John Taschek
Technologist. Communication expert. VP Strategy at salesforce.com, Editorial Director of CloudBlog.
The Real-Time Brand
As I write this, it is kickoff time for the Super Bowl, an event that galvanizes people as much as Bill O’Reilly does on a day to day basis. The Super Bowl is a brand, and while millions watch it, millions refuse to watch it, and hundreds of thousands are forced to watch it because [...]
Organized Robbery
We’re at a time of rebellion against maintenance fees, which now include the elements of insurance, extortion, declining systems, and of course refactoring all of which add to the costs of any implementation. Add that into the actual implementation itself, and one is left with whopping fees and eventually ineffective…
Dreamforce: Decade of Inspiration
I was at the first Dreamforce. It was in a hotel — the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco and it attracted 500 people and perhaps another 200 employees — roughly 2/3 of the entire company. The big announcements were related to sales force automation, but the company also announced custom tabs and some nifty [...]
Does Twitter (Really) Make you Smarter?
When 95 percent of college students use social media tools, perhaps excessively, it seems almost impossible to isolate a study that tries to answer the question “does social media make you smarter.” This is an awkward and irrelevant question to ask and anyone who has been born since the industrial revolution but before Facebook was [...]
Software is Roadkill
The fastest way to become roadkill to venture capitalists is to become a software company. Software may not be inherently evil (it has created wealth for many people that is in proportion to the pain it has provided to many customers). Software and specifically on-premise enterprise software, however, is clearly…
An debate with the Doctor of Failure
Failure happens. There are many issues and stakeholders in any technology implementation process and any of them adds complexity that can lead to failure. The question is how much technology, the DNA of the technology vendor, and other stakeholders contributes to the failure. Is it always a project management issue…
Why? Why? Facebook Mail
#FacebookMail? The basic childhood question is Why? Parents patiently answer with well thought-out questions only to be met with another "why?" Finally they give up and say Why Not? This of course haunts the parents for the rest of their lives. So when Facebook launches its email and people freak…
Are Analysts the New Media?
Technology media was further disrupted this morning when a seemingly minor announcement rocked the media world. The minor part is this – a new analyst firm was launched today. The disruptive part is that the assemblage of key influencers into one organization that is not advertiser driven. The new firm…
Clouds and my Coffee
Dateline: Sydney Sydney is an amazing city, much like most Western large cities in many ways and much different too. The CloudBlog team decided to check on how Sydney perceives cloud computing – extremely well it seems. Within a half dozen meetings and one keynote from CloudBlogger Peter Coffee it…
IT: Become Relevant or Die
This week CloudBlog is in Sydney, Australia, but just last week we were in Orlando Florida at Gartner Symposium – the 20th anniversary of the conference show – a feat in itself in many ways. One thing is clear, even though the two cities are roughly 10,000 miles apart, the adoption of the cloud is [...]
