Global Nerdy

Sometimes when I make changes to the code, it ends up like this…

…and other times, it works out a little better:

The Bechdel test for tech conferences: 1) two women speaking 2) on the same panel 3) not about women in tech.

— Monica Rogati (@mrogati) November 15, 2015

Data scientist Monica Rogati won the internet with this recent tweet.

If you’re not familiar with what’s often called the Bechdel Test (or the Bechdel-Wallace Test), it’s an idea that appeared in Alison Bechdel’s comic Dykes to Watch Out For, and it points out a major problem of representation of women in popular fiction:

Click the comic to see it at full size.

As in the comic, the Bechdel Test is typically applied to movies (although you can apply it to any popular fiction medium). It’s been observed that if passing the test were a requirement, many Oscar nominees would be disqualified. If the Techdel test were mandatory for tech conferences, we may have to cancel a lot of plane and hotel reservations.

If you’d like to know about which movies pass and fail the Bechdel Test, there’s a site for you: bechdeltest.com.

All right, tech conference organizers: you know what your next challenge is!

Call it the “UC conundrum”: While 7 in 10 IT and business decision makers can see “significant and even enormous benefits to be realized from the deployment of UC”, more than a quarter of IT decision makers and 4 in 10 business decision makers are “somewhat or very fearful” of actually deploying it at their organizations. These figures come from a recent survey conducted by Osterman Research on behalf of ConnectSolutions, a cloud-based unified communications provider.

This “I want it, but I don’t want it” reaction isn’t all that different from the thought process we go through when making pricey personal purchases. Think back to the last time you were thinking one over: perhaps a 4K or Ultra HD TV for your home theatre, or the latest high-end smartphone or tablet (I’m sure there are a number of readers having this internal debate right now about purchasing a Surface Book or iPad Pro). You’ve already figured out the benefits that will come out of that purchase, but are unsure of the added value you’ll get over your existing setup.

The problem is that a lot of UC functionality is already addressed, if in a piecemeal fashion, by systems that employees are using right now. Basic voice is covered by existing office voice systems, mobile devices, and voice chat applications, email is most often handled by a separate system, instant messaging can be done via SMS, Skype, or many other ways, teleconferencing is done with third-party applications such as GoToMeeting or Webex, many teleconference applications also do desktop sharing, and so on. A UC system brings all this functionality into a single, centralized, manageable unit that’s more likely to be safe, secure, and more efficient, but that doesn’t solve any immediate problems. As far as many people are concerned, UC is just incrementally better than systems they already have.

Selling UC to customers requires providing them with a solid value proposition. That means explaining the benefits of a single platform over a hodgepodge of solutions accreted over time without thinking of the larger IT picture, which run the gamut from uniformity and interoperability to manageability and security. You may find that this is easier to “sell” to organizations with distributed/remote workforces or distant customers and partners, where having several modes and channels of communication is highly valuable. Along with the value proposition, you should also take the various deployment models into account (on-premises, cloud, and hybrid), and look at the viability of the UC platform’s partner ecosystem.

Reading list

• eWEEK: Businesses Hesitant About Migration to Unified Communications
• IT Business Edge: Why the Unified Communications Ecosystem Is So Odd
• Fierce Enterprise Communications: Many IT and business decision makers still fearful of UC, but adoption is on the rise
• TechTarget: Three buying principles for unified communications products

GSG’s partner Enterprise Mobile has just published a blog post and solution brief on “dark mobile”, a term I coined in my capacity as GSG’s Platform Evangelist to describe that area of an organization’s mobile telecom environment that goes, unobserved, unknown, or unmanaged. Dark mobile is one case where what you don’t know can definitely hurt you — and your business. It can have negative effects on spending, management, security, and efficiency.

The good news is that dark mobile isn’t inevitable. A properly-managed mobile environment means that you know what devices, accounts, and users you have, which in turn means that you don’t have dark mobile, and aren’t troubled by its side effects.

I recently did a webinar on dark mobile with Enterprise Mobile, and we took its content and turned it into a blog post on their site along with a solution brief with Your Truly on the byline. Check them out, and find out what dark mobile means, and how you can counter it to avoid wasting money as well as facing administrative and security headaches.

A recent report from the Pew Research Center says that 68% of American adults have smartphones and 45% have tablets. With some groups, the ownership rate is even higher — among American adults, the smartphone ownership figure jumps up to nearly 90% for those under 30 or who live in households earning $75,000 or more per year.

The ownership rate for smartphones has doubled since 2011, and the rate for tablets has grown by 15 times since 2010. Over the same period, the ownership rates for some electronic products — desktop/laptop computers, and console/portable gaming devices — have remained flat.

Other once-hot categories of personal electronics, such as digital cameras and MP3 players, have seen their ownership rates decline thanks to smartphones and tablets usurping their roles. Consider the photo below, taken from a 1980s Sony advertisement. Every device that appears in it, other than the speakers and headphones, has been usurped by smartphones and tablets:

Some other observations based on the survey’s results:

• There’s been a slight drop in the rate of desktop/laptop computers in the under-30 set. In 2010, the ownership rate among adults under 30 was 88%; in 2015, that figure is 78%.
• The smartphone ownership rate for the under-30 set is almost the same as their desktop/laptop computer ownership rate for 2010. In 2015, 86% of adults between the ages of 18 and 30 owned a smartphone.
• After smartphones, computers are the next most popular personal electronic devices. 73% of American adults own a desktop or laptop computer, which is about the same rate of ownership in 2004 (when 71% of American adults owned one), but down from the 2012 high of 80%.
• If you consider the category of cellular phones, which includes smartphones and so-called “feature phones”, the ownership rate is 92%. This is a leap from just over a decade ago, when Pew’s survey reported that 65% of American adults owned a cellular phone.

To find out more about the survey results, you can download Pew’s full report [823KB PDF] free of charge.

Beware of these guys — they’re the used car salesmen of B2B marketing.

About once a month for the past year, I’ve been receiving emails from various seemingly mid-tier enterprise technology magazines offering to feature my company in a “Top 10” or “Top 20” list of B2B companies…for a price. In exchange for that price, which is always $3,000, they promise to feature us in an article listing the best players in a particular B2B space. If you’ve ever received a similar email, you’ve probably wondered if it’s worthwhile investment.

The email usually comes from someone with a white-bread name, typically something like “Amy Smith” or “Chris Miller”, but writes in that clunky, awkward way that people do when not working in their native tongue. If you visit the magazine’s site and go through the articles, you’ll find that most of them seem to be “advertorial” pieces whose feature photo is a head shot of the author. The magazine sells for more than $10 an issue, but if you visit the “subscribe” page on their site, they’re more than happy to offer a FREE (it’s always in all-caps) subscription to “qualified readers” who provide them with contact information.

The invitation always follows the same template. Here’s the latest one I received, which should give you an idea of how they generally read:

Hi Joey,

Great to be connected here,

As mentioned below, we shortlisted your company to be featured in “Top 10 [players in my company’s space]” which we are covering in [crappy site name redacted] special edition on [space that my company is in].

You can also go through the following media kit link.
[Link redacted]

Investment: $3000

SPONSORSHIP BENEFITS:

• Recognition of your company as “Top 10 [players in my company’s space]” is indeed a great honor and you can utilize it effectively for several of your marketing campaigns.
• This honor can effectively be used by your business development/ sales team as an additional tool to win clients.
• Top 10 [players in my company’s space] will have a shelf life of one year.
• Logos of “Top 10 [players in my company’s space]” can be used in all your marketing collateral and also prominently displayed on your website. This will enhance the brand visibility for your company.
• We will provide the full digital re-print rights for one full page profile in the print magazine and online magazine about your company, along with CEO picture.
• We will provide you a quote from our Managing editor. You can send out a press release to local media and also put up the press release in your website.
• Your current customers will also be a lot more comfortable doing business with you as you are recognized by a media company.
• Your prospective customers will be more than happy to work with you as you will be projected trust worthy player in the market.
• You can promote this recognition and honor in social media (Facebook/ Twitter/ LinkedIn)
• The certificate of honor can be utilized to be displayed at your office lobby, which indeed will motivate your employees as well contribute towards your company growth.

Once you confirm your participation we will schedule an interview call with your CEO to feature in the magazine.

Please review our opportunity and let me know your interest to take it forward.

Looking forward to hear from you,

Regards,
[Editor’s name]

I’d already rejected the idea after reading the email, but I thought I’d back my gut-based decision with some empirical data. I did a quick check of their site’s ranking on Alexa. Here’s what I found:

Their global rank was below 10 million. To give you an idea of how tragically, pathetically, hilariously poor this ranking is, consider Alexa’s ranking for this site, which I’d admit could use a little more of my love, attention, and promotion:

Global Nerdy’s Alexa rank is 336,874 globally, it’s in the top 200,000 in the US, and in the top 100,000 in India and Australia.

Even my personal blog, The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century, does better than their site, with its Alexa ranking of 342,151 globally, and 84,883 in the U.S.:

Looking at the difference between my sites’ numbers and theirs, the people from these magazines should be paying me $3000 to promote them. I suspect that most of the pageviews for these magazines’ articles are from framed copies on the authors’ office walls.

If you have an extra $3,000 in your marketing budget, there are far better ways to spend it than on a vanity piece in a “pay-to-play” magazine.