Craig's Lemonade

RSS and Web Analytics in a 2.0 world. Its attention.

A few weeks back a gave about an hour talk at the annual Software Association of Oregon (SAO) annual retreat. It was frankly a last minute addition to the agenda, but seemed like a poignant time in our association's history to jostle the old guard about what it means to be a software company in 2007. Great examples of new web 2.0. software companies I discussed included SplashCast, Jive Software, Aboutus.org, and others. There are no doubt dozens of budding new software companies that have yet to be discovered. Unfortunately, the SAO is the last to learn of them, in fact I learned about SplashCast from TechCrunch (which most folks at the retreat wrote down as if they had never heard of it.) So, what about web analytics in a 2.0 World?

Thinking and talking about this paradigm shift at our annual retreat, combined with my job as CEO of Attensa (where we have our own analytics component for the enterprise), it got me thinking. I believe the web analytics space is one of the more interesting established software markets to be profoundly impacted by web 2.0 than any other. I firmly believe this for three reasons;

1. RSS is a serious marketing tool for businesses of all sizes and industries and will become significant. More progressive emarketers are already seeing the benefits both for replacing/augmenting email programs and for distributing information to customers by broadcasting (rather than requiring a return to a marketers web site for information.) I believe companies will demand integrated measurement tools for RSS as through as those for email, advertising, and web site analytics.
2. Delivering the analytics TO the customer just makes sense. Currently, essentially all of the major players in this space require going to a dashboard/portal user interface. This is so 2005. Users at all levels, consumer and business, are proving that push vs. pull is the preferred means of discovering information. Industry watchers are already wondering why RSS feeds aren't used yet by the major players in the web analytics space. Using RSS as a means to distribute Web analytics updates/reports is so obvious it is inevitable, and perhaps new standards such as Microsoft's SLE, will be the best way for companies to deliver this type of information easily. I for one would like to get my FeedBurner stats this way, and I'm not alone.
3. Measuring the user is changing, and in the future its 'attention' not click residue. What is important for marketers, then and now, is getting the best read on their current or prospective customers habits. And, of course, to get them to buy. Clickstreams and clickthroughs are not the end-all, just a tiny part of the whole. Consider the phenomenon of end user tagging, which last month's PEW Internet & American Life Project report confirmed that already 28% of online Americans have used the Internet to tag content. This is pure "attention" and far more useful overtime than clickstreams or clicks.

Simon Wakeman, an industry consultant, discusses his experience using Google Analytics, StatCounter, and FeedBurner on his blog. And of course points out that he cant get RSS feeds from any of them. Steve Rubel has discovered a new service called Clicky that may be a peek at web 2.0 analytics. I have not tried it yet. Also worth noting, Google announced it will publish stats on its Google Reader and there is some chatter on the labs blog. I have a feeling all the major services will publish these stats over time and, accordingly, marketers will care.

As for Attensa, our Enterprise Server (AFS) has an analytics component, but it is focused primarily at behind the firewall use of RSS feeds for business users. We have no current plans to offer RSS for large companies that are adding RSS as a medium for communicating to customers. At least not yet.

In my opinion, the conventional web analytics software firm of the future will need to focus on the interactivity of customers across all media, not click residue. Thoughts?

Technorati Tags: SAO.org - Attensa - Attention - Attensa Feed Server - Web Analytics - RSS Analytics - Web 2.0 - Web2.0 - Splashcast - Jive software - Microsoft SLE - FeedBurner - PEW - Google Analytics - Google Reader - Simon Wakeman - Steve Rubel - tagging - StatCounter - Clicky - RSS - RSS Marketing

SAO confirms that Oregon's Software Industry is the real deal

This morning the Software Association of Oregon (SAO) issued a press release and announced the availability of an economic impact report. I've been involved in starting and running software companies in Oregon for over 21 years now. I love it here. Many others do too. Intel, based in Santa Clara, CA, has more employees here than anywhere else in the world - and a large percentage are software folks.

This is a GREAT place to start a software company of any kind. There are significant resources and talent in engineering, sales, marketing, and more. However, there is not a lot of access to capital, so you'll have to plan on a lot of travel to raise early rounds(but that's another story.)

I am chairman of our association's advocacy committee, and serve on the executive committee, and know that with the SAO's new leadership, market opportunities, and strong support infrastructure our state offers, I am really looking forward to 2007. This will be a big year for the SAO and for software companies in Oregon. I can feel it.

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OREGON’S SOFTWARE INDUSTRY MAKES STRONG GAINS; FURTHER JOB GROWTH FORECAST IN NEW STUDY

PORTLAND, Ore.—February 8, 2007 - Oregon’s software industry experienced employment gains of more than 11 percent in the two-year period ended in 2005 and is positioned for even greater job growth over the next decade according to an economic impact analysis released today by the Software Association of Oregon (SAO).

In 2006 SAO retained the respected consulting firm of ECONortwest to measure the economic contributions of the software industry to the Oregon economy through 2005.  Included in the findings of the study are the following:

• In 2005 the software industry generated over 51,700 jobs in Oregon.  These jobs produced a direct economic impact of $9.2 billion to Oregon’s economy, including $3.2 billion in personal income, and generated more than $834 million in state and local tax revenues.

• Employment in the ten software and computer-related professions profiled in the study is expected to grow by approximately 18.7 percent through 2014, faster than the overall employment growth rate projected for Oregon across all occupations in the same time period.  Importantly, only software and computer-related professions and health care related professions are expected to have growth openings that exceed the number of replacement openings over the next decade.

• Improved or very improved business conditions were reported by 62 percent of SAO members who were surveyed for the study and 44 percent of respondents expect to see stronger or much stronger hiring in the next year.

SAO president, Harvey Mathews, detailed the findings at a press conference held at the Oregon State Capitol February 8^th, where Mr. Mathews also addressed SAO’s advocacy agenda before the current session of the Oregon Legislature.

“The findings of the economic impact analysis confirm what SAO members have long assumed: software and technology companies are key drivers of the Oregon economy,”, Mr. Mathews said. “When the economic impact of the software and technology industry is fully considered, it is obvious that the continued prosperity of our state is heavily tied to the success of our member companies. 

“Despite what you may read about software jobs being shipped overseas, the data clearly shows that, to the contrary, we are one of the fastest growing sectors in Oregon’s economy.  This industry imports wealth that ripples through Oregon’s economy, creating many other jobs as a byproduct.”

“We intend to be active in the current session of the Legislature and on an on-going basis with policy makers across a range of subjects, but particularly to encourage creativity and thoughtfulness in how Oregon invests in its educational system and economic development programs,” added Mr. Mathews. "We want legislators to keep in mind the impacts their policy decisions can have on software companies and the industry as a whole."

The economic impact analysis was made possible in part through a grant from the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department and the support of SAO members.  The report can be viewed on line at www.sao.org.

ABOUT SAO: SAO is Oregon’s largest and only locally headquartered technology trade association, based in Portland, serving over 500 member companies located throughout the state. SAO's mission is to sustain a healthy and strong software industry cluster in Oregon by: Helping companies start, creating an environment where companies and entrepreneurs want to move, and supporting company growth. 

Technorati Tags: SAO - Attensa - Oregon Software

Enterprise RSS in 40 minutes. Phenomenal!

Today I got some great news from the field. We are now deploying our Enterprise Class Server appliance in under an hour. Yep, our reps left the building in time for lunch with Attensa Feed Server quietly humming away in its new home of an exciting company that services the pharmaceuticals industry. So, to the folks at headquarters here in Portland...phenomenal job!  

Here is the memo from our field rep I received a short time ago and I just had to share it!

"Craig, I have to tell you about today's install of our newest AFS release. These proof-of-concept 'bake-offs' versus our competition are really getting fun. Our consistent technology advantage has been that we have are able to install and deploy the server with blazing speed! I mean BLAZING!!!!

Today at XXXXX, we were able to connect to their Active Directory (LDAP)  and install and deploy the product in under 40 minutes!!! This is insanely fast. We were then able to train the project lead on the Administration Console and Attensa Connect. Our system engineers showed up at 9am in the morning in 10 degree weather, and left the building at 12:30pm.

The customer was completely amazed and I quote their CIO: “I have never seen a solution that could be installed and deployed with this speed and stability, I am completely amazed.”

TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) is critical for IT departments. Not only are there no additional licenses to buy or install (such as Windows Server, SQL, etc etc etc) but as this company grows their use of our RSS server will also impress. We have learned that our competitors' solutions will need up to 10 times the processing power to scale - especially when deployments run into the tens of thousands. So, if you are an IT professional evaluating options, ask about hardware requirements and licenses. TCO matters, right? Evaluating competitive enterprise offerings such as NewsGator or KnowNow? Ask the questions! Take the Pepsi challenge...we love being second.

We are going to be talking a lot more about TCO in our marketing materials and in educating customers about their options in general. But, in the meantime, an enterprise server installed in 40 minutes and we're out the door? That's just phenomenal!

This company will no doubt become a strategic partner, hopefully once we get through a few legal hoops we can disclose their identity!

Technorati Tags: Attensa - Attensa Feed Server - EnterpriseRSS - Enterprise RSS - NewsGator - KnowNow

"Blog Schmog" got me thinking about it all

OK, so I am already off to a pretty good start with some of my new year's resolutions. Its been well over a month since my last post, which incidentally addressed one of my new year's resolutions of backing off the annoyingly persistent use of my phone. Another resolution is to post here with more regularity. I am on my way to Orlando, Florida to participate in the 2007 IBM/Lotusphere annual shindig, before I left I decided to buy a book I stumbled across in the Portland airport about a contrarian view on the value and "truth" surrounding the blogosphere - and more specifically the ROI of blogging for business.

I write this at some thirty eight thousand feet having just finished Robert Bly's 2006 book entitled  Blog Schmog and it got me thinking. I guess that's the point, right? As CEO of Attensa, this Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 space is literally ground zero for drinkers of the "blogs are a marketing revolution" kool-aid. Bly's book calls BS on it as a direct marketing expert, and he has some good reasons why. I think he is a too negative on blogging, as most direct marketing purists might understandably be, but the book got me thinking about the ROI of blogging, setting clear goals for my blog, and not giving up on traditional, proven direct marketing techniques for the software business. As an aside, the style in which Bly writes reminded me of shooting it with my Father, so it kept my attention from take-off until I finished. I enjoyed the rose colored glasses view of the blogosphere via Naked Conversations last year, but for a contrast and with author Bly's cynicism set aside, I DO recommend reading Blog Schmog to understand a perspective through the more pragmatic eyes of the ROI focused direct marketer.

I need to digest it some more but for 2007 I have decided that I am going to focus more on the starting, financing, running, strategizing, competing and selling of software businesses on my blog - and probably less on attention and RSS. This is my fourth time through a software startup journey as a leader and I have learned and gone through a lot already with Attensa and we are just getting started!

Though not at the top of my list, I think this particular New Year's resolution of being more regular with my posts should make for a more useful and interesting blog. So drop me a line, and here's to a great 2007!

Technorati Tags: naked conversations - blog schmog - robert bly

The Five Temptations of a CEO - "A Leadership Fable"

I am involved in our region's trade industry, known as the Software Association of Oregon (SAO), and next week I am on a panel with two other CEOs for one of the many events we hold for members and non-members in special interest groups that includes leadership, marketing, human resources, etc. This particular one, lead by executive recruiter Pamela Jones, is centered around a new best selling book - or "leadership fable" as it is called - entitled The Five Temptations of a CEO. I just finished reading it, it is about an hour read at most, and I recommend it highly. I must admit I was dubious at first that I would enjoy it or even get anything out of it - but I did. While geared for CEOs, any manager will benefit from this quick read.

Here's the amazon.com review, which also describes the temptations:

Imagine running into the ultimate management mentor late one night on an otherwise deserted commuter train, and walking away from the strange encounter with an encapsulated guide to success in the corporate world. That's exactly what screenwriter and business coach Patrick Lencioni has done in The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable, placing his tale in an easy-reading and thought- provoking kind of self-help novel.

Designed to be read in a single sitting, this book uses the unexpected meeting between troubled high-tech honcho Andrew O'Brien and a mysterious old man named Charlie to explore a series of common traps that can unwittingly ensnare any hard-driven executive. Lencioni hones in on the five "temptations" of the workplace: desires to jealously guard career status, consistently remain popular with subordinates, unfailingly make correct decisions, constantly strive for an atmosphere of total harmony, and always appear invulnerable. A discussion of the story's events and their real-world implications follows, as Lencioni shifts from screenwriter mode to business coach to help answer some of the questions he raises. --Howard Rothman

The net, net of this book for me personally is that I am guilty of all of these temptations to some degree, and expect that tomorrow morning I will begin my day with different expectations of myself and my crew.

Here's the author's web site the table group which includes other books, consulting, etc.

Technorati Tags: Attensa - The Five Temptations of a CEO - the table group

Enterprise RSS has arrived, check out the Infoworld review

I've been asked by many about my take on the Infoworld review, and for the most part the Attensa blog post on it says it all from where I sit, so check it out here. The Attensa Feed Server finished up in the middle, and overall it pretty much reads and is rated like a three way tie between Attensa, KnowNow and NewsGator. Here's NG founder Greg Reinacker's take. The most important effect of the article to me is that it is a wake up call for many in IT that aren't paying attention to the obvious benefits of RSS for business.

The majority of professionally run IT organizations look at more than one offering before pulling the trigger on a solution from any new vendor. The NewsGator offering is very, very similar to ours, even more so than the review chronicled. What wasn't covered in the review was "total cost of ownership" or installation experience. These two items are our sweetspots. It is my understanding that the reviewer looked at all three offerings via the Internet (aka a hosted user experience) and didn't have the very relevant experience that IT must endure to install software behind the firewall.

Literally all of our pilots and customer wins so far have been in environments where the Attensa Feed Server (AFS) is the second or third product reviewed/piloted. The devil is in the details, and I am very pleased with our market position and performance to date. AFS was last to market with our enterprise server, and its only been available a few months now, but kudos to the team and pilot customers who worked with us on our 1.0 release and making it so solid. I've been in this business for 21 years now, and it is a rare start when a "1.0" release is so competitive - or even preferred.

AFS is the first in a suite of offerings on our road map built upon our AttentionStream technology (which is foundational with our client-side technology as well) and will be an increasingly obvious differentiator in this three horse race that for now is focused primarily on rudimentary RSS plumbing. Information overload mitigation is where the juice is - and where we are focused. Stayed tuned for some more announcements soon.

Technorati Tags: attensa - attention - enterprise rss - newsgator - knownow - attensa feed server -

I love being second (and can't believe I just wrote that)

A few weeks back I posted about the proverbial rising tide raising all boats in the enterprise RSS market, garnering a bit of attention in our little corner of the world for recognizing our competitors and (gasp) actually linking to them (NewsGator and KnowNow) as well. I even cheesily referenced the business classic "Coopetition." I am on a plane now returning to Portland after a quick trip to San Francisco and an overnight visit in New York with my lead investors. I met up with our VP sales Rich Rudolph who had been on the east coast all week meeting with current and prospective customers. Wow, what a week he had! These long flights back are always a great time to not only catch up on email but to reflect upon what larger trends the overall market appear to be experiencing- and of course their affect on our particular business.

So, here's what is coming through to us here at Attensa loud and clear;

1. Enterprise RSS is here NOW and the traditionally sluggish enterprise customer is anything but.
2. RSS for Blog posts and news headlines are cute but not driving RSS in the enterprise - business/competitive intelligence, wikis, rss enablement of enterprise apps are.
3. Microsoft's IE, Vista, and Office 07 are raising awareness big time but IMHO won't deliver what the enterprise needs - client OR server side, so far our customers and prospects agree btw.
4. RSS Enterprise Servers such as ours are a new category altogether so be prepared to do a pilot (and make sure your product actually works...this is a big one!)
5. One must smile, and contain one's excitement. It's not that often that big businesses (en masse) are at the forefront of a technological shift that we are witnessing today with RSS - with checkbook in hand no less.

So, what about the title of this post? Anyone who knows me (and my team) are acutely aware of our LOVE for winning. And, yes, being second still sucks in most situations. Earlier in my career I started and guided two smaller software companies into leadership positions. At both of these companies, Extensis and Now Software (sold to Qualcomm), we were frankly not first at anything - just better when it counted. Better products, Better technology, Better performance, Better execution. Being better matters, being first doesn't.

Enter Attensa.

We're not first, and in some instances on customer visits not even second - BUT- we're batting 1000 as the chosen solution for the enterprise customers we've touched so far. Attensa is admittedly just getting started, but things are eerily and wonderfully familiar to me.

Why?

Here goes my top 10 in no particular order in what's resonating for us with Enterprise customers;

1. Make sure your product actually works and can be installed in hours. Not promises, today.
2. LDAP integration is required by the big boys and we actually even make it easy. Go figure.
3. Be able to support multiple Exchange servers.
4. Have a mobile strategy, so far BlackBerry is key.
5. Sync. sync. sync. It's not a product, it's a feature, but you should have it...we sync with the new MSFT common feed store too. It's not rocket-science, but it matters.
6. Have analytics, IT cares. Bonus for "attention" analytics.
7. Make sure users can read RSS offline, a web only client solution is just lame...so have multiple options, the customer decides desktop by desktop what works best for their users.
8. User experience counts, and is often overlooked.
9. Have an enterprise legacy application strategy (our is Attensa Connect) and ...drum roll....
10. Don't drop your prices just to get the business, it just makes you look like a chump.

P.S. After all that show them your attention technology so their users don't drown in 1,000 or so RSS items they'll be getting per day. It will blow them away. ; )

 

Technorati Tags: Attensa - Attention - RSS - Enterprise+RSS - NewsGator - KnowNow - IE7 - Common+feed+store - Extensis

Attensa joined by TouchStone with another take on Attention

Like some 90 thousand or more folks (according to FeedBurner stats) I monitor the TechCrunch blog through RSS subscription. Late last night I ran across this post by Marshall Kirkpatrick who Mike has pulled in to help monitor and report on this web 2.0 world evolving around us. Marshall covered new entrant Touchstone and their beta of their consumer facing "attention engine." I was made aware of touchstone some time ago and read the blog of its founder occasionally, Chris Saad, though I hadn't looked for a while....until the TechCrunch coverage.

And I did post this reply in the comments (and fixed some typos here):

" “First Attention Management Engine” …ummm, I don’t think so. But, it looks kinda cool though.

“Information overload” is indeed a problem and has been our focus at Attensa for some time now. As our name implies, our “attention engine” is the core of our IP. We clearly have a different approach than touchstone from a business model perspective, but we agree with muc of the “manifesto.”

Attensa has invested literally millions over the past several years on our attention engine technologies, with some work dating back to 2000. While we agree on the requirement of client side attention engines (like the one that communicates with and is in Attensa for Outlook 1.5) we believe it is equally important that this capability be buttressed with a massively scalable server side infrastructure to glean the same attention benefits for the community at large (or affinity groups) for intelligent priortization and recommendation. Doing this with very large amounts of transient meta data - in real time - is very, very complex. And, obviously, we believe, very very useful.

Incidentally, RSS just happens to be the first data type we are utilizing to enable our customers to cut down on information overload. The “first attention management engine” was shipped a long time ago - by Attensa. We didnt say anything for a while but did unveil the existence of the technology at Gnomedex in summer 2005 surrounding our “attentionstream” technology. It handles instantaneous syncing for us but in the background it is monitoring literally hundreds of detailed behaviorial characteristics and, btw, clickstreams are hardly the most interesting or useful mecahnism for deriving attention value. For ad targeting, MAYBE, for attention, NO.

In any event, welcome to the show Touchstone, we’ve been carrying this bag solo for some time now. "

Attensa is focused on business, enterprise business more specifically, and recommendation and prioritization are priorities. Further, while our "Attention Engine" is a well-functioning client side app running on hundreds of thousands of desktops, the real value of what we call attention streams are best realized when applied across users and groups. The Attensa Feed Server is the first such implementation of our server-side attention engine and I'm happy to report that it was installed (as an appliance) in the data center of a Fortune 500 company just last week and working beautifully! Stay tuned for more info on that...

Lastly, TouchStone's Saad has also commented that their offering is a companion to RSS readers. He is spot on with this too, to a point. Long term, I'd love for Attensa to not have to do the actual readers, but to create the necessary attention data and deliver the optimal user experience - in real time - it is a necessity for now. Outlook 2007 and its RSS? It is a DREAM for us, but I'll save that for another post. We are licensing our technology to others are in in some exciting discussions, but our business model (for the time being) is not in the web 2.0 "mash-up" genre. We are doing some very complex math on a massive scale (client and server side) to make all of this work without end user intervention - such as creating rules, filters, or manual overrides. Client-side only engines are the small part of an exciting equation, or at least that's my view.

The net, net is that attention is getting more attention. For consumers (web 2.0) and for business (enterprise 2.0.) "Are you paying attention?"

P.S. More posts soon from me on Microsoft's impact, open XML spec for attention, and where Attensa is going (not just RSS readers...)

Technorati Tags: Attensa, Attention, Enterprise RSS, microsoft outlook, Touchstone, Marshall Kirkpatrick, RSS, TechCrunch, Touchstone, Web 2.0

OSCON and Open Source in Oregon

O'Reilly's OSCON is in town, and it is looking more and more like the metro area of Portland, Oregon is becoming ground zero for the open source movement. CNN was here a few months back according to the Oregonian. Just a few of the groups in our state active in the community include Oregon State University's OSL, Beaverton's OSDL and OTBC, and even the SAO. That said, the Always On Summit conference is running this week too down at Stanford and of course open source is a hot topic. Dan Farber covered the open source session on his "between the lines" blog (which incidentally is required reading for software executives in my opinion.)

I'm not sure how we will participate in this revolution at Attensa, but I have been thinking about it. While we are using open source technologies for our server appliance, we are not clear how or if we should offer some component of our core technologies to take advantage of the clear benefits becoming apparent.

Tags: open source, OSCON, SAO.org, OSDL, OTBC

When an Intern blogs, it matters

Perusing my Technorati favorites I noticed under my "attensa" keyword watch a new post about Attensa and Outlook 2007 - and was pleasantly surprised that is was in fact written by one of our summer interns Chris Chamness! This is a small example of how blogs can influence and inform when they originate from anywhere in a company, not just the marcom department or the corner office. Blogs are working for businesses of all shapes and sizes, this is just one tiny example. Thanks Chris.

Tags: Attensa, Outlook 2007