Who are you and what do you do?
I’m Roger, and for most people this is a fairly easy question…for me, not so much! Having worked at Research In Motion (RIM) for nearly a decade – and in Technology Marketing for nearly 15 years – I have a wealth of diverse knowledge. Recently I’ve found myself focusing more on trying to drive insights from the vast amount of research and expertise we have at RIM in order to help customers manage their wireless initiatives. This certainly manifests itself in social media posts, but more often in whitepapers, conference presentations, and so on.
What is Global Business Marketing’s role at RIM?
We’re a global team focused on all things business. It’s important that we are globally focused, because technology (and mobility) is becoming increasingly de-centralized and globalized. A company deploying BlackBerry® Enterprise Server in France has the same technical and business issues as one deploying in South Africa, and we needed to respond to that similarity.
The team’s mandate is to gain a deep customer understanding how customers can/do best use BlackBerry in business, and to communicate that to both our channel and marketing partners, who can then execute programs more appropriately. To gain this customer intimacy, the team is heavily focused on various means of customer engagement – not only through social media, but things like customer advisory boards, conference participation, and surveys.
BlackBerry has been using social channels to talk to customers for a while now – why start using social tools to communicate with our business customers?
We have found that a number of our ‘fans’ and ‘followers’ were in fact coming from organizations (versus consumers), with unique sets of questions and interests. As this volume grew, it became apparent that our social media strategy should evolve to better meet the needs of this business audience.
What’s the goal for starting the Inside BlackBerry for Business blog? What are you going to be blogging about?
We have a LOT of knowledge about enterprise mobility and want to share it! We’ve been in the wireless mobility business for a while now, so the challenge will be picking topics that are timely and most useful to our audience. To begin with, we’ll be talking about how products can be best used for business, B2B events that our Segment Experts attend, and business insights & trends in mobility.
Can you tell us a bit more about the other social properties that are being launched this month?
It’s certainly been a busy month as we got ready to launch our initial social media properties for business professionals. Beyond the Inside BlackBerry for Business blog, we also recently launched the @blackberry4biz Twitter account But stay tuned as we’re also exploring other properties!
You work closely with the Segment Market Teams. What’s their role within RIM?
We have a robust, deeply engaged team of dozens of experts with specific industry expertise such as Healthcare, Professional Services, and Real estate (to name a few). From a channel perspective, this team – and really all of business marketing – delivers a unique value-add to our carrier/channel ecosystem – a deep customer understanding around business process and wireless enablement.
Each manager is responsible not only for understanding specific customer needs within their vertical, but for turning that information into meaningful deliverables. This might manifest as a carrier promotional bundle to real estate agents, a System Integrator deploying a Unified communication solution in a hospital, or the recruitment/support of new BlackBerry® Alliance Partners.
Why do you LOVE what you do?
My job is wonderfully stimulating mentally and provides both variety and depth. I love the fact that over the years, I’ve been able to deal with a diverse array of projects. Moreover, the analytical/strategic part of my brain cherishes the fact that RIM affords me the ability to dig deep into new topics. I have access to consultants, industry analysts, and thousands of customers. This is a position I’m very thankful to have!
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