From the latest Wulffmorgenthaler newsletter:

“Something interesting has happened.It comes as no surprise that Wulffmorgenthaler influence people around the globe and inspire them to ruin their lives, waste their financial funds and do terrible things to their bodies. But sometimes our hypnotic power reach people in a way that was not our intention.

For some time back we made a comic strip with some frogs. We thought nothing of it. Then recently an expensive commercial for a very well-known brand started emerging on television screens. That commercial featured frogs. Very much in the same way as in the Wulffmorgenthaler comic strip featuring frogs. And we began thinking: Is there a connection here?

What do you think? Check the strip and the commercial“

I think the connection is pretty close. This guy, Oscar, and his friend, Hank, they seem pretty convinced!

What do you think?

I’m talking about the importance of working effectively with marketing technology and some of barriers I experience in the market …

Check it out: http://advertising.msn.dk/mediacast.

BTW: Yes, it is in Danish – isn’t it just a beautiful language???

This guy Alexander Kjerulf is really on to something! I must hire him to learn more …

“Imagine waking up every morning, totally energized about your job, your co-workers and the chance to go in and make a difference. THAT is happiness at work and every single one of us can have it!”.

I like to think that this could be an exact depiction of TraceWorks. I know I spent a lot of my energy thinking about how to make TraceWorks an awesome and cool place to work. These are some of things we have today:

For the geeks

• A chance to work with cutting-edge technology
• A rare chance to really be challenged (speed, data size etc.)

For the adventurous

• Working as an early adopter in a potentially huge market

For the rest

• Beers every Friday (and whenever we like celebrating something)
• Cool offices on Christianshavn – best place in Copenhagen!
• Brunch for everybody at least once a week
• Healthy smoothies & super coffee & and best in-town lunch
• Competitive salary and perks
• Working with fellow TraceWorkers?

But we’re not there yet! Traceworks is not a 100% happy. Maybe only 80% right now. What can we do?

We’ve been working on a HUGE project for 2 years now. Which is 99% finished (meaning; it’s a web application so it’s NEVER finished). The last year has been just hard work and we haven’t really enjoyed the fruits of our hard labor yet.

I’m sure when we see clients really beginning to use our new awesome can-do marketing tool and when we see all the positive feedback coming in this will boost our moral a lot. I’m certain of this. This might be 10% of the last 20% missing.

So what about the last 10%?

What about something like this (the full “Happy At Work Manifesto”):

4: Knowing what makes me happy or unhappy at work is my responsibility
It’s not up to my boss, my co-workers, my employees or my workplace to experiment to find out what it takes to make me happy at work. It’s up to me.

15: Happiness at work is something I create now.
Not next month, next quarter or next year. You’re happy now – or never.

16: I recognize that happiness at work doesn’t come from the absence of bad things in the workplace
All workplaces can have unpleasant people, too much work, demanding customers, stress, red tape and other idiosyncracies and annoyances. Though we strive to minimize these, I won’t wait to be happy at work until all of these have been eliminated. If I did wait, I would never be happy.

17: Happiness at work is infectious – I will be a carrier
Unhappiness at work is also contagious – but it’s no fun to pass on that particular virus.

Sometimes it is a bit frustrating that we don’t belong to a well-defined software discipline like ERP, CRM or SRM – (most of the times it is not).

Dedicated software for marketing teams is a fairly new discipline. Sure, most marketing / management teams we explain it pretty quickly; “media planning, brand management, campaign management (on-line / off-line), and marketing strategy within one “can-do package” – integrated to the rest of the enterprise architecture e.g. CRM and BI platform” – wow, that sounds pretty cool.

But still we have to explain Headlight to them because they have never ever seen anything like this before. Don’t take me wrong I’m not complaining … It’s cool to be an early mover in a potentially huge new market – but sometimes I’m just a little confused about exactly how to describe Headlight best in order to get everybody aboard instantly.

How should we tag line Headlight? 3 possibilities I’m working on:

1. CRM for Marketing
Well, it’s not a CRM solution; it comes “before” CRM in the value chain … but is very closely related to CRM, which is a concept everybody is familiar with.

2. Marketing Automation
I think this concept is pretty big in the US and very used to describe email platforms and we’re not limited to only that.

3. Marketing Resource Management”
I like this … but would people understand it? Does it explain anything?

I actually like CRM for Marketing best … I think it has the best ring to it and holds the most valuable denotations (even though Headlight is not really a CRM solution at all …).

What do you think?