Connecting Marketing to Revenue – It’s scary stuff!

Our session this morning from the sales and marketing community held at Endurance International was a lively one.  Our panelist, Elle Woulfe, VP of Marketing at Backupify, Greg Donahue, Director of Marketing Programs at Mercury Systems, Bernd Leger, VP of Marketing at Localytics and Zorian Rotenberg, VP of Marketing at Insight Squared clamored for the microphone to share their best practices and how they are working to tie marketing to revenue. There was overwhelming consensus from the panel and audience that it is not easy!  It’s hard work and a bit daunting when undertaking the task.  However, it’s something everyone has to focus on “or else”.  Success depends on organizations being committed and constantly refining. 

Brian Gladstein, CEO of Explorics did a fabulous job moderating the discussion.  The panel discussed managing their own funnels, scoring, the constant refinement of scoring and how important it is to involve sales in defining metrics.  Zorian stressed to the audience "do NOT talk content, demand gen, and leads with your CEO and board, but focus on KPIs"!

All presentations are available here in a single presentation.

Thanks to our speakers and our sponsors KnowledgeVision, PegaSystems and ZoomInfo.  Special thanks to Endurance International for hosting, It’s a spectacular space.  For those of you who may not be familiar with the Endurance name, it is one of the world’s largest hosting companies including brands such as Homestead, HostGator, Blue Host and Domain.com.

Automated Testing – Leading the Way to Higher Quality Software, Faster

More than 100 developers and QA professionals turned out last night at Brightcove for a discussion on automated testing.  What should be automated, tools and best practices for delivering quality software.  William Josephson, co-founder of Solano Labs kicked off the night with thought leadership on high performing teams.  Overall, high-performing teams deploy code 30 times more frequently, 8000 times faster, have 50% fewer failures and restore service 12 times faster than their peers.  More can be found in William’s presentation here. 

Keith Williams from Brightcove discussed balancing and the benefits of automated testing across component testing, API testing, and web driver testing (browser based testing).  Keith’s presentation can be found here.

Keith, David, Steve and Barry

Pivotal Labs, a full-service development shop is just opening it’s Boston office. Pivotal believes their success is due to pair programming and test driven development. David Tengdin, Software Developer at Pivotal explained that their developers own code from development to production. Automated testing gives them confidence that things are working. David’s presentation is here. 

Steve Brunner Director of Quality Development at InterSystems revealed that they develop a lot of code to test a lot of code. Check out Steve's presentation for a ton of best practices!

Lastly, Barry Jaspan Senior Architect at Acquia spoke about testing infrastructure instead of the applications. The days of manual configuration by sysadmin are over. Testing has to be automated, fast and run as a clone of the production environment. Cloud is awesome for this! Don't think it's going to work if you haven't tested it! Check out Barry's presentation for what to test around the infrastructure. And here is an added link to a longer presentation on the topic given by Barry at DrupalCon 

Thanks to everyone for joining us last night.  We hope it was valuable and had a chance to join us for networking and a cocktail at Trade sponsored by Solano Labs. 

Thanks to our software development cluster sponsors: AutoDesk, Dyn, InterSystems, Rally Software, Snowbound Software, Verivo and VMware.  And lastly, thanks to Brightcove for hosting – great facility!

CXO Forum with Geoffrey Moore

MassTLC kicked off its CXO Series, "Crossing the Chasm" - What has Changed in the Past Two Decades?” to a packed room in the Seaport District. Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado addressed the audience and revisited his original premise of how and when companies cross a chasm and scale to the next level. Geoffrey continued with his overview, but included more current trends and examples.

He spoke of the mature life cycle of a technology, from emerging market (aka pre-tornado) through the quick and steep climb of growth, followed by the flat mature market, and ultimately – regardless of how successful the technology – a decline. It is between the flat and decline where a company thrives or dies. It is at this juncture the leaders need to innovate and “catch the next wave” bringing the cycle back to its beginning as emerging.

Geoffrey also spoke of “the four gears model” in which a company should continually be focused on one gear. The gears include: enlistment, acquisition, engagement, monetization. This is not to say more than one gear should not be turning at the same time, but to succeed, focus must be on just a single gear.

Geoffrey joined our Founders Panel, moderated by Michael Skok, Partner, North Bridge Venture Partners and included David Husak, Founder and CEO, Plexxi; Andy Ory, Founder and CEO, Acme Packet; and Susan Hunt Stevens, Founder and CEO, Practically Green. Following is a short clip of the panel discussion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krTskjsJ8Js&feature=youtu.be

After each panel member introduced themselves and their companies, discussion led into how each was able to disrupt within their organizations, their clients, and ultimately the ecosystem. Andy Ory speaking from his experience with founding Acme Packet to its recent acquisition by Oracle, is that success is disruption plus leverage.

David continued to speak about the challenges of today’s entrepreneurs to scale their companies, taking them across the chasm, including the lack of second and third round funding available. Regardless of how many amazing innovations and disruptors that exist, there is just not enough investment money for everyone.

Susan discussed short term avenues they were able take advantage of, such as utilizing facebook and twitter to aid in their awareness. But she cautioned they were not sustainable or scaleable, it was from there she assessed her core audience (not the CTO!) and was able to find stakeholders who will remain engaged.

Mobile and Healthcare Seminar: Engaging Patients with Mobile Technologies to Improve Care

On May 7^th, MassTLC convened some of the best connected health technologists in the region. Our moderator for the session, Charlie Schick, Director of Big Data, Healthcare and Life Sciences at IBM, opened the discussion by identifying the common thread among the panelists – creating an interface to collect data from the patient, for the patient, to help themselves and their clinicians provide optimal care.

Providing a patient access enables self-managed care in a way where the patient (aka stakeholder) can see and experience firsthand: improved quality of life, lower costs, and improved overall outcomes.

Our panelists included Jonathon Dreyer, Director of Mobile Solutions Marketing, Nuance’s Healthcare Division; John Moore, New Media Medicine Group, MIT Media Lab; and Anne Pelz, Manager Product Management, PHT Corporation.

There was a good deal of discussion around how the panel members are able to get users to adopt their technologies. There was a general consensus that the time is now.  With improved and accessible technologies available through our mobile devices, and the changes eminent in the healthcare system, patients need to engage in their own care to improve care and lower costs.

The tools available today to physician’s, such as Nuance’s mobile healthcare solution, enable a physician to use speech recognition tools to document and quickly retrieve information to reach through layers of information. This not only improves efficiency, but can drastically cut down on human error. Jon went on to talk about how the future of this technology will allow for the intelligence layer where the system can parse out meaning and a fluid dialogue can occur with the user and the device.

For Anne, PHT’s eDiaries have clinically proven results showing that patients’ results have improved greatly through monitoring their drug interactions on a mobile device. And as technologies improve and people become more savvy, there has been a significant increase in adoption. Check out her presentation for actual study results.

John Moore’s technology truly puts the power in the patients’ hands. Click here to see a video of John’s Collaborhythm technology. This system is focused on self-management for chronic disease, and has proven that with visualizations tools, a patient develops the ability to visually see and understand how they care for themselves and how it may directly correlate to the outcomes of their disease. Through gamification, Collaborhythm has a stickiness that users enjoy, the social aspect holds them accountable for their actions, and the ability to share their data, allows for a true communication between themselves and their clinician to take place. 

Jonathon Dreyer from Nuance using a slide showing a picture drawn by a young girl depicting the "old-style" of care.

The panel wrapped up the discussion with them saying they felt innovations would and must continue to improve patient care and self-management. And due to the rapid collection of data to prove that solutions were clinically successful, regulatory bodies would not be a hindrance in this process.  They also agreed privacy would not be a concern due to security precautions available through the improved technologies. 

Steve Krom and Kirk Arnold Named Co-Chairs of Mass Technology Leadership Council Board of Trustees

Seasoned executives, Krom and Arnold join forces to lead the MassTLC Board of Directors for the next two years

BURLINGTON, MA – April 25, 2013 –The Mass Technology Leadership Council (MassTLC), the state’s largest technology association, announced at their 2013 Annual Meeting that Steve Krom and Kirk Arnold will co-chair the origination’s Board of Trustees for the next two years. Krom and Arnold succeed Mohamad Ali, Chief Strategy Officer at HP, who was elected Chairman in 2011. Ali will continue to serve on MassTLC’s Executive Committee.

Krom, Vice President and General Manager for AT&T New England, is a veteran of the telecomm industry with a longstanding history with MassTLC, serving as the Chairman of the Board for Mass Network Communications Council (MassNetComms), an association that merged with MassTLC in 2009 and on the MassTLC board for the past three years.

"Steve is dedicated to MassTLC and to accelerating the New England tech industry as a whole,” said outgoing chairman, Mohamad Ali. "His history of volunteer leadership speaks for itself, as does his track record of success in business. In this new position, he is poised to help MassTLC continue to grow and have an even greater impact on the tech community in Boston and beyond.”

Krom is joined by co-chairperson, Arnold, a champion of the Massachusetts tech industry with more than 30 years of experience serving in senior roles at IBM, CSC and Fidelity. She was a founder and CEO of Nervewire, CEO of Keane, and, most recently, COO of Avid.

"Kirk is a highly effective leader, a passionate advocate for Massachusetts and a lover of technology – all qualities that make her an excellent fit in her new role of co-chairperson,” said Tom Hopcroft, Council President and CEO. "Since joining the board, Kirk has made a positive impact on the organization, especially in the area of membership growth. Her commitment to promoting and advancing the tech community is evident and I look forward to a productive partnership over the next two years. ”

About MassTLC

The Mass Technology Leadership Council (MassTLC) is the region’s leading technology association and the premier network for tech executives, entrepreneurs, investors and policy leaders. MassTLC’s purpose is to accelerate innovation by connecting people from across the technology landscape, providing access to industry-leading content and ideas and offering a platform for visibility for member companies and their interests. With a membership of more than 500 companies and growing, MassTLC is a vibrant tech community that serves its members in a myriad of ways including:

• Organizing and running active cluster communities including Big Data, Cloud, Mobile, Software Development, Energy, Healthcare, Robotics and Digital Games
• Hosting Boston’s most exciting annual tech event, the MassTLC Innovation unConference
• Shining the spotlight on leaders in tech with an Annual Awards Program
• Supporting workforce development where it’s most needed
• Connecting companies with policy leaders

For more information, visit www.masstlc.org

Big Data and Energy Seminar: How Big Data Can Drive Big-Time Energy Efficiency

On Thursday, May 2^nd, we brought together teams from energy management companies Enernoc  and EnergyPoints  where the discussion focused on how data is utilized to improve energy efficiency.

Stephen Dillon, Data Architect and Technology Strategy, Schneider Electric kicked off the program with the standard definition of Big Data and the 3 Vs (volume, velocity, variety). He added a fourth, which the panel agreed to be the most important – Value. Data is just data, it is the information you extract from it that provides value to the end user.  Stephen continued to set the tone for the discussion with a list of trends and expectations:

· Real time analytics are critical

· Pushing computation towards the data, not the other way around

· Innovation can be accomplished by software designers

· Demand response time has and will continue to shrink

Mike Rennick, Director of Applications and Seth Sheldon, Senior Scientist of EnergyPoints followed with their introduction. Energy Points optimizes efficiency for their customers by collecting a variety of geospatial data (coming from water, energy, and other sources), transforming it into common data points, to which they can then analyze. Their biggest challenge at present time is understanding the variety of incoming data. A future challenge will be resulting in the massive increase of volume – ultimately increasing the variety - the sector is no doubt facing. 

Don Jenkins, Senior Director of Energy Markets and Data Quality and Prakriteswar (Santi) Santikary, Director of Software Engineering from EnerNOC. Santi opened with his view: big data initiatives = big opportunities – big challenges.  He went on to say how it is imperative to concentrate on the WHAT and WHY before reaching the HOW.

The panel went on to address a variety of topics including the big data hype, business value, and the role of the cloud.

Panelists agreed that the hype exists due to what Santi called the “innovators dilemma”. Organizations can’t get comfortable or they will be left behind. Innovation needs to happen constantly and should follow the hype cycle. Seth built upon that remarking how the hype also exists due to the real time nature and the promise to take advantage of information in a meaningful way quickly.

Deriving business value stems from asking the right questions in the beginning.  Understanding “what’s in it for the end user?” There is so much data coming in that without knowing the right questions, it is impossible to pull the needle from the haystack and deliver the value. A continued effort to deliver this value comes with the need for data visualization tools, enabling a simplified form of communicating information to the stakeholders that the bare eye can understand.

Cloud computing for the energy sector is overall a positive. Due to the nature of the data there aren’t as many privacy and security concerns as other vertical sectors and therefore it is not a hurdle to overcome. In fact it allows for manipulation to be done in a way that it can be changed if problems occur of solutions are not garnered. There are some challenges with interoperability, however the panel did not see those challenges as permanent and that technology and standards would continue to evolve.

Inside the Head of the Data Driven Marketer

Christopher Penn, VP of Marketing Technology at SHIFT Communications kicked off the morning with a question on “what is big data?”.  Referencing Tom Webster, Edison Research, “Any data that you don’t have a story for or doesn't fit on an Excel spreadsheet.”  But how do we store all this stuff and what does this stuff tell us?  Join MassTLC’s Big Data group for answers to the first question, but today’s marketing session tackled the 2^nd question – what do we need to look at and how?   Christopher discussed 3 reasons why data-driven marketing fails; 1. Asking bad questions of good data 2. Having the wrong focus 3. Assuming what = why. Christopher’s presentation can be found here.

Next Raj Vysetty, Manager e-commerce & Analytics, at DYN presented three classes of analytics: 

1.              Known-Known’s = reporting

2.              Known-Unknown’s = analysis

3.              Unknown-Unknown’s = exploration

Raj shared DYN’s data sources and tools including Google analytics, Zuora, salesforce.com and SimplyMeasured for social data. Some of the more strategic metrics DYN looks at: % of revenue vs % of customers, time to upsell contracts, discounting vs. monthly price and cross-sell ratio.  Raj’s presentation can be found here.

Prashant Kaw, Inbound Marketing and Operations at SmartBear Software presented on cultivating a  “feed the bear”.  Everyone in your organization has to know the metrics that drive your biz - from most senior to its junior members.  Prashant shares his marketing technology stack led by HubSpot, InsightSquared, Salesforce and yes, Excel.  The takeaways which can be found in Prashant’s presentation are develop a culture of monitoring, define top metrics and don't be afraid to go granular.

culture of data to help keep the sales team fed with leads -

During the q&a portion of the event, there was a good dialogue around outbound marketing – how much email is too much?  Definitely monitor performance through Google analytics or your marketing automation system.

Prashant was asked a question on how comp plans help align marketing and sales.  At SmartBear, marketing is measured on trial volume but the marketing team is also measured and compensated on billings and of course, growth goals.

Thanks to Constant Contact for hosting and to our Sales and Marketing cluster sponsors; KnowledgeVision, PegaSystems and ZoomInfo.

Watch for our next event on sales enablement.  Interested in sharing a case study on the topic?  Contact Christine@masstlc.org.

Software development roundtable: Maximizing Distributed Agile Development Teams

There are some that claim that in order to maintain the highest levels of productivity, everyone has to be in the office.  Others find that with the need to find the best, perhaps specialized talent, teams are most likely distributed across multiple locations utilizing both onshore and offshore resources. 

 At tonight's software development roundtable session, Steve Habermas, VP of Product Development at Verivo Software and Mark Ringer, Director of Engineering, at Rally Software facilitated a terrific conversation on the decision to distribute a team, how to organize and create trust and coherence among team members, the infrastructure to be considered in terms of collaboration, and the tools and tracking mechanisms to help be successful.  Mark has teams distributed across the world from Boulder, Colorado to Helsinki, Finland. Take a look at Mark’s presentation for some tips and pictures of what has worked for them. 

Steve Habermas gave distributed team examples from 3 different companies that he has worked for.  He and the audience agreed that you have to overcome trust and cultural issues and present projects differently based on the country that you are currently working with.  Steve recommended organizing teams geographically to maximize colocation - it's hard to beat.  

A quick note, many of you were interested in agile modeling and metrics.  Brad Neighbors, from VMWare recommended @scottwambler Www.agilemodeling.com.

Thanks to Endurance International for being terrific hosts and our software development cluster sponsors: DYN, InterSystems, Rally Software, Verivo Software and VMWare.  

We hope to see you all again at our next session in June on Automated Testing.  

Christine Nolan

@c3nolan

MassTLC