State of the media

Cadence’s take on social media

Mon, 9 Nov 2009 11:12:13 -0800

I was given the opportunity to have about a 30 minute chat with Jim Price and Dan Holden who manage to social media program at Cadence Design Systems. Cadence has been involved in social media for several years, initially with the launch of CDN Live. They’ve expanded the effort with the Cadence Community, Xuropa and made headlines by hiring EDA maven Richard Goering as their “chief blogger” last year. This interview has been edited, because no one has time for a 30 minute podcast but what remains is still educational.

The view from the boys in the press room

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:03:20 -0700

I did a boatload of podcast interviews with EDA companies at DAC in July and on my last day I got together with Dylan McGrath and Nic Mokhoff of EE Times regarding the issue of how the industry is communicating with its customer base. I think it’s interesting to note that while Dylan kinda agrees with me that he doesn’t see the evidence that engineers get all the information they need by talking to each other amd getting it off press releases, Nic generally agrees that engineers can get all the information they need off the web now, and will be able to do it even better in the future. What that means for traditional media, they aren’t sure.

Note: The sound level on this is a bit wonky because my computer was trying to balance my big mouth with Nic’s soft basso. You’ll probably have to turn up the sound to hear Nic.

The Audience Conference will help you connect with your market

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:56:18 -0700

My activity in European startups looking for funding brought me into contact with Irish entrepreneur Anton Mannering in 2008 and we had a pretty good connection at the time. He popped up again this week with a new venture in New York called, The Audience Conference. Considering I was talking earlier this week about how engineering-based companies need to learn how to communicate better with their audience, I thought the reconnect with Anton was providential.

Joe and Lou take on Moshe Gavrielov

Wed, 1 Apr 2009 15:00:05 -0700

Moshe Gavrielov made some interesting remarks at the Semico Summit about the value of marketing in technology industries. Dylan McGrath gave a report on it on the EE Times Programmable Logic DesignLine last week.

Paul Miller talks about the future

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 09:40:50 -0800

Paul Miller, CEO of TechInsights and the head honcho for EE Times, and I have been talking for sometime both in person, between our blogs and by email. A while ago he promised to sit down and talk frankly about how the B2B publishing world is changing and where he thought the value was. What surprised me in this interview is how strongly he came out for the concept of sponsored content from places like New Tech Press.

A Christmas present

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:23:20 -0800

It’s looking good for 2009. Merry Christmas.

IdaRose Analyzes the Situation

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:41:28 -0700

One of my all-time favorite analysts over the years has been IdaRose Sylvester, senior analyst for the semiconductor industry at IDC. Well, she was until about two months ago. She’s one of the latest victims of the penurious semiconductor industry who believes that information should be free and the editors and analysts should work for free. We spend sometime over coffee today talking about life in the media world.

Do we need filters?

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:42:36 -0700

Joe and I get into the issue of journalistic integrity and the need for the filters the media provides.

Brian Fuller 2.0

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:14:27 -0700

A little over a year ago I interviewed Brian Fuller, then editor in chief of EE Times on the state of the media. It was the kickoff of my podcast program and one of the most downloaded podcasts of State of the Media - both parts.

Brian threw us all a curve a few weeks later by resigning from EE Times and resurfacing a couple months later as the vice president of media strategies at Blanc and Otus in SF, a few blocks from the Times building he used to work in.

I decided it would be a good idea to catch up with him and see if his views of media have changed... they have.

Xuropa takes trade shows virtually

Mon, 2 Jun 2008 10:14:49 -0700

A few weeks ago I met with an former colleague, James Colgan, who has started a new company offering online, virtual trade shows. The company is called Xuropa (zhure-OH-pah). Yeah, I know, it’s been tried, but James is trying to approach the concept as an add-on to real-life trade shows, rather than a replacement for them. James has always been something of an out-of-the-box thinker and from what I’m hearing from potential exhibitors , he’s got an idea who’s time may have come.

Alix Paultre taking Advantage

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:06:43 -0700

Last summer I did an audio interview with Alix Paultre about what he was doing at Electronic Products and Hearst Communications. A few weeks later, Alix left Hearst and became the business development guy at the newly formed Advantage Media. He then disappeared from view until we ran across each other last week at ESC in San Jose. Lots of changes for Alix and Advantage as he’s now the development guy as well as editorial director for ECN, Wireless Design and Development and Medical Design Technology. He’s making some big changes.

My meeting with the money guy

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:25:25 -0800

After a long layoff due to holidays, physical therapy and illness (that was a bad winter) I finally finished editing my one and a half hour meeting with Morgenthaler’s Drew Lanza into manageable 15 minutes. And I finished it just 24 hours before the news that Maury Wright and Mike Santarini were let go from EDN. Drews comments and questions are even more important now.