Mixing your audiences is never a good idea

There is a fierce debate about how to reach the CxO level person within an organization. If you are a technology company like Novell, this can be a difficult task due to the tendency to talk tech and craft that message into business speak. A CxO level person seldom seems to be interested in the technology, but instead is interested in the business drivers.

Novell has been doing a much better job of this than in the past. Their discussion of Interoperability as a value proposition is still a little bit techie but is much better than before.

My continued insistence that Business-Driven Linux be their message might sound like tech talk, but truly focuses on the area of the mind where a CxO person has limited knowledge of the technical specifics of a Linux distribution but believes they understand the business value that Linux brings by lowering their costs.

Oil and Water don't mix

This brings us to the struggle that technology companies have with attempting to sell a technology but wanting to talk business. Where do you have this kind of discussion?

Novell attempted to have BusinessShare be a part of BrainShare. The first a business discussion to CxOs, the second a technical discussion with IT managers and directors.

It didn't work.

For whatever reason, it seems almost impossible to invite Executives to a technical conference and have them find it worth their time. The techies don't like their bosses hanging around, and the bosses don't want to look dumb at a technical conference.

Birds of a Feather

If you are planning on selling to both audiences, my advice is to keep them separate. Have two completely separate events unrelated to each other.