Beat This Damn Recession With Your IT Skills

After reading the recent article on Microsoft’s H1B VISA pink slips. You can read the complete article here I was compelled to write this post.
Things seem to be getting more and more grim on the economic front. From the perspective of the huge, multi-national tech corporations who have already seen their first bubble go bust, this is another blow.

Hemorrhaging cash and unable to access credit to fuel entrepreneurial efforts, many small and mid size companies are sure to be engaging in more and more layoffs in the future. As smart people who have lived through hard times know, the only thing they can’t take away is your skills.

Those who work in the IT field may want to start looking somewhere other than job placement agencies, headhunters and temp agencies for work. In fact, it may be a good time to innovate an entirely new model of doing business. Tech did it once already, with the web. It seems that the coffers of the corporations are not a reliable source of pay anymore.

Time to innovate again.

Many of the IT companies have been in a constant mode of complaining about the outsourcing of tech jobs overseas and the effect that outsourcing has had on American workers and their wages. The remedy for this situation doesn’t seem to be forthcoming from the companies who stand to profit from that outsourcing.

The remedy is to be found in the creative application of the skills so many people have obtained working in the tech industry. An oracle programmer can explore working on Oracle’s latest Fusion technology or Oracle Apps Release 12, where there is a lot of demand in these times,

A PHP programmer can still program PHP whether they have a regular job or not.

The other day I was at the Stanford’s Vlab venture networking meeting where I met four amazing entrepreneurs who shared their experiences about building their startups. Each one of them had a similar story to tell. They all more or less started their companies from their apartments.

It used to be a selling point that technology made the home office the new workplace. At one time, this was mostly marketing fluff. Today, it’s very real. Your blackberry, cell phone, laptop, and broadband connection all constitute the resources offered to employees by most employers. Your apartment is probably bigger than your cubicle. These technology resources are incredibly cheap these days and easy to come by.

Maybe, instead of lamenting the end of the economy as we know it, it’s time to build something new. Those who have worked in the trenches of IT, who are veterans of the first fall of the tech market and who have suffered the constant changes in employment characteristic of programmers and IT pros may, if they take the time, see a pattern in this data:

The only thing one can rely on is the skill of the people who build the technology. Skills always have value.

Obtaining the “Hip” Brand Image

This is a further continuation to my post on “Building Your Brand With Narratives”

Of all the brand images any company might obtain, the image of being the most “hip” thing out there is probably the most desirable. Accomplishing this is to marshal a great deal of advertising techniques and methods to one’s cause and to project an image that is, above all things, never stuffy or dated.

Viral marketing is one of the most effective ways to achieve this image. The techniques of viral marketing are varied but almost always make use of placing advertisements in places where they’re not expected to be seen and by making advertisements which aren’t obviously trying to sell the viewer anything at all.

Video sharing sites are an excellent place to start, as are social networking sites.

The first rule in viral marketing is shock. Shock doesn’t have to be negative in any regard. It simply means jarring the viewer and methods of jarring can include amusement, confusion or amazement at what they’re seeing. In the best case scenario, they forward the video or profile in question to their friends out of simple disbelief at what they’re seeing. Thus, the virus is spread.

Branding a product as hip or innovative, by definition, means breaking with tradition. Car commercials, for instance, have long worked to present the vehicles as representing a brand that people can trust and whose reputation was built on a long history of being something in which one could reasonably place high expectations.

A popular campaign in the early 1990’s took the opposite tact, making use of a character who blatantly lied about the vehicle, constructed outrageous stories and, essentially, made every effort to be the kind of shady car salesman with whom auto manufacturers try to disassociate themselves. The campaign was very successful and even gained news coverage.

The fast food commercials which featured a character that actually frightened many viewers is another good example of giving an audience exactly what they don??™t expect.

Consider branding your product by doing the opposite of what usually works. Don??™t say anything about your product, for instance, and simply release a video which forces people to watch, in amazement, at what they’re seeing but which really doesn’t offend anyone. Eventually, someone will want to know who made the video.

When they find out it came from your company, expect to have attained a very hip brand image and one which people will remember for years.

Building Your Brand with Narrative

I had been meeting a lot of angel investors and VC’s lately. In the process a lot of MBA students and solo entrepreneurs(like me) too.

Back in 1999/2000 time frame, I distinctly remember attending an entrepreneurship event in Berkley where branding expert Scott Galloway made a point on how Silicon Valley doesn’t understand Branding.

Ten years later I see the same problem persisting in the valley. In all the latest product presentations that have been pitched to me, I have hardly seen “Branding” as a category in the Marketing section.

In my direct response marketing role I hardly ever cared for branding, but when it comes to enterprise marketing(B2B) I had been very sensitive towards it.

From my years of experience in Direct Marketing, Internet Marketing and Enterprise marketing world, I have come to understand branding in a different way..the narrative way. I want to reflect upon it in simple words here. This has worked wonders for me and I hope it does the same for you in your business.

Narrative is one of the most powerful means of building a brand available. By attaching a story to a product, the marketer can control the image of the product in the consumer’s mind and forever attach it with the most stand-out elements of the storyline used. This is one of the oldest branding methods in use because it is one of the most effective. It is just as effective online as it is anywhere else.

Consider the possibilities of this method. Instead of selling a mountain bike as just a bike, one can sell it as a lifestyle. To do this, one first constructs a story, usually from the first person, that makes the association. As an example: “I was out of shape and needed a cost-efficient way to get to work. After I picked up my Brand X Mountain bike, I not only found myself getting more trim and mentally healthy, I was soon out exploring the local trails and gaining a whole new appreciation for the environment.” A bike, which is, in reality, tires, a frame and some gears, has in the story above been transformed into a route toward a lifestyle with incredible benefits.

Such storylines can turn any product into something more than it would seem on the surface. Best of all, it’s an honest form of branding. The mountain bike example used above is most likely true for many people who went ahead and purchased such products. There’s no snake-oil or chicanery involved. The storyline simply brands the product as a viable connection to something more ethereal. A luxury suite at an expensive hotel is really just a place to sleep, deconstructed to its bare-bones, but it is also a viable way to experience the high life.

This method of branding can be seen in use for most any product. Cars are not just cars, they’re the means by which the protagonist in the narrative achieves freedom. Wedding dresses aren’t just ceremonial garb, they’re part of the story of two people forging a life-long, for better or worse commitment to one another. Consider how your product fits into the narrative of your customer’s lives. By constructing a good narrative, you’ll make a viable brand and a memorable story by which your potential customers will remember it. Good stories are one of the most effective ways to create a lasting and powerful brand.

In my next post I will talk about how and why you should obtain the “Hip” Brand Image for your product or service

..Stay Tuned.