I receive enough feedback to believe that this is a well read blog in the industry. Not bad for what may be the only independent blog in the industry. Others I read are good (I continue to point readers to Jim Cahill’s Emerson Automation Experts as the model for doing it correctly) but they are company blogs. Nothing wrong with that. Just a different take. And I know of one that is a business in itself selling programs to companies and offering a different venue for company thought leaders.
Not only is the blog well read by engineers, managers, and executives, many marketing and public relations people come across this place, too. So, I get lots of pitches. In the IT industry, marketing has a category called influencers. Influencer marketing people know how to feed us information. Since everyone else in the controls and automation market similar to me is a publication, they tend to pitch me as if I were still at a magazine. Hint: I left that industry six years ago so that I could be my own person and be digital only. And, while I sincerely appreciate my sponsors and run ads for them, the business model has not been to make a majority of income from those. That is my financial foundation. Over the years, I’ve traded my expertise and knowledge of industrial businesses for custom research, analysis, and consulting.
With that as a background, the following is a general note for all the marketing and press relations people who stumble across my writing. I love you all, and I appreciate the work you do. I’m just a little different (well, a lot different).
I write a blog. There is no editorial calendar or “special issue” designed to attract advertisers. I’m interested in things I can think about. And I write everything–no contributed articles. It may be news, a tech trend, a significant new product or perhaps acquisition, and the like. It may come from press release or interview or something I see on the web. As the “connection” part of my blog name (have it because I could get the domain name, of course) implies, my interest is connecting—things, people, companies, ideas.
So, just feed me. If your CTO or someone in that office has something to say, ping me. I’ll take a look at a press release. If I can glean something out of the ordinary, I’ll use it to riff on. Otherwise, I am hungry to learn what is happening in the industry.
Supposing I have read a release. If I were still in the magazine business, we would have taken it verbatim, posted it on the Web, and then inserted it in the print magazine. The sales person would send a note to the marketing person notifying them that we were covering ABB, and by the way, want to buy an ad. Nothing wrong with that. It’s just a different business model. And one that is increasingly tough to sustain.
For me, this tidbit of a press release leaves me hungry to know more. I’d love a little more detail. I’m sure there must be an Internet of Things angle. Then rather than just calling out the product name, I’d love to know something of the hardware connections throughout the system. I’d love to know more about the analytics—is there ML involved that builds on the accumulating date for example?
I like to teach people considering a project something about what is involved in researching, designing, and implementing a system. Many times I have fielded inquiries from executives with just that question. And then, I would have a value-add and the company would show real expertise. I realize that this means more work for the marketing and PR teams. I sympathize. However, setting up a 30-minute interview would pay off for you, me, and the thousands of readers who stop by here.
Thanks for listening.
