies of Motion Picture Association of America, Inc.
• Adam Taylor, President, APM Music, joint venture of EMI Music Publishing and Universal Music Group
• Mark Kapczynski of Kontrol Media

Moderator: Scott Fox, Author of Internet Riches

With all that expertise it was a challenge for me as moderator to keep the discussion to only an hour.  The attendees were interested to hear the panelists’ perspectives, and to share their own, on the many challenges facing the film, TV, and music industries in the digital age.

Thanks to all who attended, our sponsors Sheppard Mullin and Singer Lewak, Catrina Luedtke for producing the event, and to Richard Neff for helping me plan and host the evening.

Lessons For Entrepreneurs From Tech Coast Angels

The Tech Coast Angels talk about improving your chances for long-term success in the lead article of the November SCribe Newsletter.  Check this out, along with our other feature articles and links to the upcoming event schedule.

Here are quick links to the feature articles in this issue:

• Lessons For Entrepreneurs From Tech Coast Angels
• 10 Invisible Threats To Every Business
• Member Spotlight: Uri Blackman of Gideon Informatics
• When Outsourcing HR Makes Sense
• Use And Mis-use of Non-compete Provisions
• 5 Reasons Email Is Cooler Than You Think
• Q3 Corporate Real Estate Tenant’s Guide

You can also see past SCribe articles in our archive at http://www.tcosc.org/news.archives.html. 

Tell us what you think!