Photo by The Eggplant
Over the last few months there has been various webEx, gotoMeeting, Live Meeting, etc of product demonstrations that I’ve been a part of as a participant.
Some General Thoughts:
- If you are showing a web based application use a SSL Certificate and https:// If you are going to show a web-interface that you log in with a username and password or shows account numbers please do this- you can used a self-signed cert, but I get nervous about demo’s without this- It is just sloppy not to do.
- Mask Account Numbers when they are displayed.I get really nervous about this type of stuff and question your security posture.
- Don’t use account numbers and PIN as authentication method, (although there are certain instances where this is acceptable) don’t make this the default option.
- If you are showing a payment system - understand what PABP and PA-DSS are - and if you have customers that are “PCI Complaint” running it, this isn’t the same to me.
- Show a finished product, links that go to “Not yet completed” or pages that are not consistent in look and feel confuse me.
- When I ask how many ‘Live Customers’ use this product, I want to know about in production, not in the sales pipeline.
- If it is a MS Windows/SQL Server based product, don’t list Windows Std. Edition and MSSQL Standard Edition as required software - We need enterprise level software, there is a huge delta in TCO in licensing fees.
Things to do right:
- Simulate a live transaction against a simulator or other tool showing that it is a real system and is functional.
- Walk me through the life-cycle of certain processes that I care about.
- Be able to explain “how you would implement X” or modify Y, or how your system deals with “Z”
- I know that a product won’t solve all of my needs, so I’m looking for synergies with your team to be partners with a relationship to get your product to fit my needs.
- Be able to speak my language, and have a few competent people driving the demo.
- Show me how “someone would use this” application in the real world.
