Shifts in the Gov Media Landscape: What These Could Mean to B2G Marketing

In my new book, Selling to the Government, I quote my friend and long-time business development professional Bob Davis, PhD. In one of our interviews for a CD set we recorded on BD, he said, "Marketshare is rented, never owned."  This is one of those classic 'I wished I'd said it' statements. This statement is true not simply for contractors, but for government media as well, where the landscape is changing rapidly.

Among the changes you should be aware of, these seem to be of some significance. They appear in no particular order.

FierceMarkets: Late last year veteran reporter Dave Perara joined the staff of FierceMarkets to edit the government facing enewsletter FierceGovernmentIT. Dave helped make it a more interesting publication. FierceMarkets is an enews operation that has nearly 1,000,000 subscribers worldwide for the many tech enewsletters it puts out.  Fierce is doing a good job of growing marketshare and influence. They are making a strong push to grow mindshare in the government market. FierceGovernmentIT is a good read and the readership is growing. The associated web portal is a robust source for government IT information and there is a commitment to become bigger in this market.

BGov: Allan Holmes, former online editor of National Journal/Government Executive, moved to Bloomberg Government (BGov) late last year. He is only one of several editors and reporters to move to BGov. BGov is a paid content source for contractors, not a traditional media source. It almost does not belong in this post, but because I don't think the business model BGov envisions will work, it bears watching as it evolves. It will be interesting to see if Bloomberg's BusinessWeek starts covering more government contracting issues.

Washington Business Journal: Jill Aitoro, also formerly with National Journal/Government Executive, has moved to the Washington Business Journal. Washington Business Journal obviously has had a weak spot for years in the government contracting arena, and they are making up for lost time. Aitoro started in the government arena as editor of Government VAR in the early 2000s, then moved to Government Executive. WBJ also now has a new monthly column from industry veteran Larry Allen, former president of the Coalition for Government Procurement. Will this be enough to attract more ad dollars and readers? I don't think WBJ will ever be a primary B2G source, but with Jill and Larry there, it will be interesting to read.

AOL: Wyatt Kash, former editor in chief of Government Computer News and most recently content director of FOSE (both part of 1105 Government Media), is moving to AOL.  Wyatt Kash is not going to AOL to ignore the government market. AOL is hungry for niche content and Wyatt is a great editor so this bears watching as it evolves. I look for AOL to add a few more solid editors and reporters and go after this market with a vengeance.

FedScoop: David Stegon of FedTech Bisnow is moving to FedScoop. Goldy Kamali has carved out an interesting niche with http://www.fedscoop.com/, and I am not certain exactly what it is: part networking event producer, part advertising arm for her perpetual advertisers (Intel and Microsoft, and now HP and Symantec), part news source (no original news, but links to top stories from media and blogs). Whatever it is, it is interesting. The edgy style of David Stegon will certainly help get more visitors if Goldy and Dave can get people to sign up for the newsletter. FedScoop bears watching.

Bisnow (Almost Never Boring - gotta love that line!), http://www.bisnow.com/, an extraordinary enewsletter publisher and producer of numerous networking events, also continues to grow and expand the Bisnow brand and influence in DC and thirteen other cities, all of which are federal hub cities. Mark Bisnow is one of the more interesting people I know and it is always fun to have coffee with him and brainstorm. Dave Stegon going to FedScoop opens the door to changes at Bisnow. I have known Mark Bisonw by reputation since the late 1990s, when he was the main face and voice of MicroStrategy. He did a live radio show from the dining room at the Tower Club, which planted the seed for me wanting a talk show. Bisnow has three national newsletters: Fed Tech Bisnow, Real Estate Bisnow, and Association and Non-Profit Bisnow. Each city has a real estate newsletter, and Bisnow events occur in each city served. From his townhouse offices off Connecticut Avenue in NorthWest DC, Bisnow is always someone to watch because he is never boring and always innovative.

WFED and http://www.federalnewsradio.com/: Chris Dorobek has moved on to places yet to be named and Francis ("the voice") Rose will move into the afternoon drive-time slot. I refer to Francis as "the voice" because he has one of those voices that just oozes depth and authority. He is fun to listen to and you always learn something. With the departure of Chris Dorobek after two and one half years, there will be other changes coming to WFED. The only weakness of Dorobek in the PM drive time was he did his show live from 3-5 PM, then the show was repeated from 5-7 PM, unless pre-empted by a sports event. Francis Rose will do a 4 hour show, and he has become a top talent in our market. While I am not privy to what is happening, I expect some new shows and hosts. WFED also has a robust web presence, one of the best overall active news source for all things Federal, and the listening audience for WFED (1500 AM) continues to grow. The combination of broadcast and a robust web site is powerful. My show (Amtower Off Center, Monday at noon) is in year 5 and I have to say, while I hate the drive into DC, I always enjoy myself when I get there.

GovLoop: We also have the rise of Steve Ressler's www.GovLoop.com as an online social network, news and opinion source. The network is around 40,000 strong. Steve Ressler started http://www.govloop.com/ in June, 2008 as the first social network "by, for and about Feds", and in two and one half years it has grown to 40,000. While this is not huge by social networking standards, it is significant. Steve is no longer a Fed, but he remains a force. Some rumors put Dorobek here later this year. Will it be the blogging or broadcast Dorobek, or both? Ressler also does Gov 2.0 Radio with Adriel Hampton and Steve Lunceford on Blog Talk Radio.
 
GovWin: Jeff White's GovWin, now part of Deltek (along with Input), has become a great information source for small businesses seeking government contracts. It has several large businesses that use GovWin to identify the sub-contractors they require for bids. GovWin started out as a portal to help small companies partner and sub-contract and it is still that, but much more. It has become a news and education portal for the 27,000 plus members it serves. The site is free for small businesses to join, so there is every reason to do so. With a parent like Deltek and with Input as a sister company, I am looking for much more from http://www.govwin.com/.

TFCN- The Federal Contractor Network: Further, we have Alex George's TFCN network that started on LinkedIn and evolved into yet another social networking platform, http://www.tfcn.us/ with news and opinions. Alex George has been relentless in expanding the TFCN brand through deploying groups on LinkedIn and driving traffic to http://www.tfcn.us/ portal.


Final thoughts, comments and detritus:


Targeted content delivered by enews platforms is not going away and content delivered in mutliple ways is growing. Interactive content, where visitors or members can comment directly will be an important feature. Opinions and analysis, as well as news, will be part of the mix of the successful portals. The ability of members and visitors to share the content will assist in the viral spread. I am looking for an audio component from some of the more innovative players in the market. Web radio, podcasting and traditional broadcasting are key to delivering content in the ways that people digest information. Portals that offer a robust combination of news, opinions, blog(s), audio and video content will emerge stronger than those that have mutiple ways to disseminate appropriate content.

Audio has always been at best a sideline in our market, as had video.

No longer

As government contracting C-levels, sales, business development and marketing professionals, it is critical to understand where our target audience(s) get the information that is critical to them. The market is evolving in ways we could not imagine a few short years back. At my August,2008 session of Government Marketing Best Practices, I said traditional B2G media that did not adopt and adapt to social networking platforms would fall behind and lose marketshare. Those that were slow suffered.


And afterthoughts:

I am not ignoring 1105 (Federal Computer Week, Washington Technology, FOSE, etc), Government Executive, or Federal Times but will address print media separately soon. I am also not implying they are not changing and adapting, as they remain vital information sources to the government community.

I also did not address the blogging community at all in this, as it deserves a separate detailed analysis. I am currently seeking some input on this from some key bloggers in the community.

I will point out that though I am a member of GovLoop, GovWin and TFCN, LinkedIn is my social network of choice and it just hit 100,000,000 members. I am member # 222,445, having joined over seven years ago (February 11, 2004). LinkedIn is an important part of the information and content sharing platforms for the business of government.

Open Government & Innovation Conference

I had the absolute pleasure of moderating a panel at the Open Government & Innovation conference today at the Grand Hyatt in Washington DC. I moderated a panel in the Knowledge Management track on "Culture Shock: Transforming the Culture to Further the Mission." The event was produced by 1105 and I was invited to speak by my friend Suzanne Young.

My panel consisted of three extremely bright and well-versed knowledge management pros: Susan Camarena, Chief Knowledge Officer of the Federal Transit Administration, Barbara Pearson, Director of the KM staff at TTB in Treasury, and Rachel Lunsford, management analyst in the Office of Information & Technology, Veterans Administration. We had about 120 people in our session and overall it was quite informative, and thanks to my great panel, I think the attenders walked out with some great information. We also got to test an "instant poll" technology at the end of the session, prompted by the questions on our PowerPoint slides. People "voted" with hand-held keypads at the tables.

This event reminded me of the power of niche events. Niche events tend to provide more targeted information to an audience that cares about the topic (audience of Feds and vendors), and these events tend to be more more of a community affair as a result. Shared interests do that, really bring out the community in the gathering. It is difficult to explain to novices the power of targeted events, but if you were there, you could feel it.

After the panel session I was discussing that with Kim Hower of VMWare- how the government market truly niches down at the upper levels- a series of overlapping and inter-related circles of influence and interest. The deeper you get into the government market, the more important these niches become.

This is what we (anyone in the market) mean when we say this is a relationship driven market. You need a strong knowledge of your niche, then the ability and drive to find those people who share those interests. The resulting community shares knowledge in venues provided by trusted sources throughout industry and government. Fortunately, not all the venues are virtual.

I saw several industry friends at the event- Marc Hausman, Maxine Teller, Tom Ruff, Bob Gosselin, David Hubler, Wyatt Kash and others.

So why was I invited to moderate a Knowledge Management panel? Go back to who invited me. Suzanne Young and I have known each other for a long while, she from the event perspective, me from the speaker/industry watcher & commentator/consultant perspective.

It is a relationship driven market.

Thanks Suzanne- I had a blast!

Cisco v HP, Round 1

Washington Technology (through 1105 affiliate reporter Jeffrey Schwartz of Redmond Developer News) reports that Cisco has severed all ties with HP.
http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2010/02/19/hp-cisco-sever-relationship.aspx

As the WT article points, both companies have started to encroach on the other's turf with new products, or the threat of new products, so the split should not surprise anyone.

But what does it mean for the B2G market overall?

Cisco, like Microsoft, is every one's "big partner", and it has a huge influence on the B2G market.
Cisco has a well-directed B2G efforts which has been in place for several years, and they are truly pervasive in the Federal arena and throughout Washington DC. Their channel program has been consistent and well managed, which is a really big plus is a market where long-term relationships between companies are difficult to maintain. The channel program has allowed Cisco to identify and nurture many VARs and small IT companies that are now closely allied to Cisco.

HP, on the other hand, has had an inconsistent Federal program for years, sometimes favoring the channel, other times trying to go direct. During that same time, companies like CDW (and CDW-G) and GTSI have done well by and for HP in the government market.

What does this mean for HP in the federal market? Frankly, word on the street for a while has been that HP lacks a coherent and cohesive federal sales and marketing plan. There is HP presence in DC, but it lacks senior leadership. In a relationship driven market, this does not bode well for HP.

HP needs to put a senior director back in place in Washington DC and give him/her the clout to do what it takes to build a consistent B2G federal program.

In the WT article Gartner analyst Tiffani Bova said "she wouldn't be surprised to see the two companies iron out their differences eventually and come up with a more mutually acceptable pact."

Frankly I don't see that happening. Short of one company buying the other, this has as much chance as Steve Jobs showing up at Scott McNealy's birthday party.

If it becomes an all-out war, the channel players, especially smaller resellers, may be caught in the middle. These smaller channel players may have to choose between Cisco and HP.

Stay tuned!

Beware of B2G Institute, part 2

The Huffington Popst weighs on the alleged mis-deeds of the B2G Institute:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/03/scheming-businessman-hold_n_210851.html

and this major warning from The Center for Public Integrity:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/blog/entry/1404/

A few tips for selecting venues requiring your time and your money:

1) pedigree - has the event producer "been there, done that." Many have beendoing this a long time (Federal Business Council,, Digital Government Institute, 1105 Government Media, government Exec, AFCEA, etc) - and some have not. See my posts from Feb 2009 on Why People Are Leery of Events.

2) how many times has this particular event occurred (annual sinc 1990?, 2001? annual since last week?)

3) will the event producer list the sponsors and exhibitors from previous years?

I have seen events where the event producer will list key government people as speakers, yet when I call the govies, they have no idea who the producer or event is.

Hmmm????

FOSE, Government 2.0 Camp and more

Government 2.0 Camp:

Although I was not there, this event created a ton of buzz which continues. Steve Radick has a great post on the event here
http://steveradick.com/2009/04/07/a-challenge-to-government-20-camp-attendees/
Give it a look, take some of the challenges to heart. I will be at the next Camp.


FOSE:

I posted a question on about 20 of my government-facing groups at LinkedIn on FOSE: I simply asked what people thought of it. I did not attend FOSE this year as I was heading over to the UK that week and had some prep to do for my trip.

The consensus is....that there is no consensus. This has been the same for several years now. Here are a few of the unedited responses (without names):

- Mark, I did not go and haven't for a few years now. FOSE has lost interest for me because it became so hardware and even software vendor based. I'd much rather go to a homeland defense/homeland security conference and see the specific items designed for the fields of work rather than a generic IT conference.

- I attended. Thought it was a good conference - presentations, keynotes, exhibit floor. Of course, I might be a bit biased as one of the presentations was mine. :-) The 1105 folks know how to put on a conference.

- FOSE was a solid event this year. Industry particpation was down - but government attendance was strong - and the decision makers were throughout. Its been the best conference of 2009 so far.

- I did go for two days and was disappointed with the turnout at the Gov. 2.0 presentation especially.

- I thought that the show itself was pretty good. I didn't attend last year; however, most I have spoken with who attended last year and this year seem to think that this years show was a lot better than last years. I was only down there one day, but the foot traffic was pretty steady all day, and I really enjoyed some of the topics covered during the breakout sessions... by far, imho, the Web 2.0 panel discussion was great.

-We were actually "exhibitors" at GovSec in the adjoining room at the Center and we were (literally) fifty feet from the connecting door... We received a ton of walk through our booth from folks headed to FOSE. They claimed that they had no idea of the co-joining and if the did they would have brought additional folks from their departments. Personally, I think there was a wonderful opportunity for synergy between the IT folks and Physical Security folks since those worlds are coming so much closer together... If they continue to co-join the events then they should sponsor some "joint presentations" showing the inter-operability of the two sectors... It just makes sense to me!

- FOSE is not worth attending unless you are a big box provider. The big box companies: IBM, CISCO, HP, etc. dwarf any independents from gaining attention. Also, typical attendee is lower level government managers without control over funds who are there to get the swag handed out at the booths.

As you can see, some liked the show and benefitted from it, others did not like the show. Part of this is the expectation and plan you have before attending. Part is the show itself.

Events need to be a part of the government market landscape - no doubt about it. I prefer more focused events as a rule.

If FOSE, along with GovSec, is to remain part of the B2G ecosystem, I think it needs a strong focus and a broader networking appeal - networking in both the web 2.0 sense and the traditional face-to-face sense.

A couple thoughts on what needs to happen is FOSE is to gain broader community support;

1) year-round conversations (via web 2.0 platforms) on what FOSE needs. This will get grassroots feedback that should help planning.

2) continued emphasis on the educational/certification side. I was happy to see this get some emphasis this year.

3) a FOSE groups on various social networks, including FederalContractor.us, GovLoop.com and LinkedIn.

4) semi-related, but in the category of nothing to be done about it....I do not like the DC Convention Center and I am far from alone in that assessment. Parking is minimal and the layout is poor. Again - nothing to be done about this because there is no fall-back venue.

Suufice it to say I heard nothing about big bags - http://www.federaldirect.net/offwhite21.html

Enough said for now.

End of Week Notes

The Meet/Network with the B2G Press event I referenced a few days ago now has a web site for registration - http://www.eventbrite.com/event/263857204. I would suggest registering early as this will sell out. If you attend, look for me.

My radio show Monday (2/2/09) will feature Bob Woods, CEO of Topside Consulting (www.topside-consulting.com). Bob is a former Federal CIO (GSA, VA, others) and we thoroughly discuss what the transition means to both senior Feds and the contractor community. This is a good interview. The show airs at noon Monday on 1500 AM in Washington, DC and is simulcast on www.FederalNewsradio.com, where it will also be archived. On Monday, Feb 9, my guest will be Kevin Plexico of Input.

I will be in the February issue of Washington Technology...comes out Monday.

At another 1105 media property, Wyatt Kash, editor in chief of Government Computer News (www.GCN.com , also takes the top spot at Defense Systems magazine (http://defensesystems.com) while retaining his role at GCN.

And in case you missed it, I was also featured at www.TheStreet.com
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10458382/1/the-government-as-a-rich-business-client.html

Have a great weekend!