Steve Mann 2.0: Open for Business

Well... its been quite a long while since I've written anything in ye ol blog o mine. So what better way to dust off this thing than to to talk about what I've done and what I plan on doing. First things first. I am pretty damn happy these days. The Trips are great and there are super special people in my life supporting me thru the big transitions I'm making these days.

I've been doing a lot of noodling... about me, what I want for myself yada yada yada... I came really close to leaving tech all together... you see, I've always had a passion for the brain, neuroscience and clinical psychology (the book sitting next to me right now is titled, "Welcome To Your Brain" ... so I was thinking seriously about going back to school and getting my PhD or PsyD in Clinical Psych and hanging a shingle.... and one day I may yet do that... but now... as the 2.0 extension implies, my love of and passion for tech is still strong in me and I want to play that out.

What I'm attracted to... I've been thinking about the large company experiences I've had... CA, SAP, [ Insert Large Company Name here] ... and while they've been mostly good (like anything) -- the capital resources, the people, the opportunities to work in global organizations with global cultures, I am finding myself attracted to smaller, agile organizations... I like to build young companies... to grow things... to make them successful... that's what turns me on.  Of course if Eric Schmidt asked me to run Google, I wouldn't turn him down (I do expect that call at any moment).

What am I doing now?  Well, I'm having a great time imparting what I know to other companies...in other words,  I'm consulting... what a shock eh? 

Consulting you say Steve?  What type?  Well here's what Steve Mann 2.0  is offering:

Social Stuff

• Social Media Strategy
• Social communications and buzz monitoring
• Go-to-market refinement and execution

Marketing & Business Stuff

• Market Segmentation including Attitudinal Segmentation.
• Category Development and Management -- marketing organizations are too often brought in late in the game for a corporate push.   Whether a product launch or a new go-to-market effort, typically these teams are the last to know. But in this economy that doesn’t work. So rather than focus on fighting for a market toehold or the arts and crafts aspects of sales and marketing, we  help companies define, deploy and build fundamentally new categories for your products and services. We’ll teach your sales and marketing teams intrinsically unique go-to-market approaches. And if we’re successful, we expect your organization will spend upwards of 70% of its time building and managing those categories rather than fighting for market toeholds. We're helping companies remove the wedge between Sales and Marketing and put the same lens on specific opportunities so you can work as a team.
• Unhooking from the machine - Success.  Companies go numb from it.  As they grow they develop corporate machines to manage the processes and operations that make the company hum.  But these machines constrain further dramatic growth and foster cultures of incrementalism.  Companies can't drive large innovations and market stance advances because of this incrementalist approach to business.  We help companies unhook by developing an Blueprint. It provides  organizations with new methods for bringing sales, marketing, services and product development together in ways they’ve never done before. It also recommends new tools and tactics for driving collaboration, communication and co-innovation through vibrant and non-traditional channels.

Innovation Stuff

• Innovation platforms and sparking
• Getting your Juice back - we take teams through a series of custom-designed exercises to rediscover their juice -- what made them great to begin with -- and once found, we show them how to tap that juice for projects and efforts.
• Developing and following an honest Growth Strategy -- To take you from where your company is now to where it wants to be, Steve Mann 2.0 develops growth strategies and maps out a plan for executing it.

Customer Experience Stuff

• Customer Experience Strategy & Design
  
• Customer Experience Management - analysis, software and services
• Net Promoter consulting
  

Client Stuff

We've recently signed Verisign as a client (thank you Karen Snyder) and we're developing a number of things for them.  We're working on a social strategy for them. Following that strategy development we'll be doing some category go-to-market and communications work for them.   We're super excited about what we're doing and will post regular updates per Verisign's permission.

So there ya have it.... look I don't want to be just another consultant... they're a dime a dozen. Most consultants, feed those corporate machines with information and plans to drive further incrementalist thinking and efficiencies. I don't know how do that.  What I do know is what I've done for other organizations.  Put in place the plan and execution path to drive fundamental change... to drive some real growth... and to retrieve greatness if it was lost.

Steve Mann 2.0  Open for Business.

Comments

[Israel Blechman]

Good luck Steve!

[Paul Jozefak]

Good to see you back Steve!

[Dissertation Samples]

Blogs are so informative where we get lots of information on any topic. Nice job keep it up!!

[microgaming]

Good to see you back Steve and good luck on everything you try! I like this blog and will keep following it from now on. Sometimes when you are browsing around you get something good like this piece of info. Nice job and keep it up, we will keep following you.

[insects-world]

subscribe to the wishes :)