Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Blue Fish: A Real-time Case Study

In my first post to this blog entitled I GET IT! Now what? I stated that the getrati--those marketers who get that marketing isn't about looking good and shouting loud--had three choices when working for a company that doesn't get it:
  1. Go work somewhere that you can do "got it" work--like by yourself.
  2. Do "got it" work where you are and hope no one notices until the proof is in.
  3. Squelch your gotism and wait for the powers above to get it (which usually occurs immediately after it's time to "get" something else).
At the time I posted this, I was squarely on the path #1 after failing miserably at #3. My criteria were simple. Find a company that:
  1. wasn't bewildered by technology
  2. had an entrepreneurial spirit
  3. had a strong idea of who they were as a group of people.
The ideal company would already know that they wanted to build a community, but I realized that taking a stand on this could add two years to my search. In early April, I chose Blue Fish Development Group. Oddly enough, they chose me too. Blue Fish is a technology consulting firm. Check on #1. Blue Fish was a six-year-old self funded startup that was profitable. Check on #2. Blue Fish has a high level of what Patrick Lencioni calls "Organizational Clarity." Check on #3. They didn't know they wanted to build a customer community, but they had inadvertently started one already. Next time: Getting the job: Massey Marketing Manifesto.

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