Monthly Archives: May 2013

May 20 2013
Learning, Solutions

The more you know…

Have you ever had to work really hard to understand a new concept in your industry?

Yes, marketing literature can be out of touch; presentation files can be poorly written and have too many bullet points; demo scripts can miss the value entirely; but once in a while, a white-paper, a blog, a product description can get to the heart of the matter and reveal something new.  It might require you to connect the dots from disparate sources but then, then!  The light goes on.

New insight!

Damn if that insight doesn’t turn out to be relevant, timely, and key in the next three customer conversations you have.

You’re in the center of the buzz and you get it, and you can articulate it to others… because your in Pre-Sales and that’s what you do- make the complex simple through communication.  You’re a transducer of complexity in technology and business.

The more you know… the more relevant you are.

May 20 2013
Creativity, Humor, Learning

Spock has a sense of humor. He just doesn’t believe he does.

I’ve noticed through my career that when you bring a creative person (a designer, a photographer, an artist, a Photoshop specialist) into a technology-related project, they get the technical aspects of the project right away.

I’ve also noticed that that the analytic people involved in the project are in awe and amazement at the creative person’s artistic skills.  “I could never draw/layout/photograph/stylize like that.”

My conclusion has always been that creatives can be analytical but analytics can’t be creative.

I have always been wrong.

Analytics have been told (by themselves or others) that they are not creative.  And they (myself included) have been dumb enough to believe this.  I don’t know if creatives were lucky enough to be tagged creative early on, or if they were wise enough to scoff at the notion they couldn’t be creative.  But to accept that you can’t be creative and therefore never try…

That’s just sad.

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May 15 2013
Creativity, Presentations, Selling, Solutions, Technology, Uncategorized

Communication, understanding, problem-solving, relationship-building

When you get your hair cut, there’s usually a big mess on the floor when you’re done.  The same applies when you’re solving business problems with customers:

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