Ramon Chen: Cloud 'N Clear

Hi, I’m Luke Skywalker, 

You may know me from a galaxy far far away. I’m pleased to report that I tried Google Buzz today.
Here is s snippet of my conversations with friends and family.  

Since I’m already a keen Facebooker, you can see my same interactions in the context of Facebook in the screenshot that follows.

Note that since Facebook required “real names”, my friends had to adapt slightly.
Apparently Leia got lucky and her name was not challenged at all! Typical.

What do you think of the comparison of the two UI’s?
I will be back with more usage of Google Buzz vs Facebook soon, and perhaps some Jedi insights for you …

-Luke

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IMPORTANT: If you are Guy Kawasaki skip to the end of this post, otherwise read on.

When I first started tweeting, I naturally used Twitter to publicize when I had a new blog post available. This was unsuccessful at first because I didn’t have that many followers and my tweets were generally of the vanilla form that didn’t give me many hits: Title of Blog Post <click shortened URL here>.

I’ve coined this the TweetLine (copyright RChen J). Interestingly Zappos (now Amazon registered the URL back in 2008) but haven’t done anything with it.

Now that I have now been blogging a year or so and I’d like to share a few techniques that have considerably broadened my readership, simply through the efficient use of tweetLines and Twitter. Note that I’m omitting the URL which would normally be at the end of the examples in these tweetlines. If you want to read the actual post, click through to: http://bit.ly/8ZfQ6o

1. Post the same tweetline more than once – My first epiphany was that, just because I tweeted that I had a new blog post available, it didn’t mean that everyone that followed me saw my tweet, advertising this momentous occurrence. The phrase “If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you” was first coined I believe by NBC almost 10 years ago when they were promoting reruns of popular shows like Friends and Seinfeld. The tip here is, it’s ok to send out another tweet at a different time to re-promote your content. If someone is not looking at their tweetstream at the exact right moment, or if they have lots of people they are following, it might mean that your tweet gets lost in the crowd, Witness Guy Kawasaki whom I follow, his Holly Kaw tweets repeat at least twice a day. So if you are not getting enough attention, feel free to tweet again:
   -How to make sure the next startup you join gets acquired (Day 1)
   -How to make sure the next startup you join gets acquired (Day 2)

 

2. RT an RT with a thank you, to double up on your tweetline visibility – If someone is kind enough to Retweet (RT) your tweetline, it’s good etiquette to say thank you. You can DM them, or use a public @twittername (more later in tip #4) OR better still you can thank them publicly and redoubling your efforts by sending out this tweet: 
   -RT @kindperson: RT @Ramon Chen: How to make sure the next startup you join gets acquired > Thx for the RT!This has triple the effect of a) thanking the person, b)`introducing the person to your followers who will see your RT and c) allowing you to publicly showcase that someone has thought enough of your post to RT it. I would caveat that it would be poor form to RT this more than once, so tip #1`does not apply here.

 

3. Get noticed in multiple tweet streams – Use of hash tags (e.g. #jobs) is a common practice that ensures that your tweet is included in the tweet stream of people who may be monitoring or filtering for specific content for which your blog might be relevant. So while your headline might not refer to jobs directly (e.g. it’s more about startups in general), you might catch the eye of other readers who may have a related interest. So add them against the keywords or at the end of  your tweetline:
   -How to make sure the next startup you work for gets acquired #startup #jobs #productmanagement #acquisition #venture #VC

 

4. Make your tweetline special to that special someone(s) – As everyone using Twitter knows adding an @ sign in front of a topic or person or company means that you are publicly communicating with them, and they are likely to see it in their “mentions” filter. If the blog post is relevant or directly pertaining to them, add the @ to tell them. Don’t be shy! At minimum you’ll get one group or person interested in your post and at the same time it’s good publicity for them:
   -How to make sure the next startup you join gets acquired @oracle

 

5. Solution market your tweetlines – Just as good marketers present their products in the context of a solution rather than harping on about features, a good tweetline should draw the interest and appeal to a specific set of audiences: 
   A ) How to make sure the next startup you work for gets acquired #startup #jobs #productmanagement #acquisition #venture (Day 1)
   B) 10 tips to make sure the next startup you work for gets acquired #startup #jobs #productmanagement #acquisition (Day 2)
   C) @Oracle acquired 5 #startups in 2009, should you be next? #jobs #productmanagement #acquisition #venture #VC (Day
   D) Do you really want to work at this startup? (To Be Tweeted)

are all tweetlines I used for the same blog post. I spread these tweets out over the course of a week. Also  at the same time liberally using tips #1 through #4 previously listed. Sure enough I got additional hits. Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to definitively analyze how the different tweetlines may have directly influenced and caught the eye of the different readers that they netted. That would have required that the readers answer some direct questions. But a simple view would be that I tracked significant additional net new readers (not just the same ones duped into thinking it was different content), from tweetlines B and C. Not exact evidence, but good enough for me to keep evaluating and trying the technique. Stay tuned.

My main message of this post can be summarized as follows:

RT @kindperson: RT @RamonChen: 1 #tweetline doesnt=many #blog hits. Good #marketing practices=repeat+audience+solution. Apply 2 @Twitter

Finally, I have to confess that these tips have not YET won any awards, but there’s still hope if you RT and promote this post J, which brings me to my @GuyKawasaki direct reference at the end of the tweetline. Obviously I am justifying my applying tip #4 in the hope is he’ll read this post and RT it (wishful thinking), but at minimum, hopefully anyone searching for his name will see my tweetline and that = many more additional readers of this post.

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Like many of you out there who have experienced Virgin America for yourself, I can hardly contain my excitement and joy when my travel plans call for flying on a Virgin route. Richard Branson continues to kick the a**es of any competitors in whatever field or industry he chooses to enter and Virgin is a shining example. If you’ve never flown Virgin, prepare for a sublime experience from the planes, products, food, availability of Wi-Fi, and amazing entertainment system. To be fair since Virgin is the new kid on the block, they do have the advantage of having brand new everything compared to the more established (old) carriers like Delta for example (cough … mediocre).

But what Virgin excels at is customer service and this is why my headline refers to their differentiated upbeat, can do attitude, and not just altitude as you might expect. Their great customer service is accentuated when compared to complete mediocrity, such as the Delta flight I’m currently on from SFO to Atlanta.

Let’s compare mediocre vs. great for Delta (cough … mediocrities) and Virgin (Great):

To be clear, I’m not blaming the staff at Delta for mediocrity, as in any company the attitude and leadership comes from the top. If you don’t have the attitude and culture for great customer service, which in Virgin’s case includes some well thought out processes and guidelines, but also adds a healthy dose of empowerment and can do customer service.

Ultimately, the gap between Good and Great is one that is difficult to bridge, but as Jim Collins’ book from a decade ago points out, it can be achieved. Judging by my observations Virgin is actively widening the gap for great service, making what may have been previously acceptable or “good” look very mediocre. Based on my recent flight, Delta should aim for just getting back to mediocre as their first goal.

Just so you don’t think I’m purely a fussy, never satisfied consumer, my goal of this post is to raise a discussion point about what it takes to be great. As VP of Marketing at MetaTV, I instigated, with the backing of the executive team, a set of core values in which “MetAmaze” was a prime element. Amaze in this context meant to delight customers to the point at which they are shocked by your efforts. But core values cannot just be placed on paper, or on a wall, or in a handbook, it has to be a state of mind and engrained, encouraged and re-enforced through compensation and accolades. You would think by now much of this is 101 company leadership and culture for major corporations. Unfortunately somewhere along the way, companies like Delta get complacent and it’s great to have someone like Virgin come along to shake things up. Can Delta can respond to the challenge!

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Today’s the big day of the showdown. The Men’s Olympic ice-hockey finals!

With the Canadian women triumphant over USA a few days ago and the USA men handing the Canadian team a big wake up call in the preliminaries, the anticipation of this game is reaching fever pitch. Evident are the numerous chants of Go Canada and U.S.A, U.S. and that’s just my Facebook newsfeed! In the spirit of technology patriotism (I’m British, so I can just be impartial) and just for fun, I’ve put together a friendly technology poll, pitting 3 Canadian and USA tech offerings and 1 pair of pop culture icons to see who wins out. Vote away!

Cloud ‘N Clear Poll – You Make The Call!

Enterprise Content Management - Open Text  vs. EMC Documentum

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Smartphones - Research In Motion vs. Apple

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Networking - Nortel Networks  vs. Cisco Systems

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Entertainer – Celine Dion  vs. Madonna

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 Got more technology (or non-technology) Canada vs. USA matchups you’d like to see? Please leave me a comment and I’ll add them.

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First of all, what about finding a company that’s going to IPO? Based on all we know, an IPO exit for a technology company has been extremely rare and difficult over the last few years. So assuming getting acquired is a good exit for a company, it’s employees and shareholders, let’s proceed with our discussion.

At the beginning of this new decade WSJ published a blog post noting that Cisco Acquired Most Start-Ups In Decade, But Oracle King In ‘09. It showed the serious number of startups gobbled up by the big boys between 2000-2009. I have linked the images of the two tables below using the URL’s from the WSJ blog site for your viewing pleasure. These are just the big boys, but just simple math comparing the hundreds of technology startups out there all looking for a graceful, profitable exit, indicate that the odds are high to say the least.

For those lucky enough to be acquired, you know the drill. In some cases like the recent IBM acquisition of Initiate Systems, Informatica of Siperian (disclosure my former company) and Oracle of GoldenGate (disclosure another of my former companies), the fiscal result for the shareholders and employees of the company hasn’t been bad. However as with any acquisition there is collateral damage and that shouldn’t be forgotten as I blogged about in Post Siperian Informatica Acquisition Opportunity – Great People Available. With many unfortunately out of work here’s hoping that better times are ahead for all of us.

While it’s often no fun to be acquired, particularly if you end up losing your job. It’s still better to be acquired than to have the company fail and shutdown. Yes, lots of companies actually do fail! Google the words Why Tech Startups Fail and you’ll find no shortage of articles on the topic. To take a more positive view, this article focuses on being a mini guide to what you should look for in order to make sure that you are on the acquired side of that equation, which hopefully equals success.

Maybe I’ve just been lucky (if you want to call it that), but every company I’ve worked for since 1997 has ended up being acquired (some more than once since I left).

My companies since 1997 reads as follows:

1. Synon Corporation – Acquired by Sterling Software in 1997 later acquired by CA
2. Evolve Software- IPOed in 2000 and later acquired by Primavera Software in turn later acquired by Oracle
3. MetaTV- Acquired by Comcast Corporation in 2005
4. GoldenGate Software – Acquired by Oracle in Sept 2009
5. Siperian- Acquired by Informatica in Feb 2010

I’m sure many of you reading this blog post may have had similar experiences if you, as the Knight said to Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade, “Chose Wisely”. Some of it of course is pure luck, and by no means were any of these home runs for me, hence my continued blogging Definitely nothing like those who’ve worked at Paypal, then YouTube and other very profitable acquisition and exits. So I’m not exactly brimming with jackpot credentials, but just looking to provide some insight to the some of the factors that have led to my circumstances to date.

AsI look back I believe that two things were key:

#1 is a little self serving and a bit of rah rah. So skip this section if you want.
I believe self confidence and ability pays an important role IF you are given an opportunity to directly influence and impact the company you join. I have been lucky to be in the product management and product marketing leadership function for all my prior companies. My objective has therefore always been to make any company I work for the leader in their respective markets. I feel also that I have been able to be an integral part of contributing to the company’s strategy and have also influenced internal culture and motivation to help galvanize everyone to work for the common goal and to strive for greatness. With my hand on my heart, I believe I have helped achieved this prior to leaving each of the companies I’ve worked for. So the only message here is that YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE, if you are given the right opportunity and environment to help your company succeed. Now that I may have you a little fired up, let’s get pragmatic …

#2 is more relevant to how you can benefit from the main title of this post which is “How to make sure the next company you work for gets acquired”. The answer: YOU SHOULD THINK LIKE A PRODUCT MANAGER. Since I have been a PM for the last 15 years I have always taken the time to review any company I am interested in via detailed research and analysis. By evaluating the potential market, assessing the technology, seeing the potential of the solution, thinking about the value proposition, determining the competition and evaluating the people who I’ll be working with, particularly that of the leadership team. All of this PRIOR TO THE FIRST INTERVIEW. This serves a dual purpose. Firstly you should know as much about the company as possible and decide for yourself if you even want this job if offered in the first place. Secondly, it will help you be well prepared during the interview process. PARTICULARLY IF YOU ARE INTERVIEWING FOR A PM POSITION. It’s surprising how many product managers I’ve interviewed over the years who don’t really have a good answer to the question “Why do you want to work here?” And worse don’t know the fundamentals of the company they are interviewing with. How could the company hire a PM and entrust them with an important revenue generating product line, if they can’t assess the market themselves for what should be a very important decision for their own personal benefit, the next step in their careers?

There’s an old adage that points out that people spend more time evaluating their purchase of a $1,000 TV, comparing prices, looking at reviews and features than they do a $5,000 purchase of a stock. In some cases this could be said about those looking at a new job in that when looking for work, many of us interview first and assess later.

I’m not saying that everyone always gets a choice, particularly in difficult times such as these with so many good people out of work. My main point is that if you have the opportunity, there are a few key things to look for and it’s definitely beneficial to do your homework first; the by-product of which might just mean that you’ll do better at your interview.

If you are a practicing product manager this should be 101 for you. But if you’re not a PM, I’ll boil it down to a few key questions that are worth asking or at the very least you should assess for yourself:

1. Is the company backed by VCs with a good track record? – By this I don’t mean merely top tier Venture Capitalists (VCs). There are plenty of smaller VCs who have been successful, just as there have been failures by portfolio companies of brand named VCs. Don’t think of VCs as just enormously wealthy and lucky individuals reaping vast profits, in times like these VC money is hard to come by and the best ones are very thorough. So it’s likely that the company had to go through more than one proctology exam in order to raise the capital it has today. If times are booming, you should be a little more suspect because historically there are always times (think dotcom boom) when corners get cut. You may think that if you’ve evaluated the VC’s that’s enough, because of the work they will have put into assessing the company before investing. This may be true, but you owe it to yourself to play VC or PM and to evaluate if you would invest in this company, let alone trust your career to it. So let’s move on to the next questions.
2. Does the company have runway? - Meaning if the company is not profitable. What is the time frame based on current course and speed and plans before the company stops spending more that it receives? If the company just raised money, this is not a required question vs. if say the funding was 12 months ago. We all know how companies are able to blow through capital very rapidly, particularly if you look around and there are lots of freebies like lunches, nice offices etc. This might be ok if the company is hauling in customers and revenue at a steady clip. But for a company in startup mode, cost control is a good thing.
3. Does the company you are joining have defensible IP (intellectual property) and strong technology?- Without this it may still be possible to be successful, such as a social networking or ecommerce site where first mover, brand or vistor acquisition is a telling metric. But if you are looking at software for example, the IP is the “value” of the company, especially early on when there are few or no customers. While a potential acquirer will value revenue, customers and profitability, in reality companies such as Oracle, Informatica and others buy for innovative technology which they can’t cultivate themselves. Even Google these days is buying back companies from ex-employees who have left to innovate (witness Google’s recent purchase of Aardvark.com)
4. What is the experience level and track record of the executive team and other leaders?- Has the CEO been successful in the past? As they say “previous performance is no indicator of future performance”, but experience plays a major role in navigating the turbulence that is inevitably ahead. What about the other team leaders? I say other leaders because the heart and soul is often at the director level of a company. But collectively it takes all the moving parts to contribute for maximum success.
5. Do the leaders of the company appear to get along?- This one is hard to gauge, but in my mind it is an often overlooked but critical point because team chemistry and absence of politics immediately double … Errr no, triple the chances of success IMHO. The attitude of each departmental leader within an organization has a profound impact on those who work for them. The more joint alignment and focus on the goals of the company, the better the chances of success. Case in point, the alignment between sales and marketing. Read Christine Crandall’s excellent blog for many posts on this topic.
6. Is this a growing or large market?- There is so much information on the web these days that even if you don’t have subscriptions to Gartner or Forrester reports, there are so many bloggers out there voicing their opinions that you can’t help but trip over information that will point you to the potential of your company-to-be.
7. Does the company have a long term vision while being focused in the short term? – Having a concrete idea of where the company wants to end up beyond “we want to be the next salesforce.com” is important. I look for leadership who sees opportunity and potential everywhere but is measured in their focus and approach. As David Packard of HP fame once said “more companies die of indigestion than starvation”. It’s great that your product opportunity is like a buffet but it requires self control to not give yourself a heart attack in the process. Attempting to do more than a company can realistically accomplish with given resources is a different type of receipe for disaster and often the hardest one to own up to.
8. Who is the competition? - You find this out the same way you do looking at the potential of the market. Unless you are joining some secret stealth company that’s invented something hither to unseen. There is always competition, even if that competition is that there is currently a less efficient way of doing what your prospective company-to-join is trying to improve on.
9. What is the value proposition? – So you’re not a PM, but you can and should ask, is it faster? better? cheaper? Preferably the answer to all 3 questions is yes and better relative to the competition you uncovered in question 8. Has the value been proven out by existing customers? Not that you can find that out easily because it’s hard for a company to get their customers to talk in public. But at the very least, you should be able to get internal anecdotes from employees about the successes of any customers to date.
10. How true is all that you’ve been told really? – The ideal scenario is that you’re being brought in by someone you know and trust who is already at the company. But failing that, use LinkedIn now and often. This can be ironic since you know the company will be looking at your linkedin profile during the interview process. So go ahead, find connections of connections and evaluate the profiles, recommendations and credibility of the team you’ll be working with. If smart people with good judgement are already at the company, your chances of success are much higher. This is even more important if you can’t or don’t feel that you are in a position to ask those questions during your interview process. Perhaps your role isn’t as key to which you won’t be privy to that information. But hey it’s your career and your life! You should and can find out as much as you can through all possible avenues.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of all of the considerations. The surprising thing to some of you might be that it contains no assessment of personal care-abouts like: what is the commute, what’s my job title, what’s my salary, benefits, how many shares are outstanding and more. Those are important things, but if you don’t assess the company using all of the parameters I listed above, the company might not be around long enough for you to enjoy those personal needs.

More importantly, if you get thumbs up on all of those questions above, you won’t have to ask “What is the exit strategy for the company?” because you’ll already know. Then hopefully a few years down the road you’ll be happy when the acquisition occurs, as expected.

Cloud ‘N Clear Poll – You Make The Call!

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Dr. Mark, I am a frustrated salesperson. I am out there selling our product but my prospects are asking for features which we don’t have. Our Product Managers (PMs) listen to me but they say they can’t stop and change course. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Sir WantsToSellAlot

Thanks for your e-mail Sir WantsToSellAlot.
I don’t blame you for being frustrated because quite obviously, if you don’t sell, we don’t eat.

Let’s take a closer look at your analogy that product managers are like some men and they don’t stop and ask for directions. Just as it’s not good to generalize every man as unwilling to stop and ask for directions, let’s assume that there are a just a few PMs who prefer to work on their own instincts and experience. For those individuals, their methods and thoughts may go something like this:

“If I stop and change course, I will lose credibility with engineering, the exec team will feel that I didn’t thoroughly analyze the market demand. The competition will laugh at me, and our existing customers won’t love me anymore.”

Substitute spouse for engineering and customers, family for exec team and friends for competition, referenced in that sentence and you might have your analogy for some insecure men drivers out there. If that’s the case, you have a definite gripe. They are definitely not doing their job and are not thinking of how the company can benefit from this new data you have presented. Give me their name and badge number and I’ll have their PM license revoked immediately!

However, let’s assume that old analogy isn’t applicable here. You said that you’ve spoken to your PM team and they have listened to your feedback. These days, no self respecting PM team backed by an exec team and organization who understands the critical nature of roadmap planning and product management, would shy away from input from the field. In fact, many organizations now take a technical and structured approach to PPM (Product Planning and Management). Given this, your requirements are probably being evaluated in the context of many other priorities and outside influences. I recently answered a question from an equally frustrated PM and offered a 12 Step Program for Product Planning which can ensure that every new capability or product can be proposed, evaluated and prioritized. In fact there are even software products now available to help with the PPM process. A colleague of mine CMO Christine Crandell recently joined a company Accept Software that offers On-Demand Innovation Management Software a powerful tool for capturing and evaluating requirements, kinda like a GPS for navigating releases and roadmap, only much much more powerful. So if your PM team is following a process, with or without technology, it’s likely that you’re specific feature or capability request has been superseded by other items for the resources needed. You should trust that your PM team has determined that in the longer term this will benefit the company more.

I realize that this doesn’t help you fill your quota this quarter, so the next step should be for you and your PM team to determine how to address this need via a work around or alternate solution. They might also be able to insert the requirement and make visible the possibility (no promises) that it may appear in the roadmap in the future which might satisfy your prospect as well. Meanwhile, at the very least, your PM team should have communicated where your request has gone and assured you by showing you the roadmap that they ARE stopping and asking for directions. The best thing you can do is sell on current functionality, while continuing to provide feedback as you are doing. Ultimately you will benefit much more via your stock options, as the company will be much more valuable to everyone in the long run, with an agreed release and roadmap process.

If you are interested, here are the other posts in my Dr. Mark Eteer series. Thank you for reading and keep the questions coming.

Cloud ‘N Clear Poll – You Make The Call!

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About Dr. Mark Eteer
Mark Eteer was born in the UK in 1966. He studied computer science at the University of Essex and after 8 years as a programmer, moved into marketing. He obtained his PhD entirely online. His success marketing for major corporations and minor startups, combined with his no nonsense straight forward guidance on all matters marketing, has led him to be sought out by some of the most well known marketing stars in Mollywood. Although unsubstantiated, he claims that he was the marketing/PR mind behind Tom Cruise’s behavior on Oprah, although he admits that Tom took it a bit too far. He currently lives in an exclusive suburb of Mollywood.

As a leading provider of scalable, enterprise-wide, high ROI marketing ideas, Dr. Mark uses his cloud-based, next-generation approach and solar-powered, game changing methodology which leverages social media to answer paradigm shifting questions about marketing and product management.

Dr. Mark would like to thank Ramon Chen for allowing him to be a guest blogger here on Cloud ‘N Clear and understands that Ramon disavows any knowledge of any bad advice he might offer.

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Ok, let’s take a break from MDM acquisition madness and change topics.

Last year I reviewed the Info week startup 50 and noted that Approx. 40% of Information week’s Startup 50 are Cloud or Virtualization companies. It showed where the VC’s were putting their bets around what they perceived to be the next new wave. I also recently talked about the cloud strategy of public players like Informatica, showing that cloud computing is on the radar of the most innovative companies. In this post, I’m going to take a quick look at how companies I personally follow are doing, picking out my favorite 5. I’m calling it my cloud computing fantasy private company portfolio. Basically if I had some fantasy VC money to invest, here’s where I’d like to put my bets. Note that generally it’s a good idea to diversify your portfolio, so I’m also applying those principles here.

First my personal (with the emphasis on personal) top 5 favorites:

1. Appirio - Best known for their tight relationship with Salesforce.com, Appirio has done extremely well both on the coattails of SFDC’s continuing success, but also in their own right. As the momentum for cloud computing accelerates organizations are actively seeking guidance around solutions and architecture. Appirio has done an excellent job of positioning themselves as thought leaders. As evidenced by their Cloud Computing predictions press release last Dec and their numerous high profile on stage demonstrations of new integrations in conjunction with SFDC’s major events. As well as offering products in the form of cloud connectors. I walked the floor of Dreamforce this year and Appirio’s booth (substantial in size by the way for a small company) was packed to the gills. If the cloud is the future, a new wave of SI’s like Appirio are poised to benefit greatly. Funding from Sequoia Capital, GGV Capital, salesforce.com, and a select group of angel investors

 

2. Aster Data - I first blogged about Aster Data, the “Big Data, Fast Insights” company, last year when I attended a Cloud Computing SIG in which they, Cloudera (also a fav of mine) and Google presented. See Google App Engine, Cloudera and Aster Data – A trifecta of offerings for the Cloud. I continued to monitor the progress of the company together with their competitor Greenplum making observations respectively about their positioning strategies. Most recently on 2/18/10 I attended Aster Data’s Big Data Summit tweeting my observations.The Summit was very well organized and attended with some compelling customer case studies from Mint.com and Mobclix. The emphasis on a different paradigm for analytics for “Big Data” is really picking up momentum and Aster has an approach which is compelling to those organizations who aren’t willing to retrain and retool their programmers and DBAs. While there are other similar companies such as Vertica, Paraccel, Greenplum and more in a crowded but massive market, I most like what I’ve seen to date from Aster and due to diversification rules, I can only pick one. Funding from Sequoia Capital, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), Jaffco Ventures, Cambrian Ventures, First Round Capital.

 

3. Cloudera – One look at the Cloudera Team on their website tells you plenty about the talent and experience behind the company looking to bring Apache Hadoop into mainstream enterprise development. Last year speculation was rife about whether Cloudera, particularly with charismatic CEO Mike Olson’s was merely focused on a “Red Hat” play on Hadoop (see my quick primer) by essentially offering open source software for free in order to benefit from training, support and consulting. In a recent interview published on GigaOM Mike Olson clarified that “Either this quarter or next we will offer an enterprise software bundle consisting of proprietary enhancements for Hadoop users,”. Interest in Hadoop and Map Reduce technologies is reaching a fever pitch. Corporations are looking at the technologies that power large Internet scale apps like Facebook, Google and others. Although to be clear, many are also interested in such technologies for use within the enterprise, not just related to cloud computing (public or private cloud). With the team Mike’s assembled and his track record, I’d put a little of my fantasy money on Cloudera. Funding from Accel Partners and Greylock.

 

4. Voltage Security - You may ask yourself, why I’m plugging Voltage? (pun intended). At first glance, Voltage, a provider of end-to-end data protection across the enterprise through patented encryption technologyseems an unlikely selection within my cloud computing fantasy portfolio. However, when you mention cloud everyone runs from the room screaming hysterically “OMG the security holes, what about the protection of the data!”. The reality is that “the cloud” or let’s just call it the Internet requires that a lot of data be transmitted and moved around, a lot of it highly confidential. So how do you secure data, at rest or in motion? Voltage has all the tools to accomplish this task and they are significant thought leaders as evidenced by my post highlighting their unique Security Breach Index. While Voltage’s main successes to date have been with organizations focused on securing their enterprise, emails, ecommerce or payments data, let’s just say I have a few VC fantasy dollars betting that as more ISVs move to the cloud, Voltage products like their encryption key management and serving technologies will garner increasing interest. Funding from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners (Notably Ann Winbladon the board), Morgenthaler Ventures, Menlo Ventures and Trident Capital.

 

5. Zuora - Blazing the trail in SaaS subscription billing and payments is capitalizing on the growing number of companies entering cloud computing and offering SaaS. Zuora (who’s name is a combination of characters from the last name of co-founders Tien Tzuo (CEO) and K.V Rao (Chief Strategist) state eloquently that just as Amazon makes it easy to become an online retailer, Google makes it easy for anyone to advertise online, and PayPal makes it easy to accept online payments, Zuora makes it easy for any company to build, manage, and grow a subscription business. Tien Tzuo is the former star CTO of Salesforce.com and Marc Benioff just happens to have a little personal investment of his own in the company. I anticipate Zuora’s momentum will continue and it wouldn’t surprise me if at some point SFDC decided that Zuora would be a perfect complement to their complete Force.com PaaS ecosystem, by offering billing and payments soup to nuts as well. So I’d be an investor here with my fantasy VC money. Funding Benchmarkand Marc Benioff.

There you have it, that’s my 5. I’m sure you have your favorites. Drop me a line if you think there are companies I should also look at putting my fantasy VC money into. Now please excuse me while I hop on my private jet to my Fantasy Island (It’s Da Plane!), thanks as ever for reading, hope you are having a great weekend.

Cloud ‘N Clear Poll – You Make The Call!

POLL HAS CLOSED: FRIDAY 2/26 7:00am PST! And the winner is …

It was a close race with Cloudera bolting out of the gate, holding the lead through 2/23, then Appirio’s loyal group of followers and fans woke up. After that Zuora made a valiant effort to keep pace, but like Seabiscuit, Appirio continued to pour it on and in the end it was no contest. Their activity on Twitter is tapped into their large following also since they recently got lots of votes at another contest they had voters ready to go! Zuora’s marketing is kept them in the game, with good tweeting and even using Digg!, but in the end Appirio was too much.

Votes came from all over the world for all companies (see geo map at the end of the post) so this wasn’t just “friends and family”. There was genuine interest in all 5 companies, and I received quite a few DMs and emails from readers excited about the outcome and telling me that they were looking forward to reviewing and understanding these companies in more depth. All companies have even started appearing on FollowFriday lists #FF, now that’s finding net new fans (and maybe some new customers)!

Once more this is a great testimonial to the wide appeal of Twitter (which I recently reviewed) whereby a simple blog post such as mine could garner well over 2600+ views in a span of just 6 days with over 25% (600+) proactively voting for their favorites.

Thanks everyone for reading and participating. It was fun! The grand prize as I had mentioned will be … drum roll … an in-depth review of Appirio in a future post. Stay tuned.

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FINAL GRAPH As of 2/26 7:00 am PST

Visitors to this post since it was published shows geographical distribution of voters.

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It’s been nearly a year since I started using Twitter and many people still ask me why I bother and what is the purpose of Tweeting and being on Twitter at all.

Interestingly I took a look at my current linkedin contacts, Facebook friends, and Twitter followers and found these statistics (as of today Feb 16th 2010):

• I have 1097 LinkedIn contacts
• I have 303 Facebook friends
• I have 262 Twitter followers

Of the 1097 LinkedIn contacts 185 are also my friends on Facebook but only 45 are on Twitter

The fact that I have my most number of “contacts” through LinkedIn is no surprise because:

1. LinkedIn has been around for much longer
2. LinkedIn generally serves as a good network medium for finding jobs so people use LinkedIn more
3. It’s an easier process to get people to “LinkIn” with you than it is to acquire Facebook friends. Many keep Facebook focused on personal friends and LinkedIn for business. It’s also relatively more difficult to get people to follow you in Twitter, unless you do the you follow me, I follow you thing

So what makes Twitter different from LinkedIn or Facebook?
Let’s take a look at a few more statistics, this time from my recent post MDM Landscape: Past, Present and Future. My blog analytics show that approximately 740+ people have read the post, of which 550 originated from Twitter. Either my original tweet or RT (ReTweet) from well followed and respected Tweeps like Merv Adrian, Rob Karel, Ray Wang, Jill Dyche and others have been driving the traffic. I can even compare the time of a RT with a sudden spike in traffic for the post. What this tells me is that despite the fact that I have much fewer Twitter followers than LinkedIn contacts, the quality and network of those followers once activated through a RT from them is extremely powerful. In this case quality over quantity for sure. More importantly, people who are coming to my blog from Twitter are people who don’t yet know anything about me and the readers come from all over the globe (see the geo-map above). Unlike Facebook or LinkedIn where they have had previous contact with and already know me, in marketing funnel-speak, these are net new suspects.

Update: My blog post Cloud Computing Fantasy Private Company Investing – Appirio, Aster Data, Cloudera, Voltage Security, Zuora is proving this even further. As of today 2/23/10 it has been RT over 10 times by fans of each company encouraging their followers to vote. The spike in traffic is phenominal with over 1000+ visitors today alone, making it the most popular post on my blog ever.  

So again you ask, why bother if you don’t have a blog and aren’t interested in networking and personal branding or finding a new job? Well you are reading this right now because you were curious about the heading of my post, whether you came from my LinkedIn status update, a Tweet, a RT or Facebook from me or someone you follow or trust. Therein lies the other benefit of Twitter which is much overlooked. Twitter provides a great variety of information in short digestible tweets which give you the option to dig further if you so choose. And again if you follow the right people, the content they provide can be very specific to what you are interested in. As such, it’s like having a personal concierge for information. Some agencies, news aggregators charge a pretty penny for this type of information filtering. Most of us are passive receivers of knowledge, like watching TV to be entertained for example. Twitter tunes you in for next to no effort on your part.

Finally, to close if you happen to be a marketing professional and you aren’t using Twitter, read this use case about how even if you don’t care what isn’t being said about you in Twitter, you should care and monitor Twitter as a medium upon which your company could be mentioned … and you should engage and know how to deal with it.

Given this you probably might have guessed by now that my post headline which said I really think you shouldn’t bother with Twitter was sarcastic in nature. For those of you who came through the Twitter link, sorry to have wasted your time as you probably already know all this. Thank you for reading this post and my other blog articles.

Maybe we should just keep it a secret and let’s NOT RT and/or pass this post URL on to your non-Twitter friends. After all I’m sure they don’t care if we outmarket them

Cloud ‘N Clear Poll – You Make The Call!

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Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

農曆新年!

For those of you not familiar with the Chinese New Year calendar, here is a primer and also a quick reference as to what the year is predicted to harbor for you. Disclaimer, this is just for fun … though if you are like me, these things have an almost precision like way of coming true (but that’s just me).

Chinese New Year is determined by the Chinese lunar calendar; usually falling between the end of January and the end of February on the Gregorian calendar. This year the Chinese New Year arrives Feb. 14, which also happens to be Valentines Day! So as a special bonus, there is a love/romance/compatibility chart at the end of this post.
The typical greeting at this time of year is Kung Hei Fat Choi (in Cantonese), or Gong Xi Fa Cai (in Mandarin) means “Wishing You A Prosperous Year”

Twelve animal names are used in the Chinese Lunar calendar to represent a 12 year cycle. Look at the table below to generally determine what animal type you are based upon your birth date. Although if your b-day is around Feb you might want to look more closely at the exact date as you might be on the cusp because of the variance of the lunar year:

In general Tiger years are said to bring conflict, devastation, international crises and political upheaval. Not a rosy sign and a Tiger year is not for the meek and timid. Those willing to be daring and brave fare best in Tiger years. For those who are impulsive, risks may backfire but those who have nerves of steel will find the adrenaline rush sharpening their claws and stiring up their appetites for excitement and adventure. That being said, once you’ve found your animal sign based on your birth date, review below for a more specific forecast of what the year of the Tiger might mean for you (remember though this is just for fun and in no way an accurate predictor of your year ahead):

This is your year! Last year the Ox had their fun and it wasn’t the best for you. But you should be confident and spread your wings in both work and play. Satisfaction abounds in all that you do and most of all you will have fun fun fun! You lucky Tigers you

You would think this might be a scary year for you fluffy bunnies, but actually Rabbits should be prospering well in 2010. Predicted as an excellent time to put those long awaited plans and projects into motion. The only caveat is to read fine any print carefully. But hop to it and enjoy!

This year you Dragon’s must realize that you can’t please everybody. You may discover that work and personal relationships are not what they appear so for Dragon’s who dislike any form of commitment, caution is the middle word.

As a Snake you would be wise to watch out for hidden dangers in this Tiger year. Unfortunately it may not be an easy year for you, so many should stay on the sidelines until the stampede is over. Keeping a low profile might be the best move (which shouldn’t be difficult for you Snakes)

If you are a Horse (like me) at last we get to forge ahead as we thrive on the vibrant undercurrent of the Tiger year. We will be partying through 2010 but as we are busy networking and socializing, we need to watch our finances as this could be a costly year for our wallets. Still party on dudes and dudettes!

This may be a tough year for Sheep although the trends are not overwhelmingly negative. Although bewildering at times, it could be viewed as interesting when viewed in a positive light. Good time to make cashmere sweaters from lost wool.

Monkeys like Snakes might need to keep a low profile in this Tiger year. Pushing yourself or forcing plans may attract unwanted attention as the conditions are said to be unfavorable. Best bet would be to work steadily and calmly and wait for the brighter Rabbit year in 2011. This might not be the best time to monkey around.

Quick decisions are key for Roosters this year. Fast and furious action will bring much excitement and if you can handle it you will come out winners in 2010. You can confidently set out on new plans or long-term ambitions. Just don’t wake us up every morning cockle doodling with your ideas.

Finally someone let you Dogs out and your ideas can flourish. Rewards will come as past doggone efforts and hard work are recognized professionally. For you singles out there, a soul-mate might beckon. Ruff!

Boars will have their patience tried this year. Money and personal relationships may be particularly problematic. Watch out for untrustworthy types who might come calling. Best to keep your head down this year as the 2011 Rabbit year looks to be a better bet. Play some poker with your Snake and Monkey buddies if you all need to hunker down together.

You Rats are famous for your rashness and for a tendency to take the odd gamble. Since the year of the Tiger is an unpredictable one Rats are advised to curb their impulsiveness and to avoid risks. Travel for work and personal pleasure is definitely prevalent but watch those trips to Vegas! For some this year may result in a parting of the ways, new job or new relationship?

Oxen, last year 2009 was your year! Hopefully you prospered and did well. Since Ox are stability loving types, Tiger years, which bring drama and tension are not preferred by the Ox. Watch out for friction at home or at work and try to avoid locking horns with others. You have strong perseverance though and that will ultimately see you through 2010.

Cloud ‘N Clear Poll – You Make The Call!

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For Valentines Day! See the animal sign compatibility chart below for how well matched you are with your significant other:

For Tigers
Sensitive, a deep thinker and capable of great sympathy, tigers share good compatibility horoscopes with cheerful horses, and honest dogs. Second best matches include rabbits, boars and fellow tigers.

For Rabbits
Articulate, talented and ambitious, rabbits do well to pair up with other rabbits, elegant sheep and boars. You’ll also mesh well with tiger, snake, dog and ox.

For Dragons
These sensitive, brave and honest dragons get along best with dynamic rats, and monkeys. Second best matches can be found with roosters, snakes and boars.

For Snakes
Financially fortunate snakes can make a successful love match with roosters, ox, and dogs. Your tremendous sympathy for others also lets you fair well with rats, rabbits and sheep.

For Horses
Cheerful horses get along best with tigers, sheep and dogs. Additionally, because you tend to be impatient and passionate, the next best thing would be to spend time with dragons and roosters.

For Sheep
Sheep can be shy and may have a slightly pessimistic outlook on life. Balancing out this side of their personality is their wise, gentle and compassionate nature. Their best matches include rabbits, horses and other boars. Sheep to sheep are also a good match.

For Monkeys
As eluded to previously, monkeys are the erratic geniuses of Chinese astrology. Clever, skillful and flexible, their best matches are rats, dragons and other monkeys.

For Roosters
Capable, talented and wise, roosters have a tendency to think they’re always right! Even so, it’s easy to fall for a rooster because they tend to be interesting and brave. Roosters get along best with ox, dragons and snakes.

For Dogs
Some in Chinese astrology say that the dog represents the very best characteristics of human nature. Dogs tend to have a deep sense of loyalty and are incredibly honest. Some of their best matches include tigers and other dogs. Runners up include horses, monkeys and boars.

For Boars
Boars are known to be chivalrous and gallant. It is said that whatever they do, they use all their strength, and when they make friends, they make them for life! Their best chance for a love connection is with rabbits and sheep. But lots of other 3’s in tigers, monkey, rooster, dog and rats.

For Rats
Your charm and attraction for the opposite sex blends especially well with the energetic, excitable and stubborn dragon. Intelligent rats also get along with monkeys. Lucky Rats also get a lot of runners in snakes, boars, oxen and other rats. No shortage of choices for you romantic Rats.

For Ox
Normally patient, taciturn ox can sometimes turn eccentric and short-tempered. Best matches for you include roosters and financially stable snakes. With rabbits and rats being the next best choices.

The ♥ symbol represents the best match, with the other matches graded by a number. Higher the number e.g. 3, the better the compatibility.

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Previously I blogged about “Why Informatica–Siperian beats IBM–Initiate Systems, especially if you are an MDM buyer today” . Watching the numerous accolades coming from the #INFAanalyst tweetstream last week has shed further light on Informatica’s overall data management strategy and their commitment to the cloud. So while many have been focused on the two company Informatica-Siperian combination for MDM, Informatica leadership has clearly been investing additional brain cycles in their overall cloud data management and integration offerings.

Not that this should be news to anyone who was paying attention back in November 2009, when they announced the beta availability of the Informatica Cloud 9 Platform – a multi-tenant, enterprise-class data integration platform-as-a-service (PaaS). At the time, they also announced data quality via the cloud with the addition of Informatica Address Quality Cloud Services. Their AddressDoctor acquisition last Summer was the perfect setup for this since AddressDoctor already had a robust web services offering.

Now Informatica has served further notice to the competition by announcing a third cloud offering with the industry’s 1st cloud archiving service optimized for databases and applications. This lines up perfectly with their three main business units focused on data integration (Powercenter), data quality (cleansing, identity resolution and now MDM) and database and application archiving (ILM).

Here are some of the premier analyst tweets from Informatica analyst day on the topic:

marksmithvr:

1. Informatica has Cloud Storage for Enterprise Data, Buck a Gig, Simple, No Hardware, Storage or Hassle, What a Deal! #infaanalyst about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck
2. Adam Wilson, GM of ILM at Informatica has best demo, compression of 15 years of customer interaction is on 1 thumb drive! Wow. #infaanalyst about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck
3. Informatica Cloud Store Option can relocate data into file systems & archive for saving money and improving performance #infaanalyst about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck

NeilRaden:

1. Adam Wilson: I have all of the CRM data of INFA from inception on this thumb drive. My advice – dont lose it. #INFAanalyst about 3 hours ago from web

merv:

1. INFA Cloud Store Option archives frm pkgd apps or legacy, DWs. Compresses, encrypts & moves to cloud. query w/out “inflating” #INFAanalyst
2. INFA will help customers eliminate database licenses. Should make them friends – and enemies. #INFAanalyst about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck

What the Siperian acquisition might eventually add  to an Informatica MDM cloud strategy, only time and the brain trust of Ivan Chong, Arvind Parthasarathi, Ken Hoang (founder of Siperian) and others will tell. All I can say is Informatica continues to make all the right moves, turning two’s company acquisitions into three’s a cloud announcements.

If I were IBM, Oracle and others I’d be sitting up and taking even closer notice. Though rumors of Informatica themselves being acquired continue to abound, if Phil Russom’s tweet below referencing a quote from Adam Wilson (GM of Informatica’s ILM group) comes true, Informatica will command much more of a premium than the current bargain valuation of $2.1B (4 x $500M revs) :

prussom

1. INFAs Adam Wilson: Were baking cloud into everything we do. In future, all Informatica products will be available on a cloud. #INFAanalyst about 3 hours ago from web

For Informatica the future is cloudy and sunny, all at the same time.

Cloud ‘N Clear Poll – You Make The Call!

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