RE: SW Marketing: Effective Sales Pitch for VCs / Girlfriends / etc?

[Note: changed LOD mailing list to the new one; the MIT-list is not used
anymore]

Aldo,

+1 to more or less everything you say.

>1) I think Mr Cyganiak's diagram could use some numbers ( how many
"records" are there in this giant database? )

This is actually one of the driving force behind voiD [1] - have a look
at the stats examples; pls. note that we're still defining the
vocabulary, so take this as a strawman proposal, rather. We are
currently heavily working on it, please expect some solid results by end
of August, latest. I've put a simple editor online as well [2]; this
tool should by in sync with the voiD vocabulary all time.

>2) We could setup a space devoted to marketing. Maybe in some of the
community wikis ( does this exist already? )

There is! I'd recommend using

http://community.linkeddata.org/MediaWiki/

for all linked data related marketing; please feel free to add as
needed, there.

Cheers,
	Michael


[1] http://community.linkeddata.org/MediaWiki/index.php?VoiD
[2] http://sw.joanneum.at/ve/


----------------------------------------------------------
 Michael Hausenblas, MSc.
 Institute of Information Systems & Information Management
 JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH
  
 http://www.joanneum.at/iis/
----------------------------------------------------------
 

>-----Original Message-----
>From: semantic-web-request@w3.org 
>[mailto:semantic-web-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Aldo Bucchi
>Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 10:03 PM
>To: Semantic Web; linking-open-data-request@simile.mit.edu
>Subject: SW Marketing: Effective Sales Pitch for VCs / 
>Girlfriends / etc?
>
>
>Hi All,
>
>Hopefully more and more of you are meeting up with VCs or selling
>internal projects using semantic web technologies.
>
>I sold my first RDF based project 5 or 6 years ago and lately I have
>had some tough VC/fund raising presentations. I realized that I have
>definitely improved my sales pitch over the years, so I thought I
>would share some brief thoughts with you guys and hopefully get some
>feedback and novel ideas.
>
>My current approach when selling a project that includes Semantic Web
>( specifically Linked Data ) technology is simple. I only use only TWO
>slides to talk about Semantic Web per-se:
>
>1) I replaced the web layer cake for this slide[1]
>2) Then I jump to the LOD cloud diagram by Richard Cyganiak[2]. I
>emphasize on the size of the datasets and how this is something that
>has never happened before.
>3) That's it. No more semweb talk. Focus on the value proposition and
>answer questions as they appear.
>
>The other useful diagram I have found useful is Nova Spivack's web
>evolution timeline[3] ( very buzz friendly ). The problem with that
>particular diagram is that it imposes an abritrary classification
>(1.0, 2.0, 3.0 ) and you will most probably run into some friction.
>
>
>So... I am sure lots of you have learned and mastered their 
>own sales pitch...
>
>What is yours?
>Any new diagrams that I don't know of?
>
>
>And two suggestions:
>1) I think Mr Cyganiak's diagram could use some numbers ( how many
>"records" are there in this giant database? )
>2) We could setup a space devoted to marketing. Maybe in some of the
>community wikis ( does this exist already? )
>
>And don't tell me that marketing is not important. This whole Linked
>Data / SW re-branding has really made some noise.
>( I know LD is not the SW, but it is a visible part of it ).
>
>
>Thanks!
>A
>
>[1] 
>http://blog.aldobucchi.com/2008/07/how-to-explainthe-semantic-w
eb-in-3.html
>[2] http://richard.cyganiak.de/2007/10/lod/
>[3] http://novaspivack.typepad.com/RadarNetworksTowardsAWebOS.jpg
>
>-- 
>:::: Aldo Bucchi ::::
>+56 9 7623 8653
>skype:aldo.bucchi
>http://aldobucchi.com/
>
>

Received on Thursday, 10 July 2008 05:27:21 UTC