Digital Common Sense

Blogger relations programs are an interesting new approach. Some work really well. I think Nokia’s program is a shining example of one done really well. On the flip side, Microsoft recently took a lot of heat about a blogger program with laptops running Vista.

Because many of us who write blogs are also consultants, writers, and industry analysts, there’s real value to the sponsors of these programs in spreading information about their products and services. A formal blogger relations signals, to me, a company that’s looking to the future for ways  of sharing information about what they do. Company 2.0, if you will.

I’ve been invited to participate in a new Covad Blogger Relations Program that’s just getting started. As a prelude to that, I spent some time on the phone yesterday with Eric Weiss, Chief Marketing Officer at Covad.

For those of you unfamiliar with Covad , they’re in the broadband business. Here’s a quick synopsis:

• Covad was the first company to commercially deploy DSL in the United States.
• It owns and operates the nation’s largest DSL network.
• It is a national facilities-based provider of data, voice, and wireless telecommunications solutions for small and medium-sized businesses.
• It is also a key supplier of high-bandwidth access to providers like EarthLink, AOL, and AT&T.
• Its broadband and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services are currently available in 44 states and 235 major markets and can be purchased by more than 57 million homes and businesses.

The Covad Blogger Relations Program is a new effort to keep bloggers better informed about Covad and to introduce us to the company’s services in new and unique ways. Some bloggers will have the opportunity to experience first hand just what Covad’s voice and data services are all about. And it sounds like I fall within their service delivery footprint. That means I’ll be doing some testing of some of their offerings. I’m anticipating that the Covad VoIP service, developed to work with TalkSwitch , the original all-in-one PBX telephone system for small business will be one of those offerings I get to test.

In talking with Eric, here are some points I took away as important.

They’re the largest nationwide DSL provider. DLS is their foundation, and they’ve been an early and longstanding leader in DSL delivery. Beyond DSL, they’re quickly becoming a key player in VoIP services, both as managed, or hosted services and as a solution provider. That’s an interesting and very unique approach because it means they compete with themselves.

They don’t focus on technology when it comes to small and medium business. They really seem to be focused on solutions. My sense is that they aren’t focused on either price or feature checklists as their approach. They’re really looking at value added solutions that work. I didn’t hear them use the words turnkey or out of the box, but they seem to be really focused on nearly out-of-the-box, easy implementation of solutions.

Their overarching theme is being easy to do business with. Everyone I talked to who’s worked with Covad seems to echo that they’re achieving that. We talked a lot about the needs of small businesses. I got a solid sense that Covad is committed to delivering solutions that work to small business.

They’re very interested in the SaaS approach of software as a service, or solutions as a service. VoIP is the focal point right now, but broader unified communications and unified applications service are clearly on their radar.

I’ll be meeting Eric in person at the O’Reilly ETel conference next week in San Francisco, and I’m sure I’ll be bringing you more news from Covad in the weeks and months ahead.

Technorati Tags: Covad, Talkswitch, unified communications, VoIP, broadband

Filed by Ken at 11:46 am under Technology, Unified Communications