April week #1 - events are back, but is that a good thing? SaaS gets grilled, and enterprise video secrets revealed.

This is your unfiltered view of enterprise highs and lows. Surprise takes from special guests may be included – scroll on. For a deeper review of my enterprise picks and pans, check my weekly, Enterprise Hits and Misses columns on diginomica. And yep, we're back, had to take a short break because, well, life.

The best thing I read this week: Josh Greenbaum stirred the pot quite effectively with Quality Hell in SaaS-Land: Is the SaaS Business Model Based on a False Need for Continuous Upgrades? I have some disagreements, which I'll be taking up in hits/misses, but for now: would like to hear your views on Josh's piece in the comments below. Bottom line: I see plenty of upgrade abuse in what I'd call "consumer SaaS." Enterprise SaaS is a different story needing further debate.

Selected commentary on the biggest news story: Top story is a toss-up. The best piece on AI/misinformation and Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a TechTarget piece (sign up required). The other story is the tentative return-to-office, with tech companies eager to compel employees to return, but reluctant to lose them: Tech companies cautiously bring people back while employees hesitant.

The worst thing I read this week: I blew a gasket on this email detox piece:

You do realize the biggest takeaway from your post is how nice it is to have an assistant to monitor your email so you can bail on it, right?

Tech detox pieces distract from the more important issue: creating sustainable work strategies for the long term, in this case: 1. limiting email hours, 2. creating email filters, 3. archiving the inbox, 4. diverting internal convos to an internal collaboration space. There is a better way to email inbox sanity than having your assistant take the brunt for a few weeks.

Backchannel scuttlebutt: Event producers are thrilled in-person events are back, and they've let me know about it. I can understand why - their virtual events mostly sucked. But once we get over the undeniable thrill of seeing each other again, we're going to be reminded: in-person events were mostly broken, before the pandemic. Brian Sommer and I went to town on this in User conferences are back - will your event be a blockbuster, or a dud?

The piece is satirical fun, but there is plenty to apply here, such as avoiding the dreaded over-moderated panel. Event attendees can also flip this around to get more out of their attendance. But here's my stomping ground: the possibilities of virtual events are still mostly untapped, and shouldn't be left in the rearview:

Creating a hybrid/virtual event track is not as hard as you think – and it shows thoughtfulness for the geographically dispersed and immuno-compromised.

Enterprise quote of the week: During a remote work debate too a balanced/contrary position (I am something of a remote work advocate, or, at least, skeptical of central office obsessions and the value of grinding commutes), Moore kept things grounded in his own company's experience, and the regulatory hurdles of remote idealism:

MyPOV: We have 13 employees in 8 states (only hiring full time in the US at this point). The jobs are getting dispersed, but the admin load on the company is pretty high - each state has its own registration, filings, taxes, "specials," & the costs/burden add up.

Commenter keeper of the week: Andy Mann chimed into a spicy enterprise metaverse thread with myself and Thomas Wieberneit, re the use cases he has seen to date:

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Guest commentary: the art of enterprise video, with Brent Leary - Twitter - @BrentLeary - or Brent on LinkedIn.

To say you were in on the early side of enterprise video is an understatement. What do you think is the key to your success in this medium?

Brent: Being willing to experiment and use video as a way to deliver thought leadership in a more engaging way than some of the more traditional formats and channels.

You usually shoot live without a net. What is the biggest lesson on pulling off a good video you have learned along the way?

I think things are more compelling and “viewable” if they aren’t stiff and overly formal. And while I think it’s incredibly important to know the subject matter inside and out, I don’t want it to come off as being too structured and scripted. So I like to say my approach to this is to be loosely structured, never scripted, and open to realtime engagement.

As companies dive into video, they make plenty of mistakes. What are the key gotchas to avoid if you are doing enterprise video?

Not getting the right combination of folks in front of the right audience. And if you do get the right group of folks together and in front of the right audience, not trusting both the speakers and the audience enough to let the conversation go where it wants to go organically. In other words, trying to control what’s being said and trying to control the engagement between the speakers and the audience is a sure way to kill an opportunity for great, compelling content.

One of my favorite video events you’ve ever done was the diversity in tech session. Tell us more about how you organized that (with Ron Miller), what you took from that experience, and where you think we need to go next on this topic? 

That was one of the most gratifying experiences doing these kinds of activities. Ron and I both have been doing things individually around this topic, so when I approached him about teaming to do a conversation with executives at a few leading tech companies he didn’t hesitate in saying let’s do it. Having important conversations that may also be difficult/uncomfortable can’t lead to real change if we’re too afraid to address tough issues openly and honestly, so I was very happy we were able to do just that with C-level executives like Craig Cuffie and Lybra Clemons, from Salesforce and Twilio respectively, as well as having the perspective of a black tech ceo like Allan Jones who has a unique perspective. having raised millions of dollars for his startup Bambee.

It’s also important to follow up on those conversations to keep the conversation moving forward, which is what Ron and I are working on now that we’ll be doing shortly with another group of great leaders.

Where do you stand on gear and production values? Any favorite pieces of gear? Is it possible to become too obsessed on gear and production?

I use a Blackmagic 6K Pocket Cinema Camera for my main shows that give me the kind of look I like, with a nice bokeh (blurry background). But for me one of the most important parts of doing video right is getting the audio right, so it’s worth paying a bit more for a good mic that fits your voice. I’ve used an Electrovoice RE20 for years. Also, having good lighting is important to having a good quality video image. You don’t have to spend a lot, but you want to have enough lighting in the right areas to keep the shadows away and not have too much light in front or behind you.

You have lots of sporty gear you wear in your videos, including sports hats? What’s your fave look or cap?

Currently I have seven favorite caps, each one is a different representation of the 2021 Super Bowl winning Los Angeles Rams! You don’t know how long I’ve waited to say (and wear) that…

Thanks Brent! (Brent gave me so much content for this, I'll likely do an expanded piece on the art of enterprise video for diginomica)

If you want to catch a memorable Brent Leary video, check the full replay to the epic CRM Playaz Executive Roundtable - State of CDP in a Post-Pandemic World (I appeared on a "post-game" panel, with a semi-grouchy/impassioned take on the proceedings).

Below, I've embedded the "art of enterprise video" discussion Brent and I had a few months ago, when I rebooted my Enterprise hits and misses video show. Also see my recent piece: AI for video editing - why is this use case being overlooked?

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Jon’s whiff of the week is: One problem with abruptly laying off 800 employees via video - someone is bound to upload that rough treatment to YouTube. It gets worse when your CEO has to admit you broke UK law in the process (via Clive Boulton).

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For my full whiffs collection, check my Enterprise Hits and Misses missives on diginomica. A new edition goes live each Monday morning.

This LinkedIn newsletter is intended as a best-of enterprise quick hit- with commentary, overlooked stories, and a few hype balloons punctured along the way. Then we end it - with plenty more to check out on diginomica if you want. I envision this as a weekly, but I won’t publish it if life intervenes - or if it doesn’t meet my standard. I won’t publish just to publish.

This is not a copy/paste of content you'll find elsewhere, aside from a few scrounged bits. If you're like to be a guest contrib for an upcoming edition, ping me. Comments are encouraged; however, flame wars, trolling, and excessive tech evangelism are not permitted.

Disclosure: this is not a diginomica newsletter. However, as diginomica is the main publishing endeavor I am involved with, I will disclose any personal OR diginomica clients in each newsletter: no disclosures this week.