Duct Tape on Concrete (slight return)

These cheap and powerful applications (Blogs, Wikis, Twitter) are helping us learn about our new media world. This is great. But they are not yet really effecting the core foundation (concrete) of our businesses in many important ways - such as: the data is not connected with our master databases, Org Chart responsibilities are not changing to prioritize engaging the customer, online requests are not tied into supply chains, etc... Companies have used duct tape to slap the Internet onto existing marketing processes. Easy-on but not deep enough to fully leverage the valuable opportunities of the Net.

Again, this is great because we are learning so much. But duct tape, in all it's majesty, does not work for long on concrete.

I am having great discussions about how to evolve and integrate current online successes into the foundation of your company. This is inevitable. The efficiencies and cost savings are huge, the customer knowledge and sales opportunity are huge... when do you want to go huge?

Choose your solution resources (vendors/partners) wisely. They will be business-minded first, but craftsmen at what you need and trusted advisors for what you want … they should say “why?” and “no” a lot.

I posted a little on the duct tape removal for the Media/Entertainment Industry from OnMedia NYC.