Opportunity Missed to Generate Demand through Influencers

This morning I read a press release from a company next door releasing new builder software. While I thought it was very engaging as you can see from the first few lines:

Boise Engineered Wood Products Introduces New Tools for Homebuilders and Building Material Retailers

Last update: 1:00 p.m. EST Feb. 16, 2009

BOISE, Idaho, Feb 16, 2009 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) -- Boise Cascade, LLC, headquartered in Boise, Idaho, has introduced two valuable business tools to help homebuilders construct homes with green infrastructures at lower cost, in fewer days. "21 Ways to Build Profitably and Green" is a 12-page booklet available to builders at no cost, offering new techniques for building homes in today's competitive building environment. As home prices have fallen and profit margins narrowed, one of the "21 Ways" tools uses electronic take-offs to provide fast, accurate material estimates. This enables builders to know costs more precisely and assure profitability while meeting customer pricing expectations.

They failed by making it hard to get to the next level of engagement - using their software.

I first went to their guides and was intrigued:

Then, I dug in to find their software (which should have been easier from the pdf file) and then I found out I had to go through a distributor on certain software packages and had to qualify for others.

So, you may be asking, why does this matter to me since I'm not a builder?

Well, we are in the home shopping process and I do have a builder I'm working with who has been a volume builder in healthier times and I want to send him this link and ask him if he is using these tools to keep my costs down and to build a greener home, but my interest waned when I couldn't see the immediate value in a simple-to-watch, product demo.

Come on Boise Cascade, it is as simple as setting up Camtasia for one of your software gurus and giving them 90 seconds to walk through the product.

Still better than a simple demo, give this software away for free like Google Sketchup does and you will quickly drive demand for your income generating beams and construction products from consumers like me who demand these products of their builders.

Generating demand from "influencers" can impact revenue from "core clients".

The Meaning of Missions, Visions, Goals, Objectives, Tactics and Tasks

I'm reviewing a strategy plan and fine tuning the slides and it dawned on me that I did not have a strong grasp on the difference between goals  and objectives.

Well, I did a little search and now I think I do.

I found two sources that when combined give clarity:

Bruce Kelley took a shot at defining the similarities and differences of these words: vision, mission, goal, objective, strategy, execution and tactics and this San Diego State University source does a good job distinguishing between goals and objectives.

Here is my amalgamation of these sources combined with my own take.

1. Vision - A broad, very qualitative future minded aspiration lofty in nature and often associated with an individual person fundamental to an organization (i.e. Steve Jobs)
2. Mission - Also a broad qualitative aspiration. In my experience this is a corporate processed statement attached to a larger organization that ties to a vision but includes more tangible statements. This collective processing allows individuals to feel some ownership of its meaning. (i.e. HP Invent)
3. Strategy - Lofty in nature but a representation of both qualitative and quantitative statements. I think about this as the aggregation of everything that follows, Goals, Objectives, Tactics.
4. Goals - Lofty aspirations yet again, though incremental pieces of a mission and something that an individual team or functional business area can accomplish.
5. Objectives - Measurable statements that have a discrete beginning and end that when aggregated accomplish the goals.
6. Tactics - measurable subsets of objectives that describe the "who" "what" and "how".
   
7. Actions or Tasks - The smallest statements of work that are achievable by an individual person in a relatively short period of time.
   

Execution does not fit into my taxonomy of terms and in my use is the act of delivering or progressing toward any of the above.

What do you think?