Blogosphere sacred cows

Apple: Ooh, so pretty. And innovative, and Steve Jobs is a god. You do not say something bad about Apple, especially not about Apple's closed ecosystem, and most especially not in front of the open-source wonks who love Apple anyway.

Google: Possibly the most useful resource on the Web. Also the scariest company there is. Do not criticize or the Google bot (or its PR machine) will stomp you. They know where you live.

Linux: Cheap, open, and everywhere. And too damn hard to use for anyone with a life. But never, ever point this out. Linux = great. Microsoft = bad. No need for details.

TechCrunch: The Engadget of Web 2.0. While I'm at it, might as well add that you should avoid criticizing Engadget. Both sites have rabid followings, are edited by inexplicably angry men, and will cease linking to you if look at them funny.

Firefox: All hail the open-source browser! Those crashes and general slowness? That's the price of progress, son.

My take? I am not an apple fan. I have to admit I love google. Linux? So what? TechCrunch? What is it? Firefox? I can live without it.

Of course, since nobody reads this blog and since the google bot won't index it (believe me, I've tried) this post is the proverbial tree falling in the forest.

Value Propositions

Part of the national sales meeting this year is coming up with a "value proposition." I vaguely had some idea of a "why we are better than the other guys" statement, but wasn't too sure about the details. So the first thing I did was a google search. I came across something interesting info. First, there was the obligatory Wikipedia entry for Value Proposition. It didn't really do anything for me. (Of course, the article still needs to be Wikified, so I shouldn't have expected too much.)

I liked In Search of a Value Proposition from Marketing Experiments Journal. There is a lot of good information, but not the "how-to" that I needed. How to write a Value Proposition provided me with a good methodology. Finally, one of the links led me to the YouBlog, a site that describes itself as providing "practical ideas on presentations, persuasion, selling, and communications." Hopefully, this information will help us to get it together and produce a stellar value proposition.