Southern California is a hotbed of technology companies that are leaders in their sector. This includes MySpace, CitySearch, Ticketmaster, eHarmony, and thousands of lesser known technology companies. A high-tech community like this also has many bloggers and Web-based news outlets that cover our

Raising awareness of your product in your target market is where sales begin, and this is where marketing communications activities begin the selling process. With today's multiple channels for content to reach potential customers, the art and science of marketing communications has become increasingly important. The marketing communications function (commonly called "marcom") has many communications tools available.

While the economy in 2009 looks challenging for most companies, the outlook of marketing executives is rather bright and upbeat. Deborah Kania and her team at Brightworks Interactive have just released results of their survey of marketing executives' plans for 2009. The survey covered both B-to-B and B-to-C companies, as well as a mix of large, medium, and small businesses, so the survey results represent a good cross-section of marketers.

There are several new marketing trends for 2010 that will have an impact on practically every marketing organization because of new trends in customer behavior, such as: Shift in consumer mentality from recession to recovery Changes in how customers make purchase decisions

Taking a long trip is like marketing. You need to pick a direction, which will determine what to pack -- shorts and sandals for summer, or coats and gloves for winter -- and who you will meet along the way.   The The same is true for marketing. Once you pick a marketing direction, all of your marketing programs need to be aligned to move the

One of the topics that came up in my post Mobile Internet Apple Facebook was around open vs. closed platforms. This issue comes up at the start of almost every new startup company in a variety of forms. I’m constantly struggling with trying to figure out the best way to pull together solutions, especially with how fast things move.

A post by Fred Wilson pointed me to Dave McClure's Startup Metrics presentation. This is a great presentation and one that I'm going to point out to startup / early stage company CEOs. Normally, when I am talking to the founder of any startup trying to figure out what they need to do, one of the things I always try to do is understand their business at its core. In many cases, I can break it down into: Customer Acquisition Cost – how will you reach prospects, how will you convert them and how

I generally am working as an acting CTO for about 3-4 start-ups or other companies at any one time. I was just talking with someone who asked me to define how that could work and what they meant. Great question. I also found this interesting graphic of the changing needs around the CTO role in different

For some reason over the past week, I've been asked by three different people I know about job opportunities that might fit them. Since, I've given them the same advice, I thought it was worth putting in my blog. I personally believe that the best way to hire, find partners, and find a job is through a network.

I just had an all-too common conversation with the founder of a startup who had spent more than a year working with a software development company who had produced a mess. The mess really comes from a developer who was willing to get started on a product that was not fully thought out. I always take a very different approach in early conversations. If I’m being asked to do startup software development, I’m going