Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Buzz on Banks

June 2, 2011 by buzzmethod

I will write this post up properly when I have time, but in the meantime, I would like to say a public thank you to William at Metro Bank, Holborn Branch.

I shan’t mention either of the two household name British banks who have messed me around so badly (not until I’ve consulted my legal team, anyway).

It took 45 minutes for Will to set me up with a personal account that has a debit card, which means I can make online purchases rather than try to pay with cash (which isn’t king any more, it seems).

Thank you Will.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 3 Comments »

Free Emergency Communications Templates

April 29, 2011 by buzzmethod

In emergency situations, whether at a corporate, or indeed a country level, there is a need for very clear and simple communications – there must be no room for ambiguity, as the results could be disastrous both at the time and in terms of protecting and restoring reputations as quickly as possible.

At Buzz we have developed a very simple set of documents, which we advise agencies to discuss with all clients early in their relationship.

We will be uploading them shortly in the hope that they prove useful for anyone who wishes to make use of them in the event of a crisis – but remember to discuss/fill them in as soon as you can, as it will be too late when something goes wrong.

Emergency Comms Checklist_Free

Emergency Comms Tree_Free

As these are basic communications tools, the normal copyright pertaining to intellectual property on this website does not apply. Feel free to make use of them. We will remove the Buzz logo from all documents. In due course, we will upload similar documents in other major outsourcing languages.

Posted in Crisis Communications, Free Emergency Communications Templates | Tagged | 1 Comment »

What does Buzz do?

April 19, 2011 by buzzmethod

We get asked this a lot.

The (somewhat over-simplified) answer is that we help our clients sell more.

That’s pretty much what we do.

We can prove that we’re good at it.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Phew! Mobile World Congress 2011 is over!

February 20, 2011 by buzzmethod

Thank heavens for that. I’ve had quite a couple of weeks – first Nasscom in Mumbai, which proved to be great for making contacts on behalf of ITIDA and indeed Buzz Method – it was great to catch up with Som Mittal, Ganesh Natarajan, Peter Bendor-Samuel as well as unexpected visitors such as Ray Wang (although as it was his 8th Nasscom, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him). All in all, I had more than 40 meetings in what was a great event.

And then, back home to Barcelona and MWC. This is the mobile industry’s premier event – bringing together everything from demonstrations of the latest mobile technologies and products, to hundreds if not thousands of media, bloggers and industry analysts, to major decision-makers from every industry (obviously, mobile tech reaches everybody).

It’s a crazy, sprawling affair that doesn’t stop for the best part of the week. Apart from the exhibition and the constant meetings, there are side events, not to mention the parties… Once again, Helen Keegan did a magnificent job at Swedish Beers

I was at MWC again for ITIDA and also for MailSuite. I think CEO Dan Field is happy with the whirlwind run of really fruitful meetings we had and once we’ve gone public about some of the details (we did tweet about some of the major successes), I hope to be able to publish a case study of how, together with Buzz Method and his Venture Capital partner, Dan has guided his unified messaging start-up to where it is now: looking at an exciting future backed by serious clients and corporate investors. A high profile media relations campaign will begin soon now that all of the building blocks are in place.

Right. I’m off to sit in a distant field for a couple of weeks to recharge.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

And so, the ICT conference season starts

February 7, 2011 by buzzmethod

For Buzz Method, anyway – it actually started with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and MacWorld, but they weren’t quite so relevant for our current client base, so we only needed observe them from a distance. For those interested in what’s still to come this year, here’s a pretty complete list of ICT events in 2011 (NB Buzz Method doesn’t endorse the source, it just looked useful).

I’m in Mumbai to attend the NASSCOM India Leadership Forum (AKA ‘NILF’ or simply ‘Nasscom’), which is outsourcing’s biggest annual get-together where I plan to meet a wide range of industry leading companies, analysts and pundits. There should be a lot of news coming out of Nasscom 2011. The main agenda is here and it’s packed with interesting topics. I’m here on behalf of a client that wants me to feed back what the good and the great of the global BPO/ITO sector are talking about so that they don’t miss a trick.

Similarly, next week sees Mobile World Congress (MWC) come to Barcelona for what looks like being the last time, but more of that later in the week.

For now, I’m getting ready for NASSCOM. If you want to keep up with what’s happening, you can follow it on Twitter: #NASSCOM_ILF (which, at 11 characters long, leaves only 128 characters for attendees like @rwang0, @markhillary and our own @buzzmethod, but we’ll do our best. There’s also the official NILF blog.

Right. I have a dinner appointment with Ray and Mark is hopefully joining us if his plane has landed on time.

Posted in Globalisation, Influencer Engagement, Mark Kobayashi-Hillary, NASSCOM, NILF, Outsourcing, Social Media, Talking Outsourcing | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Sourcing Influencers – Main Players

January 21, 2011 by buzzmethod

A lot of the work that Buzz Method does is in the field of outsourcing – our consultants have an excellent track record of advising organisations of all sizes and at all levels from outsourcing vendors to government agencies and we work with many advisors who influence the decision-making process, making recommendations on those players with whom our clients should partner and how best to engage with them. Usually, we work hand in hand with a PR agency who organise world class events and deliver excellent media relations results.

One of the slides we use to explain to our clients who they need to speak to and when they should do so is posted below. It depicts the different ‘influencers’ who advise companies looking to outsource a function is very popular with our clients, so we thought we would post it here in the spirit of being helpful.

There’s quite a bit of cross-over and the lines between the different types of organisation can be very blurry, particularly as companies’ competitive strategies evolve, but in our experience the model works pretty well. Buzz Method’s focus is on the organisations represented by the green lines in the slide and we dovetail our communications efforts with our client’s ongoing media relations [orange] and business development activities. The slide demonstrates that as the decision-making process progresses from long-listing through short-listing and ultimately to the signing of the outsourcing deal itself, it’s necessary to engage with an increasing number of specialist advisors. There are some firms who can be involved from the outset through to implementation, although not many have the skills or the resources (or indeed the risk tolerance) required, so organisations tend to specialise on one part of the cycle.

The inevitable plug: Buzz Method has spent years building strong relationships with many of the most influential players that appear in the slide, both on a global and local level and have a reputation for an honest and efficient approach to managing communications programmes around outsourcing (BPO/ITO).

Feel free to contact us if you would like to know more about the way we help build trust and credibility for our clients, resulting in real business benefits.

Posted in Advanced Analyst Relations, Best Practice, Influencer Engagement, Outsourcing | 3 Comments »

The Use and Abuse of Analysts (poor things)

January 4, 2011 by buzzmethod

I just stumbled across an extremely useful document that those prolific chaps at Quocirca published back in 2007 (I seem to recall posting a link at the time). It’s packed with great information and spells out how not to treat members of the analyst community – the report “Use and abuse of analysts“ might need updating a little and I would like to see it expanded to include other ‘influencers’ (perhaps I will when I have time), but it should certainly be compulsory reading for anyone entering the world of AR.

All of the guidelines set out in the document are broken either by accident or deliberately every day of the week by ICT companies of all sizes and the communications agencies/consultants they employ. Trust me, it’s a fact.

To be fair, sometimes there’s no way round it… after all, rules were made to be broken… but I have known some repeat offenders who think it’s OK to grab a mile when it’s only really fair to take the inch that’s being offered. They tend to end up with mud all over their faces.

Posted in Analyst Relations Basics, AR Isn't Rocket Science, Bad practices, Best Practice | Leave a Comment »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 694 other followers