Mark Helfen

Current

Director of Communications for the Marketing SIG at SDForum
LinkedIn training specialist at ProMatch

Past

Staff Writer/journalist/reporter at Palo Alto Daily News
President at Marketfire Strategies, Inc
Product Manager at LynuxWorks, Inc.

Product Manager at Eloquent, Inc.
Consultant at Qualcomm
Product Manager at Illustra
Director of Product Marketing at Pyramid Technology
Group Product Marketing Manager at Convergent Technologies
Sales Support Manager at Metaphor Computer Systems
West Coast Technical Support Manager at Cincom Systems

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7 more...

Education

University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles

Recommended

3 people have recommended Mark

Connections

209 connections

Industry

Writing and Editing

Websites

Mark Helfen’s Summary

...Research (report), learn, analyze, understand, and explain...

My passion is asking questions. Asking the key questions, and getting the critical answers. Learning by analyzing and evaluating what I’ve heard. And then communicating new information to others in a language they will understand.
This interest energizes my work in product marketing – learning about and understanding new products and technology, analyzing and evaluating how they can be best marketed, and communicating product benefits in a way that potential customers can understand.
It was also key to my success in journalism. Persistence in getting an interview, learning new information, zeroing in on the key issues, and quickly writing a clear, understandable news story to explain what I had learned.
It turns out there are a lot of parallels between technology marketing and journalism. I like to ask questions, and it turns out I’m pretty good at getting them answered.

More specifically, I do the following:

- Senior marketing strategist, analyst, and implementer. Quickly learn and become productive in new technology areas. Able to quickly analyze new products and ideas in the context of existing products and markets.

- Award winning journalist with a track record of getting news first, accurately, and on deadline. Able to work independently, develop and cultivate sources, generate story ideas, and produce high quality, accurate copy ready for publication.

- Strong skills in precision writing - quickly communicate complex ideas to a wide level of audiences.

- Broad experience and educational background allows quality reporting on a wide variety of stories, including legislation, politics, environment, human interest, business, software, systems, science, health, and technology.

- Committed to professional, ethical journalism. Produced on-time, accurate reporting that was fair, balanced, and complete.

Mark Helfen’s Specialties:

Broad technology and science background
Government policy
Legislation
Mathematics, science, statistics
Independent research
Team management
Project Management
Strategy development
Technical support
Competitive research and analysis
Investor Relations
Product Marketing
Marketing Communications (Marcom)
Enterprise software systems
Hiring, management, and supervision
Marketing strategy
Linux
Embedded Systems
Networking
Strong presentation and public speaking skills

Mark Helfen’s Experience

Director of Communications for the Marketing SIG

SDForum

(Non-Profit; Computer Software industry)

January 2009 — Present (1 year )

I am now managing the SIG blog:
http://marketingsig.blogspot.com/
LinkedIn training specialist

ProMatch

(Management Consulting industry)

April 2008 — Present (1 year 9 months)

develop and teach LinkedIn workshops.
Staff Writer/journalist/reporter

Palo Alto Daily News

(Privately Held; Newspapers industry)

April 2004 — July 2006 (2 years 4 months)

Beat wasCity of Mountain View
- Started coverage of Mountain View, where the paper had no presence. Developed sources and contacts inside city government, with the school district, with business, and other civic groups and citizens. Improved papers competitive position and increased local circulation.
- Operated independently with minimal editorial oversight, generating high quality, fast turnaround stories to match papers writing and management style. Stories were ready for publication, with little editorial oversight required.
- Covered everything and anything in the city – City government, police and fire, school board actions, business, human interest features, development and land use planning.Learned new topic areas quickly, researched and developed expert sources needed for balanced reporting.

Approximately 350 bylined stories were published, clips available on request.
President

Marketfire Strategies, Inc

(Computer Software industry)

May 1993 — June 2002 (9 years 2 months)

Marketfire Strategies is a consulting firm providing marketing strategies, positioning, messaging, product marketing implementation, and collateral development. Marketfire is focused on high technology clients.
Product Manager

LynuxWorks, Inc.

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)

January 2000 — September 2000 (9 months)

Brought in near the end of the development cycle, there was no marketing or launch program planned. I quickly learned Linux, the LinuxWorks embedded operating systems, and the details of the particular distribution, and the organization of the company. Marketing materials, including data sheets, white papers, pricing, and competitive analysis were created for an on-time launch
Product Manager

Eloquent, Inc.

(Computer Software industry)

July 1999 — January 2000 (7 months)

The company used internally developed tools in creating of multimedia education content. They decided to productize and sell them to end users, and needed a marketing plan. I reviewed competitive space, the companies technology and the resources that would be needed, and likely support costs. I produced analysis that showed: 1) product would take significant investment to turn it into a marketable product. 2) Selling the product would take significant support resources, far beyond what was available at the company, and 3) Pricing was highly competitive and would not allow profitable margins given the investment required. The company decided to abandon the product and invested their scarce resources other places.
Consultant

Qualcomm

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; QCOM; Telecommunications industry)

1996 — 1997 (1 year )

Business development manager for Eudora
Product Manager

Illustra

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)

May 1993 — October 1993 (6 months)

Product manager during development and product launch of an object-relational database management system.
Director of Product Marketing

Pyramid Technology

(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; PYRD; Computer Hardware industry)

May 1988 — January 1993 (4 years 9 months)

Managed product marketing and management for enterprise class UNIX servers.
Group Product Marketing Manager

Convergent Technologies

(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; CVGT; Computer Hardware industry)

May 1985 — November 1988 (3 years 7 months)

Product marketing and management of UNIX systems for OEM resale. Operating system, communication software, compilers, etc..
Sales Support Manager

Metaphor Computer Systems

(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Computer Software industry)

May 1984 — May 1985 (1 year 1 month)

Marketing support for analysis work station
West Coast Technical Support Manager

Cincom Systems

(Privately Held; 1001-5000 employees; Computer Software industry)

May 1977 — May 1983 (6 years 1 month)

Managed customer software support for the Western U.S.
System Engineer

Mark Helfen’s Education

University of California, Los Angeles

Masters Computer Science , Computer Science, Engineering

UCLA, U.C.L.A.
University of California, Los Angeles

Bachelors/cumlaude , Engineering