Eric Norlin's Weblog: Authenticity Counts

March 14, 2005

Authenticity Counts

Kim is writing good stuff about how the "markets are conversations/relationships" rap moves throughout the corporate structure - not simply into marketing, and i agree.

Funny thing is - I never considered myself a "marketer" until i took on the title (and why not - i sure as hell wasn't gonna be the CTO or VP of Engineering, Ping would've crashed and burned ;-).....i've told this story before, but briefly:

I've always been a writer. In college, I wrote volumes (mostly about comparative literature topics, Tibetan Buddhism and comparative mythology). When I worked for the government, I wrote manuals (7 or 8 of them if memory serves). When I worked in financial services, I wrote and wanted to publish -- they told me no, so i quit (basically). This was long before blogs (you know, LOOOOONG ago - like 1999 ;-).

In the process of all of that I had managed to get Chris Locke to invite me to his house for coffee (by calling him an "arrogant asshole" oddly enough -- i've always had a talent for "biz dev" ;-) -- and those long interactions with Chris (including helping him move out of the house during his divorce) led to a friendship that led to a business possiblity: He was busy being a world-famous author (flying around giving high-priced lectures), but he had committed to do this website and conference (personalization.com) being run by NetPerceptions. Chris knew I could write, and wasn't a moron -- so I became "managing editor." And the first thing we did was get this thing up and running called a "blog" (we used blogger).....i'm pretty sure that (outside of Userland and Blogger) we were the very first "corporate blog".

Next thing I know, I'm flying around speaking at conferences -- doing the "marketing guru" thing. I never thought I was - by any stretch. It just all seemed easy:

1. don't take yourself too seriously.

2. get involved in interesting conversations.

3. write - A LOT.

Short story: in the course of that I did a lot of off the wall things -- including starting The Titanic Deck Chair Rearrangement Corporation with Chris (which was maybe the funniest thing i've ever been involved in).....and then one day, Doc Searls told me to have lunch with this guy in Denver - Andre Durand.

I don't know that Andre and I "hit it off" right away -- we were kinda feeling each other out, and I don't think either was blown away at first. As the story goes, a couple of days later - Andre's "identity vision" had taken over my brain, and I was in his office just wanting to be involved. Andre was - no joke - the first real "visionary" i'd ever met...and it was just damn exciting to know that we were all huddled up talking about this great little secret (namely - how identity connected to everything digital) before it was widely known.

Soon enough I was doing what I had been doing -- writing and organizing a conference for Digital ID World. And beyond that I soon managed to work my way into working on Ping (because I "wanted to be in the game - not just writing about it"). Along the way I figured out that I'm pretty good at sales, that I somehow manage to have decent "relations" with industry folk - even though I'm a complete asshole sometimes, and - oh yeah -- this "marketing stuff" comes pretty easily to me. (well, easy in the sense that i really only need to be taught once.)

So, next thing I know I'm a "VP" of marketing at Ping. Am I a marketer? I guess so. I build lead generation programs, manage to turn out some half way decent product marketing (by no fault of my own), generate some buzz, get some press, get to know the folks that matter -- and spend a lot of time thinking about what Ping's "market" is and should be. And a lot of that is listening, and telling jokes, and just being who you are. Authenticity counts. If I had to describe myself - i'd say i'm a storyteller.

I don't know where i'm going with this......I think kim's right about conversational conventions running throughout a company -- and i'm sure that its a lot harder at a place like Microsoft than it is Ping.

At Ping, when there's a gap btwn engineers and marketers, we go to a foosball table and settle it like geeks and men (meaning the engineers *always* kick my ass). Mostly, though -- i just try to tell a few jokes, be authentic (and authentic doesn't always mean nice), and work as hard as I can to ensure that Ping winning comes first.

I don't think that's all that different from what the engineers do.....

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March 14, 2005

Authenticity Counts

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