Q&A with Ariel Munafo, Founder and Board Member of MarkeTech Group

Media 7 | October 13, 2021

Ariel Munafo, Founder and Board Member of MarkeTech Group, EuropeClouds and CloudEdge. He is also an Ambassador at CNCF and a Vice President at IASA ISRAEL. Munafo is an investor and cloud computing evangelist and a personal advisor to CIOs & CTOs.

The CEO and CTO, we call them BDMs (Business Decisions Makers), cannot make decisions without consulting the TDMs (Technical Decisions Makers).



MEDIA7: Could you tell us something about your career journey so far, and what inspired you to start MarkeTech Group?
ARIEL MUNAFO:
Cloud computing changed a lot of things technologically as well as in the selling/marketing world. Technical people are mostly the ones, that lead their company’s IT strategy and take most of the decisions. The CEO and CTO, we call them BDMs (Business Decisions Makers) cannot make the decisions without consulting the TDMs (Technical Decisions Makers) and in many companies, the TDMs are the ones that are making the decisions more than ever. MarkeTech Group's mission is to help individuals and organizations to adopt cloud computing in a smart and secure way by creating communities and content in many countries and different languages. For our mission statement  https://www.europeclouds.com/about.


M7: MarkeTech Group is committed to enhancing networking and learning opportunities for all of its members. What strategies does MarkeTech Group use to execute this?
AM:
We believe that the best way is having community members in the front and with zero tolerance to marketing content. Our forums and community leaders create podcasts, vlogs, meetups in more than 10 countries, we create big cloud summits to create a bigger impact in the tech world.


The cyber/security world will keep being at the top of our concerns, and companies must work together to try and stop hackers from hurting companies.



M7: You are one of the members of the STEERING COMMITTEE for EuropeClouds Summit 2021. Could you please give us an insight into this event?
AM:
Yes, of course, this is the second edition of the EuropeClouds Summit, an event-driven tech community. We have great keynote speakers, last year it was Jeff Bar, Vice President & Chief Evangelist at AWS, and this year we are proud to have Tim Banks in the same spot.
As you can see from our speakers, we promote great content, but also our group and I demand to have a diversity of speakers.


M7: What, according to you, would be an ideal framework for marketing and sales teams to derive business success?
AM:
As I mentioned in my previous answer, technical sales and marketing must change, a few years back, marketing was simple, banners, newsletters, and events, the content wasn't important as is it today because it was directed to BDMs. Sales tactics were also simpler, personal connections, lunch, and again not focusing on value and deep technology. Today with TDMs it is harder, the content must be technical, those people are very smart and are intolerant to marketing and sales messages. Not all the companies did this shift in their understanding of the market, working with communities, new media, and not the older PR mode that was almost the default channel to the news.


I also call countries to invest more in education and young people, they are our future.



M7: With your incredible experience in various technology roles, what do you think are the top 3 emerging technologies that will shape the MarTech space in the next 5 years?
AM:
I believe that cloud computing will still be the main talk next to AI (Machine Learning and Deep Learning), but also quantum computing, confidential computing will be topics that we will focus on. I believe that also edge computing will increase rapidly and I must believe that some new technologies will pump up in 3-4 years. Sadly, I must say that the cyber/security world will keep being at the top of our concerns and companies must work together to try and stop hackers from hurting companies.


M7: What advice would you like to give our readers based on your experience and learnings?
AM:
I believe in hard work! I believe that people should learn new technologies, keep good networking and try to help others as much as they can. I had the knack to be a developer, a dba, a cloud computing leader and I enjoyed my journey until I decided to try the ‘opposite’, I am going to focus more on the business and less on the technical part. The technology world is having a lack of technical people and if you work hard you have a chance to start. I also call countries to invest more in education and young people, they are our future.

ABOUT MARKETECH GROUP

MarkeTech Group's mission is to share and grow the world's Cloud Computing knowledge. Most companies are still not on Cloud. Their mission is to share and grow the world's cloud computing knowledge, and they're building communities around the world to achieve this mission. They educate their members, helping them with questions, and gathering the best content and best practices from hands-on professionals. Their values are based on their mission thinking long term and making an impact in every region and country, they are quality content-driven. They are agile, adopting new cultures’ ideas and needs, and also ready to adapt to world changes (like during the COVID- 19 pandemic).

Learn and Grow by Joining Us
Their team members are empowered to create great content and create new ways of reaching TDMs (technical decision-makers). They promote Influencers and Cloud computing Advocacy. They set people up for success by pairing them with experienced mentors, share knowledge, and foster a culture of learning across the company. They share their challenges, success, and learnings, and believe everyone has an opportunity to be heard, and impact worldwide decisions.

Come Together
They enable people from all over the world to come together to share and learn cloud computing new features, best practices and stay up to date in this quick world.

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MarkeTech Group

MarkeTech Group's mission is to share and grow the world's Cloud Computing knowledge. Most companies are still not on Cloud. Their mission is to share and grow the world's cloud computing knowledge, and they're building communities around the world to achieve this mission. They educate their members...

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