Thoughts from Forrester B2B Marketing Workshop

A couple of weeks back I attended Forrester Research's B2B Marketing Workshop at their headquarters in Cambridge, MA. Overall it was a good review of some of their recent research, but very little in terms of helping make actionable improvements in how I do my day job. The folks at Forrester said that the details come at other events, but when someone puts the word "workshop" in the title of an event, I expect a little more. Maybe that's just me.

But it's not to say that the day wasn't without value. There was a few good exercises and examples of successful integrated marketing campaigns and SEO that was helpful and good ideas of what we could be doing.

A few days after the workshop, I had a meeting with Mike Gauthier of E-Tractions, a Boston area integrated marketing firm that also appeared on a panel at the Forrester event. As we were talking he asked me if I felt inspired by any of the ideas from the conference. I responded that I was torn between inspiration and depression. There were a lot of great ideas, but the realization that we're not doing near as many of them as we should was really depressing. Some of it was stuff that we didn't even contemplate doing, but a lot came down to not having the budget or internal resources to pull it off.

In any case, I'm going to do what we can, try to experiment and see what happens. Hopefully if we can show some good progress, we can "find" some more budget down the road.

Big Mo' in Barack's Corner

After a convincing sweep (if not a trouncing) of the mid-Atlantic primaries (VA, MD and DC) Obama has assumed the delegate lead for the Democratic nomination for the first time since Iowa. That's 8 states in a row and momentum is building. All the while Clinton seems to be stumbling and spinning, not winning.

Texas and Ohio are next and there are huge delegate stakes up for grabs. It will be interesting to see how the next few weeks go. Both Texas and Ohio look to be strongly in the Clinton camp with a high proportion of Latino and middle income voters respectively. Both of these groups have been solidly behind Clinton so far. However, Obama is reaching out to both of these groups. The proof will be in the pudding, but anything short of a convincing (10 point margin) victory by Clinton will be tough to spin if Hillary wants to recapture the mantle of presumtive nominee.

If by chance Obama wins either of these two states it's game over and the only President Clinton will be Bill. But buck up Hillary, being a Senator from New York is still a pretty good gig.

The General's Return to Indiana?

The latest recruiting violations against Indiana coach Kelvin Thompson open a very interesting door. Already warned by IU brass to run a clean ship amidst reports of recruiting violations from his days at Oklahoma, it is not outside the realm of possibility that IU will relieve Thompson of his coaching duties.

What makes this all interesting is last week's resignation of former IU coaching legend Bobby Knight from Texas Tech after notching his 902nd career victory. Surprisingly, Knight resigned in the middle of the season, turning the team over to his son Pat.

While many thought that Coach Knight might remove himself from the coaching scene to hunt and fish, what a delicious thought that he would return to the place that made him an American icon and one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time. It certainly makes for a much better story than taking over the coaching reigns at LSU.

Santana a Met!!

Is there a way not to be excited about this (that is unless you're a Phillies or Braves fan)? Of course they have to work out the dollars, but it's just money, right? $140M or so for 6 years? Why not. It's a helluva better deal than Zito got ($126M/7 years).

When I saw the deal on the scroll on ESPN, I was shocked. Carlos Gomez + 3 minor league pitchers? Pretty good deal. Sure it's 4 of the Mets' top 7 prospects, but that speaks more to the dearth of talent in the Mets farm system than anything. Humber didn't look like anything better than a #3 or #4 starter. Mulvey also looks like a middle of the rotation guy. Guerra probably has the highest ceiling, but he's 18. You can project all you want, but you never know.

See the Peter Gammons analysis

Bedard a better deal than Santanna?

I'm hoping that Omar Minaya isn't so fixated on Johann Santanna that he missed out on the conversations with the Orioles for Eric Bedard. No doubt that Santanna is the better pitcher, but the cost in prospects and salary is greater than the difference in talent.

According to a report on ESPN.com, Seattle is about to acquire Bedard for 4 players, mostly prospects:
* Adam Jones (Seattle's #3 prospect)
* reliever George Sherrill (great numbers in relief)
* minor league pitcher Chris Tillman
* and a fourth undisclosed prospect

Now that seems to be much less talent than the Mets are offering up for Santanna (both Gomez and Martinez + 2 of the Met's top starting pitching prospects) and his salary demands for 08 and beyond will be lower too. I love Santanna, but if I could deal one of Gomez or Martinez, plus Aaron Heilmann and one of our starter prospects for Bedard, I'd feel better about that deal. What do you say?

Kennedy Backs Barack

The announcement expected today that senior senator and liberal standard bearer Ted Kennedy will endorse Sen. Barack Obama will have a huge impact leading up to Super Tuesday on Feb 5th. This is a big blow to Clinton and sure just about wrap up Massachusetts for Obama (along with support from Kerry and Gov. Deval Patrick). But more importantly, it should provide Obama with greater support from the Democratic base across the other states voting on Super Tuesday and Florida. This piece of good news for Obama comes right on the heels of Barack's impressive, one would say landslide, victory over Clinton in South Carolina where he more than doubled Hillary's tally.

The support from Kennedy also comes on the heels of the endorsement from Rep Mel Martinez of Florida. Martinez' endorsement could help prop up support for Obama from Latinos, where Clinton has been strong. Clinton's strength with Latinos was most notable in the recent Nevada primary where Clinton produced a 6 point victory in a race where Obama won the endorsement of the largest union in the state, yet Clinton peeled off enough of the union's Latino membership to pull off the victory.

You can also read between the lines that this is a rebuke of the more active and aggressive role that former President Bill Clinton has taken in the race. Bill came under intense rebukes from Democratic leaders like Kerry, Pat Leahy and Tom Daschle in the past few days for distorting Obama's positions much like former Republican strategist Lee Atwater used to do (most famously with the Willie Horton attach against Gov. Mike Dukakis is the 1998 election).

Johann Santana Countdown

I just read that Santana could be a Met within 10 days. It's so hard not to get my hopes up. But the thought is absolutely tantalizing. Santana was dominant in the AL, but on the Senior Circuit he'd put up numbers that we haven't seen since Doc Gooden in
'84. They may even make them lower the mound again a la Gibson.

From a rag-tag rotation that virtually had a new 5th starter every time through the rotation and had John Maine as it's "ace" to:

Santana
Maine
Pedro
Oliver Perez
El Duque

All of a sudden that's a rotation that should win the NL. Maybe not The Series, but the NL.

Now if only Carlos Delgado could learn to hit again or if the Mets had any corner outfielders, that would be good too.