Damn proud to be "un-sexy"

Robert Scoble, one of the deans of blogging, asks why on earth would bloggers cover enterprise technologies - bloggers cannot be impactful in influence or garner many advertising impressions. Just not very sexy.

So I started to post this long comment...but respectfully did not want to use so much of his real estate and wrote it here instead

"a) Robert, beauty and sexiness is in the eye of the beholder. You like to write about individual gadgets or web services. In the enterprise world, we look to apply those to scalable, secure applications. But to get to that magic you have to blend appropriate mix of software, hardware, telecomm and service – and boring topics like controls, privacy and compliance. You cannot just talk about an individual vendor product in isolation.

You know what turns me on? To see UPS give each one of its drivers a DIAD - and they did it years before the recent wave of personal gadgets - with GPS, wifi, scanning and other technologies. And with a battery that lasts all day. Can our iPhones do that? See the massive technology behind their ops that make it so easy for their millions of customers. This time of the year, you realize they are Santa's elves with the billions of deliveries they do daily.

To rent from Hertz and marvel that they have taken most labor out of the customer interface - other than the bus driver . They have taken 30 minutes out of that process for most businesspeople as I wrote here

b) Think of your own personal buying decisions. The bigger the ticket, the more influencers in the decision process. For a gadget, your blog influence is significant. But if you were covering autos, your input would likely be one of 20 consumers would consider. If you were a real estate blogger, your input would be one of 50. In enterprise decisions there are literally hundreds of influence points as I wrote here. No single blogger or industry analyst can sway a product. So most enterprise bloggers are not delusional about our individual influence.

c) Consumer technologies were historically covered by media. Now you and Mike and others also have influence (though you know what I still check the Consumer Reports site to get a completely unbiased view on any gadget). In the enterprise world we had industry analysts and niche publications. And it was never just about CPM. Revenues have come from subscriptions, industry events, consulting, benchmarking etc. You will be amazed at the varied revenue sources that make up the billion dollars a year Gartner earns.  Similarly, us Enterprise bloggers would starve if we depended on Google ads. I can assure you most of us do ok on our W-2s. The enterprise technology (and telecomm) market is over a trillion dollars each year, many times bigger than the consumer tech market.

d) Bill Gates has plenty of bloggers at MS in his Dynamics, SQLServer, Office units - and external bloggers covering those categories. You know this from your days there - the encouragement for these internal and external bloggers to be more conversational has to come from the top – Bill/Steve. Their friends at SAP have been much more open with external bloggers for a couple of years now and just this week I wrote about that openness here. And believe me I am one of SAP’s fiercest critics, but they welcome me and gave me access to their execs and customers.

e) Yes, we will never have the glitz of  following a Facebook or Twitter or an iPhone, but the software and other technologies we cover cut checks, invoice customers, design products, manage supply chains, keep the wheels of commerce turning.

Aren’t you glad some of us find that sexy -)"

Update: I take the afternoon off to watch some football, and I see what in the NFL they call "swarm defense". Fellow Irregulars - Michael Krigsman, Dan Farber, Dennis Howlett, Anshu Sharma, Sadagopan, Craig Cmehil - have all jumped in defending enterprise technologies. Just shows you us boring enterprise types have little to do even on Sundays -)

More from Dan McSweeney and Phil Wainewright

Comments

[Julien]

That is sooooooo damn true.
regards,
J.

[rajagopal sukumar]

Excellent post Vinnie. I'm glad you find these subjects sexy. Keep up your great work. Let me be the first one to congratulate you on making it to techmeme.

[Kontra]

I explored the notion of why people who are exposed daily to high interface and interaction values inherent in TV, movies, advertising, magazines and gadgets in the consumer sphere are somehow supposed to be rendered incapable of expecting and appreciating the same within the walls of the enterprise from 9 to 5, with a dozen enterprise examples that aren't sexy:

What isn't sexy enterprise software?
http://counternotions.com/2007/12/10/sexy-enterprise/

[vinnie mirchandani]

To me just fixing UI without rethinking the business process is not the solution. some people within the walls of the enterprise do not need a better UI, they should have no UI...

http://dealarchitect.typepad.com/deal_architect/2007/12/ui-again-dont-p.html

[Daintree]

Love the 'Diane Keaton' analogy above... although I always have a more Jamie-Lee Curtis sensation about enterprise software ;-)

[Sobelius]

Enterprise Software should function like Ripley from 'Alien' and 'Aliens'. Kickbutt, able to endure in the face of complex problems that overwhelm unprepared and understaffed systems (as in Alien) or mismanaged systems (as in Aliens).

People would (and do) blog about heroic Enterprise software but it's more common to read about unheroic or weak Enterprise software because at least that's attention catching -- in train wreck kind of way.

Instead, Enterprise software should be heroic, not supermodel sexy. Heroic is a different kind of charisma than sex appeal. Heroic appeals to the Enterprise, as was said, because it needs reliability, stability, scalability, speed, and all without secretly conspiring against us (like the robot "Ash", to keep the Alien theme running), or ultimately incompetent (like the marine lieutenant commander in Aliens).

Enterprise security software is my area and it is unsexy with a capital "U"; it's the ugly but intimidating guard who walks around your vault 24 hours a day and you really don't want to have to keep checking on him to make sure he's doing his job, or find him asleep at the door. You have a business to run -- that's the thing you really want to be doing -- and you hired the security guard to let you conduct your business not flash its impressive badge or uniform in your face every 5 minutes, or to keep tapping on your shoulder saying "hey I'm here and everything looks A-OK, so what should I do next?" You do not hire the guard because he's a sexy beast and like to keep telling him what to do; you hire him because he's a quiet, efficient and ruthless protector of your vault, allowing you to sleep or play or do whatever else you do when you feel safe.

You *do* need to be able to communicate well with the guard (i.e. quickly, efficiently and in simple langauge). He should tell you about a problem in the same way.

Mixing movie metaphors a bit, but in the end you need someone who can prevent James Bond from getting to your stuff, and while the chicks from Charlie's Angels might be sexy, Bond > Sexy Women every time.

I don't think Bond would get by Ripley (Sigourney Weaver, even). I'd take her any day over Miss Teen North Carolina...or Angelina Jolie...or Paris Hilton or...you get the idea.

[vinnie mirchandani]

Daintree, Sobelius ...with all your fantasies, self-service is probably not a good term to use with UI -)