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.
Seth Godin’s book ‘All Marketers Tell Stories’ inspired me to share what I’ve learnt in 30 years of the software business.
Software companies often find themselves stranded on islands of excellence, serving a small group of customers but unable to grow. Opportunistic sales result in a few more islands from time to time.
It’s depressing to see companies with excellent technology shipwrecked. A love-hate relationship with marketing is often a contributory reason. We love having many qualified leads, but hate getting our hands dirty with marketing.
Why’s marketing hated like this? In my experience the cause is often the developer background of many managers. Developers equate lead generation with advertising. And developers hate advertising even more than marketing!
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).
I saw first-hand what happens when your worldview hold’s you hostage: we lost out on a deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Worldviews change; ignore at your peril. At Dynasty Technologies Inc. in the 1990s, I saw first-hand what happens when your worldview holds you hostage.
Dynasty was a 2nd generation client/server application development tool. Our main competitor was Forté Software Inc. Founded in the mid 1990s, both companies had significant venture capital funding with a growing global base of enthusiastic early adopters.
The Dynasty Development Environment generated native C/C++ code with no runtime system. Forté generated proprietary code with a runtime interpreter. For some developers runtimes were OK; for others a pure incarnation of evil. Customer’s runtime worldview was decisive for sales.
The Clang compiler recovers from unknown tokens using a spell-checker. Something small can be remarkable and worth spreading.
Being remarkable doesn’t always mean you have to develop something large. Sometimes remarkable is small, as this Clang example seen today on Hacker News demonstrates very nicely.
Clang is an open-source compiler front-end for C, C++ and Objective C. The project builds on the LLVM compiler back-end with the goal of replacing the GCC tool chain. Their worldview accepts that programmers can and do make mistakes. Amazing feats of Clang Error Recovery shows how they’ve woven this worldview into the compiler.
What caught my eye was how Clang recovers from unknown tokens. Instead of unhelpful error messages (like GCC), the Clang team chose to do something remarkable: they added a spell-checker to guess what you mean:
Physical products are tactile, but software is intangible, so how do you think your audience expects it should look, feel or even smell?
Your target audience has a story about how they expect your product will make them feel. Marketers and developers must work together and meet this expectation with consistent and genuine stories woven into your software.
Physical products are tactile; you can feel them in your hands, how they move, smell and taste. Software is intangible. Even so, how do you think your audience expects your software to feel? To look? To smell? How should it look on opening the box (installing)?
Software is easier to change than physical products. Good design splits function and presentation; weaving your story into your software will be easy. Or not.
The waterfall model for content creation is too slow. You need an agile process to create and ship your storytelling content.
To sell a product you must know what your target audience wants, not just what they need. Wants changes; worldviews are not static. Every message and conversation with peers has an impact, moving the story along.
The software business is quickly picking up qualities of the fashion industry. Both satisfy wants, not needs. Does anyone need designer sneakers? No. Do they want them? Yes!
Worrying about the slippery slope of fashion isn’t new. Windows 3.0 lead business users to want GUIs for their apps. They didn’t need a GUI for their B2B apps, but it was obvious they wanted one. They got what they wanted.
Future employers won’t need you, but they might want you. Your product is now your skills and the stories to go with them.
Many B2B developers are anonymous workers in a software factory, with little or no connection to customers. Perhaps they get a customer visit here, or a user conference there; but typically not much more.
As products become software and the stories to go with them, previously backstage developers have a new role. Your target audience cares who produces your software, where they are and how they do it. These all contribute to the stories customers tell themselves about how they expect your product to make them feel.
Audiences want to go backstage, meet developers and see how they work. But watch out: if you don’t live your story you’ll get caught.
Packaging and labelling carry much of the load for physical goods storytelling. You have it easier: your marketers and software developers can work together and weave your stories right into your software.
Who those developers are, where and how they work is part of your story. Your audience wants to peek backstage, just like developers love to watch insider videos of Google’s fancy offices.
Going backstage used to be expensive. Developers visited customers on-site, or prospects visited the labs. Both were one-offs and not reusable.
StoryComplete.com is a blog (now retired) for independent software vendors (ISVs) on marketing by storytelling. Andrew Biss wrote Story Complete to gain experience in blogging regularly.
The Story Complete blog is about helping ISVs sidelined by innovation and new players entering the game to acquire the new strategy and marketing skills they need to get back onto the field, re-enter the game and win.
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