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Generating Excitement

You are a technologist, excited about your products and services. Yet the people you want to convince are not excited. You know what I'm talking about. You're pitching an audience clearly more interested in checking their mail or texts than listening to you. You post a string of articles on social media, triggering a trickle of views. No-one wants to engage.

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​What are you doing wrong? Are you more interested in pitching the wonders of your product than in sharing and refining your understanding of their larger goals and needs? Are you drawing connections between those needs and the capabilities of your product?

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Sadly most technology pitches are heavily product centric and only barely customer-centric. There is no spark of excitement because this style of communication is profoundly uninteresting. It survives only because "that's the way we've always done it."

There's a better way

Tell a story

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The Elements of Storytelling


Storytelling reveals the value you offer through an example (the story) rather than through claims. Along the way the story shows the power of your product, your experience with real-world obstacles faced in realizing that value, and your reliability as a partner in helping overcome those obstacles.

The central character, your customer, has a big and easily relatable goal, maybe enabling wireless communication in remote areas or enhancing car safety. You were able to help them realize an important component of their goal through the capabilities of your product and your expert advice and help.

The story should follow a realistic but abstracted path drawn from experience with other customers: their goal, their challenge, and the role you played in helping them meet their goal. One example only. Memorable stories don't have multiple plots.

Spend time detailing the challenge and obstacles, a challenge not simply met when you wave your product magic wand. There are roadblocks and potholes along the path. Talk about how together you overcame these problems. This adds credibility and builds trust.

Overcoming first obstacles often brings the customer to new obstacles. The prototype solution worked but it falls apart under production stress. More collaboration is needed to get past this problem. Building more trust.

Finally the customer was able to deploy their new solution in production, meeting their objective. At the same time, they gained a new trusted partner (you).

How detailed you can get may be limited by time or space constraints, or how much you know from other engagements, but try to hit the main points. In blogs I aim for 800-1000 words, split into three main sections. 

These aren't unbreakable rules. You can adapt as needed. But you should still stick to telling a story, showing by example.                                

Portfolio

Through my writing career I have published over 1000 blogs/articles. Below is a small sample.

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Articles Written for Forbes Business Council

Will AI Replace Software Engineers?

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AI

A Quick Look at Agentic/Generative AI in Software Engineering

Insider Opinions on AI in EDA. Accellera Panel at DAC

A Perspective on AI Opportunities in Software Engineering

A Quick Tour Through Prompt Engineering as it Might Apply to Debug

Mobile LLMs Aren’t Just About Technology. Realistic Use Cases Matter

A New Class of Accelerator Debuts​​

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Automotive

Arm Reveals Zena Automotive Compute Subsystem

Recent AI Advances Underline Need to Futureproof Automotive AI

Compute and Communications Perspectives on Automotive Trends

Cadence Paints a Broad Canvas in Automotive

Tier1 Eye an Expanding Role in Automotive AI

Bird’s Eye View Magic: Cadence Tensilica Product Group Pulls Back the Curtain

Automotive Autonomy’s Quiet Advance Through Radar

Arteris Expands Their Multi-Die Support

 

Mobile/Communications

Turnkey Multi-Protocol Wireless for Everyone

5G Aim at LEO Satellites Will Stimulate Growth and Competition

RedCap Will Accelerate 5G for IoT

DSP Innovation Promises to Boost Virtual RAN Efficiency

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Consumer Electronics/IoT

Get Ready for a Shakeout in Edge NPUs

Advanced Audio Tightens Integration to Implementation

Hearing Aids are Embracing Tech, and Cool

Democratizing the Ultimate Audio Experience

Bluetooth 6.0 Channel Sounding is Here

Production AI is Taking Off But Not Where You Think

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Datacenter/Compute

Perspectives from Cadence on Data Center Challenges and Trends

Arm Neoverse Continues to Claim Territory in Infrastructure

Arm Client 2024 Growing into AI Phones and AI PCs

Managing Power at Datacenter Scale

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Design Automation

A Principled AI Path to Spec-Driven Verification

ChipAgents Tackles Debug. This is Important

An Imaginative Approach to AI-based Design

Is AI-Based RTL Generation Ready for Prime Time?

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About Me.

I am Bernard Murphy. I spent my regular career in and around semiconductor design, in startups, mid-sized companies and large enterprises. I have played roles in R&D, sales support, sales, marketing, as a co-founder and as a CTO. My last company was acquired and I retired - sort of.

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In retirement I reinvented myself as a freelance content developer and advisor working with a variety of clients, posting blogs in SemiWiki.com and other platforms. I have actively aimed to build a following that enjoys my writing style and finds new insights beyond conventional product announcements. I also like to believe they trust my content. I stick to areas where I have expertise, I research background and share additional insights, and I am cautious in my praise for products. I am very grateful to my readers who honor me with a million views per year.

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Recently Forbes invited me to become a contributing writer. Posts I create exclusively for Forbes.com will appear periodically. First blog currently in editorial review - watch this space!

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