A Few Thoughts Near Thanksgiving: Ventana - Great; Announcements - Fine; The Rest - Hilarious

There's a lot of stuff going on in the world and I figure that since the Obama Transition team is covered enough (I have an interesting story to tell that involves the transition team, me and CRM - in a way - though its only for in person chats over a great single malt or cognac or pretty much anything with alcohol that you don't rub on yourself in it) by CNN and other mainstream media, I figured I'd cover a few of the cogent goings on - and one incredibly HILARIOUS pirate site that is stealing everything that InsideCRM is writing and turning it....well, you'll see.

The Incredible Coolness of Being Cerado Ventana

Most of you know or should if you don't Chris Carfi, the blogger supreme who showcases his smarts at the Social Customer blogsite day in and day out. What you might not know, though it means you didn't read his profile if you don't, is that Chris is the founder and president of Cerado, the creators of the social network application called Haystack. Haystack was (and is) a pretty fair country application that creates highly specialized groups and communities and establishes what we would all call connectivity between members.Again a damned good product. But they have blown themselves in the stratosphere of goodness with the release of Ventana, a mobile version of Haystack for want of a better way to describe it. This was released late last week and already has a distinguished set of clients. Best way to figure out how Ventana works is to watch this video on it:

What makes Ventana not only cool but important is that it is a mobile social aggregation tool that not only allows you to connect to individual people and associated groups, but groups and people who might not be associated directly but are connected in some way. What makes it critical is that it's mobile and you can do it via direct web, the iPhone and the Blackberry, Keep in mind it becomes cross-platform if you are accessing the same people from your Bold or your iPhone. You can tell how diverse the uses are by the company that Ventana keeps. Here's an example or two:

Zappos - Ventana is used for finding out what anyone at all is saying on Twitter - a.k.a. the tab that says Buzz. Ventana is used to correspond via Twitter with the 400 Zappos employees who use it a.k.a. the tab called Network. Ventana is used to see the shoes styles that are out there "just.for.you.dog." a.k.a. the tab called Styles! and finally HELP! or actually the tab Help which is an FAQ about those things you do with stores - online or not. Returns, customer service, purchasing, etc. Interestingly, this complements what Oracle is doing with their Social CRM Sales gadgets and some of their marketing to come iPhone apps demonstrated at OpenWorld 2008. Though I doubt that was or is the intent here.

Blogher Mom Blog Search - For those of you who don't know Blogher, shame on you, rapscallions! They are the premier women in blogging institution, they are influential and they draw thousands to conferences. They are perhaps the most respected blogging organization of any kind out there - period. Blogher is run by the inimitable Lisa Stone, who, along with two other of her Blogher compadres, was recently named one of the most influential women in the Web 2.0 world by Fast Company. They are using Ventana so that you can find out what any moms (and dads as they note proudly) are saying out there about any subject of their concerns. Its a crowdsourcing fount of wisdom that literally fits on your smart device. This one can be not only iPhone and Blackberry but Treo too. Play with it.

All in all, this is actually an important step - an easy to use mobile social aggregator with search capabilities. This pulls what has been the more typical mobile social application - a Facebook or MySpace reproduction on a smart device - out of its silos and makes what is actually the most important facet of the new communications media - real. That's the peer to peer connection - and it does it without compromising the integrity of the groups that they are associated with. In fact, it allows those groups to maintain their identity and still interact on a one to one basis or on a group to group or one to group or group to one level. This is an important step forward for social networking use. I'd take a serious look at this if you have are a company that wants to either connect its customers with each other or employees of the company to the customer - or if you need to access the valuable "wisdom of the crowd" when it comes to product or person.

I'd say that the the next iteration of Ventana should include a recommendation engine that would do both rankings and comments etc. But that's about the only thing missing from this cross-community engine. This is something you may not be able to give for Christmas to your significant other (at least not without MAJOR fallout) but get your company to give it to themselves for the holidays. Zapppos figured it out. Now you do that.

Announcements for The Next Few....Days

I did a webinar attended by over 300 people yesterday for InsideCRM sponsored by Microsoft on "Retaining Customers During an Economic Downturn." I was beyond surprised at the large turnout - which I'd love to say is because I'm such a rockstar but the reality is that people are clearly worried about the downturn AND I can't play the guitar anyway. If you'd like to listen to it, I think this is the archive for it.

I have another one coming up done through CRM Magazine and sponsored by Oracle called "Web 2.0/Sales 2.0, Social Networking - What is It and How Can It Help Me Sell? This is going to be on December 10 and I'd like to beat the crowd I had for the InsideCRM one. While not a hard focus on the downturn, I'm going to discuss the use of Social CRM/CRM 2.0 during a downturn and how it will enhance the chances of a successful sale - even in bad conditions. So it might well be worth it - at least I'd like to think so. Register here for this one.

Never Thought I'd Say "Hilarious" and "CRM" in the Same Breath But....

USD8.com. Innocuous name but one of the greatest comedy sites since "The Onion."

This is a pirate site, I swear. I have no idea where they are coming from or what their purpose is but among other things, they seem to want to steal InsideCRM's articles enmasse and then run it through a comedy language filter and out comes the funniest translation of English to English I think I've ever seen. For example, they took the article that InsideCRM earlier this year on influencers in CRM and they ran it through the filter. First here's an excerpt from the original:

"Paul Greenberg - The Fifty-Six Group President: If it's happening in CRM, Paul Greenberg predicted it. Social networking, hosted CRM, the virtual call center … he saw it coming. Greenberg literally wrote the book on CRM ("CRM at the Speed of Light: Essential Customer Strategies for the 21st Century"). He's also the president of The Fifty-Six Group, an enterprise applications consulting services firm; a managing partner of BPT Partners LLC, a training company that works in partnership with major CRM industry players; and the co-chairman of the CRM Research Center at Rutgers University, among other roles. He may not be a direct influencer, but he is certainly an oracle (meant in the old-fashioned, non-Larry Ellison way). Among his pronouncements: Business is no longer in control; the customer is, and you'd better learn how to deal with it."

Okay, now for the "translation" with the ridiculousness filter:

"Paul Greenberg - The Fifty-Six Accumulation President: If it's accident in CRM, Paul Greenberg predicted it. Amusing networking, hosted CRM, the basic alarm centermost … he saw it coming. Greenberg in fact wrote the book on CRM ("CRM at the Acceleration of Light: Capital Chump Strategies for the 21st Century"). He's aswell the admiral of The Fifty-Six Group, an action applications consulting casework firm; a managing accomplice of BPT Ally LLC, a training aggregation that works in affiliation with above CRM industry players; and the co-chairman of the CRM Assay Centermost at Rutgers University, a allotment of added roles. He may not be a absolute influencer, but he is absolutely an answer (meant in the old-fashioned, non-Larry Ellison way). A allotment of his pronouncements: Business is no best in control; the chump is, and you'd bigger apprentice how to accord with it."

I mean, how cool is that? This is hilarious. I'm trying desperately to use that first line "If its accident in CRM, Paul Greenberg predicted it" as my tagline for everything I do. Also, "Capital Chump Strategies for the 21st Century." What's amazing is that wherever the word "customer is used" somehow that translates back to "chump." Says something profound doesn't it - though I'll be damned if I know what that is.

This thing is even funnier. They call Bob Stutz, SAP's SAP Senior Vice President of CRM Global Strategy and Development; Bob Stutz, SAP Arch Carnality Admiral of CRM All-around Action and Development. Arch Carnality Admiral....that's a job I want.

Here's the whole thing unadorned for your unvarnished hilarity.

Okay, Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Have a great holiday if you're here in the U.S. and if not, have a great week all in all. And remember, when thinking about CRM Influencers "We advance this account of big shots, bloggers, analysts and technologists who fabricated above impacts in 2007." So, my advice to you this 2008 Thanksgiving week is, if you want to influence things in the world, fabricate an impact.

See ya.

Comments

[gomez]

this is one of the blogs from which i got some good information. But you can try to post more details about the reviews of the CRM and ERP vendors too. For some information about these reviews visit http://erp.com.

[Management Software]

This is one of very few blogs that was worth the read, a great insight. My friend will be so exciting to check out that. I’m really grateful for this great read, thank you for sharing this out.

[Paul Greenberg]

Anne,
So? That affects the quality of the application, how?

Paul

[anne bartlet]

Just a small point you left out: disclosing that Chris and Lisa Stone live together. So of course he and Cerado got the job for Blogher.

[PaulSweeney]

nice review of ventana, and that zappos case you outline hit me like a big wow. It sounds like total sweetness, and i love it.

[Chris Bucholtz]

I'd try to stop them from doing this if it wasn't so funny. I personally liked Sheryl Kingstone's descrpition mutated from "the first woman inducted into the CRM Hall of Fame" into "the aboriginal woman inducted into the CRM Anteroom of Acclaim."

This story immediately brought to mind a scene from "News Radio:" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMZtdLra24E

--Chris