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Ian GottsFounder & CEO at Nimbus |
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| Featured Stories |
| Is Force.com Your Key to the Cloud Kingdom? |
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| The reality of salesforce.com as seen through the eyes of a partner | |
| by Alok Misra & Ian Gotts | |
| In this article, we provide a high-level introduction to the reality and misconceptions around salesforce.com and its work culture, as seen through the eyes of a partner. The article is extracted from our recent book, “Thinking of … Force.com as your key to the Cloud Kingdom? Ask the Smart Questions,” which also features a Foreword from Parker Harris, co-founder of salesforce.com. | |
| read the full story >> | |
| Assessing the Risks of Migrating Your Offering to the Cloud |
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| by Ian Gotts | |
| The numbers make the point. Migrating from the traditional on-premise model to cloud computing is a painful journey and costs you money. A story brings it to life: Looking at the resignation letter on my desk, I don’t understand how we got it so wrong. He was our top salesman and was the most vocal about offering a cloud solution alongside our existing product. And now he’s joining our biggest competitor, which hasn’t even considered the cloud. Why? | |
| read the full story >> | |
| Contributions |
| Video: The CEO of Nimbus |
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November 19 2009 |
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| The CEO of Nimbus discusses what it takes to build a business and gives some advice to budding entrepreneurs at the Collaborate to Innovate Conference. |
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| Ian Gotts VP TIBCO : speaker : author : tech investor |
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| May 18 2013 |
| In this video, it explains why the power is now with the consumer. You no longer own your brand when your customers or enemies have the power of social media in their hands. One misquote by the CEO can send a brand into freefall as Gerald Ratner discovered in 1991. ... ... read more >> |
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| May 17 2013 |
| Public speaking – wowing an audience with confidence and ease. It is the most under-rated skill that can super-charge your career. And in the past 15 years on the professional speaking circuit I have seen little or no improvement. Great presentation technique gets you noticed inside and outside your company, ... ... read more >> |
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| May 13 2013 |
| Sir Ken Robinson outlines 3 principles crucial for the human mind to flourish — and how current education culture works against them. In a funny, stirring talk he tells us how to get out of the educational “death valley” we now face, and how to nurture our youngest generations with ... ... read more >> |
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| May 12 2013 |
| Artemis Racing has called for an end to the rumours and speculation about the horrific accident that killed Andrew “Bart” Simpson racing on an AC72 in San Francisco Bay. Quite reasonably, his family and friends need space to come to terms with losing someone who was so popular but taken ... ... read more >> |
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| April 30 2013 |
| Marketing’s dirty little secret In the world of B2B marketing a hidden secret is the humble printed book. Although eBooks are taking off there is still a place for the business paperback. Books are a little like PR and sausages. The more you know what goes into them, the less ... ... read more >> |
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| April 25 2013 |
| Dear Virgin Media, I’m really sorry for my Father in Law not paying his bill last month, but what with him being dead and all, it’s probably slipped his mind. Some people, eh? You, however, are to be publicly commended for swooping in with all the sensitivity of a charging ... ... read more >> |
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| April 06 2013 |
| Yesterday in a my blog I reflected on the preparation required to make “your client look a star” by interviewing them on stage. One of the key skills which makes it easier is improv. Most people think of improv as Whose line is it anyway, comedy clubs or improv troupes ... ... read more >> |
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| April 04 2013 |
| In this fantastic video it shows the Emirates Team New Zealand team understand how to maximise the power of social media. But they also understand that these videos need to be done properly. It is not hacked together on an iPhone after a few beers. They also showed that some ... ... read more >> |
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| April 04 2013 |
| New format, big risk, monster rewards Rather than go with the tried ( tired ) format of getting a client to present a hours worth of Powerpoint slides to a lifeless audience, we thought we’d go for a slightly higher risk interview format. I interviewed a client on stage with ... ... read more >> |
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| April 03 2013 |
| I’ve blogged before about how natural Michael Buble is and how he seems to be enjoying everything he does. Here is another example about how comfortable he is with himself. A rare trait in life and even rarer in his industry which appears to be made up of self-obsessed ego-centric ... ... read more >> |
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| March 19 2013 |
| Killer products don’t sell You’re a major corporation with a track record of strong sales for your current product range. You’ve worked long and hard to produce a unique innovative product that you know the market needs. It should have flown out of the warehouse, but sales tanked and it ... ... read more >> |
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| March 14 2013 |
| I am bracing myself for a mailbox of hate mail from disgruntled BPM software vendors that say that they are releasing V8.3.45 which has enhanced dynamic repetition or some such bollocks. Having spent 2 days at the Gartner BPM Summit in London a couple of things struck me. BPM is ... ... read more >> |
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| March 07 2013 |
| Often Hugh’s cartoons at GapingVoid can be bitter and twisted, but always funny. This one is more thoughtful and insightful. The funny thing is, we equate making money with the daily grind, yet the people who make the most money rarely treat it that way. The most successful people I ... ... read more >> |
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| March 04 2013 |
| In a recent blog called Digital Disruption I talked about the issues that established companies have from start-ups unencumbered by assets, infrastructure and thinking that locks them in and prevents them from innovating. The ability to look at the current world through fresh eyes and identify the opportunities would seem ... ... read more >> |
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| February 28 2013 |
| A drive down any small town high street will confirm the statistics – that the high street is dying. In the UK the British Retail Consortium estimates that 11.3% of shopping units are empty. The Local Data Company puts that figure at 14.3%. Analysis by CACI shows that the prospects ... ... read more >> |
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| February 26 2013 |
| Is it really that complicated? I used to think that couriers, especially the large players, were pretty reliable but recent experiences backed up by wider research is that they are dropping the ball. This is at a time when the increase in online purchases should be enabling them to grow ... ... read more >> |
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| February 26 2013 |
| What can economists learn from linguists? Behavioral economist Keith Chen talks about his absolutely fascinating research which first of all exposes the concept of “Futured” and “Futureless” languages; languages without a concept for the future — “It rain tomorrow,” instead of “It will rain tomorrow”. He then starts, with the ... ... read more >> |
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| February 17 2013 |
| Money and patience As an investor in a startup, apart form having money the other critical asset is patience. It takes time to get a software application to market. And as an investor, rather than working in the business, all you can do is cheer and encourage from the sidelines. ... ... read more >> |
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| February 13 2013 |
| So many things, so little time There are great many products, services and ideas out in the marketplace. With the internet, you can now access them no matter where they are in the world. Users are swamped with potential options, and choosing what to focus on is the challenge. Prioritisation ... ... read more >> |
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| February 13 2013 |
| With Valentines day coming up, some of the less-romantic guys may be looking for ideas to put in their Valentines cards… I may be dyslexic, but that doesn’t mean I don’t vole you Roses are red, violets are blue, I’ve got something nasty, and now so have you You make ... ... read more >> |
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| February 08 2013 |
| The lucky few LessAdmin has launched as a “closed” Beta. That means it is now available for a smallish group of early users they can start managing their assets, projects and jobs online. After over a year of planning, designing and coding we are finally here!!!! For the rest of ... ... read more >> |
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| February 05 2013 |
| The Event Production Show, which kicks off today at Olympia in London, is the exhibition for exhibitors, so you’d expect it to be at the cutting edge of event technology. But this is a world first. “Can I scan your badge, Sir?” Doh!! Traditionally the “badge and lead retrieval” systems ... ... read more >> |
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| February 04 2013 |
| There was a 30 min blackout and the Superbowl was halted due to a power outage. It was approximately between 7 and 8:30 PM EST that half the lights at Superdome (in New Orleans, Louisiana) went out in the stadium. The approximate time of the blackout can be determined by ... ... read more >> |
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| February 01 2013 |
| Samsung scored a direct hit at Apple by airing the ad below just after the announcement of the iPhone5. Now they are running this ad at this Sunday’s SuperBowl on Sunday which pokes fun at the recent lawsuits between Apple and Samsung. None of this comes cheap. Last year spent ... ... read more >> |
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| January 31 2013 |
| Working on shop floor as manager in BR Engineering one of my foreman came up to me at the end of the shift and said “the team have gone home”. In fact he actually said. “F*ck me, the f*cking f*ckers have f*cking f*cked off” Same thing. I understood. But is ... ... read more >> |
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| January 29 2013 |
| “Daddy, are you still at work?” A simple enough question. My children understand that if I am in my office, or I walk into the house after a business trip and am on the phone that I may still be at work. Have you noticed that the term “I am at ... ... read more >> |
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| January 28 2013 |
| decidere – to cut off “Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide,” Napoleon said. The Frenchman definitely made some major calls, such as invading Russia. Now that was a decision. A big, cold decision 1,000 miles long, with no food, bad clothes, and ... ... read more >> |
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| January 24 2013 |
| The story goes that a motor bike roars up to a red traffic light in La Coruna in Northern Spain. It stops alongside a black town car. From inside the passenger glances out and sees the young biker leaning over the handlebars. His jean jacket has appliqued patches in a ... ... read more >> |
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| January 15 2013 |
| You’re an innovative and growing software vendor, I get that. You’ve got a fab new product that’s going drive dramatic benefits for enterprise customers, I get that.You’ve even got a blog to push out great customer stories now and then, I get that too. But how do you accelerate growth ... ... read more >> |
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| January 12 2013 |
| The following is an actual question given on a University ofArizona chemistry midterm, and an actual answer turned in by a student. The answer by one student was so ‘profound’ that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure ... ... read more >> |
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| January 10 2013 |
| Normally Microsoft does the keynote at CES, but for 2013 Qualcomm stepped up. Their marketing team were keen to make an impression and make sure that no one forgot the keynote. The achieved their goal – FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS. I cannot describe the keynote, so best that you ... ... read more >> |
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| January 07 2013 |
| Every major organization has some form of customer call center. You may have renamed yours “contact center.” They are manned by staff that are trained, tooled-up with technology and incentivized to support customers. The center is critical because it drives long term sales and protects repeat revenue. It may even ... ... read more >> |
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| December 16 2012 |
| I bumped into this fantastic video by Google who shows the online checkout experience in real life. How many websites have you visited buying Christmas presents that are this bad. Your answer is probably “most”. Web designers seem to forget 2 things: 1. Their job is to remove as much ... ... read more >> |
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| December 15 2012 |
| Theo Priestley asked a very interesting question in a recent blog called The true cost of customer service? : Does paying more for customer service actually guarantee the quality of the service? According to a recent Oracle report 61% said they would pay more if it guaranteed better customer service. What ... ... read more >> |
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| December 14 2012 |
| This week there have been two reports released. One from OfCom (Independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries) which has reported that the UK’s mobile users are consuming more data on their phones and tablets than any other leading nation for the first time. A second from ... ... read more >> |
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| December 04 2012 |
| This very funny video quickly sums up how out of touch people are with the law. Not that they ever were; did you read ALL the terms of your credit card contract or that hire purchase agreement? But now we happily click through “Do you Agree” as we download software, ... ... read more >> |
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| November 30 2012 |
| The “perfect storm” of technology changes is coming together and will reshape every business on the planet. Is yours ready for it? The key theme for Gartner’s annual Symposium IT Expo was the “Nexus of Forces”. A Nexus of converging forces — social, mobile, cloud and information — is building ... ... read more >> |
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| November 26 2012 |
| The collected sales and marketing departments of the consumer electronics companies around the world are driving up the consumer anticipation to fever pitch for their latest technical wizardry. Promises that it will change the world, save more time than ever, make you more attractive to the opposite sex… and have ... ... read more >> |
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| November 20 2012 |
| A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed ... ... read more >> |
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| November 09 2012 |
| I have just come back from Gartner Symposium in Barcelona where they had a large IT vendor exhibition alongside the seminar and analyst 1-2-1 program. I spent some time talking to a number of the sales reps on the stands and was given some of their marketing collateral which I ... ... read more >> |
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| November 07 2012 |
| When you check out tomorrow don’t throw away your Gartner Symposium card. It can solve one of the world’s greatest problems; well maybe not, but certainly a source of huge frustration. The problem You get out your iPad Mini or iPhone5 to admiring and envious looks. You look cool and ... ... read more >> |
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| November 07 2012 |
| Nexus of Forces At the recent Gartner Summit they talked about the Nexus of Forces which are changing the face of business. “A Nexus of converging forces — social, mobile, cloud and information — is building upon and transforming user behavior while creating new business opportunities.” I covered this in ... ... read more >> |
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| November 07 2012 |
| Exactly 2 years today I wrote an article having got my new iPad. Is it really only 2 years ago th iPad was released!! It was called “Who wants my iPad“ In summary, the article highlighted the key weaknesses of tablets. “At work I am a ‘power user’. I write ... ... read more >> |
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| November 06 2012 |
| Apple released a sickly, icky YouTube advert for the iPad Mini. It’s at the bottom of this blog. So the nice guys at http://www.cinesaurus.com decided to film a parody, which really kicks the iPad Mini where it hurts. Credits for parody Produced by http://www.cinesaurus.com Edited, VFX by: Steven Hudson (https://twitter.com/hudsonfilm) ... ... read more >> |
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| November 06 2012 |
| To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. ... ... read more >> |
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| November 06 2012 |
| Scared. Threatened. Dragged out of your comfort zone. Struggling to make sense of the future. You should be. The opening keynote was inspiring, theatrical and terrifying in equal measure. The key theme for Gartner’s annual Symposium IT Expo in Orlando last week and this week in Barcelona for nearly 10,000 ... ... read more >> |
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| November 03 2012 |
| Filed under: Uncategorized ... read more >> |
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| November 01 2012 |
| You’re excited about a new secondment abroad. But it is a new country, in a new office, with a new team. The expectations of you are high. So you need to be on the ball despite the jet lag, emotions of leaving family and friends , and the logistics of ... ... read more >> |
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| November 01 2012 |
| Following on from last weeks blogs where Coke linked up with Skyfall to use social to change the way products are markets – here’s is a French water company, Contrex, taking the same approach. Some common theme’s with the Coke/Skyfall and RedBull/Danny MacAskill viral videos are making the “innocent” public ... ... read more >> |
| Books |
November 15 2010 “It’s interesting that over the past 50 years, the software industry has not only gone through business cycles but also business model cycles. And even more interesting is that the critical issues in successful business models keep being forgotten, or assumed are being solved in the next newest iteration. What Misra and Gotts have done in their thinking here is to frame the problem well and clearly. Then by using the Q&A approach, they provide not only a great check list, but also a bite-sized chunks process to allow the reader to think about and understand the key issues at a engaged and detailed level. I’d recommend the book to any ISV or enterprise CIO thinking about what they might or could do in the Cloud space.” - Ken Horner, Principal, Deloitte |
August 22 2009 Smart Questions is a series of books written by Domain Experts for Smart People. The books give you some background on the subject. But what makes these books really valuable is they provide a list of important questions that could save you a whole heap of time, cost and heartache. Whether you want the Smart Questions for yourself or as a means to drive thinking within your customers, these books are a great tool and a valuable reference guide. The Smart Questions approach allows domain experts to become authors. But they go further by connecting the authors with a wider community allowing them to contribute and improve the questions in the books. A form of crowdsourcing. |
August 22 2009 Smart Questions is a series of books written by Domain Experts for Smart People. The books give you some background on the subject. But what makes these books really valuable is they provide a list of important questions that could save you a whole heap of time, cost and heartache. Whether you want the Smart Questions for yourself or as a means to drive thinking within your customers, these books are a great tool and a valuable reference guide. The Smart Questions approach allows domain experts to become authors. But they go further by connecting the authors with a wider community allowing them to contribute and improve the questions in the books. A form of crowdsourcing. |
January 23 2009 This book complements “Crossing the Chasm” and describes how tech companies should organize themselves so that they can sell innovative technology, solutions, and services to corporates – i.e., to the left of the Chasm. It is based on 15 years of research, consulting and training with companies ranging from Cisco, AT&T, Symantec & SAS down to startups, and the foreword is written by Guy Kawasaki. |
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