Lately I’ve been struck by how we marketers may be losing our way, overlooking our core mission. Preoccupied with wrenching changes in how we launch products, retool the marketing mix, and engage influencers and stakeholders, it’s easy to overlook our core mission: understanding customers. How we apply what we understand about customers is what drives the marketing (and sales) engine.
Tagged as:
creating customers,
customer insights,
market research,
the purpose of marketing
Revised on June 4, 2010
Just before the holidays I invested in Apple’s new server offering for small firms and workgroups, the Mac Mini Snow Leopard Server. It’s a sweet package.
For $999 you get a whisper-quiet, energy-efficient server not much larger than a paperback book. The device comes with 4GB of RAM and a terabyte of built-in storage, plus an unlimited client license to Apple’s powerful server software (10.6.x Snow Leopard).
Apple claims this combination of hardware and software can handle up to 25 concurrent users. To handle more users would require more powerful hardware. I’ve been using it to serve a handful of concurrent users, and it’s plenty fast. But it’s not perfect, and here’s why…
Tagged as:
Apple,
Comcast,
MacMini,
Snow Leopard server
Revised on February 7, 2010
Large enterprises have all sorts of choices when it comes to managing interactions with customers and prospects. The options available to solo practitioners and very small businesses, until recently, have been much more restricted, especially for people who want more than what Microsoft Outlook has to offer. Marketing firms like mine want a service that’s […]
Tagged as:
37Signals,
business development,
contact management,
Highrise
