When Schulman + Thorogood asked me to join their team as a partner, it wasn’t a hard decision.

In looking back over my career, some of my best and most successful experiences have been working with Rand and Pelin, first at WebSideStory (now part of Adobe Systems), where we helped helped the company go public and became the leader in online marketing optimization solutions, and then on the recent launch of InboundWriter, a new social writing application geared toward online content creators.

The reasons are simple: Rand and Pelin are smart marketers, creative thinkers and take-charge leaders. They are continually at the forefront of cool new emerging technologies and trends, whether its social selling, content engineering, or the new ‘freemium’ business model. We also tend to enjoy the same things: start-ups, innovation, disruptive technologies, cloud-based applications, not to mention good food, good wine, and making things happen.

I’m looking forward to working with Rand and Pelin on helping innovative companies with their marketing and social media strategy, and continuing to build upon their thought leadership around social selling, inbound marketing, and ‘content engineering’ to truly create a virtuous marketing cycle.

In case you missed it, here’s the news release announcing my joining STG as a partner: Schulman + Thorogood Group Names Content Strategist & New Media Executive as Partner

It’s commencement time around the nation when newly minted alumni begin their quest for the golden fleece, the first job. Time to get real. But is education truly preparing students for this brave new world, one where measurement of productivity is polished to a high gloss and finds its way to the balance sheet?

Engineers produce things to be sold, salesmen sell things, and business students are taught to understand  and drive the metrics of business. But what happens to English majors? Where do they go with their diplomas in hand in this capitalist land of uber-productivity, which is after all, one of the things that separates the US from other countries.

Moore’s law describes a driving force of technological and social change, yet the university tends to move at glacial speed steeped in tradition as deep as Dante’s Inferno. And  the educational glaciers are melting with the modern heat of demand, yet supply is not there. Today, an imbalance exists between skills being taught and what business requires –  all driven ever more quickly by technological innovation, as Moore described.

Some universities see the handwriting on the wall (and the puddle of water at their feet)  and are looking for innovative ways to leverage their current curriculum in order to produce graduates with the skills needed for today’s competitive environment. Pelin and I spoke last week at the University of the Pacific, the oldest university in California, to a room filled with university deans, department chairs and professors and students interested to hear our views on what industry needs from these new workers. Since the earliest days of web analytics, we have understood that “creativity without conversion equals zero.” English majors need to be able to place a value on the words they create, in a business context. Their work needs to translate to the bottom line and it must be measureable. We presented our idea of an innovative Content Engineering curricula, a hybrid set of courses which span disciplines and schools, designed for the content creators in our online future. (Maybe explain what content engineer is?)

These Content Engineers understand the persuasive value of words; why people buy; the technology enablers, and will be able to establish and optimize objectives which are measured by business goals, and to effect that change with their new skill set learned in university. We are at the dawn of a “relevance revolution,” and instead of following, US education needs to lead the way to maintain international competiveness. Higher education can’t continue to teach the same way it has for the last millennia — not with technology and the speed of business continuing to increase. And as Americans, we are uniquely suited to undertake this challenge and to excel. The new English majors are not your grandmothers’ bard for sure!

We’re optimistic that leaders in higher education see what industry and students need in the future, but that only time will tell as the glaciers continue to drip, drip, drip. We thank our hosts at the University – Deans Dr. Tom Krise, College of the Pacific;  Dr. Lewis Gale, Eberhardt School of Business; and  Dr. Ravi Jain, School of Engineering and Computer Science, for allowing us to share our vision with their facility, staff and students.

I’m fascinated by change, as change is the only constant. And change is good for ADA (attention-deficit advantaged) people like me – which is probably the reason I’ve spent so my much time in the tech biz. However, it seems the rate of change is accelerating. Gordon Moore surely had it right.

Next week I’ll be in Austin at the huge international music, film and interactive confab, SXSW addressing the question, Has Math Killed Marketing Creativity? I’m debating the topic with classic ad guys who think it has (at least that’s the position they take for a good show). Guess what side I’ll take? Math is key to marketing in the future. Move over finance dept, as it’s now critical to build an entire “Culture of Measurement” because we now can. I list some lowest hanging fruit below.

Analytics drive smarketing: sales and marketing alignment

We work in a “smarketing” world where the lines between sales and marketing are blurring as it’s now possible to optimize every conversion step of the lead across the company, from the initial reach campaign – to close and everything in-between. But marketing automation, web analytics, social media, and CRM tools are useless without both process and operational change. Too few ask, “What are my goals, and how will I know when I reach them”?

These new applications force marketing and sales alignment to be more deliberate. Math doesn’t do well with fuzziness. Key questions need to be addressed – what is the definition of an inquiry or lead? Is a lead different from a sales ready lead? What is the definition of an opportunity, who owns it, and how can it be optimized? Who’s responsible, marketing or sales? Maybe we need a Chief Smarketing Officer?

It’s a fact that these technologies enable sales to act marketing-like, while marketing can be held more accountable (like sales) – measured with quotas. But our process lags behind the promise enabled by these applications. There is good news, however, as early adopters are seeing dramatic ROI numbers. What should the rest do? That depends, and I have a few thoughts on this topic for future blogs.

Analytics drive product direction and user engagement

Smarketing is a start, but the product lifecycle can be optimized through analytics as well, and forward leaning companies are asking questions like – What are my users’ behavior and where do they get stumped? In a cloud environment we easily can monitor individual and aggregate behavior, and like a web site, optimize their engagement within the product using the analytic tools of our trade. We can even “campaign” to these users, using marketing automation tools and scoring to present offers at unique “up sell points” during the user session (but let’s be careful here). While this is powerful for converting prospects, the data is also key for customer retention. It’s much more effective to keep a customer than to replace them. An engaged customer is a happy customer.

Analytics drive new distribution models: Freemium & B to I

Marketing in a B to B environment is undergoing a transformation as (mostly) gone are the days of field marketing (expect for in the largest companies like Oracle) with their Vegas events and golf junkets. Behold a new era of marketing that some are calling B to I, or “Business to Individual”, marketing where B to B marketers use the tricks of their consumer marketing cousins. The Freemium distribution model is one of those, and it too is driven by analytics. We know that the Freemium model has shown great effectiveness in the B to C long tail environment, but how will it do in the B to B sector? Logmein and LinkedIn suggest the answer.

New tools are creating a transformative culture of measurement. Best practices are emerging. I hope you check back here often as we share our latest thoughts and observations.