Latest News from John Ryan

Overworking and Undervaluing Employees Hurts Companies

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:15:00 EDT

When I started my high technology career in 1982, we had an unemployment rate of 10%. Doesn’t this sound familiar? It was a brave new time in computing and no one was even sure where it was all going. Doesn’t this also sound familiar? I probably didn’t realize it at the time since I was happy to get a paycheck and I was young, but relatively speaking, it was a tough market for employees

New Federal IT Investment Performance Dashboard

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:45:00 EDT

A new web site enabling agencies and the public to review the detailed financial performance of federal IT investments using dashboards. The home page offers a quick glance into the overall investment portfolio while also allowing you to go deeper into specific IT investments. The site has enabled easy sharing of information as well as provided recent news and updates. The menu system is set up so the user can go into specific areas on the site.

Catch the Joy of a Wilson Football in Business or Life

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:25:00 EDT

Whether the ball is old or new, it doesn’t matter. It feels right. Something goes off in my brain where all of my memories of pick up games and balls thrown or chased down come rushing back. And memorable smiles that showed up in buckets. Smiles from friends, family members and even people I didn’t know who drifted into games or just tossing the ball around. In my early twenties, one of my best friends and I used to get into tackle pickup games in one of the roughest areas in Houston with some pretty unsavory characters. We wore no pads and there were some vicious hits out there but men always seemed to show up even on Sundays when games were on TV. Why is that? Because we felt the power of living in that moment where the sport was pure and it was ours. Imagine if you lived each moment that way, what kind of results would you be getting in life or your career?

All Seven Martial Arts Lessons That You Can Apply to Business

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:30:00 EDT

Over the last few weeks, I presented a lesson or two a week for my readers. For your convenience, here are all seven of the martial arts lessons that I believe you can apply to business. Lesson One: Laying a Foundation – Hapkido is a building program that relies on previous steps along the way to put you in the position to learn the nuances. The thing that frustrates people in training is that if you don’t know the fundamentals and haven’t laid a foundation, you will never master the powerful nuances. This takes a great deal of dedication and hard study but the good news is that you can always go back to that foundation when you are in a pinch. It’s always there waiting for you and it works.

Twitter, Linked In, Ning and Ulitzer: Easy Personal Branding Strategy

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:00:00 EDT

There are different opinions on these sites, but I focus on raw functionality not hype. By working daily to learn the nuances of how these social media tools work together, I have been contacted by professionals I would have never met through my own network. All of these tools are improving their ability to work with other social sites and blogs. This is important over time since it allows the professional to better leverage their activities. If you are a marketing or sales professional and want to discuss this or learn more, please drop me an e-mail at john@buyersteps.com or tweet me at @BuyerSteps.

Ulitzer vs. Ning

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:30:00 EDT

In the case of Ulitzer, as a writer I am focused on getting readers from within an existing audience. There are already thousands of readers coming to the Ulitzer site, so if they are interested in my topics such as marketing, they will find my articles as well as others. Ulitzer allows the writer the ability to set up a feed coming from another site, so it can be a write once, publish twice strategy. You just have to give Ulitzer a few hours to upload a new article you wrote on a different site. You still have to go back into that article even after it has been posted and assign it to topics and tags. This is part of the administration of your stories which is under the manage stories menu.

Business Martial Arts Lesson – Nail Your Foot to the Floor

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:30:00 EDT

This clear energy focus can be the difference between a high performer and someone with a job at the individual level. At the company level, the difference can show up as profit.

New Research Report - Netbook Shipments Twice as High as Laptops

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:45:00 EDT

In Q2’09, the total notebook PC market posted strong Q/Q and Y/Y growth as units surged past the 38 million mark, as reported in the DisplaySearch Q3’09 Quarterly Notebook PC Shipment and Forecast Report. The mini-note PC (netbook) market was particularly strong, growing 40% Q/Q, which was twice the impressive 22% Q/Q growth rate of larger notebook PCs.

Business Martial Arts Lesson – It Will Take You Twenty Times to Learn This Move

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:45:00 EDT

It will take you twenty times to learn this move – New students come into class and see all of the Hapkido techniques on sheets on the wall. The list is intimidating to say the least. Korean terminology, foundational moves, nuanced techniques and sometimes small notes written in pen on top of the typed sheets. White belts get very impatient because they want to be as fast as the higher belts. What they can't embrace is that we were all white belts once and if you want to be fast, you have to allow yourself to become masters of the foundation which is going to take more time than you thought.

Marketo's Lead Nurturing Guide

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:15:00 EDT

Lead nurturing is the process of building relationships with qualified prospects regardless of their timing to buy. Over 50% of leads are not yet sales ready, so nurturing those leads can help you maximize results rather than throwing them away.

Twitter 101 Guide for Business

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:00:00 EDT

Twitter is a communication platform that helps businesses stay connected to their customers. As a business, you can use it to quickly share information with people interested in your company, gather real-time market intelligence and feedback, and build relationships with customers, partners and other people who care about your company. As an individual user, you can use Twitter to tell a company (or anyone else) that you've had a great—or disappointing—experience with their business, offer product ideas, and learn about great offers.

Business Martial Arts Lesson – Quiet the Voices

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 07:54:00 EDT

Quiet the voices – While in training, I like to sit in a lotus position, close my eyes and drift inward. There is usually some kind of a striking class like Karate being taught before Hapkido and it can get quite loud in there, but no matter. When you learn to go inward, you are able to quiet all voices and return to the very center of existence. It is from that core that you will operate. Not from a place of continuing definitions of what matters for everyone else, but from what matters from your very foundation.

Social Media Helps Us Redefine Wealth in the 21st Century

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:30:00 EDT

Human beings are social creatures who many years ago depended on that socialization for survival. Say what you like about machines, processes and institutions, humans enjoy the company of others. Over the last few decades, we have tried to mitigate that basic need and now oddly enough, it is technology that brings socializing back into our lives.

Research on Blogging Business Results from Hubspot

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:09:00 EDT

More proof that blogging is smart business. Just make sure that whoever is blogging is a good writer and is committed to being consistent. Otherwise, it will be a waste of time. You can either have your developers include a blog in your web experience or use free tools like Wordpress to link to your website. From Hubspot: If you blog, you know that it's good for your business. But how -- and how much? To answer to those questions, I looked at data from 1,531 HubSpot customers (mostly small- and medium-sized businesses). 795 of the businesses in my sample blogged, 736 didn't.

Business Martial Arts Lesson – There Are No Short Cuts

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:30:00 EDT

This is Lesson No. 3 of a Continuing Series on How Martial Arts Skills can be Applied to Business. There are no short cuts – a Hapkido master told me this and thank goodness there are people in the world who still believe this. Stop trying to be clever and instead focus on earning real capabilities. In Hapkido, you either know it or you don’t and it shows in the practice of the art.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM: Top Sites and Downloads

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 02:15:00 EDT

Whether you’re interested in an online or on-premise solution, Microsoft Dynamics CRM has you covered. Check out just a few of the content and community areas available to help you create the perfect experience for your business.

Business Martial Arts Lesson – A Million Lessons Everyday

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:45:00 EDT

This is Lesson No. 4 of a Continuing Series on How Martial Arts Skills can be Applied to Business. A million lessons everyday – Everyone you meet, everything that happens to you is a lesson. In Hapkido, every class brings either someone who knows more than you or someone who has taught themselves something you didn’t explore. Listen to them and humbly take their gift. This learning is happening to us everyday if we would just pay attention and get our ego out of the way.

Google's New Social Gadgets A Game Changer?

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 09:15:00 EDT

Although I think these gadgets are lightweight for any kind of serious user, I can't help but think this feeds Google's overall social strategy that must be drawn up on some war room wall at Google. I think Google could given us more to save time working with our current social networks and social bookmarking. If you're not saving me time, I'm still trying to find the value.

Gartner Sales Force Automation Ranking Is Out - The 2009 Report

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 08:30:00 EDT

Despite a down economy, we continue to see investment in SFA. With shrinking sales resources and market opportunities, investing in technology to automate critical sales processes may be the only alternative to still meet sales targets. The economy has affected vendors in different ways; some vendors on our 2008 SFA Magic Quadrant continued to see double-digit growth, while others dropped out of the market completely.

Wildfire Social Media Promotions, CEO Victoria Ransom, Exclusive Interview

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:15:00 EDT

Wildfire delivers a social media promotions platform. This is an interview with its CEO Victoria Ransom. We play in 2 categories, we’re in the Social Media Marketing category and we’re also in the promotions space. We've taken promotion formats that have been proven successful and have made them viral and social by tapping into the social networks. From a metrics standpoint, we are also able to see how many people were driven to the campaign, how many people signed up and we can track the viral spread. We can see how many friends make an invite and their overall behavior in relation to the promotion.

Bazaarvoice #1 for Customer Ratings & Reviews Among Internet Retailer 500

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:00:00 EDT

Bazaarvoice, the market and technology leader in hosted social commerce applications that drive sales, today announced that it serves more retailers on the 2009 Internet Retailer 500 ranking than any other social media competitor. Bazaarvoice dominates the Top 100, where it beats out its nearest competitor by a ratio of 4:1. Bazaarvoice’s market leadership is even more pronounced in the Top 50, where it bests the competition by a ratio of nearly 7:1 with clients like Best Buy, Costco, Dell, Macy’s, Overstock.com, QVC, and others.

Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009 is Now Available

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:00:00 EDT

Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009, a flexible, scalable solution that helps midmarket companies and specialty retailers provide outstanding customer service, drive employee productivity and make business decisions with confidence. The new solution builds on Microsoft’s promise of the Dynamic Business — a vision for helping companies realize their full potential through the strategic use of flexible business applications that remain relevant as their business needs evolve.

QlikView is an Up and Coming Business Intelligence Solution

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:45:00 EDT

Inside Info announced today that QlikView business intelligence software ranked first in ease of use and customer loyalty, outperforming industry leaders SAP (Business Objects), Oracle (Hyperion) and IBM (Cognos) in the newly released BI Survey 8 – the world’s largest independent survey of Business Intelligence and Performance Management users conducted by the Business Application Research Centre.

Business Martial Arts Lesson – Be Present

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:45:00 EDT

Be Present – Woody Allen (will he ever again be mentioned in a martial arts article? Doubtful) once said that 80% of life is showing up. He was right. If you don’t show up to class, you can’t learn. Sure you can stay at home and practice the moves, but nothing replaces having a real person in front of you or two to three people coming at you at once. Show up, clear all of the junk out of your mind that creates mental clutter and learn.

Business Martial Arts Lesson - The Foundation

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:52:00 EDT

Hapkido is a form of martial arts that is practiced heavily in Korea and is similar to jujutsu practiced in Japan. The word Hapkido itself comes from hap meaning harmony, ki meaning internal energy or strength and do meaning the way or joining energy. Hapkido in word and in action should emphasize the harmony of energy through internal strength. I was lucky enough to live near a couple of Hapkido masters that led me to earn a black belt after years of training and eventually teach the art myself. I believe Hapkido gave me life skills outside of being a better martial artist. At the request of a friend of mine, I’ve decided to share some of those lessons with you over the next few weeks.

Value Is Where Value Lives - The Way of the 21st Century

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 08:00:00 EDT

Remember the "good old days" when we sat around and waited for the marketer to tell us where the value was? Even if we didn't believe them, they would throw money at it and pound on us until we decided that there must be something there. Now the marketers have to fight the joined voices that work together through their shared contributions. These micro points of generated value come together to form a collective view on the overall value of the marketer's offering.

What are those voices fightin…

Internet Video is a Smart Content Contributor to Quickly Educate Buyers

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:15:00 EDT

My Comment - Providers Should Use Video

Providers need to be asking themselves, "do I have good video?" Video helps you explain things in such an economical manner compared to many other forms of content. It can be viral, but even if it isn't, it will improve the ability of the provider to articulate their messages. You can see the complete Pew Report…

Reputation Support Will Help Job Security

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:45:00 EDT

There are lots of people right now who are in the middle of their career who believe there is no job security. These are surely challenging times. But I believe you can improve your job security in a world that needs authentic value. The key is to be known for providing value and finding ways to broadcast that fact. Just like a company that is trying to foster a stellar reputation for success, an individual needs to do the same. I think the biggest mistake many of us have made in our career is not keeping a living journal of our successes. By the time someone gets in contact with us on an opportunity, our journal should read like a scorecard that is on fire.

How Do We Respond to Change?

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:00:00 EDT

I used to have to go to Europe quite a bit and I remember seeing this sculpture in the Louvre. This piece of art is quite beautiful and it really does make you think about how these captives must have felt. It's universal because we have all been there. The four reactions of their captivity depicted in the sculpture are revolt, hope, resignation and grief. We all have the power of choice over our own emotions. It's not the event that defines us, but our response to that event. A few hundred years ago when we lived in a feudalistic society or a monarchy, hope was hard to come by. But this 2009 with so many technology tools and economic tools to help each individual blaze their own way. Please choose hope and execute your plan.

All Things In Business and Life - 12 Ways to Effectively Reduce Stress in the 21st Century

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:22:00 EDT

Every Friday, I’m going to try to find time to write about more universal themes. There are many ways to change your life of course, but I try to practice the following with sincerity.

1. Be forgiving. You’re going to fall down and you’re going to make mistakes. Allow the same for others. Life can really feel like a playground and we’re going to run into each other every now and then. Forgiving will lower your stress and keep your heart open.

2. Be compassionate. “But for the gra…

Accountant's CRM Use Just Doesn't Add Up

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 10:15:00 EDT

A recent press release by CPA firm Templeton offered some interesting data on poor CRM adoption rates by accountants. Using a strong CRM solution is a critical strategy for any firm of size that considers its relationships important to the long term success of the company. It's interesting to me how service companies that are clearly in the relationship business are willing to add costs to those relationships by not using automation. If I…

The Complete A to Z List of Networking and Social Bookmarking Sites

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:15:00 EDT

This is the complete list of Networking and Social bookmarking sites that was a study I had broken up into three parts, but for the benefit of new readers or if you wanted the complete document, I'm posting it as one article. On the market research part of this, I used Alexa, Compete and Quantcast to reflect sometimes similar metrics and sometimes differing opinions. I put some description of these services at the end. Some of Quantcast’s estimates were rough which means the website hasn’t registered with Quantcast. The demographic profiles of the users also came from Quantcast so if they use a rough estimate, please weigh that into your analysis. I hope all sites register with Quantcast soon to improve all transparency for everyone. Congratulations to everyone on the list, it’s not easy to get this much traffic, that’s the first hurdle.

Twitter Grows 1900 Percent According to Nielsen

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:30:00 EDT

Twitter has almost 21 million users up from over 1 million in June of 2008 according to Nielsen. Of course, the other way to look at this chart is how much time is spent on these site or their stickiness. Facebook wins in stickiness with over twelve pages per day per user according to Alexa.…

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Grows 75 percent in 2008

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:45:00 EDT

Gartner reported that the overall Customer Relationship Management software business had grown 12.5 percent in 2008. But the two clear winners for growth were Microsoft and Salesforce.com at 75 percent and 42.7 percent growth, re…

An A to Z of the Social Media Landscape: A to G

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:30:00 EDT

There is so much going on in social media, it’s difficult to keep up. So I’m starting a series on different aspects of the social media landscape. We start with social networking and bookmarking sites. I tried to focus on the sites with the most traction so the articles don’t get unwieldy. If the reader feels like I missed a social networking or bookmarking site with more traffic along with stickiness, please let me know (john@buyersteps.com). I’ll be happy to update the list if I feel your argument has merit. Also, if I made any mistakes, please let me know. There were a lot of numbers here and I learned long ago that I am not infallible by any stretch of the imagination.

CRM Market Grew 12.5 Percent Globally in 2008 - Gartner

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:45:00 EDT

Apparently, companies realize that front office solutions that help capture more buyers and understand their needs are critical to their success regardless of the recession. Hopefully, these companies are focused just as much on the process and training as the technology. CRM is a long term strategic play and should be viewed as part of a shift to a more disciplined approach to revenue management.

Growth Driven by Technology Focused on Customer Retention, Analytics and On-Demand Solutions S…

An A to Z of the Social Media Landscape: Q to Z

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:00:00 EDT

Part three of this popular series looks at Reddit, Reunion (MyLife.com), ShareThis, StumbleUpon, Tagged, Technorati, Tribe, Twitter, Urbanchat, Viddler, Wangyou, Wikipedia, Xanga, Xiaonei, Xing, Yelp, YouTube and Yuku.

An A to Z of the Social Media Landscape: H to P

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:30:00 EDT

This is part 2 of 3 of a continuing series on Social Media Companies. You can go to Part 1 here.
As with the A-G list, if you see any problems with the data or you believe a company should be on this list, please let me know. john@buyersteps.com

Micro-Blogging in the Enterprise

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:00:00 EDT

Over the next few months I hope to interview carefully chosen executives who I believe will have an impact on how companies optimize revenue. I was lucky enough to come across Socialcast, a young company based in San Francisco, California. I thought Tim Young to be patient, thoughtful and very tuned in to the topics of the day. He certainly has the disposition to be a visionary in this space.

Here are the questions I posed to Tim and his an…

Forrester's Five Year Forecast on Interactive Marketing Spend

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:15:00 EDT

No big surprise, but overall advertising budgets are declining. The biggest increase of 34% CAGR will be in social media which is quickly becoming what marketing never had the ability to be before which is the most efficient and scalable conversation strategy available. Interactive marketing now represents over 20% of all marketing spend and close to $55 billion.

This speaks to th…

Some Surprising Usage Facts About Twitter

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:15:00 EDT

Like all new markets or applications, Twitter has early adopters to be followed by the early majority and late majority of the market. This is not guaranteed, so it will be interesting to see if Twitter can break out of the current usage patterns. I thought this was compelling data.

Ulitzer vs. Ning - a Quick Review

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 08:30:00 EDT

Having used both sites for about two weeks, there is still a great deal I am learning to do with both Ulitzer and Ning, but a reader asked if I would do a quick comparison, so I will.

“I’m Just Not That into You” – The Buyer

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:45:00 EDT

Long cycles and no end in sight

In any market regardless of the economic conditions, it feels like some buyers will just waste the provider’s time. No one is being evil or disrespectful here; sometimes the provider sales team needs to realize that the buyer is just not that into you. Maybe the buying organization has not prioritized a need that the provider is trying to address and there is no existing budget. The conversation hasn’t moved into an area of immediate pain that would be the…

Angel Investor Heaven in Social Media

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:15:00 EDT

Great Time for Start-ups

There may have never been a better time than right now to be a start-up in the Silicon Valley, Austin or Boston which is where many of these new social technologies are emerging. Look at the dramatic decrease in the cost of processing power, storage and web-based computing. This dramatic turn in the favor of development capabilities against capital benefits the many start-ups who want a piece of the growing social media pie. Not only do new development frameworks…

Gartner Says Worldwide Business Intelligence, Analytics and Performance Management Grew 22 Percent in 2008

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:00:00 EDT

STAMFORD, Conn., June 12, 2009 — Worldwide business intelligence (BI) platform, analytic applications and performance management software revenue reached $8.8 billion in 2008, a 21.7 percent increase from 2007 revenue of $7.2 billion, according to Gartner, Inc.

Five Proven Improvements Your Business Must Make During this Recession

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:15:00 EDT

Of course it’s easy to slump in our chair and wish things were as simply as they were two years ago. We reflect on an image of bon vivant behavior and business just seemed to slide under the door. But let’s face it; many businesses became fat and dumb including your customers. Many of them weren’t thinking about being lean, fast and efficient. They were spending more time looking at how to keep the stock price up in an era of financial froth instead of focusing on meeting the needs of their buye…

Should Marketing change “Communications” to “Conversations”?

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:42:40 EDT

Change the Focus

There are so many people in marketing departments right now who are trying to figure out the future of public relations and advertising. Are they dead because of Social Media? Not in the near future is my guess. Are the efforts of PR and Advertising being reviewed in many organizations? Yes. Although Marketing Communications which usually includes these two practices should be two-way, there are times it feels like a one-way propaganda machine. Add to this that even when…

The Value is in Ideas and Distributed Contribution

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:00:00 EDT

No individual wants to believe they are under control, but society needs to have a sense of order which means we exchanged control along the way with our institutions. With that control being exchanged, we gave power and influence to a centralized few. I feel there is a collective yearning to splinter control and to no longer allow for the gross centralization of control. A belief that the risk of that power being used against us in some way goes down dramatically if that power is distributed among the many. A sense of order is more guided by the mores associated with a community which is upheld by the participants. If an individual ignores these guidelines, they are in essence, cast out of the community. Admittedly, this doesn't work well for areas that are life-threatening, but I'm pretty safe in assuming that most businesses aren't involved in life and death situations.

The 24X7 Work-Pleasure Lifestyle

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:15:00 EDT

The blur between our work life and our home life can be a little frightening in the 21st century. It started with the cell phone interrupting dinner dates in the late 90s. The next step was employees using instant messaging on their laptops in the middle of business meetings. The ability to invade your personal life from a business standpoint and the idea of getting personal under the radar with instant messaging at a business meeting was off and running.

The Blackberry took it to new heights.…

New Radian6 Development and the Analysis of Conversations

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:15:00 EDT

Radian6 Announces Social CRM and Web Analytics Integration Published 06/24/09 New features empower companies to extend customer relationships into the social web and more clearly determine social media ROI. Fredericton, NB (June 24, 2009) - The social web is touching more and more business processes inside the enterprise. Marketing, customer support, sales, and community professionals increasingly need to understand how the conversations happening in social media impact and drive their customer relationships.