In the years since that April evening and the immediate shock of the unsustainable and oftentimes ridiculous business climate of that time – I returned to my roots – high-tech products and services, thoughtful planning and the actual delivery of products and services that did something.

My journey took me to one of the most respected names in technology research, where I brought strategic resources to bear for some of the most important names in business technology – seeing the development of visions and plans up close. I later worked with smaller, more entrepreneurial business-services companies – how could they overcome the challenges of size, reach and name recognition?

I asked questions – many questions – in many powerful discussions with business leaders and in-the-trenches professionals. Friends, confidantes and my own experience kept telling me that marketing and sales thinking was already mature – “done” – and there was nothing new to say about it.

But guiding my search was a single thought – the question behind all the other questions:

• What if there was a way to organize and pull together marketing and sales ideas into something new and powerful – something where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts?

What if?

It came together in pieces at first – some of it “basic” – some of it very complex. As it came together I knew that ultimate validation would be in the “doing” – and so I took these ideas on the road – with clients – and kept asking questions.

My passion was business-to-business – so I focused on that. And what I found was a need for a new way – a new path – for developing go-to-market initiatives that were strategic, practical and successful. The path started taking shape around connecting all key people and all key processes involved with the development and taking to market of new products and services. But even that wasn’t enough. I knew that pulling people and processes together was a limited and operational view.

What about the “art” of marketing? – the idea part…

So – what become clearer was this: people, process and the power of ideas – now that was more like it!

How this gets connected to “now” comes next…