Marketing and Small World Communications Introduction

“Marketing and Small World Communications Introduction”
Lynette Jones is currently a senior marketing manager for Fond du Lac Foods, a major marketer of grocery products, where she has worked for five years. Eighteen months ago, Lynette successfully launched a new line of low-fat ethnic foods (Mexican, Chinese, and Thai) which is doing very well. 
I he line succeeded because of Lyn’s innovative marketing plan. This plan was based on a thorough analysis of every key market, using detailed information gathered from several on-line computer databases. This success, and Lyn’s reputation as an innovator, recently got her promoted to the number two position in the marketing department. Before joining Fond Du Lac Foods, Lynette had spent three years marketing -antiperspirants and mouthwash for Rugby-Kelly, a multinational personal care firm. She had earned her MBA at the University of North Carolina after spending a year in the Dominican Republic with the Peace Corps. Before business school, Lyn had graduated from Spelman College in Atlanta.
Recently Lynette Jones attended her fifteenth high school reunion, and ran into an old acquaintance, Thomas Campbell. Tom had always been a whiz kid. In high school he was doing computer programming as a nearly full-time job, while attending just enough classes to avoid being expelled. After graduating, he went off to Rensselaer Polytechnic, and quickly became well-known to all his professors. Tom became rather impatient, however, and dropped out of the electrical engineering program at the end of his sophomore year. After stints at Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard, Tom is now head electronics designer for San Andreas Products, makers of computer expansion boards for sophisticated users who are upgrading their current machines. Tom is an intuitive wonder. He specializes in designing circuits that get unique features and maximum performance from standard, “off the shelf” chips. Tom works 70- to 80-hour weeks, and every night-shift driver at the local Domino’s Pizza knows his office location by heart. Tom’s last date was nearly four months ago because, as he puts it, “I’ve been busy.” He does, however, keep in touch with a number of people by electronic mail on the InterNet and CompuServe.
After they had talked for a while, Lyn remarked to Tom that she was amazed by the computer resources she had found while working on her new product launch. “It’s incredible what’s already out there, I just took my computer, put in a simple modem so 1 could hook up to a phone line, and started to play around. I’m working mostly with facts and figures that I found through on-line services like CompuServe. I could get U.S. Census data for my test markets, check the trademarks of our competitors, search The Wall Street Journal for related articles… it’s phenomenal. But I’m really interested in the things that are coming down the pike—multimedia teleconferencing, pen-based computers, virtual reality—maybe even easier access to simple facts and figures, and a way to really run an office without boatloads of paper.” Tom smiled, and Lyn could see his eyes brighten behind his thick glasses. ‘That’s Bill Gates’ vision of the future, Microsoft style—total information at your fingertips. I see big opportunities, 1 mean truly gigantic ones, that are coming out of this information revolution. The buzzword in the industry is ‘connectivity.’ All it means is connecting computers together so they can share data and communicate. Really big things can happen fast, because the basic technology already exists. 1 figure it will take some innovative new hardware, some advances in software—especially data compression—and a marketer to sell it to people when it’s all done.” Now Lynette smiled. “You’re probably right about the hardware and software, but dead wrong about the marketing. Real marketing—the kind that works—starts at the other end of the process. We find out what our potential customers need and want, and we design the product and the marketing to serve them.”
“So?” replied Tom. “So what?” Lyn retorted, annoyed because she really loved marketing, and Tom obviously didn’t have a clue. “So what do our customers need or want? You figure it out, I build it, and we both become rich and famous. I’m ready for a change anyway.”
Lyn stared for a minute. This guy was really serious. Her mind reeled. Fond du Lac was awfully cold. Her husband, Bill, an accounting professor at Fond du Lac State, would be willing and able to move. Her boss, Scott Thompson, was only 42 and was at the-top of the marketing ladder. He wasn’t going anywhere—which meant that she wasn’t either. She could afford to take a risk. She smiled. “So we build a business to connect computers together. You’re the technical guru, I’m the marketer. I could see it—’Small World Communications.’ Let’s hit the banquet now. I’ll meet you for breakfast and we’ll talk.”