The FREE White Paper List: Week of 05.17.10
Title: The Demarc Extension and its Critical Role in Enterprise Network Telecommunications Infrastructure
(Click to Download)
Sponsor: Demarc Extension Nationwide
Publication Date: May 2010
Sponsor’s Description: This white paper exposes the fact that the loss of standardization for this important piece of cabling has led to poor installation practices. Addressing the information needs of telecommunications agents and carriers, the paper arms these professionals with the knowledge to ensure the circuit’s complete operability at the time of delivery.
White Paper Pundit Comment: This white paper uses a unique technique of inserting cartoonish charactures of frustrated technical professionals in the opening introduction to draw reader attention to the current plight of IT professionals. This is unusual for a highly technical white paper. Whether this tactic works with this target reader is uncertain, but kudos should go out to this organization for trying something different from the typically humdrum technical white paper.
Download Link URL: http://bit.ly/9OyeiL
Web Landing Page: http://bit.ly/cOtoJs
_________________________________________________________
Welcome to the FREE White Paper List!
This list is a summary of the free white papers that have been posted during the past week on Twitter. Each white paper is completely FREE and does not require email registration or personal information. This is a great way to review white paper examples and learn new techniques from hundreds of white paper marketers. Simply click on the shortened URL link next to the file name and download the white paper.
1. Eight Steps to Great Customer Experiences for Government Agencies http://bit.ly/amIKIY
2. Creating an Architecture for Cloning Oracle Databases on Demand http://bit.ly/9bCsXO
3. Using DITA to Reduce Costs While Increasing Content Quality: http://bit.ly/a8UQGK
4. The Benefits of Visual Rules for Business Applications http://bit.ly/aU2smn
5. The Characteristics of an Agile Enterprise and How They Drive Financial Performance http://bit.ly/ba21oF
6. Managing Currency Risks with Options http://ow.ly/1KK2D
7. Mobile OS and efforts towards open standards http://bit.ly/8XnVWa
8. Getting Response in a Down Economy: 4 Principles to Boost Your Direct Mail Profits http://bit.ly/cSAR2L
9. Android by 2012: A study on present and future of Google’s Android http://bit.ly/9MBSM4
10. How to Write a Top-Quality RFP When Building a Social Networking Platform http://su.pr/2onfoc
11. Mobile Learning: Context and Prospects http://bit.ly/bLPVm7
12. How unique is your web browser? http://bit.ly/bmBb3Y
13. The New Outsourcing Axis. http://bit.ly/972ECy
14. Making Gain Sharing in Outsourcing Work http://bit.ly/9cHgYD
15. Five Secrets to Great Customer Service for Your Industrial Company. http://bit.ly/aL6Yby
16. Best Practices in Credit Union Efficiency http://bit.ly/aWJWtR
17. Securing Identity and Enabling Employment Verification: http://bit.ly/a1ChZ3
18. The Demarc Extension in a Enterprise Network Telecommunications Infrastructure http://bit.ly/9OyeiL
19. Pitney Bowes White Paper: The Caregiver Quandary http://bit.ly/aucl1a
20. Look Before You Leap Into Google’s Cloud Service http://bit.ly/cpRLHC
Sign up for my free newsletter, "Short Attention Marketing Tips" and receive monthly advice on tips, tricks, and techniques that will grab reader attention in your white papers.
May 22nd, 2010 at 2:05 am
The featured White Paper from Demarc Extension Nationwide was a trip down memory lane for me, as in a previous career role I was a network engineer and worked with cabling teams who had these ‘demarc’ headaches to deal with.
I felt the the cartoon-stype drawing worked well because, along side the more serious business tone of the writing, they added a note of ‘insider humor’ at the chaos that ensues whenever neglected and critical cabling issues bring down a business network.
People really do go apesh%t if their spreadsheet crashes and the first thing that’s blamed is usually “the network”, whatever the actual reason! Haha!
Probably the most responsive readership will be a tech team leader who has inherited a cabling mess in the bowels of what passes for a data center or maybe an IT manager or CIO who has experienced “network wide layer 1 issues” and knows their head is on the block if the reasons are not identified and fixed.
Overall I think this paper does a good job of highlighting the problems that can occur if there are not procedures and standards in place to control how carrier demarcs are routinely managed.
May 22nd, 2010 at 6:48 am
Hi Mark,
Thanks for pointing this out. I’m surprised that this technique is something you are familiar with and one that works for a technical reader. My first impression is that the technical reader prefers a no-frills, academic read.
I’m sure this marketer will appreciate your approval.
Jonathan
May 22nd, 2010 at 7:12 am
[...] Kudos to ace white paper copywriter, Jonathan Kantor, whose White Paper Pundit blog featured this paper at “The FREE White Paper List: Week of 05.17.10“. [...]
May 22nd, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Jonathan, I left them a note on their blog and wrote a post of my own about it.
Actually, since I wrote the reply above I’ve had time to think about ‘why’ the cartoons work (for me, at least!) and the answer came after listening to your Short Attention Marketing session on Mike Stelzner’s white paper 2010 summit (sorry to say this is the 1st time I’ve listened to it although I did, very appropriately, skim the pdf when first released a few months back haha!)
I reckon the cartoons are SAM call outs that identify at a glance the problem/headaches that land on the heads of IT cabling teams and their managers when cabling goes wonky… that old joke about IT being a great job if it wasn’t for the bl$$dy users springs to mind
And if someone invented a caste system for IT roles, then cabling would probably be at the very bottom, while just above lurks desktop support
My point is that there’s a self-effacing humor in most cabling professionals and they realize many IT Pros and the majority of non-IT managers neither understand or care about cabling once it goes into the wall or under the floor panel.
But, deep in the cabler’s psyche is an awareness of the tremendous power those lengths of copper and fiber represent when organized and controlled.
As an example, I’ve been part of a team doing the equivalent of open heart surgery on trading floor network switches in the middle of the night and nothing worked properly until the cabling tech finally traced and replaced a faulty fiber patch cable in the main distribution panel.
Few would want to be the IT manager explaining to the Equities MD why 200 plus traders are idle at 9am Mon morning because a Tx/Rx fiber pair had gone south and no one had documented it early enough…
Moral: Be good to the cabling guys and gals because network karma can be a b!atch when you least expect it.
From that perspective I understand where the ‘black humor’ of the white paper’s cartoons is coming from. I wish them well with that approach.
May 23rd, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Thanks for the feedback Mark. This gives me some great fodder to follow up on this with a blog entry on the topic for my Monday post.
We’ll see how many others chime in regarding the use of the “Cartoon Callout”.
Maybe we’ve found a new competitive weapon in white paper marketing?
Best wishes,
Jonathan
May 24th, 2010 at 6:56 am
[...] White Paper Pundit Helping you understand the world’s most unique business communications medium « The FREE White Paper List: Week of 05.17.10 [...]