We Wish You A Merry Christmas And A Happy Chanukah and a Cheery Kwanzaa and An Intellectually Rabelaisian New Year

Okay, all you out there, this is the first in my non-monetary holiday gifts. A "looks-good-under-the-tree" list of blogs, shows, companies etc. that you might not know about but should because they are interesting, entertaining, informative, or some combination of all ten (I'm not telling you the other seven characteristics. Not. No. Uh. Uh.).

I'm also cheap so I don't want to spend money on you all since hopefully, there are enough of you to make it monetary suicide for me to spend. If not, I have no excuse.

Here goes, darlings and dudes-who-are-too-manly-to-be-called-anything-affectionately:

1. "Technology for Business' Sake" - This, despite your myopic reading of the title, is not about how to drink keiretsu - based wine using the latest in Riedel glassware. This is a radio show with an RSS feed so it is a quasi-podcast, run by CRM industry jefes, Michael Thomas and Brent Leary from their Atlanta locale. They do it at radio station WCFO 1160 studios and they have great stuff. This is not one of those "use Quicken for Home & Business" boo-yuccch radio hours. Not only are there honest to god good things they suggest and recommend but they have some heavy hitters like Bob Parsons of GoDaddy fame and analyst Sheryl Kingstone of Yankee Group employment (she is one of my all-time favorites,though,oddly, I've never met her...maybe not so odd. Lots of people I never met) commenting on what's out there these days in the world of small b'iness. I'd be setting this up in your RSS reader or listening in if you're in Atlanta. This one is a SIGNIFICANT gem and you need to know about it. Why? 'Cuz it has REAL and original value as opposed to being something DJed from someone else's CD. Actually, anything you can find that Brent & Michael do, just keep following it to the end of the earth.
2. The Wise Marketer- Still easily my favorite of all 2.0 marketing sites. This one is LOADED with incredible material on marketing in a world dominated by customers that marketers can't control. PLUS it takes the view that marketers are the leaders of the engagement and conversation with the customer, not the purveyor of the company line. I truly LOVE these guys - in a platonic sort of way that is. They also put out something called the Loyalty Guide (now in its second edition) but I can't afford it so I don't know what's in it or if its any good. I'll ask around. If its anything like what I read on their site, it sure as shyte (I'm Irish) is good.
3. The Blogs on ZDNet, especially Dan Farber - Dan Farber isn't someone that the 2.0 world reads regularly - or at least the CRM world reads regularly. But ZDNet is surprisingly smart AND interesting when it comes to whassup in the 2.0 world. Farber, along with his partner in verbal challenge, Larry Dignan, take on things like this, "Are SugarCRM, Socialtext, Zimbra, Scalix and others, abusing the term "open source?" a challenging and rather forthright shot to the chest of some of the open source vendors out there. They are absolutely worth a read and in a place that's usually not associated with it.
4. Jasper Fforde- This guy is a Welsh writer and brilliantly hilarious. He is easily one of my favorite writers, because, damn, he can WRITE. He has nothing to do with CRM, or Web 2.0 or customers (except those who read his books). He is literary and has a style that is remininiscent of part S.J. Perelman, part Max Barry and part Donald Westlake. You gotta check his website out to get a feel of what he's all about. His characters are detectives who investigate nursery rhyme or literary crimes against books among them, attempting to change the ending of the book or a character from the book gone wild. For example, click on either of these two books to get an idea:

   First, The Eyre Affair and second, The Well of Lost Plots

5. The Cluetrain Manifesto - Shoulda, coulda, woulda. This is one of those books you shoulda heard of, coulda heard of, and if you actually did, woulda read. For those of you reading this who are 5 years old or less, this book came out in 2000 and was the clarion call of the 2.0 customer and yet, not that many people know much about it. At least not those I deal with. Frankly, you're nuts if you don't read it. This is the one that says, "markets are conversations." And in the ancient days of 2000 nonetheless. The ongoing conversation is being carried out by Doc Searls' blog (Doc is one of the pioneers and authors of the 2.0 mindset), called fascinatingly "Doc Searls Weblog" and what he says, goes.
6. Haystack - For those of you who haven't read the blog that gets the social customer best (outside of me, of course. Oh, okay. Equally), The Social Customer, Chris Carfi's thang, shame on you! But even worse, if you haven't checked out his social networking tool, Haystack, Shanda (yiddish for shame on you) many times over this season of holiday cheer. Before I get into my brief take on it, here's Doc Searl's take on it. Social networking tools are indispensible now. The contemporary brand of hive activity that younger generations find naturally filtered its way into business recently and are essential for the newer business models that are beginning to emerge as pre-eminent. Haystack, Chris's product, has unique features that you won't find anywhere else. Things like tagged "finding", rather than use of search. Or Skype connectivity to any particular member of the "stack." Or a personalized locale for the individual stackees that you prefer. Or....just check it out. Its a useful, important, significant and contemporary tool. Its cool too.
7. Slideshare.net - If you love YouTube, Flickr and yet are over 40 so you don't tell anyone. This one is for you. You upload your powerpoints a.k.a. PPTs to this site and develop the tags and let others download. A Flickr fix for the over 35 without the telltale whipped cream on the nose after you've drunk it down. This is one great service and site and makes geezers feel "with it." Okay, I use it. So do a lot of errrr....us.

Okay, enough stocking stuffers. More will show. Ho. Ho. Ho. Time to go.

Yo.

Technorati : CRM, CRM 2.0, Media, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, blogs, culture, podcasts, social networking