Act Like a Leader

If you want to be perceived as a leader, act like a leader.  Sounds too simple?  You'd be surprised how often even big companies overlook this golden rule of communication.

For example, Cisco, Juniper, McAfee and Microsoft -- four name brands in their own right -- are jostling for leadership on a crucial but tempestuous young topic called Network Access Control.  NAC is a way to automatically govern access to networks based on security policies.  Identity management experts argue that NAC focuses too much on authorizing devices instead of people, but let's stay with how these companies are positioning themselves as the True Answer to NAC.

The first place to check on a company’s story is the corporate website, so while the nation watched a rain delay at the Indy 500, I did a litmus test on NAC messaging at websites for Juniper, McAfee, Microsoft and Cisco.

Juniper alludes to NAC once on its home page in a press release about working with Microsoft on “unified access control.”  Using Juniper's internal search function, the first item on the first page of results for NAC is an analyst white paper on NAC deployment.  The second result is a landing page on LAN access control, but it does not provide comprehensive links to all Juniper resources on NAC such as the press release cited on the home page.  You have to click through other links to get the full story.  Many companies scatter information on their website.  The remedy is judicious use of landing pages that unify your vision and resources in one location for each important technology or business issue.

Another point about Juniper’s landing page is familiar elsewhere: titles of supplemental resources such as white papers, a buyer's guide and brochure show in a sidebar and then disappear when you print the page.  Accurate, efficient printing is useful for people who want to capture everything they see on screen onto paper format.  As a “green” consideration, website print formats for each page should conserve paper when possible.

McAfee's home page does not mention NAC.  The first item on the first page of search results goes straight to McAfee's landing page for its NAC product.  Features and benefits are well-arranged, including handy resource links displayed to the right -- however none of the link titles appear when you print the page.  Despite the ease of getting there, McAfee's packaging and treatment of NAC appears mostly product-focused, which is what one might expect of a company with a strong consumer heritage.

Microsoft's home page does not mention NAC.  The first item on the first page of search results for NAC is a press release that's almost eight months old.  Many items on the first few pages of search results are several years old.   These results give the impression that NAC is not an important topic for Microsoft. Well – it’s not: Microsoft chose to define NAC with a different term that’s called Network Access Protection (NAP). The first item in the first bunch of search hits retrieved for NAP is a decent landing page including overviews, webcasts and live meeting recordings, step-by-step guides, white papers and partner information.  This landing page also shows up as the second hit when searching for NAC.  It’s all good stuff – provided you know what term to search for.  The danger is one tends to skip search hit hotlinks that seem off-target no matter how early they appear in search results.

Cisco also defines this topic differently, but its label called Network Admissions Control is still NAC.  Cisco’s home page does not mention NAC but the first result of search is clearly the best landing page of all.  It provides an introduction to NAC, links to two featured content pieces, business benefits, NAC-enabled products, and 4 brochures, 1 Q&A, 7 white papers, 4 design guides, 2 presentations, 3 release notes, and 1 documentation roadmap.  Additional links point to Cisco's NAC Partner Program and Cisco NAC-compatible vendors.  Unlike competitors' websites, all these references are included in a printout of the landing page.

Ironically, Cisco is the only vendor here that has not forged an alliance with the Trusted Computing Group and its forthcoming almost-universal NAC framework.  Cisco says it prefers to focus standardization efforts on the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).  Rivals Juniper, Microsoft and McAfee cite this as a negative for Cisco, but on the surface it does not seem to mar the giant networking company's presentation of NAC leadership.

On the other hand, leadership as measured by how many use NAC today doesn’t have much weight because of limited adoption.  These are early days for NAC so leadership is up for grabs.

Obviously there is much more to technology leadership than using the right words and images on a website.  But there are lessons here for every technology company that competes for perceived leadership in their business.

First, you must clearly prove that what you are doing makes you a leader.  If there's just one issue, focus on that and provide an integrated package of backup collateral to show that you know your stuff.  Smaller companies may find it easier to direct readers to key messages because their petite product portfolios allow for devoting more of the home page to important ideas.  Likewise, their websites will feel less cluttered than sites for companies selling many products and services.

But even big players with huge portfolios can and should get straight to important content.  Make your top entry points to collateral easy to find.  The website search engine should always point first to an issue’s main landing page.  The idea is to ensure full presentation of your key messages and resources.  Do not assume outsiders will wade through vague hits and decipher messaging on their own.  You must control presentation of your story or Google will do it for you.

Finally, make key landing pages speak clearly to the right target audience.  If your collateral is compelled to speak both to business and technical people, group information so readers from each audience can easily find what they need.

Want to make your company look like a leader?  Call me and let's discuss how your collateral can show that you are the leader!

Contact: ghostwriter@pacific.net

Website: www.davebuerger.com

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