Stephen O Grady Senior Analyst Red Monk 9 2005

Stephen O’Grady Senior Analyst Red. Monk 9. 2005

Questions We Ask • • • Who got Linux to where it is today? Who got Steve Ballmer so excited that he needed surgery on his vocal cords? Who made PHP so popular that it runs on a third of the world's domains? Who made Firefox so popular that it's been downloaded 100 M times? Who makes open source the most disruptive trend in software today? Who made Eclipse the de facto Java IDE within the enterprise? 2

Answers We Hear • Analysts • • CIOs • • Sure, CIOs love free and unsupported software Press • • Weren't these the same guys that predicted that NT would wipe out Linux? Are they driving agendas or following them? Vendors • Which came first – Linux and PHP, or IBM? 3

The Right Answer 4

It's Not Just Us “Apple is kicking our behind once again. How will Microsoft respond? Steve Ballmer already gave our vision: developers, developers, developers, developers. . . ” Source: Robert Scoble, Microsoft 5

Still Not Convinced? Then explain the success of these two projects 6

The Next Question We Ask • If we can all agree that: • • Developers are critically important Developers will play a major if not determining role in the success or failure of your products Developers, like any audience, will have things to say about your products Then why are you not engaging with them? 7

The Answers We Hear • • • Shouldn't we be selling to the CIO? I thought developers didn't buy things We are engaging with them; we advertise in magazines, on the web, and so on Developers will flame me Slashdot style if I try and engage with them We trust the media to get our messages to the development community I'd like to, but I'm not sure where to start 8

The Reality • • • Developers have become nearly immune to traditional marketing Developers spend far more time online than they do with print publications Developers would rather talk with someone than be talked at by something Developers are starting their own mini communities via blogs Developers don't just code at the office Developers are not content to sit back and wait for updates or news; they can make their own 9

What To Do? Conversational Marketing 1. Markets are conversations. 2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors. 3. Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice. www. cluetrain. com 4. Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived. 5. People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice. . . 10

Stalking The Wily Developer, Pt 1: Scout • First, know where the conversations are happening: • • • Blogs Wikis Forums Listservs IRC del. icio. us Flickr Wikipedia Sourceforge Freshmeat 11

Blogs – Centers for Conversation 12

Wikis – Collaborative Authoring 13

del. icio. us – Social Bookmarking & Link Blogging 14

Flickr – Social/Group Photo Sharing 15

Stalking The Wily Developer, Pt 2: Learn • • Once you know where the conversation is occurring, find out what's being said Use the tools and services below to track what's being said outside of your scope 16

Example: What's Being Said About Eclipse? “The Java IDE--there's really one, Eclipse--is a 105 MB zip file. You know how I installed it? Unzipped it. How do I run it? Click on Eclipse. exe. You know how I install Studio? Pay $2500 for top version (not out yet btw but will be about that amount or more); Insert DVD; answer inane questions; walk away for 2 hours; return with at least 1. 5_G_B less diskspace and a doubled registry size. ” Source: Michael Stuart , former Microsoft employee http: //minimsft. blogspot. com/2005/09/three-quickthings-jobs-dynamics. html#c 112698172605533703 17

Stalking The Wily Developer, Pt 3: Participate • After getting a feel for the various communities, try participating: • DO's • • • Accept that the conversation is two way Speak in a regular, human voice Be respectful, candid and honest Have a thick skin Give back to the community(ies) DO NOT's • • Attempt to market or sell in community channels Do not attempt to change opinions Do not delete or remove posts or content Do not talk down to your audience 18

Forget ROI, What Are the Benefits? • • • You may find yourself with new, unpaid evangelists You may find yourself with a wealth of new documentation You may find yourself with detailed and comprehensive feedback (My. SQL) You may greatly improve your search presence and ranking (BLOG) You may find yourself with an improved product You may find yourself being introduced to new partners or customers 19

Who's Doing Conversational Marketing? • Claire Giordano / Jim Grisanzio - Sun • • Ed Brill – IBM • • http: //jeremy. zawodny. com/blog/ Robert Scoble – Microsoft • • http: //ianskerrett. blogspot. com/ | http: //milinkovich. blogspot. com/ Jeremy Zawodny – Yahoo • • http: //www. edbrill. com/ebrill/edbrill. nsf/ Ian Skerrett / Mike Milinkovich – Eclipse • • http: //blogs. sun. com/roller/page/cmh | http: //blogs. sun. com/roller/page/jimgris http: //radio. weblogs. com/0001011/ Virtually every community on the planet has a Planet aggregated feed • Planet feeds for Apache, Eclipse, Gentoo, GNOME, Hula, KDE, My. SQL, OO. o, Python, XML, etc 20

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