Member Profile- Christina Pappas
Member Profile- Christina Pappas
For this first member profile, I wanted to feature someone who’s been really active on the group- someone who really adds value- so I reached out to Christina Pappas. I’ve known Christina for some time online- so it was great to finally speak on the phone- something we often don’t get a chance to do these days in the world of email, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter.
I think Christina is really interesting to the group because she is doing a missionary job in SaaS- helping companies transition from on-premise software and services to SaaS. It’s a big mindshift and a total minefield which she’s navigating really well. Preventing cannibalisation, transitioning technically, reshaping the organisation for SaaS is not easy- something a number of other group members do too.
I have enormous amount of respect for people like Christina who, from the inside out reshape organisations, something as a 3 time founder I really struggle to have the patience for sometimes… This brought up something really interesting when choosing a SaaS vendor- do you go with someone conservative but with a long track record or a startup at the cutting edge? Horses for courses I guess- your thoughts? Her day to day, like other SaaS marketers is spent trying to drive leads and awareness- which is partly why I have so much respect that her contributions to the group are so good.
One of the goals of this digest is to help share information that’ll make your job easier and after talking to Christina I found a nice presentation by IDC on transitioning to SaaS with actionable strategies and good metrics http://bit.ly/2q3YH2 – might help get some corporate buy (posted by group member Tammy Matthews).
Christina has started some of the hottest discussions recently:
Enterprises Fear SaaS Will Create Software Licensing Issues
Multi-Tenant = Mature, True SaaS
So what’s she doing next? Blogs, social media and website- but looking forward lead nurturing and marketing automation are on the agenda for 2010. Is anyone else using / being successful with Marketing Automation? Which vendors? What about Virtual Tradeshows- is anyone using them successfully to sell SaaS to the enterprise?
I really enjoyed my hour on the phone to Christina- and as much I tried to divert the conversation (food, cars, wine) I still managed to get a real sense of how passionate she is about SaaS and booting out the legacy on-premise vendors from her customers environments.. It’s easy to forget about people and their real lives when we meet them online. Christina does a 1.5 hour commute each way from home to the office- depressing when your new Audi keeps breaking down and even the tow truck man knows your name!!! Worth it apparently for an Ocean view and a great team- at least they’ve given you a TT for the weekend 
