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> an IBM marketing team called HIS CELL and asked for ME. What the fuck is this? A name/email for your company when trying something out is so that you can ke
by WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
> an IBM marketing team called HIS CELL and asked for ME.
What the fuck is this? A name/email for your company when trying something out is so that you can keep track of any support requests we need, not for you to sell shit to me.
- throwaheyy 5y agoYeah, the whole culture there (and other places like Oracle) is all about implanting mindshare at the decision-maker level and driving unilateral adoption from the top down. Pursuing such an approach is highly revealing because if the technology actually worked, that approach would not be necessary. Once they’re “in” at the decision-maker level, they can continue to milk the organisation with long-duration support and consulting contracts, feeding parasitically and gradually becoming more and more entangled. One spectacular example, 7M budget but in actuality, 1.2B down the drain and nothing to show for it https://blog.beyondsoftware.com/the-queensland-health-payroll-fiasco https://blog.beyondsoftware.com/the-queensland-health-payrol...
- pram 5y agoOh yeah I worked on a similar project at Oracle. The sales people basically sold the state on a 'stack' with a bunch of random horseshit that was magically supposed to work together and then dumped it on engineering. I mean that in a totally serious way, sales seemingly just grabbed a bunch of names of Oracle software and mashed it together. It literally never worked at any point. Then Oracle sued THEM about it, lmao. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_Oregon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_Oregon
- selimthegrim 5y agoI met one of the "managers" on that who told me with a straight face "All you need is a college degree in anything to manage developers" (hers was in English IIRC)
- fphhotchips 5y ago> Pursuing such an approach is highly revealing because if the technology actually worked, that approach would not be necessary. This is, sadly, untrue. Enterprise reps do this because on the whole, it doesn't matter if you have the best technology - if the other guy is successful at the CxO level, the customer will go their way.
- throwaheyy 5y agoCorrect - not saying that the best technology assures success, but that without working tech, marketing to the CxO level is the sole viable option.
- spikej 5y agoAdd this one to the list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_pay_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_pay_system
- bambataa 5y ago> Once they’re “in” at the decision-maker level, they can continue to milk the organisation with long-duration support and consulting contracts, feeding parasitically and gradually becoming more and more entangled. IBM seems like a really interesting case study in parasitism at the organisational level. Just moving around, feeding from host to host. I wonder if anyone’s studied it in those terms.
- matheusmoreira 5y agoMarketers have no sense of boundaries or limits. Everything they do is in violation of social norms. You give them an email that's clearly for some specific and useful purpose, they abuse it by turning it into their personal marketing channel which benefits nobody but them.
- ashtonkem 5y agoAlso, C suite phone numbers are worth their weight in gold for sales teams. Confusing that with another person’s number is a pretty bad mistake.