I was sadden to learn of the death of Carl Beane today. He was the Red Sox PA announcer since 2003 and was there for the 2004 and 2007 World Series.

Derek Jeter still has the famous Yankees PA announcer, Bob Sheppard who died in 2010 at the age of 99, call out his name from a recording.  I have heard stories that players get goosebumps hearing their named called over the loudspeaker even after playing for 10 years. I know I certainly did when I had my name called out by Carl in 2004 when I had the opportunity to take 3 swings in Fenway. I tell you, I was nervous and hearing your name echo throughout the park was such a memorable experience.  Here’s to you Carl and RIP.

In May 2011 Smart CMO asked me to be a guest panelist at their CMO Roundtable in Washington D.C. I joined Tom Shelley of Space Adventures and Celia Stokes of K12 in front of fifty marketing professionals in a Q & A style session moderated by one of Smart CMO’s co-founders, Jocelyne Attal. Our backgrounds were diverse: I drive our demand generation marketing for Blackboard, Celia leads marketing for a fast growing K-12 online education provider, and Tom markets expensive trips to space aboard the Russian Soyuz. It was an interesting discussion, particularly on the topic of innovation.

We talked about bending limits and “being creative”, and I think we’ve overlooked one important key to innovation: Timing.

If you invest the right amount time and energy into creating a company culture that is responsive and appreciative of forward-looking ideas, then you can be smarter about stimulating innovation. I think the best time to innovate is when you’re achieving great results, not when things are down. This way, your team is confident about introducing new ideas and the company can be well positioned to make the necessary changes. The team won’t be afraid to take risks and shake things up to disrupt the status quo – since there will be less-risk of a negative downturn. Planning ahead and keeping your culture open to new ideas means you’ll be creating an environment where people can easily innovate when the time is right.

Here’s my talk from the Smart CMO Roundtable:

Smart CMO Virtual Forum is a great event, and if you are marketing executive it’s worth your time. The next program is March 1st, 2012 and features the CMOs of the NFL, the Grammy’s, and Sapphire NOW. Click here to register: www.smartcmo.com.

That’s how many stars General Colin Powell has received in his prolific military career. Having served for for over 35 years in the United States Army, and other cabinet positions his career is unprecedented.  On June 8, 2011, I had the pleasure, privilege and honor of introducing him at the APSCU conference.  Blackboard was a sponsor and we were given the opportunity to do the keynote introduction.

The General is passionate about education and he stays very involved having started America’s Promise to help children and youth from all socioeconomic sectors.  I am always impressed when I hear leaders rise to the top of their profession. The one common link in all of them is their family’s commitment to education. In General Powell’s case, he is a native of Harlem, NY and his parents were Jamaican immigrants. His parents stressed the importance of education and his father said with is son going to college he had the chance to change their family’s history for generations to come. And so it did…

I found the General to be a dynamic speaker, passionate, compassionate, well versed in a variety of topics and an honorable man. Definitely a highlight for me in my career.

Here’s the link to YouTube and my introduction.

There are some great debates on separating your personal and professional brand. I have many friends who believe this is the equivalent of a Church vs State argument. It is also amazing how passionate people feel about the subject. While I do believe there are sensitivities when it comes to your online brand, but the benefits outweigh the risks. Well unless you are the subject of a Facebook disaster (now your Tagged Facebook Photos are Admissible as Evidence in a Kentucky court of law).

Anyway, I read this blog post regarding someone I follow and admire. Check out Mark Drapeau, Director of Innovative Social Engagement at Microsoft. Here’s a snippet from the blog interview.

I am careful with the Mark Drapeau brand, and everything I do in real life, print, and online is calculated. But I don’t really make artificial distinctions between my “personal” and “professional” brands. I am always a person, and I am always representing my work-related interests too. That’s why I keep a personal blog, a personal Twitter account, and so forth, yet use it for professional reasons intermingled with personal ones. Frankly, I think that’s what audiences want – they don’t want one feed for when I talk about Microsoft and another when I talk about happy hour. Everything just has to be done in balance to tell a 360-degree story about who I am. As a professional acquaintance recently told me, Everything I tweet is done with my past, present, and future employers in mind. I think that’s a good strategy.

His point of view is dead-on and one that I subscribe to.

I don’t delineate between “friends” on all of the big three social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn). Those who know me realize that I contribute to these social networks by sharing everything that I am interested in.  I feel I have always tried to be a good representative of my company so why not share all types of news with everyone. I enjoy having a large online social network and have found more benefits than flaws over the years. It is nice to hear co-workers checking out my family photos, knowing that I actually can enjoy myself on a ski vacation or just finding common threads with co-workers. We spend enough time with each other during the week, but yet sometimes I hardly know these people. Social networks help me learn more and believe me it helps in work situations – fostering the necessary bonds to actually get work done.

What do you think?

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to speak and moderate a round table session at the Tech Breakfast Club in Tyson’s Corner, VA. We had a great discussion around the importance of nurturing leads and the significance the marketing team must put on developing great content. For many B2B organizations this has been difficult because it requires a significant shift in the way that marketing supports the organization. As I found out, many of my peers did not have dedicated resources to support this and “do more with less” truly applies. Here are the notes/recap taken by Amy Pennington from Force 3 (thank you Amy), copied from our LinkedIn discussion forum.

My session:  Nurturing Leads With Marketing Automation and Content

Kevin Alansky, Senior Director of Marketing for www.Blackboard.com, led an engaging Tech Breakfast Club discussion on the rise of marketing automation tools, such as Marketo, SilverPop’s “Engage B2B” and Eloqua. We discussed how these tools are used to increase the efficiency of marketing functions across the enterprise, and to manage all activities while a customer moves through a sales cycle. Additional thoughts to consider are implementing a lead scoring system, which sets values to different activities and assets (whitepaper downloads, visits to a website), and once a lead reaches a certain score, they are automatically handed over to sales. But to successfully implement a marketing automation system, your sales operations and marketing operations must be connected at the hip: driven by numbers, data and technology.

Other tips that came out of this particular conversation:
• Avoid the temptation of “one-and-done” marketing initiatives
Patience is a virtue: part of lead nurturing is to keep content fresh, but allow customers to go at their own pace. The idea behind lead nurturing is to position yourself as the trusted advisor and as a partner so that when they are ready to purchase, they will think of you.
• Marketing seems to be taking a bigger role in lead nurturing – getting the leads “warmer” before handing them over to sales because sales doesn’t have the time to nurture leads themselves. It’s important to note that, as you develop a lead program, sales may perceive an initial slowdown of the amount of leads, but the quality will be much higher

Content Strategy
The importance of matching your content to your buyer’s priorities and journey, as well as your buyer’s persona (C-level, director, system admin) is important. Content should be categorized by the stage of the buying process the prospect is in.

Other tips:
• Social media is a tool in this; it can be used for conversation, customer service, etc. But it is an important piece of the content puzzle.
• Recommended article: What Would Buddha Tweet
• Sales Enablement Systems (ex: Savo) – used to map collateral and references to what sales needs

Thanks to the other participants in the group, who also shared questions and experiences: VJ Bala, www.infosys.com; Christine Schaefer, www.dlt.com; Tom Cooper, www.brighthillgroup.com; Tricia Davis-Muffet, www.ipslearning.com; Lisa Byrne, www.networksolutions.com; Suzanne Porter-Kuchay; and Dennis Collins, www.techimage.com

If you are a looking to network with our senior marketing folks in the DC area, consider participating in the Tech Breakfast Club. Details here can be found at this link.