It was baby day at the Drafthouse so we took Cormac with us – he was a champ!

It’s panel promotion time for SXSW 2010. This year, I’m going for a panel on selling to the enterprise, targeted at the SXSW crowd, of course. I thought this would be a fun contrast to the consumer-heavy, “free” stuff that the SXSW sessions and panels are usually full of. The best way to “monetize” is to get paid for what you do and sell, to put it one way.

You can help by voting for the panel and leaving a comment, I’d appreciate it!

Here’s the proposal:

Avoid Freeloaders, Go For The Enterprise Gold

Why cater to a market that makes you eat ramen when you can slap on a suit and get budget for sushi? In this panel industry analyst Michael Coté (RedMonk) will lead a discussion with other analysts and experts illustrating how to approach enterprises and large gold-holding organizations with your technologies and services. Selling to consumers is fun, but the pay is poor compared to corporate customers who actually would like to pay for good software. We’ll cover the exceptions these outfits have, what types of technologies they’re looking for, sales processes, pricing, deflecting FUD from incumbents, and other aspects to help you bootstrap into the enterprise market. If you’re just holed up in an apartment waiting to get bought by Facebook or Google, there’s nothing for you here. But if you’d like to find out what all those dry-cleaned people are doing, come check it out and ask questions.

Questions Answered

1. What types of functionality are enterprises looking for?
2. How do I get around barriers put in by competitors and people who fear change?
3. What advantages do new startups and offerings have that they can take advantage of?
4. How do I build a sales and market program to reach enterprises?
5. What technologies and services are low-hanging fruit?

While on a bus at some IBM function, I cooked up this idea with fellow analyst Merv Adrian – he’ll be on the panel (it was actually one of my many schemes to get more people to come to Austin for SXSW). Also, I was excited that Austin’s Kenny Van Zant volunteered to be on the panel in Twitter. As one of the long-time, senior executive at Solarwinds, he has first hand experience going after this kind of sell, but through the web instead of the usual steaks-and-strippers channels.

If that sounds interesting, it’d help get us closer to acceptance if you voted and left a comment for the panel. Hopefully we’ll see you at SXSW in March!

Striving to protect that charm, town officials crafted an ordinance that bans “formula restaurants” from opening within the city limits. A group of eight investors challenged that ordinance, suing Springdale, 16 town officials and the town’s attorneys for what the plaintiffs say is their constitutional right to open a Subway restaurant franchise.

–“Towns block chain restaurants to save charm”

While Colleyville, Texas isn’t exactly “charming” like a city right outside of a national park, it’s been interesting to watch this kind of issue play out here. My sister-in-law and her family live up here, so we get up to Colleyville frequently. We’re up here all week at the moment.

Driving around, my brother-in-law said that Colleyville’s handful of retail areas started out targeted non-chain stores. But the demand, it seemed, wasn’t high enough. Some of those stores have closed down and chains, like McDonald’s, are taking their place. He did say, however, that the McDonald’s is really nice, nicer than the usual McDonald’s.

While driving up the Yosemite recently, I noted Subways, Starbuck’s, and Carl Jr.’s along the way. Us Americans can’t get enough of those trusted brands it seems. In Texas, you can’t escape the shopping strip trinity of Target, Kohl’s, Wal-mart, IHOP, Denny’s, and places like TGI Friday’s. It was the same in Tulsa, mixed in with motels-cum-hotels.

While up in Yosemite, the wedding photographer described the local town, Oakhurst, as a “two Starbucks town,” denoting that it was surely large enough for most any need.

I’m notorious for looking down on chains, despising them even. But, often times, there’s no other option. But, the local fair isn’t always too good either.

Target is the especially inescapable one. It’s sort of like the Wal-mart for snobs.

Here are some photos:

With the groom before the wedding.

Next to a redwood in Yosemite.

The wedding.

Oath by mustache.

First time at In-n-Out!

You can see more in my photo set and Kim’s photo set.

It’s been family vacation time at the beach. Galveston to be exact. While people have been freaking out about the BP spill, it’s still nice. In theory, it won’t be soon.

My childhood memories are of the beach being hot, sandy, and dirty. Back in the 80s, it seemed like there was an oil spill each year.

This year, I enjoyed breezy weather, and when it rained it was particularly nice with the overcast pre-rain and then the rain.

The beach in the evening is nice as well.

Last year I finally qualified for American Airlines top frequent flyer status, Executive Platinum. It was really a “hack” due to special programs AA had out. Over the summer and fall, there were several ways to double up on qualifying points. If it weren’t for those programs, I wouldn’t have made it.

Having been at Gold and the Platinum for several years, I’d enjoyed many of the benefits, primarily:

• the ability to attempt to upgrade to first class – your given upgrade tokens that you can buy upgrades with
• no fee on baggage
• better seat choices – I nearly always got an exit row seat
• earlier boarding – which matter a lot now since everyone brings a carry on to avoid fees, filling up the overhead bins quickly
• bonus miles to get free tickets with
• use of the first class ticketing desk
• use of the premium security line – now that Austin finally has this, it’s great. Also, notoriously long security likes like Las Vegas are nice to jump around.

Executive Platinum has all of that, except that the upgrades are free, and I get them nearly every time. Nowadays I fly in first class frequently. This means boarding first, free drinks, and a meal.

Of course, there are some customer service benefits that I don’t always know are happening, but suspect are. I’ve been able to hop flights pretty seamlessly, booking earlier flights to get home.

I primarily travel domestically, in the US. There’s an international travel benefit of getting access to the top level lounge which I haven’t checked out yet. Though, once your gold or platinum you can go into oneworld partner lounges, all of which are excellent compared to the American-cheap Admirals Lounge.

Oh, and I got a luggage tag.

Next year, I’m petty sure I won’t qualify as I only hacked my way in this time and am trying to travel less with our son around. If I got some international flights, maybe, but that doesn’t happen too often.

My next goal is to get lifetime Gold. You can do this once you earn 1 million miles through flying, credit cards, bonus miles, etc. I’m about 180,000 miles away, which is a lot less than you’d think.

Charles and I sit down in the conference room for a chat covering all sorts of things! Also, a special message to a listener:

To listen to the episode, subscribe to the podcast feed in iTunes or whatever, download the episode directly, or click play below to listen right here:

From Austin traffic, to Apple power cords, to babies, this episode is wanders all around.

My wife, Kim, and I have been in the adoption process for a long, long time, and we just finalized the last major part this afternoon. We can finally announce our new son, Cormac Murphy Coté-Skotak.

For those I’ve told who’ve kept the “embargo,” thanks so much! And for the rest of you, check out that handsome kid of ours! ;>

(And, you know, of course he has a Twitter account: @CormacCS.)

I have two personal maxims that generally apply to all situations in my life:

• Life’s too short to live by them rules.
• What the fuck else am I doing with my time?

The first is especially useful when you’re fucking around with some stupid technology or instructions that want you to do something tedious – or futzing around too much trying to perfect something, like organizing my photos or music collection. The second generally applies when you’re freaking out about big life changes, like mortgages and kids.