Dec 27. Ad Age named JetBlue, the discount airline, its marketer of the year--an honor recognizing companies that use PR effectively. JetBlue has received lavish media attention this year from 60 Minutes, Forbes, the New York Times, and Business 2.0. Yet JetBlue spent just $10 million this year on advertising.

Dec 15. As of June 2003, Windows 98 and Windows NT will no longer be supported by Microsoft.

Dec 11. Be sure to read Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround by Louis V. Gerstner Jr.
IBM has redefined itself as a force in the industry by refocusing on the customer. And it took a customer to show them how. Lou Gerstner describes the doldrums facing IBM during the 90s, when the press and the industry had written them off, and how the management team brought IBM back. An excellent read for anyone who has been in the business for a while, particularly in the enterprise space. The book is also an excellent book on how to run a business. Almost every page has a nugget of wisdom for running a better technology-based business.

Dec 9. from MarketingProfs: The act of positioning is a core element of a successful marketing strategy. This is a change—a healthy one—from the days when it was considered simply a tactic: A means of deriving a slogan and providing some kind of fabricated difference between a product and its competitor.

Dec 9. Craig Conway, president and chief executive of PeopleSoft, doesn't believe Web-based software companies are viable.

Dec 9. It should come as no surprise that United has declared bankruptcy.

Dec 8. When asked what they had to say to the VP of Sales, product managers wished that the sales people would understand the product management role and the product's value:

•  Product management is not sales support
•  Give us access to customers and customer information
•  Let product management manage the products
   (ie., quit interfering).
•  Stop the rampant discounting
•  Sell what we have (and stop selling product futures)
•  Read what we publish

Dec 6. IBM to acquire Rational, makers of ROSE and RequisitePro. Rational has more than 3,400 employees and customers in 89 countries. Rational estimates that more than 600,000 software developers use its software tools. Industry analysts have reported that companies using Rational software have seen return on investment rates of 200 percent and higher as a result of increased productivity.

Nov 29. Daniel Shefer describes the advantages of an online customer forum and offers tips on how to set up and manage one. Read the full article.

Nov 27. Product management roles and salary survey updated for 2002.

Nov 21. At last week's Business Roundtable, 60% of CEOs expect more layoffs in 2003. In this article, Jason Jennings, a management consultant, argues that layoffs are indication of poor management, not a poor economy.

Nov 15. Media spending by the world's top 100 marketers reached $70.95 billion last year. Yes, that's an average $709,000,000 spent on advertising by each company. I guess that's proof that advertisers need to be able to say "multiple millions" without choking. Suddenly PR looks even more attractive.

Nov 11. From Ziff-Davis: A crisis of epic proportions is brewing between corporate IT departments and their vendors. CIO Insight's latest research shows that 25% of CIO's aren't getting the value they think they deserve from their vendors, almost a third say prices are too high, and one in five are unhappy with reliability.

Nov 5. Record companies and movie studios are turning an anti-piracy spotlight on corporate America, sending a letter to top CEOs this week warning of illegal file trading going on at "a surprising number of companies." The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and songwriters' associations have drafted a letter expected to be sent Friday to the Fortune 1000 companies, cautioning executives that employees' song- or movie-swapping could put them at legal risk.

Nov 4. Linux is making significant inroads into Germany, Europe's largest economy and home to some of the world's largest corporations. That's the message being spread by numerous software executives attending the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in Frankfurt, Germany, from Tuesday through Thursday.

Nov 1. Want to know Microsoft's support policy for operating systems? Microsoft has published the levels of support for a period of 7 years from general availability. This is a pretty good example of how one does a roadmap. The FAQ states: The Windows Desktop Product Life-Cycle Policy is designed to establish a clear and predictable policy for product support timelines and license availability, to assist customers and partners with managing their support needs, product planning and information technology planning within their organizations based on knowledge of the support timelines for Microsoft products. Search their web site for Product Life-Cycle Policies.

Oct 19. Some Pragmatic Marketing instructors use a cool feature of Windows and PowerPoint to see notes on our laptop display while showing the slides on the data projector. This feature is available on most laptops under all versions of Windows. You need to update some Windows display settings plus specify the monitor to use in your PowerPoint presentation settings. Here's how to do it. Read Presentation Tip: Using Screen Notes.

Oct 15. John Dvorak writes, "Leave it to the Gartner to come up with a laundry list of vague and contradictory predictions for the years ahead."

Oct 14. Marissa Mayer, Google product manager, on user interaction: I like to say that Google should be "what you want, when you want it." As opposed to "everything you could ever want, even when you don't."

Oct 11. Reading FusionBrandsby Nick Wrenden, one remarkably simple idea is that brands are created by operations, not by marketing communications. It reminds us that a brand results from years of fulfilling promises, while branding is only advertising your product promise.

Oct 3. Business 2.0 reports: The average enterprise IT budget has finally bottomed out and is actually going up--an increase of 3.7 percent is expected in the next 6 to 12 months, according to tech research firm Aberdeen Group. That's certainly more modest than the 10 to 15 percent growth rates of the 1990s, but it beats the declining IT budgets of the past year or two. Of those surveyed, 72 percent plan to purchase network and systems management applications; 60 percent plan to purchase security gateways and services; and 52 percent are shopping for storage management solutions.