On Tuesday, July 26, we invited the friends of the Boulder and Denver Software Clubs to gather around food, drinks and fun at The Med in Boulder, for our annual summer party. To our delight, we had a great showing, and everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves. After all, when you bring together such a great group of people, you're bound to create some awesomeness! 

We'd like to thank each and every person and company who supports our clubs throughout the year, for these very individuals and organizations make it all possible! Check out some of the photos below, and share your thoughts on what you love about BDSC in the comments section! 

And don't forget to follow us on twitter to stay up to date on all the cool stuff in store for the rest of 2011! 

We had another great gathering of the minds last Thursday and discussed a question that is of utmost importance to companies of all sizes in today's economic environment: "How do we build a stronger and better performing organization?"

And from an individual perspective, much could be gleaned from our discussion in regards to how one should position oneself in the market of employable talent. 

As always, the conversation was led by a distinguished group of professionals:

Our Moderator:

Mike Platt - Partner, Cooley LLP 

Our Panelists:

Natalie Baumgartner - Founder & Chief Psychologist, RoundPegg

Melissa Grandchamp - HR Director, Ping Identity 

Rusty Thulin - VP, IP Commerce

Here's how those topics took shape during the conversation...

First of all, where do you start when seeking good talent to fill a role within your company?

Ideally, you want to identify people who are engaged in the community and recognized as high-performers in their work and life.  Perhaps this person already has a job, but they are also open to new opportunities. There are even resources out there to facilitate connections with such people - one local service you can check out is called Techployment. Also, it is always good to tap into your networks to find the right person for a role - investors, colleagues, and friends are all good referral sources for hiring.

Alternatively, and as a last resort, you will have to turn to postings on job boards and papers. 

What about recruiters?

Recruiters can be thought of as "candidate managers" - they manage the flow of people, resumes, and information so that employers can spend their time more wisely. The top quality recruiters are those that really know how to source candidates - one should be able to build a relationship with your company and understand the team and culture. Melissa suggests that an employer should consider creating their own agreements with recruiters, instead of accepting theirs - this gives more control over the process and protects the employers' interests.

How do you go about identifying key elements of organizational culture?

A company's culture really comes down to one question: "How do we do things?" And the best way to determine this is to ask the employees. The true culture of a company is made up of individual cultural preferences within the company. A good way to gain employee insight into this is through one on one interviews. An interesting thing we tend to find is that the culture defined by the employees can often times deviate from "the writing on the wall" - this is what RoundPegg calls a "Culture Gap".

The four common culture types include Command, Competence, Collaboration, and Cultivation (in order from most to least control). Examples of companies that embody each of these include, WalMart, intel, Whole Foods, and Apple, respectively. 

When considering culture in a startup firm, it's more about creation than identification - and we find that the founding team guides that creation process. 

Bad Hires: they happen!

The best way to avoid employment woes is to hire right the first time, right? Sure, but things happen - for example, a common problem in rapid-growth companies is "hiring fatigue", where poor decisions are made along the road when scaling a team quickly. 

In order to minimize the affects of the inevitable bad hire, it is a good practice to initially identify 3-4 measurable deliverables that will indicate success for a candidate, if he or she completes them in a given time after being hired. Another technique, to avoid the bad hire in the first place, is assigning projects to prospects before they are hired - this is a very effective filtering tool. 

What about interns?

References are key - especially those from professors. Also, don't be shy to ask for examples of written work and stories about past job experiences, even if it was volunteer experience. 

What about middle management?

Sometimes, employers are tempted to promote employees to middle management based on tenure and loyalty, and often times ignore performance. To avoid mistakes in the area, managers must challenge these people before granting a promotion - take them out of their comfort zone and see how they handle it.

When startups grow up...

Startup founders often have a hard time letting go of their responsibilities - especially since, in the beginning, those responsibilities are so vast! In order to effectively grow from startup to mature company, there needs to be a fact-based conversation around what is best for the company. Ultimately, the founding team, with the guidance of advisors and board members, will make the right decisions for the success of the business.  

A few final tips for retention...

Once you have a good team, you have to retain them. This is the easy part - get to know employees on a personal level, give them the tools they need to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively, and create an enjoyable working environment that people want to share with others.

 

 

Wednesday night, with the mountains in the distance visible from the 41st floor of the Wells Fargo building in HRO's Denver office, our members, sponsors, and guests gathered to discuss Public Relations as it exists in 2011. Social media has changed the way businesses interact with the world. And at this point, the only thing we know for sure, is that PR is much different today than it was in 1984...or in 2004, for that matter.

Our panel: 

• Moderator: 
  • Nadine Pyter, Marketing Director, Confio

• Speakers: 
  • Doyle Albee, President and Social Media Practice Director, Metzger Associates
  • Terri Douglas, Co-Founder and Principal, Catapult PR-IR
  • Greg Davoll, Product Marketing Director, Quest Software

These folks did an amazing job exploring this "hot topic" - below is a rundown of the discussion that transpired, organized by discussion topic.

What is Social Media?

Social Media, at its foundation, is very simple and is really a new take on an old concept - communication between people. It presents new outlets for a business to interact bidirectionally with its audience in a way that has never before been possible at this scale and with the ease that today's social tools afford us. Examples of the new conversation mediums include the obvious ones, such as Twitter and Facebook, and the often forgotten blogs, forums, discusion boards, etc.

How has Social Media affected traditional Public Relations?

Social Media has led to the democratization of the web. It has changed the way we interact with others, by facilitating much richer two-way conversation. Five to ten years ago, a company could take 48 hours to respond to a customer complaint or praise. Today, that same response is possible (and expected) within 48 minutes. Today's PR environment is characterized by instant gratification - company's must monitor online activity around their brand and be ready to respond to anything and everything, be it positive, negative, or neutral. A concrete example of this shift: once upon a time, the PR department's job was complete when a press release was published...today, the finish line is when the comment stream dies out.

How has Social Media influenced investment relations?

Companies and their stakeholders must tread carefully and be very self-aware. They must have policies in place so that everyone knows how to react in each situation. An excellent example of a company embracing this idea has been illustrated by Oracle, with their blogs site, where every employee can publish his or her personal blog posts.

What are some examples of Social Media leading to the enhancement of PR strategies?

An anecdote from Greg's experience at Quest: an influential blogger once mentioned how much he despised the Quest logo. It just so happened that the company had been working on a new logo design for some time (unbeknownst to said blogger). The next week, the Quest CEO created a video response to the blogger, which featured the newly designed logo. This response was personal, light-hearted and humorous. It went viral, created a ton of buzz for the company, and gave a face to the company and a previously little-known CEO. The gist: joining in the conversation turned a criticism into a positive public relations campaign in its own right.

How does one go about selling a Social Media strategy internally [the million dollar question]?

You must start with results - the most convincing tool at your disposal. Look at your existing metrics around brand awareness, demand and lead generation, etc - and apply these same ideas to social media. Frame your pending social media efforts as part of the bigger picture - a critical component of your overall communications strategy. Before you get started, set yourself up for success by putting measurement tools in place and be ready to gauge results. In the end, treat this the same as any other business proposal: show people how you can spend $1 and make $2 back.

Which internal individuals and teams should be involved in Social Media efforts?

Ultimately, Social Media should be speaheaded by the marketing team - however, it can't stop there. Every person and team in your company that faces your customer base should be at the social media table: sales, marketing, customer service, executives, product development, etc. In the end, you want to include people who are passionate about the company and its interaction with customers, while giving greater ownership to those who instinctively get involved.

How should a small company approach Social Media?

Start small and grow your efforts organically. The key: start with listening. Educate yourself on what people are talking about. There are a plethora of tools that cost little to nothing and enable you to (1)  listen, learn, and do your homework (2) join the conversation, (3) influence others in the community. Know where your audience is hanging out (online). Once you've found them, be genuine and natural in your interaction with them, and provide value for others!

Measuring success in Social Media efforts.

PR remains the most difficult aspect of marketing, when it comes to measurement. However, because of the digitalization of content, we can now quantify certain things that we couldn't before: how many people viewed that press release? who engaged with our blog post by providing a comment? Also, we can see basic numbers around followers/fans, retweets and mentions, web traffic, sales on website, visits to landing pages...the list goes on.

Is Social Media more effective when operating in B-to-B or B-to-C scenarios?

With optimal execution, it can work for both. Tactics may differ based on your situation, but in the end, people sell to people - regardless of whether they are "consumers" or "businesses".

Is Social Media Killing PR as we know it?

Not killing it. Just changing it. So be aware, and stay on top of the emerging trends.

 

**Note: the content conveyed above is taken directly from comments made by our speakers.

Last Tuesday, January 24, the Boulder and Denver Software Clubs hosted their first event of 2011. The topic of the night: Customer Centric Pricing.

Panelists included:

• Keith Mountain, CEO, Spatial Corp.
• Scott McDaniel, CEO, SurveyGizmo
• Jason Eckenroth, CEO, Six88 Solutions / ShipComplicant

We had a great crowd in attendance (as you can see here), which made for very engaging conversation. All attendees had the opportunity to ask specific questions about topics that were of particular interest to the businesses they operate. As one might expect, the resulting conversation was beneficial to all, since many of us encounter very common challenges when it comes to pricing products and services competitively and strategically.

Beyond Q&A and general group discussion, each panelist discussed experiences at his respective company and offered anecdotes that clearly illustrated one common theme: reaching "the right" pricing is, in most cases, a matter of trial and error.

Here are some highlights from each of their stories:

Survey Gizmo

According to Scott, when Survey Gizmo entered the market, they had about 200 competitors. This competitive market, while daunting for a new startup, also provided significant data from which to base initial pricing. SurveyGizmo, like many of its industry counterparts, has taken a "feature-based" pricing approach, as you can see on their pricing page. Some interesting takeaways from Scott's experiences:

• Customers often pull your prices higher because the want to pay for more.
• Larger customers typically pay annually or several years at once (usually at a discount), while smaller customers tend to prefer monthly subscriptions.
• Customer support is one of the most important "features" that users are willing to pay for; however, supporting customers (especially new ones) is also one of the biggest costs.
• When applying pricing to feature sets, you must consider different combinations of features. Also, keep in mind that customers place different values on various features, based on their specific needs and wants.
• SurveyGizmo is moving further toward "user-based" pricing in combination with "feature-based" -- i.e., the more users you have on the service, the more you pay. A familair example of this is SalesForce.

ShipCompliant

Jason's experience contrasted sharply with that of Surveygizmo: when ShipCompliant entered the market, there were no other competitors to look to as a model for pricing. As a result, and in an attempt to reach an appropriate price point, they asked themselves a few questions:

• How much money do we want to make from a customer per year?
• How much money will we save our customers in resources such as time, manpower, etc?

From there, they tried out two different pricing structures. They first tried charging on a per-transaction basis. When this was poorly accepted by customers, they soon changed to a tiered pricing structure, where you would pay a flat fee for a range of "transactions" instead of for each one. The customer reaction was positive, and so their pricing structure was solidified. However, when introducing a second product years after the first, they again experimented with different approaches, eventually coming to a similar conclusion as the first time around.

Spatial

Spatial has a very unique offering, and their pricing reflects it. Without going into too much detail (it's complicated), here are some common themes from their pricing history:

• Along the way, they've tried every pricing model under the sun, and they've made plenty of mistakes - always learning from each.
• They use different pricing models for the various products that they sell - always keeping it as simple as possible for their customers.
• They always keep in mind the most important factors from the customer perspective - you have to know what your customer is and isn't willing to pay for!
• Some customer segments are very difficult to sell to - in Spatial's case, the "difficulty" lies in the fact that their customers are often PhD's and mathemeticians!

Finally, a general tip that came from the night's discussion...

• good book to read: Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely

As you can see from the highlights above, the Software Clubs are off to a great start this year. We are excited about the showing from our members and sponsors in January, and we're looking forward to the continued support at upcoming events!

Don't forget to connect with us on Twitter - @BDSoftwareClubs. And interact with other members by using hashtag #BDSC.

Thanks again for everyone's support!