Steve Mann
Founder and CEO of AbleBrains, a firm that specializes in helping companies "get their juice back" so that they can go to market in a compelling, innovative and profitable fashion.
Prior to AbleBrains, Steve was a senior executive with SAP, leading some of the companies efforts in the mid-market, as well as leading their Customer Experience, Oracle Competitive Strategy, Social Media, Services Marketing & the Global Competitive and Market Intelligence teams.
He has been an EIR for BRM Capital as well as CA's product strategy lead for its Unicenter product line. He's held numerous technology and marketing positions throughout his career.
Evolutionary v. Intelligent Design Marketers: Which one are you?
To set the stage… I’m a scientist at heart. Before I got into tech I was working on my PhD in neuroscience. So its with healthy skepticism (a valuable trait in a scientist) that I looked at Intelligent Design – a reformulation of Creationism as the explanation for how we got here and where we [...]
Hubris
From Wikipedia: Hubris: extreme haughtiness or arrogance. Hubris often indicates being out of touch with reality and overestimating one’s own competence or capabilities, especially for people in positions of power. When I woke up this morning the word hubris popped into my mind (I also had the weirdest dream about overcoming hurdles but that’s for [...]
11 Methods To Get 25 Items From 8 Platforms For 3 Reasons Using Web 2.0
I gotta tell ya. I’m tired. I’m tired of reading posts like: …5 methods for improving your Web copy… …8 strategies for taking your marketing to the next level… …4 apps that rock your iPad… …3 experiences Starbuck’s should focus on to make their customer’s happy… Please… and I say this with all respect, ENOUGH!!!! [...]
Can You Predict How Your Market Will Behave?
You can’t? And you call yourself a Marketer??? Granted, market modeling was never the traditional purview of marketers, but seeing how Markets have evolved, gotten so much more competitive and so much more saturated, I don’t know how you can pass up a chance to be smarter about the way your organization goes to market. [...]
AbleAdvisory: You Are NOT a Gadget: A Manifesto
Check out Jaron Lanier’s new book: You are not a Gadget: A Manifesto… another one of my heroes, is one of the fathers of Virtual Reality. He actually coined the term. His new book discusses the impact of Web 2.0 and Growing up Digital on our culture. some excerpts via AlwaysON: “Something started to go [...]
Enterprise 2.0: New Tech, Same Old Marketing
Walking the floor at the Enterprise 2.0 conference today I was struck how after all these years the needle hasn’t moved much in terms of how a technology company markets themselves. There’s the obligatory vendor pavilion with the obligatory hard copy collateral, obligatory demo stations, obligatory elevator pitches and the obligatory badge reading and card [...]
Can Your Product Drive Word of Mouth Marketing?
In a word, “yes”, but you have to ask yourself “will mine?” Why do certain products have buzz and why are some just plain DOA? 1. Products that get used a lot get talked about a lot (OK Steve, brain dead obvious), what’s the interesting part?). The interesting part is that when a product is [...]
Storming the Castle: Chap 4: Markets With Attitude
Here’s Chapter’s 1-4 of Storming the Castle. I’d love your input and your feedback! Chapter 4 is below. Download Storming_the_Castle We’re up to Phase 4 of our Customer-Centric GTM strategy — Market Development. We’ve done some thorough product testing using formalized QA methodologies, and we’ve worked with our customers using VOC techniques. Our product is [...]
AbleBrains: Zen and the Art of Product Management
Here’s Chapter’s 1-3 of Storming the Castle. Chapter 3 is Zen and the Art of Product Management (text only is below). Enjoy! Feedback is most welcome. Download Storming_the_Castle We’re this far into our GTM planning to take our most prized market castle. We’ve conceptualized a product, ran it past our customers with our VOC team [...]
Storming the Castle Chapter 2: How I Gave Up Finger Painting and Decided to Develop a Category.
Folks here’s an excerpt from Chapter 2. Enjoy. Comments as always are welcome. Arts and Crafts Time Is Over Well that’s what you’re CMO should be saying. Look, time and time again, marketing has been relegated to the tail end of a GoToMarket (GTM) strategy — the arts and crafts aspects of marketing, which is [...]
Storming the Castle, Chapter 1: Do You Really Have to Storm the Castle to Win?
Folks… here’s an excerpt of Chapter 1 of my eBook, Storming the Castle: Developing a Go-to-Market Strategy That Enthralls, Intoxicates and Drives Growth. Many organizations think of markets as castles — surrounded by difficult to cross moats, filled with hostiles, their customers and prospects and all resulting in a lot of casualties when these organizations [...]
AbleAdvisory: Finally, A Tech Mashup With Transportation Policy That Doesn't Suck!
Stewart Mader blogs about 4-id creative network, a Barcelona-based transportation design firm. They’ve created a system that helps you figure out where the best place to board a subway is in order to find a seat. He picked it up from 2nd Avenue Sagas a blog devoted to, yes you guessed it, the NYC Subway [...]
Can Customer Choice Drive Revenue?
So… is it the blue packaging and the $50 rebate that drove your recent uptick in sales? Or was it your brand name coupled with a set of features that your clients have been asking your team to add for years? Nine times out of ten a company can’t answer the basic question “what about [...]
Segmenting Your Market: 2010 Style
You: a young company. What: You’ve recently put a product in market and you’re trying to figure out how to really drive adoption! How: Segment your market to find those most likely to buy. Sounds easy? Its not but it can be relatively painless. When a company first brings it’s solutions to market it needs [...]
