IDG Thought Leaders

Social marketing begins with good social listening
By Rich Vancil, IDC (via BtoB)
For me, the best part about social is that it can turn those classic asynchronous communication flows into a true dialog. This is what marketing should be! It should be a real conversation with our customers in which we treat them as the rational, evaluative, maximizing and self-directed people that they are...

Does Technology Makes Us Smarter Or Dumber?
By Michael Friedenberg, IDG Enterprise
I look back at the time my parents taught me how to parallel park, and it’s a very fond memory. Now all you need to do is push a button and your car will parallel park itself. Makes me wonder what our lives will become. Is the future really about pushing a lot of buttons to get things done?

IDG boss Bob Carrigan: 'The curse of many publishers is they hold on to print for too long'
By Jasper Jackson, The Media Briefing
Digital disruption stalks the media industry. New technologies threaten to make old ones obsolete every week. So publishers covering the technology industry are closer to the eye of the storm than most.But tech publisher IDG has turned this to its advantage.

Tech Consumers Speak and What They Tell Us
By Matt Yorke, IDG Global Solutions (via MinOnline)
It was not that long ago that the biggest challenge for publishers and marketers was to understand the dynamics of the print and the online worlds. Today, it is far more complex both from the medium and message standpoints.

CIOs See Risks and Rewards in Startup Mania
By Michael Friedenberg, IDG Enterprise
Are we in a tech bubble? Pundits and market-watchers have been batting that idea around lately, focusing on the poor stock performance of once-dazzling social-media innovators like Facebook, Zynga and Groupon.

OB and the CMO, CIO, CEO, CFO and COO
By Rich Vancil, IDC (via BtoB)
With more digital and social resources than ever before, buyers in all product and service categories are disrupting traditional marketing. The ability for marketing to capitalize on this is not just a "bet the marketing department" issue; it's a "bet the company" issue.

10 Resolutions for CIOs to Kick-Start the New Year
By Michael Friedenberg, IDG Enterprise
Have you made any resolutions yet? If you’re still mulling over the possibilities, allow me to share CIO’s Top 10 resolutions. As we’re fond of saying around my company, “The biggest room in the house is the room for improvement.”

The Top 10 Priorities for CIOs in 2013
By Michael Friedenberg, IDG Enterprise
As we approach the new year, I share 10 of my all-time favorite quotes paired with some questions to spark your thinking about CIO priorities for 2013.

Is Your Content as Accessible as It Should Be?
By Bob Melk, IDG Enterprise
According to a study conducted by IDG Research, 57% of smartphone and 31% of tablet users engage with content on their mobile device. IDG Enterprise’s Customer Engagement research, however, revealed that mobile content access has several limitations.

Data Services Enhance Search Marketing
By Bob Melk, IDG Enterprise
Data services not only present a valuable opportunity to deliver the high quality, relevant content that ITDMs are actively seeking, but they also provide the most relevant content possible to tech buyers, increasing the likelihood of engagement and enhancing your credibility with this important audience.

Are You Nurturing or Nagging?
By Bob Melk, IDG Enterprise
“Content is king” may be one of the most overused phrases in online marketing. However, the importance of relevant content in a marketing strategy cannot be overstressed, and content marketing is not going away anytime soon.

The Power of Paid, Owned and Earned Media
By Matt Yorke, IDG Global Solutions (via BtoB)
It takes a potent mixture of paid, owned, and earned media working together to interest prospects and convert them to customers.

CIOs Must Face the Talent Challenge
By Michael Friedenberg, IDG Enterprise
The more CIOs I talk to, the more apparent it becomes that the talent wars have hit a whole new level of sophistication. Here are some intriguing approaches and questions to consider...

Build Relationships with Content
By Bob Melk, IDG Enterprise
Technology is transforming how businesses operate– from big data, mobility, BYOD, cloud, social and beyond– and it’s also driving rapid change in how IT decision-makers (ITDMs) engage with content to meet business needs.

Hey CIOs! Show Your CMO the Love
By Michael Friedenberg, IDG Enterprise
CMOs’ worlds turned technical overnight–suddenly they have to deal with marketing automation, business intelligence and analytics, social tools, lead nurturing and Web development.

The Smart Mobile Transformation
By Matt Yorke, IDG Global Solutions (via BtoB)
The popularity of cellphones is well known but the speed at which smartphones have overtaken traditional mobile phones is remarkable. That transformation is brought into focus in research by IDG Global Solutions (IGS).

Tech Changes Pose Security Challenges and Opportunities
By Bob Melk, IDG Enterprise
A major shift is taking place in enterprise security and risk now that more and more critical systems are accessed through the cloud and mobile/consumer devices.

How to Measure the Cultural DNA of Your Company
By Michael Friedenberg, IDG Enterprise
Stop and think: What is the cultural DNA of your company? That’s an especially important question for CIOs to answer and understand.

Red Hat CEO: Establishing Cloud Leadership
By John Gallant, IDG Enterprise
I talked with Whitehurst about what IT leaders don’t understand about Red Hat, and how the company is positioned in the rapidly changing enterprise software landscape.

How to Succeed in Business: Award-Winning IT Innovation
By Michael Friedenberg, IDG Enterprise
Business is a competitive sport, so every day there are winners and losers. Yet what I find so interesting is that there are so many routes to business success – from culture, innovation and leadership to process, financials and technology.

Realizing the Value of Favorable Customer Relationship
By Bob Melk, IDG Enterprise
While IT continues to own the majority of the technology purchase process, their influence extends far beyond traditional boundaries, with increased involvement in business strategy.

Are You Keeping Ahead of IT Industry Trends?
By Michael Friedenberg, IDG Enterprise
In today’s market, the business trends of tomorrow are being created by what’s happening now in the social and consumer ecosystems.

IT Marketers: Secure Your Place in the Cloud
By Bob Melk, IDG Enterprise
Providers of cloud solutions have the opportunity to become strategic partners as cloud investments increasingly fuel business strategy, but a cloud message will go largely unseen without more specific unique value.

CIOs Need a Wakeup Call
By Michael Friedenberg, IDG Enterprise
While saving money through IT efficiencies still counts, the main business focus is on increasing revenue and deepening customer engagement by getting the most out of IT.

Understanding How Tech Buyers Use Social Media
By Bob Melk, IDG Enterprise
While tech-related websites, print pubs and tech vendor sites still lead as key information sources, various other sources, including social media sites/services are playing an increasingly important role.

What Will It Take to Get More Women Execs in IT?
By Michael Friedenberg, IDG Enterprise
Women make up half the U.S. workforce but only 25 percent of the technology industry. Yet in recent months, there is some promise and a surge of hope.

How CIOs Can Help Facilitate Systems of Engagement
By Michael Friedenberg, IDG Enterprise
As the U.S. economy begins to brighten, it’s reassuring to see spending in the manufacturing, retail, financial and healthcare sectors starting to respond. Conversations within the IT leadership community also seem to be lightening up, as IT priorities are rebalanced to include strategies for revenue growth and customer engagement.

Why Smart CIOs Channel Steve Jobs
By Michael Friedenberg, IDG Enterprise
While there are many things to question about Jobs’ approach to business, you can’t argue with his knack for melding tech and design. Is it time to bring back the importance of the user experience?

2012: A Year of Momentum
By Bob Carrigan, IDG Communications
Despite the proliferation of media choices, marketers’ fundamental media planning questions remain the same. Is the audience one that we are targeting? Does the media partner produce trusted content? Is the content available where we need it?

The Thought Leader Interview: Bob Carrigan
Strategy + Business
Of particular interest to us have been Carrigan’s thoughts on revenue and business models; too many companies, he argues, are still thinking of media as an enterprise supported by subscriptions and ad revenues.

Why Big Data Means a Big Year for Hadoop
By Michael Friedenberg, IDG Enterprise
You can’t have a conversation in today’s business technology world without touching on the topic of big data. Simply put, it’s about data sets so large-in volume, velocity and variety-that they’re impossible to manage with conventional database tools.

B2b marketers need to keep sales enablement at the top of their to-do list
By Rich Vancil, IDC
What is “sales enablement”? In IDC's research, we observe the broad and long process of how marketing assets are created, and then how those assets are provisioned and used by the selling teams.

IT: The Constant Within Economic Unrest
By Bob Melk, IDG Enterprise
When issues such as overseas instability emerge as a pressing concern, people tend to become more cautious with unpredictable investments, but what about the constants?

All Aboard the All Digital Train
By Matthew Yorke, IDG Global Solutions
According to a recent survey by IDG Research Services, both buyers and sellers of technology are united around digital and mobile.

Germany and US in B2B Publishing: A Comparison of Allies
Excerpt by Bob Carrigan, IDG Communications, from 2011 Yearbook of the German Trade Press
The Americas and EMEA dominate what industry analytics firm Outsell calls “Information Industry” revenues, with a combined 78% share.

Why It is Time to Socialize Your Business
By Matthew Yorke, IDG Global Solutions
What we are witnessing is a shift in how we communicate, how we find products and services, how we make purchases and on some level how we live.

Evolve to Where Your Customers Are
By Michael Friedenberg, IDG Enterprise
Media audiences continue to embrace new technologies and social media and react positively to sophisticated and targeted content.

The Mobile Promise
By Matthew Yorke, IDG Global Solutions
For IDG 2011 has been a breakout year in mobile; we have developed and implemented mobile campaigns for clients across the world with fantastic success.