Tracy Clifton Sjogreen is really good at people. When she worked at BEA in the UK she was able to strengthen my relationship with the firm, and drive good conversations with people like Neil Sholay, one of the savviest guys in the industry when it come to telco requirements driving service oriented architecture. Why does BEA have a dedicated telco business unit? Partly because of its European success, to which Neil deserves credit. Tracy is now back in San Francisco, having set up a little agency called Westbourne Communications. If you are middleware company looking to work with a small firm that gets it, and can bring US and European analysts to the table, you might think of giving her a call. Not that Tracy is short of work with major firms- BEA and Adobe are both clients. Thanks Tracy for your last minute flexibility sorting out Cote’s attendance at next week’s BEA analyst conference. A couple of suggestions though:
1. Fix the About link on your website
2. Start a blog yesterday
The other company/person I want to point to I have not worked with before, but when Danny Goodall contacted me out of the blue this morning over linkedin I was really taken with the name he is trading under-OneBloke Marketing. Nice. Making a virtue of contraints rather than trying to fool people into thinking you’re bigger than you are. If small really is the new big then Danny is golden. Oh yeah- he gets some solid endorsements from people he has worked with on linkedin so I am assuming he is pretty good at what he does. One suggestion though Danny:
1. Set up a blog before you reach out to anyone else.
Note to anyone setting up a one man band company: you need an active web presence. A blog is by far the easiest way to get one.
Danny Goodall says:
March 17, 2006 at 1:33 pm
James, glad you saw the humour and message in the company name. It’s a danger with some of the organizations that I deal with as I’m not sure the humour or irony translates. With OneBloke, I wanted to make a point that it’s me your dealing with and that if someone is going to pay me to do something really creative for their company, then it’s all about my reputation, ability and the trust and relationship they build up with me personally. I partner if I need more bandwidth for tactical things, and I’ll continue to do that. But in terms of strategic consulting expertise and creative ability, you can’t readily partner for that. OneBloke speaks to that principle.
That said, I seriously toyed with the idea of developing a story around a mythical 6th century Peruvian warrior king called Oneb Loke (on ebb low kay). He is revered to this day for leading his people against repression and in the same way I’m leading the fight against “me too” positioning and ho-hum differentiation. Just in case a potential customer gets concerned about the “oneness” of my “organization”.
When I was on the vendor side (Sonic Marketing Director EMEA, 5+ years), I was fed up with consultants and analysts passing themselves off as bigger than they actually were. I note that RedMonk appears to be upfront about its size and fair play to you. I guess it’s the quality of what you do and say that makes people listen (or not) and not the square meterage of your Regus office.
One industry analyst, a top bloke, who I regularly drink with has the word President on his business card despite the fact that he is also the head cook and bottle washer. Doesn’t a President have to preside over something? He has made an art form of removing Me, Myself and I from his lexicon. I assume he’s not a Joan Amatrading fan.
Regarding the blog, yep good call and I think you pushed me over the edge to start one. I’ll dedicate it to Oneb Loke, a Peruvian warrior .
Cheers, Dan.