6 articles tagged ‘Credibility’

Video classics: Developers, developers, developers, developers May 26th 2010

Platforms need developers to succeed, so you need stories that resonate with developer’s worldview. Stories that you live to make true.

Your stories must be true. Developers can spot lies and it’s easier than ever to spread bad news, such as on Facebook. Not to pick on Facebook, but they serve as an example of conflict between a platform vendor and developers.

Facebook is a platform for third-party applications. And not just for games; you’ll find a range of business and marketing applications as well. After all, with Facebook’s massive user base there’s money to be made.

Apple: Get the meta-programming tools off my lawn! April 10th 2010

Apple’s walled garden is becoming a hermetically sealed world with a (secret) licence agreement to sterilise every input.

The clash of worldviews between Apple and developers took a turn for the worse this week. For the first time, Apple will be banning meta programming tools for the iPhone and iPad. Section 3.3.1 of the latest iPhone Developer Program License Agreement states:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

Spreading stories: Get these 5 ducks in a row March 28th 2010

You can’t spread your own story, just create a fertile environment, weave your story, give it its freedom and wish it a world of luck.

Stories are your best chance of getting your message to the people you need to hear it. Even so, the right story told to the right people is no guarantee your story will spread. You need 5 ducks in a row to have a chance of spreading:

Spreading stories: Facts are forgettable by design March 22nd 2010

We don’t see that facts are holding us back. Facts can come later; start with stories. Facts are forgettable but stories are spreadable.

I’ll bet you clearly remember stories first heard as a child. Our minds are storytelling machines, helping us remember information with exquisite fidelity.

In stark contrast: how many bullets can you remember from the most recent presentation you sat through? I’ll hazard a guess that it’s not many. Or any?

Stories are easy to remember and good stories survive by spreading. Epic stories have survived for thousands of years, and are going strong today.

Target audience: They’re waiting for you to show up March 20th 2010

Talking with people paying attention and seeking you out is a lot more fun than continuously interrupting people who’ll ignore you!

Don’t waste your time interrupting people not paying attention. Instead, focus on those few special people who are paying attention.

Those few special people are discussing your domain on forums, blogs and newsgroups. Your first job is to find and join these continuing conversations.

Don’t barge in, interrupt and start selling; that’s the best way of ensuring they’ll ignore you. Instead, start by listening for a while before contributing.

Credibility: Not enough to approach prospects directly March 18th 2010

Prospects pay attention if they hear about you from someone they already trust. The bad news: that person can never be you.

Prospects won’t hear your advertising message; they simply are not listening. However, if a miracle occurs and they stumble across your product, you have a credibility problem: you don’t have any!

Website cutting-edge? Brochures tip-top? 30-day free trial awesome? Great, but it doesn’t change the fact we simply don’t believe what vendors say. Don’t take this personally. It’s not you specifically; we’ve all learned the hard way not to trust what vendors say.

So, prospects ignore your advertising and assume what you say is untrue. How, then, can you reach out to prospects and win new customers? Simple: personal recommendation.

Not found what you’re looking for? Then try the Story Complete site map to explore by article title, category, tag, month and author.