June 2006 SDForum Interview

I was interviewed in June 2006 by Barbara Cass, Volunteer Director for the SDForum, the final text appeared in the July/August 2006 newsletter (see page 15 of the PDF version). I have updated it here to add links for many of the referenced works and the quotes. KV Rao and I did a one year term as co-chairs of the Marketing Special Interest Group (SIG), our term ended in December 2006. Filomena U and Ed Buckingham took over, and are now the ones answering the sdforum_marketingsig-owner@yahoogroups.com alias.

Volunteer Spotlight
Interview with Sean Murphy, Co-Chair of the Marketing SIG

Q: Sean, you are a long-time member of SDForum. What helped you to decide to volunteer as chair of the Marketing SIG?

I had attended a number of the programs over the years and found them useful not only for the information that the speaker offered but also for what I would learn from other attendees. SIG meetings are a good way to keep a finger on the pulse of Silicon Valley. William Gibson observed that “the future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed,” The SDForum SIGs are one place that’s certainly true. And I wanted to show my support for what the SDForum offers.

Q: What has been your experience in organizing these meetings thus far?

I am fortunate to have KV Rao as a co-chair. He is bright, articulate, and deeply thoughtful. He was early at WebEx in marketing and business development and has an appreciation for both startup and established company marketing issues. He has pulled together our two best programs so far: the “DotCom to DotBust to Web 2.0” talk by Dave Thompson that was our January kickoff and our May panel on “Making The Leap From An Application To A Platform Business.”

I have enjoyed pulling together an eclectic mix of topics: “Guerrilla Marketing for Startups“, “Internal Marketing–Fostering Technology Adoption“, “Building Strategy and Driving Consensus through Shared Mapping“, and “You Named it What?” We have attracted a diverse and thoughtful audience. Bill Grosso, who runs the Emerging Technologies SIG has been an invaluable advisor to me to get this year’s programs off to a running start.

Q: What have you learned from the first six months of putting on programs?

I think we have run informative programs on a broad range of topics, often because the audience has contributed as much as the speaker or speakers have. It’s very important to get a good title and to explain early in the description the speaker’s key experiences that will equip them address the topic as an expert. We are the Marketing SIG for the Software Development Forum so we tend to get a very technical audience: the key to successful programs is adequately preparing the speakers.

Q: What is the focus of your own business and have you seen value to your business since meeting with this group each month?

Our firm, SKMurphy, Inc. offers business development consulting to early stage software startups with a focus on early customers and early revenue. I think the value for me is the insights I get from the people I have met, either because I invited them to speak, or they were attracted to the topic for that night’s program. The SIG has given me a good reason to reach out to some individuals and have conversations that I otherwise might have missed out on. I would encourage folks to get involved, but I believe that it’s more about creating a community that we would all like to live in, and listening to and learning from strangers.

Q: Have you seen changes in the ways companies market or should be marketing their products in today’s world?

My firm’s focus is on strategy and business development for software startups. We work with early stage startups who sell to businesses. I personally have an interest in new technologies for collaboration–things like wikis, blogs, IM that are “new” in the sense that they are only a little over a decade old–and knowledge management methodologies like the “community of practice” model. So I look at the marketing issues from perspective that’s distinct from the consumer-oriented “get big fast” model that seems to be coming back into vogue: 2006 feels a lot like 1996 to me, with all of the various “pitch events” that are going on every month now. And I tend to work with teams that are bootstrapping both because it’s a mindset I find easier to relate to–I prefer pitching to prospects rather than VC’s–and because they tend to be more innovative than the VC-backed folks, who are normally channeled into a handful of predictable trajectories.

So, what I tend to see are startup teams who have a firm grasp on technology and product development issues but are less clear on one or more of the key concepts for successful new product introduction. Bill Davidow’s “whole product” paradigm from his “Marketing High Technology” book is fundamental to understanding the different between selling an invention and marketing an innovation. Geoffrey Moore’sCrossing the Chasm” framework, best expressed in his “Inside the Tornado” book is the solid explanation of the evolution of technology markets. Clayton Christensen’s “sustaining vs. disruptive innovation” model in his “Innovator’s Dilemma” book is the best “anatomy lesson for a karate student,” explaining to startups how and where to attack an established firm. Steve Blank’s “Four Steps to the Epiphany” is filled with detailed checklists for how a startup team must distinguish between product development and customer development as they explore a new market.

Postscript: I think answering this question started me down the path to the December 2006 Marketing SIG Program: Twelve Business Books in One Hour for the Busy CEO. I wish I could claim “anatomy lecture for the karate student” as mine but it’s based on a line from Chapter 18 of Red Dragon by Thomas Harris: “The others listened like karate students at an anatomy lecture.”

Q: What are some of your aspirations for the Marketing SIG in the near future?

We want to continue to fulfill our promise to provide practical tips and techniques for anticipating, identifying, and satisfying customers needs for emerging technologies profitably. We have several exciting programs in the hopper for the second half of 2006 but are always looking for good speakers on interesting topics. Contact us at sdforum_marketingsig-owner@yahoogroups.com with suggestions or to volunteer.

3 thoughts on “June 2006 SDForum Interview”

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