Corporate Communication, Communication?

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by: Sigurd Rinde

This blog is is a kind-of-business-blog, in the sense that I blog my thoughts, and in business I try to implement those same thoughts.
We’re making what others may term as enterprise software, but I’d rather stick to run-your-business software – cause that is what it does.

One of my favourite tasks is to keep an eye open to what’s in the pipeline of run-the-business software (usually called ERP, CRM, Accounting systems, Supply chain management, BPM and whatnot). For that I often check out what the good and famous VC’s have been investing in lately.

Take a highly respected firm like Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers and check out the links to their Enterprise Software & Service portfolio companies. Note the prevailing "a leading provider" and "standards-based, loosely-coupled, event-driven architecture easily extends the reach of enterprise application integration solutions" speak.

If you get a clear and precise vision of what any of those guys are doing – please drop me a line.  I’m sure that they do something worthwhile, but for some reason the words elude me. Ditto if you feel a tingle of excitement when you read their sites. I go completely blank. But maybe it’s me. Anyway, I probably do the same, delivering a whole set of incomprehensible business-product blah blah when asked.

Struggling the other day with the product description for a freethinking friend, he suddenly asked for a description in the same terms as I would describe cycling (we both love cycling)!

Good idea, so we went: "Cycling is pure, only you and the perfectly tuned carbon/titanium machine out there rolling effortless along the deserted roads and rolling hills. And you race for any hilltop, not to say when you’re out with your cycling buddies, every signpost is a potential finish line. And in the peloton you depend on the others, you are together even if you race, a common journey…"

For me, some words simply clicked. I could use them to describe the different aspect of our software! Self indulging of course, but a mile more fun than using scalable, transforming and other misused words all over.
So I did.

[UPDATE] So I did it again, used the idea – with a twist – and redid the whole site in the simplest form possible, fewest words possible etc. etc. [/update]

I would be immensely thankful if you would bother to take a peek and gimme an honest kick in the butt:  Did I get lost cycling? Or was the sound of head scratching overwhelming? Or worse, it was a boring read.
Then I promise to rethink – again.