Serena software goes Mashup TV

I was consulting on a project and needed to evaluate the Serena software solution for a company. These guys are going to be reaping the rewards of success. Their website design just nails the target market and the usability is dead on; see, try, and buy, talk about keeping it simple. And while great design and navigation are worth the effort, it's the video content that sends this one out of park! Serena has created a video collection they call Mashup TV. They have a sense of humor, because they know we (those who surf and buy and work online) do too. Watch the parody of the Product Manager and Engineering Director bashing it out about priorities and bandwith...



From Mashup TV you can watch Michael Parker's Chalk Talk. Michael is the product manager who belongs in front of all your prospects, listen to him explain what a Business Mashup is, and more importantly why you should care. This is a value proposition statement that might be lost among all the cluttered content of another internet day if he were not right there, talking to you, and white boarding with you



Serena has all the bases covered: video to communicate their strategic value proposition, video to develop a community of users, video testimonials that serve as a personable relatable reference that is just what your next client needs to get on board. Are you using video yet?

“…B2B communications are NOT in video…”

In a conversation that came about after my last post regarding video as a “relevant “ communication medium in a software development businesses, I found myself facing nearly the same argument from a B2B perspective. My protagonist in this case accepted video and other forms of online media as valuable B2C vehicles but dismissed its presence in Business to Business relationships, management, and information exchanges (hence the quote). So the conversation was interesting and we debated a bit, but I knew I would have to show this individual the face of what he believed non-existent in order to help him reach the first step: Acceptance.

This morning I’m digging around my usual online news centers and thinking about trying to find some recent articles that addressed this evolution in Business communication. As I’m reading a WSJ.com article with some level of consciousness and thinking about my recent conversation, something to the right of my screen caught my eye. There was a movie box playing what “looks like video" of a glass with coins filling it. There were also words posing the questions “Do you invest in IT?”, then “Do you spend IT?”. A few seconds later, I’m recognizing this is exactly what I was talking about. The ad completes and I see Accenture, so I click the box and allow my attention to be directed at their landing page. I smiled widely. This is another place that gets it, and for all those that don’t yet, be concerned.

The landing page presents me a visually pleasing presentation of information on the value prop and solutions. Mid screen is a movie box above which has a blurb describing who the individual in the box is and why I might want to hear from her. This is known as a talking head piece (meaning a head and shoulder shot), and this piece is a video testimonial. Now I’m standing up at my desk I’m so impressed. You have no idea how many times I have advised a client to use video testimonials, they can brilliant! So of course I press play and learn from a very nice, enthusiastic woman, who happens to be a CEO at a major electric organization how Accenture products and service helped her transition her organization to a platform for growth which has lead to a 125% increase in stock. SHWING!

This is not only B2B communication (and marketing)but it is on IT, I mean this is about as dry a well of content as you can drill and they have made it engaging, informative, compelling and the most important quality, relatable. If I am a CEO with enterprise IT needs, I would listen and learn. I would pick up the phone after hearing a piece like that a gazillion times faster than after reading a white paper from …no names…let just say the other guys who don’t yet get it.

Here’s the landing page for Accenture that I saw.

BTW – the article I was reading on WSJ.com was about Dell, HP and others full court press into online video. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out it out. Dell now has a place referred to as Studio Dell that is a library of video content on everything. This is B2C communication evolution.

The WSJ article