But that’s not what makes them special.

Their exceptionalism comes from another source: the rare ability to perceive a paradigm shift taking place, and the courage to act on it early and wholeheartedly. By building their businesses from the ground up to embrace the challenges and opportunities of a new age, these companies have been able to fundamentally transform entire industries.

Sprinklr is cut from that same coveted cloth. And today, I’m thrilled to say that I’ve joined the company as CMO to help share its incredible story with the world.

Most recently as Consultant-in-Residence at Andreessen Horowitz, I’ve spent countless hours observing disruptive companies and technologies to help one of the globe’s most respected venture capital firms distill its view on how – and where – software is eating the world. From that perch it was clear to see that, for the marketing industry and, in fact, all customer-facing departments, the moment of software eating our world is taking place right now.

With the rise of social media, today’s consumers are more empowered and connected than ever. And as a result, their relationships with businesses have changed forever. Funny enough, it took social technology to bring us back to our roots and give us a global platform for fostering the human experiences we all crave as individuals.

For brands, that opportunity to become human – to converse with customers one-on-one, instantly, and in a truly meaningful way – has never been greater or more critical. But, as it is for every one of us, it’s a skill that must be nurtured and refined over time. And for brands, it can only happen with the help of tools that not only break down the walls within their organizations, but also allow them to think with one mind and speak with one, human voice.

By providing the world’s most powerful and sophisticated social technology to Fortune 500 companies like Intel, Microsoft, Samsung, and many others, Sprinklr is helping global brands do exactly that by creating a social infrastructure that puts customers back at the heart of their enterprises.

In much the same way, we at Sprinklr are committed to putting our customers at the heart of our enterprise and everything we do. We know this is a noisy, crowded, and fast-changing industry where the inclination to shout above the fray is all too pervasive. We also know, however, that the days of shouting as an effective mechanism for reaching and engaging with audiences are over.

That’s why we choose to “sprinkle.” If you filter out the noise, listen closely, and genuinely care, we believe it’s easy to spot the needs of your customers. And if you address those needs and consistently work to add real value, you create the possibility of trust. Trust – that enormously valuable yet illusive state – is what lies at the foundation of every lasting relationship.

About the Author: Tom Butta is a marketing leader who has spent his career helping some of the world’s most pioneering enterprise software companies build trusted, global brands that have defined and fundamentally transformed entire industries. Prior to joining Sprinklr, Tom served as Consultant-in-Residence at Andreessen Horowitz, where he worked to define the venture capital firm’s points of view as a guide for Fortune 2000 companies and entrepreneurs looking for insights about the future of technology

Remember the Verizon ads years ago that repeated the refrain, “Can you hear me now?”℠ It was a brilliant and simple way to demonstrate how Verizon’s network was superior to others. For mobile phone users frustrated by fuzzy and unstable calls, Verizon nailed the ultimate consumer benefit at the time: a clear and reliable connection.

One of the biggest obstacles for marketers today is finding impactful and lasting ways to rise above the noise. Everywhere you turn there is a relentless stream of content delivered through an unending variety of channels. No brand, company, or individual voice is immune.

Thomas Butta with attendees of REACH 2014

As consumers we feel it. As business people we suffer from it. As marketers we must deal with it. I’ve seen this theme play out at each step of my career – including most recently in the world of venture capital through my work with Andreessen Horowitz in Silicon Valley.

So, how can you avoid being part of the noise?

The question is one I discussed recently at Princeton University’s REACH 2014 conference in front of an audience filled with hundreds of the brightest and most earnest undergraduate students interested in careers in marketing and advertising. There, we talked about five traits central to rising above the fray.

1. Give. In business, like life, you need to give to get. Sometimes you need to give value that seemingly has no self-serving purpose. A great example of this is AppNexus, where I was CMO. AppNexus, the technology company that provides trading solutions and powers marketplaces for Internet advertising, carved out a significant portion of its office space to allow other innovators and technology leaders to Razzle Dazzle audiences. The space became an exchange of ideas and possibilities, not unlike the business AppNexus software supports. Attendance to the events was free. It was good for the NY tech community. It was good for attendees. And, ultimately it was good for AppNexus.

2. Surprise. Sometimes you have to reach people where, when and how they least expect it. A great example of this is when PTC, where I was CMO, opened an analyst conference with a short film we created that simulated what a Wall Street analyst would be doing from the moment he woke up until he arrived at our meeting at the Logan Hilton in Boston. As you can see, every item the analyst encountered was enabled by PTC software. I dare say those analysts never thought the same way about the importance of PTC software in their everyday lives.

3. Truth. Wherever you can tell it like it is. You need to use truth as a way to stand out from the hype. We did exactly that for a small, but clever big data software company based in Austin, Texas. We created a booklet that dispelled the myths and mystery around big data. It was called, The Truth About Big Data. It not only won over the hearts and minds of its customers, it attracted the attention of IBM, the biggest company in the space. Less than a year later, IBM acquired the company.

4. Clarity. People need clarity to make sense of the madness. Sometimes it’s really hard to discern the important signals that can help from the typically self-serving noise that comes from company after company shouting about why their products are better than the rest. Imagine you’re a buyer. How are you going to figure out who and what really matters? It certainly helps if a company is helping to bring clarity and transparency to the table. That’s why we created the booklet, PLM Schizophrenia. Making Sense of the Madness for PTC.

5. Invest. Sometimes you need to go well beyond traditional tools, and invest in the creation of something of such significance that it can change an entire industry. That’s what PTC did for the new industry of Product Lifecycle Management when it created The Way to Product First, A Roadmap for Creating and Capturing Value. It was effectively the playbook on how to create winning products. It became so useful, it is now in version 8.0, and has been taught at MIT.

If you do these five things, you have not only risen above the noise, you have increased your chances of achieving the most coveted spot in any industry, the trusted guide. The trusted guide is the place/person/company where people tune into for help.

The following is a summary of that discussion, reposted with permission from Bowery Capital’s Keegan Forte.

There’s also the full 40-minute video for those interested in the complete discussion.

http://vimeo.com/82530800

Note: As many of you know I was recently named Chief Marketing Officer of AppNexus, the NY-based technology company that powers the advertising that powers the Internet. This is my first post for the company. The themes of transformation, opportunity, and speed continue. I thought you would find the subject interesting. My very best, Tom

Every day, more than 550 AppNexus employees around the world come to work to make greatness happen. They do so in many ways, like building great technologies designed to crack the code on mobile advertising, finding new ways to better connect buyers and sellers of digital advertising, and waging a multi-front war to preserve the highest standards of inventory quality.

Why? Is it some deep-seated passion for advertising? Probably not. A desire to reinvent an old industry? Maybe. The free snacks? Can’t hurt.

In truth, we are all at AppNexus because we have a clear collective mission. We know advertising is the lifeblood of the Internet, where advertising funds most of the great content we’re used to getting for free. It provides the means to innovate, investigate, and entertain. And it makes it possible to reach the right audiences – large and small.

With Madison Avenue and Silicon Alley coming together at a moment of unprecedented transition, we have both the opportunity and responsibility to make the Internet even better.

No company takes to heart the imperative of powering the advertising that powers that Internet as much as AppNexus. That’s why we’re working to solve the business and technology challenges inherent in creating smarter and more effective Internet advertising for the world’s most important advertising and media companies.

As I walked the packed floor at our annual New York Summit last week, the reality of our mission was unmistakable. You could feel the energy emanating from executives invigorated by the innovation and opportunity ahead. Now the challenge for AppNexus and our partners is to put to work that brilliance and energy so advertisers get the most from their ads, creators get the most from their content, and consumers get the most out of the Internet.

For consumers, there’s no question that mobile is the future. And where consumers go, advertisers will follow. With that inevitability in mind, AppNexus spent most of 2013 going “all in” on mobile advertising. At the Summit Ryan Christensen, VP of Product at AppNexus, announced that our mobile offering – currently the largest independent source of programmatic mobile supply worldwide – is now available to all buy-side clients. AppNexus is now handling billions of mobile ad impressions each day, and that’s only going to grow as we continue to expand our mobile partnership with Millennial Media, and fully ramp up MMX in the U.S. and, soon, Europe, Latin America and Asia.

As digital advertising continues to explode in reach and spend, a commitment to quality and efficacy must be unwavering. At Summit, AppNexus’ Quality Team leaders Geir Magnusson and Preethy Vaidyanathan reiterated the company’s promise to uphold the highest standards of ad quality and our longstanding zero-tolerance policy for any invalid activity on the platform. AppNexus is taking a systematic and rigorous approach to these issues, including a relentless pursuit of all seven types of invalid traffic reviewed by Geir and Preethy. Not only is this ethically the right thing to do, it’s absolutely vital to the long-term economic viability of the Internet advertising business. As an industry, we simply cannot allow bad actors to undermine the growth engine fueling the free Internet ecosystem that benefits all of us.

Finally, many of you have likely seen a cover story in Adweek this past week outlining “everything you need to know about programmatic buying.” It’s a smart, timely piece worth reading as programmatic becomes an increasingly critical instrument for an industry that’s all about connecting people. Amidst all the face-to-face networking at Summit, AppNexus announced how it will continue to foster new innovations that facilitate more efficient human interactions between buyers and sellers.

Following previous Summits in San Francisco and London, New York completes the series for 2013. The ninth such event in three years, these invitation-only gatherings underscore the commitment of AppNexus to serve as the nexus for our industry, bringing people together, and generating ideas that will continue to drive digital advertising – and the Internet – forward.

Here’s to a strong finish to 2013, and an epic 2014!

Today I join hundreds of thousands of leaders from politics, business, technology, media, sports, and entertainment – in addition to hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country – in the largest ever virtual march on Washington to support bipartisan immigration reform legislation. Our current immigration policies are antiquated. Reform is long overdue for America.

America is a country whose people believe there is (nearly) always a better way. That spirit of innovation comes from our roots. We are all descendants of a people who moved here seeking a better way forward. Whether your family arrived on the Mayflower, your relatives emigrated through Ellis Island or you studied in our welcoming university system, we are all immigrants at our core who share the common, powerful bond of hope.

Just look at what that belief does for America. It spawns leaders, many of whom are immigrants, who create hundreds of thousands of innovations, multiple millions of jobs and billions of dollars in annualized revenue.

• More than 40% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by an immigrant or a child of an immigrant
• 28% of all companies started in the US in 2011 had immigrant founders
• Immigrants are more than twice as likely as the native born to start a business
• Immigrant-owned businesses generated more than $775 billion in revenue for the US economy in 2011

The four families that I was born into all came here from various places in Sicily – hillside, farm fields, seaside, and city streets. One by one, each member of my emigrant family started or joined a new business. It’s no wonder my parents and their children have all created or contributed to new businesses with better ways.

I have sponsored many H1B visas. In each case I am proud to say every one of those I’ve sponsored have not only remained here in America they have become extraordinary citizens who are driving innovation in business and education. It was a heck of a lot easier to sponsor an H1B visa in the mid-90s than it is today. That needs to change. We are losing talented, willing and highly capable people who can make a huge difference. It’s time our government did something.

The walk for innovation movement is a great demonstration of the entrepreneurial spirit that defines America. I encourage you to help us do whatever we can to keep the American dream alive.

Have you ever wondered why some company cultures are stronger than others, or why some brand stories are crystal clear? Certainly there are many factors that contribute to the clarity of your company’s culture and brand, but one of the most important is how well you onboard people during their first critical days, weeks, and months.

Successful onboarding has two primary benefits: 1) A more informed worker, partner, or customer stands a better chance of being more productive than a less informed one. 2) Knowing more sooner increases an employee’s odds of producing faster results.

If onboarding is such a good thing, why do many organizations treat onboarding as little more than the time it takes to fill out paperwork on day one?

The answer has as much to do with commitment as anything else. Onboarding is hard work. It’s not something you do half way. It should be a part of everyone’s job.

What does a successful onboarding practice look like? Here are some ways smart organizations embrace onboarding:

1. Onboarding is treated as a strategic asset. It has management’s commitments of budget, resources and time.
2. Onboarding is seen as the responsibility of everyone in the company, but especially the hiring business manager and HR (where the practice normally resides)
3. Onboarding content not only conveys everything one needs to know about how a company operates, it also provides the context of where and how the company fits into its broader economic ecosystem
4. Onboarding goes well beyond the first days or week of work. It extends through the first few months of any new relationship
5. Onboarding taps into the resources of the entire organization in an orchestrated way – from management to products to marketing to services
6. Onboarding typically features teachings about a given marketplace, customer segments, and product offerings

That’s what successful onboarding looks like. How do some organizations go above and beyond these best practices? They do things like this.

1. Include culture immersion as part of the onboarding process
2. Extend the onboarding process to include new customers and partners
3. Onboard strategic vendors and suppliers

How do you think about onboarding? Is it important? Do you treat it as a strategic asset? If you don’t consider onboarding to be a critical part of how you operate then you’re putting your organization at risk of higher-than-normal-levels of attrition, more mistakes, poor decisions, and haphazard cultural interpretation.

What will it take to get you on board?

Thomas Butta

What does it take to drive a critical agenda, to execute a bold vision?

To me it comes down to all of the following characteristics.

• Belief – belief in the importance of the mission
• Clarity – clarity in articulating why it matters
• Conviction – conviction to see it through to the end
• Courage – courage to navigate the obstacles and impediments
• Urgency – urgency to capitalize on the critical moments
• Team – a team that’s aligned and motivated
• Leadership – leadership that’s manifested in words and actions
• Proof – proof that people can see
• Perspective – perspective that creates a context for your audience

There is no better role model for showcasing what it takes to fulfill a bold agenda than American President Abraham Lincoln. His vision was not only bold it was critical – to stop the Civil War, abolish slavery, and heal a splintered America. Lincoln certainly leveraged all of the characteristics cited above, but he did it with style and grace. Would you have such poise under pressure? Would you have such clarity? Would you have such sensitivity for your audience?

Listen to Lincoln’s conversation with a young telegraph operator and his engineering student friend. The conversation took place at the very moment Lincoln was writing the telegram that would put in motion the peace talks between the North and the South.

President Lincoln said to the boys, “Do you think we choose to be born? Are we fitted to the times we’re born into?”

The telegraph operator said, “I don’t know.”

The engineering student said, “I don’t think so, but then again I’m an engineering student studying mathematics.”

President Lincoln replied, “I never studied engineering, but I read a fair bit. I once read a book by Euclid and his axioms of common knowledge. The first common notion is this, ‘Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other’. That’s a rule of mathematical reasoning. It’s true because it works. It has done and always will do. In his book Euclid says this is self-evident. There it is, even in that 2,000-year-old book of mechanical law, that it’s true that things are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. We begin with equality. That’s the origin, isn’t it? That’s balance. That’s fairness. That’s justice.”

Lincoln not only pushed forward on the larger agenda, but he likely inspired those two boys in ways they would never forget. Do have what it takes to drive a bold agenda and critical vision? Do you have what it takes? You probably do.

Thomas Butta

Do you ever notice how good it feels when you experience the power of simplicity? It’s clarifying, even freeing. On the other hand, do you notice how heavy it feels when you’re experiencing complexity? It has a certain weight to it.

Why does simplicity feel so good? Because simplicity eliminates, or at least minimizes, intricacy, ornamentation even pretentiousness. Simplicity cuts out the extraneous middle. Simplicity is a faster way to get to whatever and wherever you’re after.

Complexity, by its very nature, creates obstacles between where you are and where you’re going. Complexity gets in the way. Complexity makes everything it touches a lot more difficult – and a lot more confusing.

If simplicity frees and complexity limits, then why does complexity clutter our world? Why does complexity become the way we engineer experiences and convey information? I believe it’s because we’re focused on what we want to share instead of what our audiences will experience.

As a general rule, we don’t do a very good job of listening. This is most true when we have something to say or sell. We tend to talk at people. We want others to listen to us, but we rarely ask people how their experience of us makes them feel. This holds equally true for their experience of our products as it does for our interactions.

Why do we pay more attention to what we think rather than what others feel? It’s because we believe a rational argument complete with facts and figures will win the day. Our intellectual side is seduced by data, content and possibilities. We want to demonstrate why all of it matters. This is how complexity starts.

That’s why white papers are so popular. And why websites are cluttered and confusing. And why we typically purchase business books that are weighty and long. It’s why our answers tend to be long-winded. And why our customer interfaces are complicated.

If we can just get out of our own heads to consider the experience of our audiences, we will go a long way toward driving simplicity in many important ways. For example,

• Positioning. It’s a lot easier to assemble all the elements that support what you are rather than being absolutely clear about what you’re not. Can you get your positioning down to three words or less? What can you eliminate right now?
• Selling. It’s a lot easier to go deep on reasons why rather than stating no more than three that matter the most. Can you commit to three reasons why you/your products matter?
• Writing. It’s easier to build compound sentences than to focus on the one set of words that say it best. This is where editors have enormous value.
• Interface Design. There are many things that make your products cool. You want to show them all off. But in an app and Twitter world you need to strip away everything extraneous to drive the user as simply as possible to the end. Why do you think Apple has such a loyal customer base? For its leadership in driving innovation, Apple’s users regularly experience elegant simplicity.

Beware of complexity. It’s not your friend. Focus instead on enabling simplicity in all you do. The result will be welcomed in our overly noisy world.

If you were a fan of the band, The Police, you certainly remember the haunting song that featured the lyrics, “Every breath you take, every move you make, every step you take, I’ll be watching you.” That’s as good a way as any to explain why Big Data is such a big deal.

Everything everywhere is being captured, recorded, and stored. Every keystroke. Every communication. Every transaction. Every interaction. The opportunity to make sense of the data in order to take intelligent action is compelling for obvious reasons. You might gain a competitive edge if you are able to know more so you can do more sooner.

The truth is that’s a lot easier said than done. Despite the opportunity to gain insights and take intelligent action, Big Data is misunderstood. Which explains why there are so many views on what to do and what not to do.

In the middle of noise around Big Data is a clear voice with an enlightened view on what Big Data is all about. That voice is from a small, but smart software company in Austin, Texas called StoredIQ. StoredIQ packaged its views into a provocative, easy-to-read booklet called The Truth About Big Data. It is exactly what the title suggests. It’s about dispelling the myths and unraveling the mysteries about Big Data.

The booklet, and the ensuing Truth About Big Data Roadshow drew the attention of thousands of executives and hundreds of companies. One company that took particular notice was IBM, the technology juggernaut that has jumped all over the Big Data bandwagon.

IBM was pulled in by StoredIQ’s compelling take on the Big Data space, and impressed with the technological substance and knowhow behind StoredIQ’s bold voice. On December 19, IBM announced its intentions to acquire StoredIQ, and make the company an integral part of IBM’s Information Lifecycle Governance business unit.

The lessons here are clear:

• You’re better served if you focus your energies on owning the customer problem. Customers pay attention when you have something valuable to say. People don’t like to be sold. They like to be related to. Speaking to their problems is a great way to engage.
• Stop being part of the market noise with a sales pitch reliant solely on feature/function benefits. People don’t make decisions based on logic. They use logic to reinforce decisions instinctively made from their belly or heart.

The way to gain awareness of every step you take is to speak the customer language.

In hot, noisy, crowded market spaces, that’s a truth worth following – especially for challenger brands.

Thomas Butta 

Wednesday was one of those rare days where everything lined up. 12/12/12.  It doesn’t get more symmetrical than that. Everything did line up, didn’t it?

It’s interesting to observe our innate desire for symmetry. What is so alluring about order? Why do we strive for regularity, balance, and equilibrium? We all can’t be born in late August and September under the sign of Virgo.

Certainly 12/12/12 was a day when the world clock came together in a way that won’t happen again until next year’s 11/12/13. But why does a stacking of the same digits cause universal commentary?  What does 12/12/12 really represent?

The neatness of 12/12/12 would seem to signal our struggle for order and meaning, perhaps even standardization in a world that’s become complex and confusing.

If ambiguity is the new norm then how should we think and act? If we work and live in an environment of constant flux should we stop trying to line up things? Is our desire for symmetry an illusion? Or should we continue the good fight?

The answer is as challenging as the issue itself.  First, I believe we have to accept ambiguity as what’s normal in our work and life. Next we need to heed the old saying about dealing with reality: With acceptance comes understanding. Our desire for order shouldn’t be confused with our need for meaning. We absolutely need to make sense of the madness. How else are we to figure out what to do and why?

But, here’s where it gets tricky.

Our response doesn’t have to be neat. Nor does it have to be orderly or symmetrical. Our response simply needs to make sense. How we choose to articulate a response should be as open and asymmetrical as what feels right, albeit in a responsible kind of way. Here are a number of examples that express what I mean.

The request for an essay might be met with ideas expressed through a comic strip. An inspiring poem might have no pattern. A technology solution could be less like a stack of like parts and more like an environment of unique components that work together. Jazz is all about spontaneous chaos. Work is no longer a place since you can now do work anywhere on any device at any time. When it comes to selecting new leadership, recruiting sports talent or seeking out a spouse the best fit might not be the perfect resume filled with a classic set of normalized experiences.

With so much swirling about it’s easy to be pulled in by the allure of symmetry, of doing things in an orderly, balanced way. Order, balance, symmetry are the wrong ways to think about it. We should be striving for a natural, harmonious response to how we make sense of things. When in doubt heed another great saying from the asymmetrical 1960s: Go with the flow.

Thomas Butta