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The Amtower B2G Market Report Volume 3, #49, December 20, 2004 This newsletter is only sent to those who request it. Sign up for your free subscription at http://www.FederalDirect.net and if you like this newsletter, please pass it along to your colleagues. To unsubscribe, see directions below. The newsletter is posted each Monday at www.FederalDirect.net, and the latest “Off-Center Observations” is on the home page. All back issues available at http://www.federaldirect.net/newsletterarchives.html) AMTOWER OFF-CENTER OBSERVATIONS Item: I talk frequently about ways to say “thank you” to clients and other business associates. Business is built on relationships. I received several holiday e-cards, and I suppose I should be gracious. But there is something about a holiday (or birthday) e-card- especially one with a corporate message in the picture- that is cold. For me, it sends the message “When you care enough to do as little as possible…” There is nothing that makes this truly personalized, and it does not replace, nor does it come close to, a snail mail card with a note. I received many snail mail holiday cards from my business associates and clients. Several came from people I really didn’t expect cards from, and most of these had a personal note. I was impressed by the effort. This is a personal preference, but it differentiates the sender from many others who are opting for the e-card. I am not soliciting holiday cards (though I enjoy them and send them), but I do look at the snail mail cards more than once and remember those who sent them, unlike almost all e-transmissions, most of which are jettisoned as soon as I see them. So when expressing your appreciation, take the time for your associates that matter most to you to send a snail mail card with a note. Item: One more call for USO contributions. Let’s see if we can make the holiday for our active duty personnel a little nicer. www.uso.org Item: An email arrived the other day saying the wounded uniform personnel at Walter Reed Army Medical Center needed phone cards. This email came from my friend Ellen Faris, Director of Media and Marketing at Native American Management Services, Inc. I called the number on the email to get a mailing address (I was going to put the message in this issue), but when I got through, the family service office had been inundated with phone cards! They have enough to last until Spring. Kudos to Ellen and anyone else involved. What a great effort. Let’s see if we can do the same for the USO. Item: We are four months out from the “big show” – FOSE – and the first e-promo is out. Please do not tie this to my comment on e-cards above. This is a good e-promotion, alerting us to mark our calendars well in advance, giving a few reasons to attend (networking, keynotes and the like). This is the antithesis of the promotion from Equity International touting the “most influential homeland security event in the United States” with “high-level sessions”, “expert breakout sessions”, a “packed exhibit floor” and “unparalleled networking.” Unparalleled is always impressive. Lorenz Hassenstein of FOSE and PostNewsweek has gone a long way to reduce the adjectival nature of his promotions. Equity International has gone a long way to ensure more adjectives per square inch with less content per message than most. My view is simple: the more adjectives required in the pre-show promotion, the more off-color the description of the event by exhibitors and attenders in the post-show debrief. Not that I have an opinion.
Ms. Brossman mentioned recent calls from the no-name event “producers” who have “last minute exhibit cancellations” – so she can have the “last space available”. Beware of these No-Name, No-Bandwidth, Take Your Money event producers. One brief story from the seminar involved the canvas bag Juniper Networks chose to use as a give-away for one event. For those unfamiliar with my view of bags, please read Off-White Paper 21, FOSE and the Battle of the Bags ( http://www.federaldirect.net/offwhite21.html). Juniper sponsored the bags for the AFCEA TechNet in Hawaii, but unlike the huge, costly things I reference in Off-White 21, these were a decent sized canvas bags with a pull-string closure – perfect for the beach (the show was in Hawaii). This is useful and it has real shelf-life. Holly Dunn, one of the Juniper staff members attending AFCEA, was at the event luncheon. When the emcee introduced the sponsors, Ms Dunn stood up. As she was starting to sit back down, the emcee asked her to stand again to be thanked for the wonderful beach bag Juniper had provided. A well-deserved ovation followed, an ovation for a bag done right, a bag that pleased the emcee – and the attenders, enough to merit a separate recognition. Back to the seminar: One of the points driven home by the presenters was that events, once chosen, are successful if you sweat the details. The bag may seem to be an unlikely detail, but it isn’t. I have referenced Juniper before, for the use of cartoons in their advertising – which has proven very effective. Look for more comments on the evolving Juniper campaign. These guys are doing many things right. They are not the big player with the huge budget, but like MPC (formerly Micron PC, which I use as an example in my seminars), they are outperforming the competition by being more creative and more agile. End of year congratulations to Lou Anne Brossman and Juniper Networks. If I gave awards, you’d darn well get one. Come to think of it, in the next issue I will offer some awards: Best and Worst of 2004 – Ads & E-promos.
AFCEA Luncheon Friday, January 7, 2005, 11:00 – 1:30; Pentagon City Ritz Carlton, Grand Ballroom, 1250 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202 Speaker, Kevin Carroll, Program Executive Officer, Enterprise Information Systems (PEO EIS), United States Army; $45 https://www.washdcafcea.org/luncheon-reg.asp INTELCON National Intelligence Conference and Exposition, February 8-10, 2005 Hyatt Regency Crystal City, Alexandria, VA. www.fbcinc.com March 22-23, 2005. Federal Information Systems Security Educators’ Association (FISSEA) Conference. “Target Training in 2005 - Computer Security Awareness, Training, and Education”. Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, 5701 Marinelli Road, North Bethesda, Maryland (White Flint Metro Stop). Electronic Registration URL: https://rproxy.nist.gov/CRS
** As always, your comments, questions and suggestions are welcome. Thanks The Amtower B2G Market Report is published by Amtower & Company, and is written for companies targeting the government marketplace. The opinions expressed are those of Mark Amtower unless otherwise noted. Contact us at Amtower & Company, PO Box 314, Highland, MD 20777-0314 (301-924-0058). This material is copyrighted and may not be duplicated, reprinted or otherwise replicated without written permission of the publisher. Email subscriptions are free by request: sign up at www.FederalDirect.net |
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