Fred Hoar and the timeless lessons of success in Silicon Valley

© Gkanivets

 

Hard to believe it’s been nine years and a few months since Fred Hoar died. 

For newbies in the tech biz, during the formative years of Silicon Valley Fred was the dean of All Things Marketing.  The Toastmaster of High-Tech. And he wore this mantle like a suit of shining armor almost from the time he migrated here during the Vietnam ’60s to be the voice of Fairchild Semiconductor, the seminal force in just about All Things Silicon.  Prior to this he’d worked in mid-town Manhattan during the Mad Men ’50s and early ’60s, applying advertising and PR to RCA (that’s the Radio Corporation of America, for you Millennials — um, look it up) overlooking Rock Center.

I had the honor of delivering remarks at his memorial service, to an SRO crowd in a large church in Palo Alto on a sunny but sad winter’s afternoon.  While the end had not come suddenly, the kick-in-gut news was still a shock, especially for the many of us who’d worked for him at one of his many stops along a glittering career path in Santa Clara County, from Fairchild’s tilt-up in Mountain View to his lectern at Santa Clara University where he regaled eager graduate students right to the end.

Another tribute to his force-of-nature personality and charm: how often so many of us recall his homilies and observations. And what more could a teacher/mentor hope for than to have his apprentices so fondly remember the advice, insights and admonitions of the Master?

Thought of him again recently at this year’s RSA show.  Fred liked these bustling events and made no bones about it, unlike many of us who pretend to dread them even as we sign off on the purchase orders that seem to grow chubbier every year, in any economy. Sometimes I think everything I learned about how to survive and prosper in the Valley I absorbed from my Apple years under Fred — and listening to him for years thereafter.  And what I’m reminded of at an event like RSA, is that that the more things change in this business the more they stay the same. Of course, the techniques of “global communications” may be radically different than Fred’s day — the prominence of social marketing comes quickly to mind — but the basics of value propositions and holding peoples’ interest remain the same. The most obvious differences are superficial: people don’t line up for phones anymore they continually stare into the ones in their hands. Far fewer coats and ties, way more denim. And women’s fashion has, thankfully, lost the shoulder pads. The booths are sleeker and convey more at-a-glance information (necessary for the ADD that’s a universal in business today).  But those marketers who rise above the pack still practice what Fred preached: keep it simple, memorable and worth peoples’ time.  No one was ever bored into buying anything. People never pay real attention to “marketing”, they’ll always pay attention to “interesting”.  Thanks, Freddy.

 

When he’s not ranting on this site, Stan DeVaughn holds forth along with comrade-in-communication Peter Davé on The Write Stuff, the blog of Silicon Valley’s premiere technology content-creation agency Write Angle, where IT vendors go for written content that drives revenue.

How to Make Your Product Stories Become the Stuff of Hollywood Scripts

© Oxlock

 

We read this analysis of “storytelling” recently and were struck by the similarities to the principles that can elevate marketing content from good to really good, or even great. Yes, we’re talking about the guidelines of Hollywood screenwriters.

Before you scoff, consider that your users and customers do not read your website. At least, not necessarily.  Neither do they devour your PDFs.  In fact, they steer clear of anybody’s “marketing content”.  However, they DO read what piques and holds their interest. And this is exactly what great storytelling is and does.  See if you don’t agree how something like a case study or a customer use-case is a close cousin to a great script:

Heroes: They draw an audience like a magnet.  Especially if the “hero” is a character with whom people can relate and identify.  If it’s an underdog fighting the odds, so much the better.  Maybe a beleaguered security professional making tradeoffs between network productivity — and the possibility of compromised data.  IT folks can certainly relate to this.

Antagonist: In a security case you’d call them the bad guys but “they” can also be an abstract. Like the “before” in a before-and-after set of “before” circumstances.  An example would be the conditions that existed in a company where employees are not free to utilize their own smartphones and tablets securely.  In such cases, mobility is a myth. And productivity suffers. Or, in a different sense, there is Apple vs. Microsoft where, in Apple’s messages, we can always count on Windows, or Android, being cast as the straw man or whipping boy.

Big Moment:  AKA, the “aha” that’s the hero’s awakening to what must be done to resolve the conflict, or rectify the wrong, of the situation at hand. “What we need is an app that enables our employees to bring their own devices and stay secure and productive while they access company data wherever they roam!”

Transformation: Now comes the commercial message.  The hero wields your product or service like Luke Skywalker’s Light Saber, overcoming the problem and the odds. Mission accomplished.

Does your content attract and hold the audience you’re looking for today?  Can it work harder? How can you transform your brand’s story into a nonstop page-turner?  Do you see opportunities for your existing product line or new offerings to be dramatized in compelling stories and cases?

 

(When he’s not posting on this blog, Stan DeVaughn sees to it that technology companies place priority on customer value in their marketing content and communications.  You can also read him at The Write Stuff, the blog of technology writing service Write Angle.)

 

Betting the farm on new products is in the best tradition of technology and Silicon Valley

Intel bet all its chips on the microprocessor business.  In hindsight, it was brilliant.

This was an instructive piece about the present, past and future of technology products.  Indeed, it addressed the whole innovation ethos of Silicon Valley.  Technology has hastened the tempo of change but there is nothing new about the way today’s tech king-pins can so quickly find themselves looking up at the new king-pin.

As part of this constant change, it’s long been a given that you must cannibalize products in order to sustain yourself into the technological future.  Likewise, you must be ready to roll the dice on some dicey propositions when it comes to markets and technologies. At least three of today’s tech titans, who remain hands-down leaders, made bet-the-farm decisions in their respective histories when it became apparent that staying the course would lead them right off a cliff.  This is apparent in retrospect only, however.  At decision time, you don’t have the luxury of hindsight.

Apple: The move into entertainment, in retrospect, seems logical.  The iPod is a computer after all.  As is the smartphone.  But this was still a ballsy move.  Might not seem like it today. But it was. Result: Apple in 2012 is a consumer technology brand, and all that this implies.  But to get here, from there, was hardly the slam-dunk it might seem.

IBM: In 1964, when Big Blue owned the business market for big, honkin’ mainframes, a smaller machine was a radical departure.  This was the year it introduced the revolutionary System/360, the first large “family” of computers to use interchangeable software and peripheral equipment. This concept was a huge step away from the status quo.  And IBM was not known for radical departures. At the time, Fortune magazine called  it a “five-billion-dollar gamble”. There was no guarantee that computer compatibility, a concept now taken for granted, was the wave of the future. If the S/360 failed, IBM’s existing computer product line would be quickly overtaken by competitors. To succeed, IBM would have to cannibalize existing, revenue-producing computer product lines and migrate customers from their current IBM systems to a wholly new, unproven product. Both scenarios were fraught with risk. When IBM committed to developing the System/360, it was bet-the-company time.  The rest is history.

Intel:   In the early 1980s its business was dominated by dynamic random access (DRAM) chips.  By then, however, increased competition from semiconductor manufacturers in Japan had begun to cut into the profitability of this market.  It was time for a bet-the-company shift, which is exactly what CEO Andy Grove did.  Intel bet all its chips, so to speak, on the microprocessor business. This also fundamentally changed the company’s business model.  By decade’s end, the bet was paying off.  Supplying IBM and its competitors with microprocessors, the engines of personal computers AKA “Intel Inside”, the company would begin a ten-year run of unprecedented growth.   But it was never a “gimme”.

How many people use Microsoft products? More than a billion.

A couple of eyebrow-raising and easily overlooked factoids in this piece: the number of Microsoft users there are and the number of billion-dollar business units this company has spawned.  If ever there was a consumer brand, it is Microsoft.  As the media drool and fawn over Apple, Google and Facebook, the force-field surrounding the Microsoft brand should never be dismissed in technology circles.  As the SAI article emphasizes there are a lot of very smart, ambitious and driven Microsofties.  They, and their outfit, will not be going away anytime soon.

http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-doing-well-2010-7#theres-11-billion-people-using-microsoft-products-9

When to ignore conventional wisdom in business

Eschew the glam on Product Launch Day. (Opt for Levi’s and a black mock-turtle?)

You have to hand it to Apple.  Again and again.  I can’t think of another company whose product intros can consistently wow far more people than they disappoint, especially when the company in question is such an uber-profile vendor with an iconic, rock-star CEO.  And when the intros are built up for weeks, even months, like over-hyped movies.  Remember, though: Apple has a built-in advantage here.

OK, so how do they do it?  More important, can you replicate it?  Yes, but only if you’re comfortable doing business the Apple way. For starters, Apple doesn’t stress over conventional wisdom.  Its users don’t give a flying mousepad about “open systems”.  They like closed ones. The point here is that Apple markets and sells to its tribe, first and foremost, that legion of cult followers built and cultivated over many years, the way Jerry Garcia played piper (pun not intended) to Deadheads .  Apple has a rabid cheering section that would fill Jerry Jones’ new stadium in Texas to overflowing and that makes fans you see at an NFL or NHL game seem casual by comparison.   Next, don’t bet the ranch the day you launch. Don’t be deluded that a big spike in hits will convert into sales and instant market leadership. Please your hardcore fan base first and foremost.

Your true north is to stay mindful of the things a company, brand, or product does that impress you.  Go out there and do those kinds of things yourself.  You always know when a company is talking to you, not at you. How? It’s whenever you listen and pay attention as a result.  Nearly 30 years ago, Steve Jobs was obsessed by the things Sony and Mercedes did with their products and marketing to create their cult-like followings.  Take a close look at Apple.  You’ll see the resemblance today.

Schmidt’s departure from AAPL board shows growing importance of cloud computing

The growing importance of cloud computing was made clearer recently when Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, resigned from the board of directors of Apple.

Cloud computing is the general term used to describe anything that delivers hosted services over the Internet. The name was inspired by the cloud symbol often used to illustrate the Internet in flow charts and diagrams. When a service or an application of any kind can be downloaded from the Internet to your device, whether a computer, laptop or cellphone, it is referred to as existing in the “cloud”.

In fact, Google has been on a collision course with Apple for months as it offered products and services from the cloud in direct competition. Just last month it announced its new Internet browser, Chrome, which amounted to a competitor to the system that runs Macs. Chrome is an open system that is downloadable from the cloud. And Google Apps and Google Voice are both making inroads.

As if this weren’t enough to strain the relationship between the two companies, Android, the search titan’s free operating system for smart phones, is mushrooming on smart-phones that go head-to-head with Apple’s iconic iPhone.

Unlike Apple, whose business is making and selling devices, Google wants a world in which the mobile web is as open as the Internet and is accessible to any and all devices running any and all operating systems. More open access for more devices and services creates a more searchable cloud or mobile web. This is very good for Google. But not necessarily for Apple.

Happy 30th, Walkman.

Book excerpt below from NET Value: How to Profit As the Digital Culture Changes Your Value Proposition by Steve Turner and Stan DeVaughn (2008):

“It was no secret that (Steve) Jobs had been spellbound for years by the offerings of Sony Corporation and the way the Japanese consumer electronics giant seemed to churn out one irresistible product after another.  (Stan) DeVaughn remembers him being particularly enthralled by the Sony Walkman, the iPod of its day, and as “whole” a product as technology (and the recording industry) would permit at the time.  Looking back, DeVaughn can only wonder what Jobs was thinking and planning as the chairman was furiously launching the Macintosh, surrounded by Apple employees with their Walkmans clipped to their belts and wired to headphones as they grooved to Men at Work or Talking Heads. “

Indeed.  The Walkman was the iPod of its day.  And, like the iPod, a “whole” product — everything you need is already there to begin enjoying the benefit you paid for.

All you need to know about Steve Jobs

In today’s Silicon Alley Insider, there’s a salute to Steve Jobs.

The piece, and the comments it generated, say it all.  http://www.businessinsider.com/the-life-and-awesomeness-of-steve-jobs-2009-6

Not the easiest guy to be around.  Nor the most pleasant.  But to focus on his sharp edges, or the decades-long trail of broken glass he’s left behind, is to miss who and what this guy and his legacy are all about.  I can’t think of anyone who can match his commercial accomplishments.  Not even close.  And that’s what we need to focus on here.  Commerce.  Pure and simple.   Can anyone deny, dismiss or even minimize the  thousands of “Jobs jobs” created because of this guy’s drive, obessiveness, pushiness, crankiness and prickliness?  Sheer force of will?   I’ll admit I don’t look back with any particular fondness on my brief time associated with him at Apple.  I can remember times trying to avoid him.  But give the guy his due, because he’s due plenty.   He’s created value, wealth and Jobs jobs.   Long may he flourish and prosper.  If he does, many others will too.  I can think of worse things.