PGreenblog

A Company Like Me, Part 1

CRM 1.0 has been a series of processes, technologies, and methodologies organized around the operational tasks that were designed to institutionalize a way of managing customer-company interaction.

CRM 2.0, while incorporating what CRM 1.0 does, also incorporates the personalization of those customer-company interactions and the integration of the customer into the planning, strategies and direction of the company through use of tools, products, services, and experiences so that the customer feels that they are participating in the companies that they choose to do business with.

CRM 1.0 concerned itself with the customer as the object of a satisfactory sale. CRM 2.0 concerns itself with the customer as the subject of a satisfactory experience.

In their own ways, they both attempt to institutionalize practices that allow better customer-company interaction. Their respective visions are driven by the expectations of the social forces in command of the contemporary business ecosystem of its era (we are narrowing this conversation to just business here regardless of the broader social implications). In the CRM 1.0 days that would be the company and the enterprise value chain associated with it. In the CRM 2.0 days a.k.a. right-this-2008-second that would be the very empowered customer and the peer-to-peer social networks associated with it.

But there is one other facet that can't be ignored for CRM 2.0 - and that is that we're not just talking about personalization, but we're talking about humanization.

Humanization? Huh?

What that means is that because the contemporary empowered customer is enmeshed in some way with a network of peers, their expectations are dramatically changed. They are straightforward changes, though. They expect that they can interact with a company the same way that they interact with a friend or a peer who they can trust. That means that they expect a personal relationship to the company, not just to a person in the company, though that may be how the relationship manifests itself a larger number of times. That also means that they expect that the attributes, the characteristics of that deeply personal connection they have to a peer is part of the way that the company interacts with them. That means that trust and transparency have to permeate the company's DNA. That means that the company has to have something distinct about them. That means that the customer is expecting the company to converse with them, not push corporate hype at them. It's why you see contemporary marketing so geared toward buzz and word of mouth and engaging customers in conversation through use of social media like blogs, or engaging internal customers in a valued conversation through a wiki.

Its also why coolness and style are now factors in that conversation between customer and company - because they are intimate parts of the conversation between friends.

This level of humanization is fundamental, but not necessary defining for all companies. While customers have a much more demanding level of expectation, they still simply purchase things in a utilitarian fashion from a plurality of companies they deal with, and they don't have that level of expectation from any particular company that they interact with like that. They treat the company as the (the shoe is on the other foot) object of a purchase. But the state devoutly to be desired by the company is not just the repeat purchaser, though that's certainly good, but the advocate who is going to say, "this company loves me the way I love it." So they have to gear their strategies toward getting that kind of customer (whether B2C or B2B, dammit) and settle for the customer who merely returns to buy.

Why I'm Even Writing This

This is my usual long winded highly conceptual way of talking about something that is important to me. But first a little longer, higher speed wind (take that any way you want). As y'all know, I'm not exactly unopinionated. I tend to be pretty passionate about what I write and I make it REAL clear whether I like what a company is doing or dislike what a company is doing. If I sense injustice, I go after it. If I think a company has done something good, despite my prior dislike of their actions, I say it and I make the necessary turn. I have no gripe against individuals unless they act in a mean spirited way and then I'll go after them. But all in all, I have no particular love or hatred of a company per se - just their actions get me hot - either in a good way or a bad way.

Edelman Trust Index

Some of you may have heard of the Edelman Trust Index - a measure of what kind of characteristics govern whom and how you trust. The most common trusted source for the contemporary soul is "someone like me." I trust those who are most similar to me. That would ideally suit a company that does it right too. Not only has the company provided me with what I need to sculpt my version of a relationship with it, but I actually see that the company's culture is "like me" and that they are able to institutionally reproduce that state - meaning if someone at the company who I've been dealing with who I feel a kinship to, leaves, though I would miss that person and perhaps continue my relationship to them outside the company, I would still not have a diminished relationship with or feeling about that company.

The True Subject: Neighborhood America

All right. All that said, I'm now going to get on with it, because, even with my vendor-agnosticism a constant suit of emotional armor for me and my willingness to judge vendor companies, not by only their culture, but their actions - and to do that both universally and discretely, I have to admit there is one company that has reached that exalted state of piercing my armor - that I actually have that peer-to-peer institutional relationship as well as a number of personal friendships and warm acquaintances. That would be Neighborhood America. But I'm going to make you wait until later this week for the why that company fits this concept, because I REALLY want to post this blog entry and that's gonna take me some time. Consider this part 1.

Random Gems from SAPPHIRE (Get it?)

Found out that SAP has a deeper commitment to communities than I thought. They have a community called BPx that has 350,000 members consisting of business analysts and application consultants, IT project managers, and process developers on the techie side and BPM guys, UI experts, change management gurus on the functional side. Run by a really forward thinking dude named Marco ten Vaanholt. A "social-smart" guy. Title is Global Head, Business Process Expert (BPX) Community (see Marco's comment below that led to this correction). They also have a 1.2 million member developers community called SDN....

Mike de la Cruz, SVP of Mobility & Analytics (CRM related stuff) seems to be the guy who drove the execution of the SAP CRM Blackberry app and he did a GREAT job. What's funny here is that when I mentioned his name on Twitter, I heard from several of the Tweet-producers that they knew him or had gone to school with him. Amazing. He is REALLY known around the industry....

Eric Clapton did what turned out to be a great show because the second half of it was cranked up by Clapton considerably from the first half. He did all his old stuff in the second half and more acoustic, quieter blues in combination with some serious electric blues discharges the first half. But he left the crowd at the end roaring. He is a god. No doubt. I saw him in his last (until the 2007 revival) Cream concert in 1969 or 1970 whenever it was in Chicago with my brother. Their final U.S. tour....

One curious thing about SAP's thinking...they made a major effort to de-emphasize not just Business by Design but what they called the "By Design platform" at one point. In reference to Business by Design they kept saying they had "Business All in One" which, of course, is their on premise small business applications. Not a notable success either. Which is me saying its not a very good product in another way. That's upsetting. They may be having some development problems, which, Hennings Kagermann alluded to in one brief comment during one presentation (I forget which one) - delayed delivery. But the almost vehement shoving of Business By Design under the table (not the bus) was disconcerting, because to play, they are going to have to have it. This is not an option. I've heard too many different release dates from too many sources to speculate on which one is accurate. But SAP HAS TO RELEASE A SOLID ON DEMAND PRODUCT TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CRM AND ENTERPRISE APPLICATIONS WORLD. Their time is pretty short too. I hope they do. Because all the rest seems to be so on target.

Pictures At An Exhibition: Michael Maoz Kicks Some Intent-Driven Butt Into Gear

Got to see Michael Maoz (Gartner's superstar analyst) both hanging out and presenting at the SAP CRM Theater. Aside from just the sheer pleasure of seeing someone I count among my special friends, he did a GREAT job at the presentation, unveiling some new material on CRM and the social actions of the new customer. Some of his stuff was validating to me because it overlapped (with different verbal assignments) what I've been saying. Some of it was outright fascinating & I think he personally is onto something here. I'm going to summarize in about 200 words what he said for an hour so needless to say this will be the spare version. Gartner Research apparently found that CRM is THE top priority for businesses in 2008 - in part due to the economic difficulties - because people need to retain customers when the going is bad. but what was interesting is the different spins different segments have - for examples the biggest business issue is enhancing and retaining relationships with customers (8.1 on scale of 10) while #2 is tracking new customers (pay attention Business Objects!!) (8.0/10). When CEOs only were queried they thought that sales productivity (36%) and customer care (35%) were the #1 & #2 issues respectively - which for those of who think in a classically siloed way - are two of the three pillars of CRM. When IT was queried about their business expectations the number 1 for 2008 (and '07 & '06) was improving business processes and #2? Attracting & retaining customers. Innovation went from #10 in 2007 to #3 in 2008. He then went thorough a significant amount of other Gartner numbers of which, I'll let you in on a few more. The availability of channels for the customer has increased in both scope and complexity and what was fascinating is that as self-service via the web increased to 50% of channel activity in customer service in 2007, the parts of customer service that still relied on humans (e.g. contact center CSRs) found that it got far worse for them and even with all the new technologies and the reduction in the amount of human to human contact (though, for example, T-Mobile has 300 million incoming so I can't see that calls have been reduced THAT much), the attrition rate among CSRs is worse than ever. The reason? If someone goes to the extent of calling, given they can take care of many of their problems or queries via the web, they are REALLY REALLY mad. REALLY mad. Really....mad. The lesser problems have been solved online. See the theme here? Customers, customers, and, oh crap, yeah, all things related to customers. Which means that CRM is the #1 priority for us'n in 2008. But, and this was the kicker, as Michael said, his daughters don't know that. They do their purchasing due to what they are told to on Facebook. They ask their friends via Facebook, or MySpace or perhaps use the aggregators like FriendFeed to find out where to go tonight or the best place to get a bargain handbag or how to figure out a more complex purchase. All that "stuff" that companies are doing doesn't mean squat to them. He also pointed out in a very interesting way that he's had three varieties of Toyota SUV, or car or lux car (Lexus), and has been a committed Toyota customer for 10 years, but Toyota didn't grow with him so it couldn't make a suggestion about what might interest him. Why not? THEY DIDN'T KNOW. All they know is that he bought some cars for some reasons other than what they can fathom. In fact, I find this to be a HUGE problem with companies and a complex one to solve. How do you grow with the customers? Each of them grows differently and yet, if you knew, the likelihood of repurchase or of a new purchase or cross sell or whatever salesy terms you are comforted by, goes up exponentially because the emotional state attached to that knowledge and indication of that knowledge to the customer is that "hey, they CARE," or in a Sally Fieldsian way, "They like me. They REALLY like me." Procter & Gamble is the only company I'm aware of doing that "growing up with the customer" to some degree. They have a product called "Sparkle Body Spray" that in 2005 (long story with this that you should attend my classes to hear) was aimed at the 14-15 year old girl market and had a social site that was associated with the themes that you'd find with that age group. Contests, blogs with colors associated with the body spray (anti-perspirant) scents, putting together dream date and then emailing info or text messaging info to friends, etc. This was wildly successful, all word of mouth built with 12,000 unique visitors a week who averaged 25 minutes per visit on the site. But if you look at it now, when the girls are now around 17-18, the site is tied to another site "Because You're Hot" which has video dance contests that win you a JLo music video slot and surveys about the sexiest scent, etc. In other words, the site is growing up with its audience. (BTW, this is me, not Michael in that red paragraph. I don't want to put words in his mouth) He made the point that his kids and many others are moving to control their own experiences outside the channels provided by the company and this is an inevitable march. This peer to peer relationship, the external communities not in the control of the business, are all creating a new set of expectations which he identified as:

• 24/7 availability of services
• want to be needed, recognized
• Dialogue, experience control
• Give them, show them you have domain expertise

The optimal enterprise here would not be the current one which he called the function driven enterprise, but instead the "Intent-driven Enterprise." That is a company that knows not just what I want, but knows my intent - what are the reasons I want what I want, and what WILL I be interested in down the road - the knowledge of which they got from me, senor, senorita, senora customer. He then identified the top "functionality" requirements for the Intent-driven Enterprise:

1. It is in sync with evolving needs (key here is evolving)
2. It engages community opinions
3. It is reliable & trustworthy
4. It allows independent ratings
and
5. It uses "like type" comparisons (similar here to the Edelman Trust Index findings - the most trusted person I know is someone like me).

Because this is so complex, success can't be defined as good "suboptimal" results (good marketing, good sales, good service, etc.) but has to be defined as the engagement of an integrated ecosystem made available to the customer.

He (almost) closed with what I would call a perceptual model for the future customer. He said the customer had to have the illusion of free will, of the availability of multiple paths for exploration and of the means to achieve several goals with the business. While the business is needed to provide it, the business reality is that the paths are probably pre-determined, that there is one process that is truly available and that one goal is there for the customer. Michael wasn't advocating this, he was saying that's what the business reality is and probably will be. This is very much the same concept in a somewhat different framework that Joe Pine 2 advocates in "Authenticity" which is fake real in a manner of speaking. My take on this has been more benign since I don't think that fake ANYTHING is what needs to happen but I do think that you don't need to own luxury, you need to "feel luxurious." You know the old saying, "whatever floats your boat?" That is what I mean, but the business has to see it from what it costs them to make the boat that the customer wants to float, and no one in their right mind can argue this is wrong. I do think there is an optimal state possible, though. I think that the engagement of the entire ecosystem of the company for the customer opens up options for the customer that give them increased degrees of freedom while at the same time allowing the enterprise to execute its business plan successfully. Meaning a "real real" collaboration. Primarily because there are a lot of forces involved in an ecosystem - not just one company and one customer but multiple value chains associated with either the customer or the enterprise. What Michael (though not in this presentation, more in discussions) and I make abundantly clear in our own inimitable styles is that business value and customer value while sharing the word "value" are two very different ideas that have to work in conjunction for both the customer to get what he/she wants & the business to get what it wants.

Pay attention to this "intent-driven enterprise" thing - its important and this is the first I've seen it. I hope that Gartner gets on board with Michael's thinking here. It would do them well to be more than cursory about it. This is really good stuff.

Its 2008. SAP FINALLY Gets It. They Really, Really Do.....

I'm more than pleasantly surprised. Much more actually. As you know from my past "tough love" posts on SAP and their often dusty messaging, while I liked the company, I thought that they just didn't get "it." The "it" being the contemporary customer's approach to the world and the social changes going on that were affecting business in a rather dramatic way. In fact, one year ago at this time, I'd have to have said (and did) that most of large software - actually all large high tech - companies - were ignoring the changes and still trying to please the enterprise customer in ways that no longer made sense nor has an iota of reasonable excuse for continuing. But, I'm sitting here at Sapphire 2008 heading into day 2 after a very productive day 1, and not only hearing messaging at this conference that I think is on the money, but getting the anecdotal evidence I need to make me believe that this is more than messaging - that SAP seems committed to transforming itself down to its core culture - and has been proceeding to do so. Two things before I outline some of what I'm seeing here:

1. For those of you who don't know it. SAPPHIRE is SAP's annual conference, which for the last 3 (I think) years has been a joint effort of SAP and ASUG, their user group umbrella organization. This is a MASSIVE conference - with over 15,000 attendees - apparently stuck down here in Orlando FL for a few more years (too bad on that one) at the Orlando Convention Center. Which can handle the traffic. I just don't love Orlando.
2. My approach to figuring this all out is straightforward, I listen to the stuff said on the stage, then I go and talk to people and, ahem, eavesdrop on the more casual conversations that go on and watch and listen for the smaller things that indicate cultural and intellectual transformation. So, for example, if someone says, as Henning Kagermann, the CEO of SAP, did, that SAP is committed to a culture of co-development and co-innovation, then I go out and find the signs that they are by seeing what they are actually doing and hearing how people are talking

OK. Enough of the preliminaries. Now on to the meat (though there is a vegetarian alternative phrase if requested). I sat in on the morning Executive Session for Business Influencers (I have this nice ego-boosting black tag on my badge that says I'm one. Thank god someone believes that. I'll save the badge for when I need to remember) and one brief observations. Analysts wear far too much wool. Its hot here but about 80% of the audience were wearing suits. Yuck. The message that was presented yesterday morning at the Exec. session was claro. SAP is successful, growing and SAP is changing and meeting the requirements of that change. On the successful side, SAP's global market share was 32.6% with organic growth up 0.9% over the last year and growth of market share through acquisition 3.3%. They had some significant revenue growth too with total revenue for example in EMEA at 1,306,000,000 euros which is 21% year over year growth in that sector. I didn't manage to get the totals, but so what? You get the idea which is the idea of this number. The themes that were presented for their "as is" (as opposed to forward thinking) state were that they could handle complex systems by innovating quickly; they were people centric with the ability to develop ad hoc processes (I presume they meant here processes that were appropriate to the audiences and not pre-cut); and (KEY THEME) collaborative networks were their love and their neo-raison d'etre - which meant having relationships that provided and were provided insight and connecting people to share info so that those insights could be realized (though, admittedly, I find this a little abstract as a message though a great idea). Hennings Kagermann also made the point in his opening segment that they were making SAP enterprise apps along the line of CRM-SRM-SCM-PLM-ERP-and what is still unknown to me EhP/EhP (??????) easy to "consume" and available for continuous innovation without upgrade. Again not explained much but borne out later in conversations I had about it - though I intend to find out more later today on this if possible. They are going to have an announcement today about a new product, but I don't know if I should say anything since the announcement is today, not yesterday. Its interesting to me though and not CRM but something that I think needs to be talked about when it is released. John Schwartz, CEO of Business Objects, talked about what they are doing in merging with SAP and painted a rather rosy picture. He said BO had 45,000 customers and 6500 employees - pretty massive and made it seem that the merger and unification of the cultures was going just great, thank you very much. I'll choose to remain a skeptic since nothing of that magnitude has ever gone that smoothly but its not an area I care that much about really so warts, glitches, wind and fire will not be the subject of this. There was only a brief discussion of cloud computing which I would suggest to SAP they pay more than brief attention to with the Google-IBM and Google-salesforce.com alliances that have been announced in the last two weeks or so. Hennings K. mentioned that SAP is agnostic when it comes to cloud computing because they realize that not everyone is going to want the same thing and so SAP needs to be above the clouds (that's mine, not his. I take full responsibility for the bad pun). So that's the "as is" state of the company's cortex - what about the "to be" and "going forward" states?

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

There were three things they mentioned, much to my delighted surprise as their path going forward. They were:

• Co-innovation - That was specifically discussed with the recent RIM/SAP alliance to provide all of SAP's applications, starting with what might be a brilliant execution from what I saw of SAP CRM for the Blackberry. Driven by SVP of Mobility and Analytics Michael De La Cruz on the SAP side and a variety of folks on the RIM side including my good bud, Paul Briggs as the marketing guy for RIM in this effort, the application I saw was easily the most comprehensive and user friendly CRM application for the Blackberry bar none. I saw it in pre-production so I don't know how its going to play but even in that state it was fully integrated with the RIM alarm and calendar and contacts and accounts. In other words, the native Blackberry apps - which makes sense given that in the spirit of co-innovation, RIM actually developed the app for SAP - which is a marked departure, by the way, for BOTH companies in how they do things. That alone for those of us into the arcane machinations of company politics and culture - is important. But the idea of SAP doing it alone is seemingly not entirely a thing of the past but has become simply one of the approaches. While coopetition is not new, as old as 1990 or 1994 or something (a Novell guy wrote a book by that name), the idea of collaboration and co-development was never something that was culturally comfortable - apparently until now.
• Web 2.0 - what made this particularly interesting was not just the new use interface of SAP CRM 2007 which was I think the best looking interface and perhaps the most functionally useful and simple one I've ever seen in a large enterprise CRM application, but also the fact that SAP claimed that they were "living the Web 2.0" - which is the harbinger of their cultural change. Now, I treated that as a marketing claim until I had the ability to speak with some of the senior management at the conference (from CEO Hennings Kagermann - a really nice guy - to SVPS of varying title to VPs to some of the less senior) and I had the ability to listen in on some "ordinary" organic conversations - and I think they are being authentic. Or as we say on the street (yeah, Paulie, you're quite the street guy aren't you? Right.), they're real. Keep in mind, I'm a skeptic not by nature but by profession to some degree. But the level of interest and activity among a decidedly younger management and staff than I expected (given that I'd talked with several of them in the past) around Web 2.0 tools and the freedom to innovate which seems to have seized control over the last year or so or some more recent time period is amazing. They don't seem to always move as glacially as they did in the past though they still (as I can personally attest) have their icebergian moments. (yes, I made that word up. But you know what it means don't you?). They seem able to take an idea and incorporate it quickly into their thinking. For example, I had a meeting with one SVP who was pointing out to me (proving it, really) what they were going to do in future generations of their products around the social applications - which was on a more significant scale then I expected. I mentioned something that I thought they needed to consider, a lightbulb seemed to go off in his head and he then made serious note of it and I do think he'll follow up. None of that "traditional" SAP "we'll do it and you'll like it" approach that characterized the past. In multiple discussions with analysts from Gartner, Forrester, AMR and IDC, there was a universal agreement amongst them that there is something different about SAP as a company and all really like the new SAP CRM 2007 and the Blackberry implementation of SAP CRM out there besides. I'd like to think that while I certainly am naive enough to be made a fool of on occasion, these folks (about 6-8 of them) are far more seasoned and "foolproof" than me and they saw what I saw. SAP is living the Web 2.0 "philosophy" or whatever you call it and they are different than they were even a year ago. What's amazing is that I'm not sure what triggered it at all. But it's good.
• Analytics and Insight - Insight in particular was a word that was thrown out there a hundred times. Now, this is maybe the one glitch in the soft message. This is now a pillar of the trio of pillars because they acquired Business Objects and they have to do SOMETHING with it. Actually it seems to be a good acquisition but this is the one part that smacked a bit of self-aggrandizement. Its forgivable. Its their conference, for godssakes. What they emphasized here, though, was still a plus - the idea of providing real time analytics embedded across applications so that dynamic insights could be provided in real time.

  There is one piece of advice that I hope they take. I noticed that there was almost far too much consistency to the conversations about SAP product releases. So for example, in every discussion I heard or had, without exception, when it came to the discussion about the Blackberry CRM product, whether in a speech or on in a conversation, they all began the discussion with how people use the alarm on the Blackberry to wake up. EVERY-LAST-ONE-OF-THEM. Obviously everyone is well schooled in what the messages need to be around product, but it comes across as plastic which isn't good. A little messaging freedom might be nice.

  That's a niggling thing though by comparison to the sea change that SAP seems to have undergone. Look, maybe over the next several months, they'll break my heart and turn out to be what they used to but I don't think so. This one is here to stay.

  If I had to venture a guess as 2008 keeps moving inexorably to its end - I'd say that salesforce.com is going to be challenged by SAP and Oracle for CRM 2.0 leadership. Not expected at all, but welcomed. I'm not sure I'm right because my big caveat is that I haven't seen either Oracle or SAP new products in live customer environments over time and THAT is the final arbiter of success, culture change or not.

  As far as SAP goes, they've revitalized themselves and it seems unanimous among those I spoke with here - analysts, some customers, SAP staff members - that the change is deep and real.This is a far cry from what Microsoft did at Convergence at month ago to itself at this location and a far cry from what SAP did to itself a year ago in Orlando. But this time, SAP did good. Real good.

  Good for them.

To Twitter Is Not To Fritter (Though It Can Be.....)

When it comes to Twitter, of ALL the social tools out there, I always here the following from corporate executives who are battling with their customers (sad state of affairs, eh wot?) every day:

I get blogs, and I get podcasts and wikis and we're trying to figure out this social networking 'thing' but I just don't get Twitter. I don't get it. I DON'T get it. I don't GET it. It seems like such a waste of time"

Well, as the following will show. It ain't a waste of time. Been saying that it was only a matter of time until the business uses would be uncovered and they are.

Take a look at this way.

• As I'm writing this, the guy who is probably the coolest managing editor on the planet, Josh Weinberger of CRM Magazine, is live tweeting (for those of you techno-Neanderthals, that means using Twitter to cover something live and then broadcast it to the, in this case, Weinberger network of followed and followers) a conference call with RIM and SAP announcing SAP CRM (and more enterprise applications) for the Blackberry. (Try here too) Not only are the updates nearly instant but JW's commentary is great besides.
• What about this customer service story blogged this week by the IT Toolbox SaaS Director Dennis Stevenson on Twitter and his Slideshare problems and how Slideshare employees answered him via Twitter due to a general Twitter post he made. One thing I didn't know is that "there is an ability to listen across the entire Twitterverse for particular text strings," according to Dennis S. Gotta find out how to do that.
• Salesforce.com and their social media maven Kingsley Joseph are ultra busy on Twitter with successforce announcements and salesforce announcements and Kingsley's cogent but pungent commentary on things social add up to a visible and noticeable and intelligent business presence via Twitter to networks that are interested e.g. followers and following so to speak.
• Tomas Kohl, an always astute and sometimes contentious CRM 2.0 observer/analyst/futurist/consultant writes about how Zappos uses Twitter to network among (not with per se) their employees and how they even rank them for the number of Twitter followers they have and allow their customers to correspond in 140 characters or less with those employees (about 270 use them) (Zappos_alfred seems to be the jefe with 601 followers). Zappos, if you haven't ordered from them, is an online shoe store with thousands of brands in all sizes and colors that TRULY gets it. Just ordered some serious walking shoes from them yesterday. Thank you, TK.

These are brief and few but there are many examples out on the web. Here's an aggregator post on Twitter for business. You'll note, that right now, its small time and its primarily the kind of business done over a drink in a manner of speaking. But the potential is there for a lot more.

Marketing is obviously a key application of Twitter but there are some dangers inherent in it. Too much pushing (as is going on with one unnamed person I'm following) and its like having your conversations constantly interrupted with "OMG! I'm amazing. I'm ON TV BIG TIME! HELP SELL ME! I'M TOO MUCH FOR WORDS - AT LEAST FOR OVER 140 CHARACTERS!!!" ad nauseum. That can be irritating because this is a highly personalized albeit short message communications platform. No one wants the ego of another in the way. Rather than corporate marketing hype, the hype gets personal and interferes.

But if used effectively, as salesforce.com is doing, they become participants in the conversation among friends at the bazaar. Information about events or positive articles are looked upon with curiosity and interest and traffic goes to them through the hyperlink (in the form most of the time of a "tinyurl." Twitter's potential for that is limitless. As a marketing, microblogging tool, customer service tool, networking tool and community participation tool.

Not too shabby for the one that few seem to get.

Technorati : Twitter

VRM v. CRM 2.0 - For Real Difference or Not

Doc Searls wrote a crystalline explanation of what vendor relationship management is in the Project VRM blog yesterday, which got me to thinking. Is there a difference between CRM 2.0 and VRM? If there is, how much does the difference matter? If there isn't, should we call CRM 2.0....duh.....VRM? (for those of you not up on VRM, check out Harvard's Project VRM - tres importante)

Here's an excerpt of what Doc said. (I've never met him but he's one guy I hope I can meet. Chris Carfi knows him pretty well and thinks quite a bit of the guy)

"With VRM, our vectors are anchored on the user side, the customer side, the individual's side. The relationships we establish and manage are on our terms and not just those of vendors. We are not against vendors in the least, of course. Our logic is AND, not OR. But it starts with the sovereign autonomy and independence of each individual as a fully-empowered participant in the relationships that comprise markets and other social arrangements. '-driven' says that much more clearly and correctly than '-centric'."

This leads me to think that there actually (contrary to my prior statements) a difference between CRM 2.0 and VRM. VRM is something like the labor movement (in its more pristine formative days) and CRM 2.0 would be the approach business would need to take to accomodate that labor movement. While CRM 1.0 played in the corporate ecosystem and thought that "customer-centric" activity was da bomb, CRM 2.0 realizes that customer centric activity still means a corporate ecosystem and now everything needs to be customer-driven or simply recognized as customer controlled. CRM 1.0 tried to automate the approach to dealing with managing customers so data was everything and the holy grail of CRM 1.0 was the 360 degree view of the customer, CRM 2.0 recognizes that customers need to be engaged and since the ball is in their court (which is the standpoint that VRM starts from), then they have to play on the home court of the customer.

VRM starts with the idea that each customer governs a personal value chain. CRM 1.0 would exploit that. CRM 2.0 creates a collaboration between the personal value chain of the customer and the extended (to partners, suppliers, vendors) value chain of the company so that value (and values) are given and in return the customer provides value (and values).

These are all important concepts with a difference. Took me to today to realize that VRM is the one that actually starts from the customers' POV and life and CRM 2.0 is the company's way of figuring out the best way to engage and collaborative with that.

Another step in the evolution.

Technorati : CRM 2.0, vendor relationship management

Aggregating Some Ideas and Products For Aggregating

Further (and new) thoughts on a few items:

• Peer to peer is beginning to define the pre-eminent culture of contemporary communications. As I mentioned in a previous post, the customer wants to view the company as a peer. What this makes me think, without any specific research particularly, other than anecdotal that is, is that not only should companies provide a set of tools that will allow customers to personalize their experience with the company, but the company's strategy has to be to humanize the company (which still realizing that it is a company) which, if done well, will realize the idea of "company as a peer." One tactic for example, was mentioned by Long Tail author, Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson in his 2005 (!) discussion on business blogging done by employees, not corporate officers. Chris Carfi, my dear friend and partner, did a great post on retail blogging (that came from a training session on Social Media that we did last week) that supports this contention (the peer to peer value of employees blogging) on his always amazing blog, The Social Customer.

• For CRM 2.0 to be successful, I've been continually making the point that the company has to change its business model from being a provider of goods and/or services to an aggregator of products, services, tools and experiences that allow the customer to personalize the kind of relationship and the experience that they have with the company. What makes this important is the same thing that makes a PC important to someone's life - a means to give someone a sense of control over their own life. Ultimately, that's what we all are looking to have and what makes us advocates of something is that they treat us in a way that gives us the intelligence and knowledge to extend that control over our own life. For example, that's why things like social network aggregators are as important as the social networks in this new world. Take a look at Cerado's Ventana, a creation of Chris Carfi's (he's all OVER this entry isn't he? He's an important social thinker AND doer which is why he is all over this blog). The pix here will give you an idea how it works:

What makes it important is that it is device-aware (can show it on your iphone) and is aggregator of multiple social activities. You can coherently and in a single place either online or on a mobile device, look at your Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, etc. accounts and see all the joint activity going on and respond accordingly. OR you could do what you see here with the BlogHer Guide to Political Bloggers- here is an aggregation of what is now over 150 women in politics who have blogs and here is a single screen (or conjoint set of screens), mobile or online that you can see all the women who are politically blogging through BlogHer and (note the "News" tab) you can see what's new and what's up with a single click.

There are competitors that I've written about in this field in May 2007 with the leading one being Profilactic. I wrote about them separately. But the model that Ventana has is unique and interesting. Its not just aggregating social networks that are out there - its pretty much aggregating content in the format that you want and that's immensely valuable especially when you can carry it mobilely and without a whole lot of baggage or digital overhead. My interest in this doesn't come because I love Chris Carfi in a manly sort of way. It comes because I think that this is a genuinely interesting and potentially really valuable aggregator for consumers but even more so for businesses. Imagine integrating this with wikis and podcasts and blogs so that you can find out what you need - and intelligently deal with a company that you work for or want to deal with (as an employee or a customer respectively) while staring at your iPhone or your Blackberry in real time or nearly so.

Very cool AND very important. I'll be following this more. I've seen it and it works.

I'm Paul Greenberg and I approve this blog entry.

Technorati : Blackberry, BlogHer, CRM 2.0, Cerado, The Social Customer, Ventana, iPhone, mobile devices, social customer

Kicking It With Social CRM and Media in Plymouth Meeting PA

I've been doing my BPT thing with Chris Carfi, famous in the land of social media & the man who made social customer so popular a concept its almost slang, teaching a two day course on Social Media with only people from David's Bridal. As you may remember - or not - David's Bridal has been my client for six years and has several people who I literally love - and count among my dearest friends. So this is particularly sweet. Because Chris and my partner and bro' Bruce Culbert are also here, I get to teach about something I love to people I love with people I love. Not a bad gig. I DO feel luxurious here. Don't need the Lamborghini (though if you send me one I won't turn it down. Promise.). Got my friends to give me "the feeling."

Love This Video----PLEASE?

Neighborhood America, my favorite social networking platform for technological, business and personal reasons (I LOVE the people there - all passionately), did this video on enterprise social networks called: CRM and the Social Customer that highlights some of the comments I (and others, but I'm sufficiently narcissistic to say mostly "moi.") made at their executive summit in January. Watch it. Its actually pretty damned cool.

While you're at it, check out their site and learn something about them. I'm going to be doing a full review of their newest version of their social network platform - the good and the bad - there really is no "ugly" here - next week. In a super nutshell sneak preview, the tagline is that they are a strong contender for best social network platform for the enterprise but they are still missing some features that I know are in their pipeline but need to be released to kick them right to the top - for me. They are still probably the strongest one that's out there at the moment either way. Right now, they rock, but not rule. But when those pipeline features are released - they will rule.

Without a doubt in my mind.

Details next week.

In the meantime, watch this video frequently enough on YouTube to make it viral. Okay?

Technorati : CRM, Neighborhood America, YouTube, enterprise social network, social network

The Terran Trio: "I Think Therefore I Am", "I Am Therefore I Act", and "Live from NY, It's SATURDAY NIGHT!"

Just a forewarning. This is a really, really strange entry, especially if you've followed my stuff for awhile (though maybe not if you know me personally):

It Starts Here.....

Not sure whether or not any of you have ever been students of philosophy, but if you have, you probably heard one of the greatest almost cliche-ish philosophical declarations. That would be the Rene Descartes "Cogito, ergo sum" "I think, therefore I am." This masterpiece of Cartesian understatement is more accurate as "Dubito, cognito, ergo sum" - "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am, " but however its used it has been seen as the philosophical proof positive of human existence - cognitive reasoning - for hundreds of years - though not everyone in this world is a fan of the man. The idea behind is simple. I doubt, and someone must be doing the doubting, which proves that I exist or I wouldn't be able to think about the fact that someone (me) is doing the doubting.....or something akin to that.

Okay. We've established that we exist and we exist apart from non-reasoning creatures though with all creatures nonetheless. I doubt that animals doubt their existence which proves their existence though really it proves my existence because I'm the one writing about their existence; they aren't writing about mine and then does that mean that they don't exist in their own minds, but we know they do and ARRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH! (I wonder if I exist in my more animal-like states of mind?) (GAAAAAAACCCKKKK!)

Time for a 21st century makeover. (Still wondering what Saturday Night Live has to do with this?)

So, I'm declaring a new post-modern Cartesianism. "I think therefore I act (or I should act - shouldn't I?)." Now this statement of mine has no inherent reasoning or even logic that I can see (though it sounds like a philosophical dictum) Just because "I" think (Understand) doesn't mean "I" act on that understanding (that would be active knowledge), thus stopping me (that would be the real me - Paul Greenberg rather than the universal "I" - the generic individual mentioned above. We're heading toward another GAAAAACK here)

Actually, lets refine this a little. In fact, rather than a post modern Cartesianism, let's call this a neo-Dante-ist perspective.

Dante Alighieri, best known, of course for his "Divine Comedy" poetic trilogy, wrote this work called "Convito." In Convito, he identifies Love (in part) as the "deep contemplation which is the earnest application of the enamoured mind to that object wherewith it is enamoured." His thinking follows that since this love is based on reason and logic (though highly emotional - whole brained, not left brained) it can be universally shared and the more who participate in that sharing, the greater it becomes. So the actions of reasoning being who are participating in the sharing of Love (with a capital "L") according to Dante, is something that makes it greater. (Still wondering about Saturday Night Live aren't you? AND wondering if I've lost my mind? AND wondering what in the eternal spirit's name does this have to do with CRM?)

Okay, time for the payoff in this insane posting. (you do knowing I'm playing with you, right?)

All this means that when Beth Comstock, President of NBC Universal Integrated Media says to Fast Company last May:

"If consumers are in control, they're going to figure out how they want to watch. We have to find the right solution."

and then she goes out and does something about it, she is acting on what she thinks AND providing the means to share in the results which make them greater still. So Descartes and Dante can stop rolling over in their resting places. I'm applying them to the 21st century now.

So what are the "objects of the enamoured mind" here? Saturday Night Live videos.

Wha'?

Last night, Yvonne (those who don't know. My wonderful wife of 26 years) and I were watching Christopher Walken hosting Saturday Night Live. He is the best host they've ever had and was one of the main characters in one of their greatest skits ever - More Cowbell. (Wanna watch it?)

At the end of the show, they announced that you could go to NBC and embed some of their skits for tonight (and prior shows) onto your blog or website. I did a doubletake and thought - WOWEEWOWEEWEE! This is coming from the station that actually tried to remove one of the key things that made SNL popular again from YouTube et. al. That would their Lazy Sunday Digital Short that had over 6 million views and, in the pre-Beth Comstock days, drew attention to SNL again.

They have come around to Beth Comstock's (and Dante's) view on both user generated content and sharing - you share and the more who participate in the sharing of that object (content), the greater it becomes. Now bloggers are encouraged to embed SNL skits into their blogs - and in honor of that - and Dante and Descartes (who lived two hundred years after Dante - a case of Descartes following the....never mind), I'm going to embed a couple of Christopher Walken skits for you from last night one in particular where Kristin Wiig is a riot (you'll have to suffer a commercial or two though):

Now a couple of more that NBC provided from earlier shows that I love.

First a great appearance by Mike Huckabee, easily the funniest by far of all the presidential candidates (though I'm a Democrat and Obama guy):

Now one by Joshua Hill (Superbad etc.) as a six year old Jewish comedian with his single parent Dad at Benihana's.

Wow. What a post. All that philosophical stuff to tell you that I love SNL skits sometimes and Christopher Walken.

Though there is a point here.....

The point is that NBC and many other companies are figuring out that the levels of participation of the population in producing and sharing content is now skyrocketing to the point that its become a mainstream activity - unleasing waves of participation and innovation (potentially - and along with a lot of shlock too) at unprecedented levels. And, to make sure that their businesses are responsive and thus, surviving or even fluourishing, they have to go with the flow. Interestingly, it takes the 14th century poet and Platonist Dante Alighieri to give the greater benefit of all this - we are reasoning beings participating in creation of something that is tied to our emotions and the more that we share it, the more will participate. Isn't this the basis for the success of social networks and communities? Or of user generated content? It is and that's why the transformation is social and affects all institutions - not just business. Its the way that people are expressing their creative "impulses" - "deep contemplation which is the earnest application of the enamoured mind to that object wherewith it is enamoured." That statement from Convito is no different than an emotional, personalized experience.

Proving once again, mankind is always continuing its own history by elevating its capabilities to greater and greater heights. All that's going on now is that we have new tools and new paradigms to meet those historic needs. Its why we think and how we act as individuals and as a species.

Even NBC figured that out.

Technorati : CRM, Christopher Walken, Dante Alighieri, NBC, Rene Descartes, Saturday Night Live

Forrester Gets It Big Time, Gartner, Not Quite

It always thrills me when I see analysts and, on the rarer occasion, larger analysts companies as a whole, who seem to get it. Then I lament when there are those who I think don't get it as much though are trying hard. Let's just get down to brass tacks or whatever tacks are made of these days - plastic or something.

Forrester gets it.

Gartner doesn't quite.

"It" is the evolution of CRM to something other than what it was.

Gartner Doesn't Quite...

It's interesting to see the report of the Gartner 2008 European CRM Summit that MyCustomer.com did last week. Mark Raskino, a Gartner VP made the point in his discussion of emerging technologies that Web 2.0 is between what he called the early days of "the peak of inflated expectation" and the more mature period when it provides returns a.k.a. "the plateau of productivity." This "inbetweenness" is a corporate blindspot that companies have to treat seriously. And, to Gartner's credit, he saw Web 2.0 as a great customer experience opportunity especially when it came to "far more open models of interaction."

Ed Thompson, another Gartner VP and along with Michael Maoz, the two that I think are topflight star CRM analysts, also made a number of extremely important points among them:

1. Act on feedback - don't ignore.
2. Design processes from outside in to improve customer experience not increase efficiencies (BRAVO!!).
3. Act as one organization to ensure consistency - and, I might add, to make sure that the customer sees the organization not as a soulless company that is process-driven, but as another point of peer interaction for him/her.
4. Be open - which goes to the point that Joe Pine makes on Authenticity and Peppers and Rogers (Don discussed this at the conference) make on trust. As do I. Ahem.
5. Personalize products and experiences - old stuff here. Been saying that one for a long time.
6. Alter attitudes and employee behaviors.
7. Design the complete customer experience. Again, not that new. But critical. Found that one in the Web 1.4929416618 era.

All in all, this is good stuff so far. But then comes this from another conference piece at MyCustomer.com:

"Hot areas of the main markets over the next three to five years will be:

• Sales: software as a service (SaaS) salesforce automation (SFA), lead management, Web 2.0, ecommerce, sales performance management, pricing management and social networking.
• Customer service: collaborative and community intelligence, knowledge-enabled service resolution, feedback management and web self service.
• Marketing: web analytics and advert management, word of mouth and communications, customer datamining, marketing resource management and marketing performance measurement."

See anything wrong with that?

The answer is "yes."

CRM is no longer an operational toolset and strategy. It is both operational and collaborative. It is both transactional and interactive. The model that's presented above talks about the collaborative pieces - for example, Web 2.0 in the sales part; collaborative & community intelligence in the customer service part; and word of mouth and communications (not sure what "communications" means that isn't totally generic) in the marketing part. But it treats them as subsets of "things" interwoven with the traditional operational silos of CRM 1.0. In other words, social CRM is just a set of other operational capabilities for the traditional CRM modes.

The fact is that the social tools - blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networks and communities are NOT SUBSETS of CRM operational capabilities - they are an entirely different layer with specific characteristics that are designed to, not manage customers as in the traditional model, but engage customers in a collaboration with the company that has the result of improving the customer's experience in a way that makes him/her see the company as his "friend" or "peer" - and, on the business side, makes them advocates - the same way you like a friend. As you'll see in just a minute or two (depending on your reading speed and your boredom level so far), Forrester gets that, while Gartner is showing its conflicted and still not quite there.

Forrester Does....

On the other hand, Bill Band, easily my favorite Forrester analyst and one of my world favorites, did a report on CRM 2.0 for Forrester that simply got the picture. If you want it, you'll have to buy it, but, as much as I think prices for analyst reports are incredibly pricey, this one is actually worth it.

First some truthiness. I was interviewed for this report and it does use in a couple of places and one key table (and attribute it too. Thank you sir) material from the several hundred member CRM 2.0 wiki, which you're all invited to join (contact me at paul-greenberg3@comcast.net and give me a little background). But that is only one of the rich array of sources and the incredibly well thought out material contained in this report. Since I probably shouldn't talk about a lot that's in the report, let me give you the gist of it which can be found in the executive summary in two sentences:

"In this new world, traditional CRM solutions will continue to aggregate customer data, analyze that data, and automate workflows to optimize business processes. But CRM professionals must find innovative ways to engage with emerging "social consumers" enrich the customer experience through community based interactions and architect solutions that are flexible and foster strong intra-organization and customer collaboration."

Do you have any problem seeing why I like this guy so much? This is a succinct and absolutely MONEY description of what CRM 2.0 is actually. There is a lot to it and you'll see more on CRM 2.0 in the 4th edition (along with an essay by Bill Band among others) this winter. But I think you can see the difference between Gartner's thinking and Forrester's thinking here.

Gartner and Forrester and I all agree that traditional CRM (the operational version) will continue to exist and with the accession of service oriented architecture will make processes and technologies more effective than ever and transactions more accurate and data more complete. But where Gartner diverges from both Forrester and me is when it comes to how to view the Web 2.0 technologies and strategies.

Gartner is kind of interweaving the Web 2.0 "stuff" with the traditional CRM stuff, relegating the collaborative CRM layer to a subset of the operational CRM standard. This is NOT wise - and its wrong.

Forrester (and I) are treating the "social" side of CRM as a cohesive "peer component" with its operational side. In other words (though not really words).....look at this diagram - which is a pretty ugly piece of work (I did it and I ain't no artist) and yet, I think, it adequately (and only adequately) reflects the models' differences

The net result of the Forrester model is that customers are engaged with employees, operational and social technologies are integrated into a holistic (or if you long time readers remember back in the days of yore when Rome was still an empire, I called it "whole brained CRM") unit and the thinking of the company is about collaboration to create customer value.

The net result of the Gartner model is that you have some interesting improvements in the features and functions of the technology and you have some process improvements, but the relationships with the customers are not collaborative, they are more "push-friendly" (aggressively upbeat and positive but from the company to the customer and not necessarily reciprocated. To put it in human terms, if you've ever seen the musical/movie "Hairspray" (and just to be clear, I love this musical), the lead role is of that sunny kind of optimism that seems so forced it makes you grate your teeth because of its relentless "cheeriness." Its the kind of relationship that's out to prove that they are happy, dammit! That's what the Gartner model leads to. Not really collaborative, not really engaged, just the signs of engagement that are supposed to be there regardless of the human. Its a model of "company to customer object" rather than the company as a " peer to customer subject."

If ya know whaddyI mean.....

But There Is One Last Thing.....

What I see as the only omission in this important work is that while implied, it doesn't really give the biggest picture on how CRM 2.0 came to be - and that's an important omission.

The transformation we're undergoing is a social evolution (or revolution if you wish) in communications that was and is created by people (not customers - the people are customers among other things) and it affects all institutions - be they government, social, political, or business - or any other institutional category you can think of. So business is NOT driving this, nor are customers. People are acting as peers using technologies and ideas to "democratize" (a woeful word for this really, but the best we have in English) and personalize the experiences and expectations and interactions that these people are having - one at a time - as individuals. That means that business is as clueless as the government and as the garden club in how to deal with what people seem to want - especially those who are growing up with an entirely new set of expectations on how things are delivered to them and what level of interaction they can have with them. When successful like the Obama for President campaign, or Proctor & Gamble they can lead to enormous power. But only if its recognized that these are social changes first, and business changes second.

Beyond that, I can't find a thing wrong and there is a lot enlightening in the Band CRM 2.0 doc and that makes it a great read - because it provides real value.

And, did I mention already that the CRM 2.0 Wiki is in there prominently, especially in the table of differences between the current and next generation of CRM thinking. I'm so proud I'm kvelling.

Kvelling? Its Yiddish. Beyond that, I'll give you bupkas. Go look it up for yourself. You'll know what I mean.

Technorati : Bill Band, CRM 2.0, Forrester Group

Miscellany Works When the Yankees Are Rained Out

I think I'm going to go random today and tell you things that are sitting on top of my skull at the moment.....

1. The Yankees- Blue Jays Opening Day game was rained out and that really sucks.
2. I'm going to start writing a monthly column for InsideCRM.
3. The 4th Edition of CRM at the Speed of Light is way behind and of all of you who signed onto the private wiki to make suggestions - only a very few have.
4. The next few blog entries will be on the Forrester Report on CRM 2.0 written by the always fascinating Bill Band, chief of Forrester's CRM practice and star analyst; on Neighborhood America's ELAVATE release of their industrial strength enterprise social networking - the (mostly) good and the missing. There is no bad that I saw.
5. CRM Playaz, the show that will turn CRM on its head (or actually get my head right side up again) will be starting in a VIDEO format for me and my bud and noted SMB/social media/CRM analyst Brent Leary and it will be within a month or so. Getting a video format down is a whole 'nother thing.
6. The CRM Association national conference which was to start tomorrow is actually postponed until September. Make sure that you start putting aside the time that month and checking back here to get the final dates.
7. I'm told by Brent L. that Ryan Zuk of Sage labeled me, him, superstar analyst Denis Pombriant and CRM writer/humorist/pundit CRM Magazine Senior Editor Marshall Lager as the "Gang of Four." I thought more "The Fantastic Four." Aren't I cute?
8. Damn. Yankees Blue Jays postponed.

Technorati : Bill Band, Brent Leary, CRM, CRM 2.0, Denis Pombriant, Marshall Lager, Paul Greenberg

I Shall BE Re-leee-sed - as Has the Siebel CRM on Demand Release 15 Embargo

Its 8AM, there's no one in the place, 'cept my baby and me......Okay, wait, wrong thing about 8:00am. Its 8:00am and its March 11 and the embargo on the Oracle new release (number 15) of Siebel CRM on Demand and a bit of their mobile apps is now OH-VER.

So I'm gonna talk about it.

I have to temper this with the fact that I haven't seen any of this in the production environment I have to that would allow me to give it a definitive stamp. But what I HEARD was exciting and if working well, might even vault Oracle to the head of the CRM 2.0 pack. But again, I haven't SEEN it yet so please read on with that caveat in mind.

The big deal is that Siebel CRM on Demand Release 15, officially released today is a dramatic leap forward in the vendors drive toward Social CRM or CRM 2.0 - whichever you'd rather call it (or something else....). It incorporates what I have been talking about for the last two years - the operational (more traditional) CRM functionality with the social functionality - but social functionality that actually has value to business - and the customer. It isn't just there for the sake of coolness which is something that I can't say for others in the realm. This seems to be something the Oracle/Siebel/PeopleSoft CRM cabal at Redwood Shores has really thought through and, if it is all that it seems to be, would have something to be pretty excited about.

What makes this new version so apparently compelling is that it incorporates the social components exceptionally well - and with an eye toward improving the relationships between companies and customers. And, if you absorb the bigger picture into your cortex, it does something that I love - incorporates the customer into the value chain while respecting the customer's personal value chain.

What do I mean? Well, for example, you can collaborate by establishing a "friendship" between internal employees via the use of social profiles along the lines of something like Facebook would do - for example, sales person to sales person. This, as with other social applications, allows you to reveal whatever it is in your profile that you want to reveal to that salesperson buddy you've developed. That means for example, becoming part of the "sticky note social network" that gives all friends tied to it access to updated information. AND, update it once from the source and everyone is updated simultaneously.

But what makes this even more intriguing is that you can "befriend" your contacts at the accounts that you own as a salesperson!! The workflow associated with this social application is so strong that you can trigger actions based on changes to the contact profile. One example used on the conference call last week was if your contact moved to another company, you could be alerted to the change in his profile and the contact could be reassigned based on the delivered alert.

Now, I don't think you can poke that contact, flirt with that contact, throw Britney or sheep at that contact or rate the hotness of the contact, but the business value is potentially huge.

But its not just the social networking that drives this new version of Siebel On Demand. The use of social media and Web 2.0 tools is more extensive than any other major CRM vendor so far, though salesforce.com and SAP are coming up fast as are some smaller vendor like Zoho.

Anthony Lye characterized it as "composite media types are parameterized in the application." To translate, that means you can embed RSS feeds, widgets, and rich media (e.g. YouTube videos) directly into the account page so that appropriate, specific information related to your account is available in context as opposed to the more typical approach that we've seen in the less evolved CRM applications - RSS feeds on the home page of the single sign in user - which is good but not nearly as good as this feature is.

Its funny. Despite the historic weakness of past versions Oracle CRM and the historic strengths of Siebel CRM and of the original Siebel CRM on Demand - Upshot, it was Oracle CRM, not Siebel that was the one of the first to start adding features that were end user, rather than just management, focused. That came with their Oracle CRM sales force automation quoting system - features that, back in 2004, were designed to appeal to the end user. All in all, they are carrying out that good part of their tradition and incorporating that characteristic - end user focus - into applications that have been technically outstanding, feature rich, but not terribly user focused.

Even more interesting is the context sensitivity that seems to be inherently a part of release 15. The widgets a.k.a. desktop gadgets usage can be based on roles, specifically relevant information, and they are authenticated against the CRM system passwords.

Now to add more end user fuel to the Social CRM fire, Oracle is also announcing the release of the Blackberry-compatible Oracle Mobile Sales Assistant. Probably the key to this one is to think about the merger of CRM and a personal information manager (PIM) that can be accessed offline as well as online. Maps can provide you with directions to your clients, salesdude, and salespeople can exchange information with each other. The most frequently viewed and/or most recent items are cached so that they can be seen even when disconnected. There is single click access to account information, customer contact information, appointments. Communication is through email, phone, SMS and IM. In other words, lots of functionality aimed at end users and collaboration on that little device.

All in all this is a breakthrough for Oracle, if it all works as well as it sounds. While I'm going to hold my final judgment until I see it for real, I think that this could be an important step for Social CRM in the vendor world and customers should at least take heed and look at it.

Never in a million years did I think that I would be saying that about Oracle.

Never.

But I am.

If you get a chance, check out my bud, Denis Pombriant's discussion on this on his blog Beagle Blog. Its not out yet. Its going to run on CRM Buyer too. Just think, "Deuce Coupe."

Also, check out datasheets for the products if you're interested. But remember, datasheets are marketing collateral.

Data Sheet Siebel CRM On Demand Data Sheet for Oracle Mobile Sales Assistant

Technorati : CRM, CRM 2.0, Oracle, Siebel On Demand, social media
Del.icio.us : CRM, CRM 2.0, Oracle, Siebel On Demand, social media

Oracle? Oracle? ORACLE?

Yes Oracle. I was on a call today with Oracle. And while I can't reveal the content of the call until March 11, 2008 at some unknown AM time, nobody said that I couldn't talk about the form of the call. So I will. It was a call run by Anthony Lye, SVP of Oracle CRM. It was a bloggers-only call. Yes, only bloggers were on it. It was run as if it were a journalist call or even to some extent an analyst call. I don't know how many bloggers were on it but it was, to my knowledge, the first time a major CRM vendor (or for that matter, any CRM vendor, large or small) treated bloggers the way they should be treating them - as influencers who might have an impact on the vendor's products, services, and company. So, once again, I'm stunned by a good move by Oracle (though not particularly stunned that its a good move by Anthony Lye - he seems to be making a lot of them) - that's two in the last 4 months (which totals two in the last 4 years) and on March 11, I'll be, I think, making that three.

Facebook Is Not Your BFF - But It Is F----d

How frequently can someone screw up? How badly can someone wreck something that coulda been a contender? I think that Marc Zuckerberg and company are dedicated to finding out the answer to this incredibly stupid set of questions - and they are passionate about it. Its getting to be old news when its news - Facebook Screws Up Again! The headlines don't even scream it out anymore. Its more like, "hey dude, Facebook f----ed up again, ja hear?" "Yeah, ja hear that Tina and I are getting back together?" "NO WAY!" "Way." Or this text message: U hr Fbk f-ed up? K. TTUL. That's how commonplace their major league screw ups have been. Look, I get it. They want to turn a buck or two in revenue and a half a buck or so in profit. Been around, have 60 million "assets" a.k.a. friends a.k.a. profiles that should be MONEY (in all ways you can translate that). But they keep forgetting that their social network has evolved to the point that there are "rules of conduct" and there are "privacy concerns." Thats spelled p-r-i-v-a-c-y, Facebook moguls. That they may be masters of their Facebook universe but they are slaves to its behaviors. They have no way out. Yet, even after the Beacon fiasco of a few months ago, they seemed to have not learned ANYTHING. On Friday, an op. ed. appeared in the Washington Post by staffer Catherine Rampell called "What Facebook Knows That You Don't." The piece highlights a series of recent articles that say:

even if you "deactivate" your account, Facebook holds on to your profile data. This disclosure has gotten privacy groups and consumers up in arms. All the commotion about how Facebook hoards outgoing users' data got me wondering whether we're missing the more important privacy question: What happens to all the data we active members choose to delete, for privacy reasons or otherwise? Facebook's privacy policy is disturbingly cryptic on this issue. It says the company "usually keep[s] a backup copy of the prior version [of updated profile information] for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information." Facebook declines to enumerate how many days (or centuries) constitute a "reasonable period of time." Facebook users do not have access to this information, so it's unclear who exactly would be doing the proposed "reversion."

How incredibly stupid can Mark Zuckerberg and his minions be? Why hasn't he fired his entire legal department? This one is worse than Beacon. Basically, if you interpret what they are doing, its insidious. It basically is removing all control you have over your profile - or, in other words, what you care to record of your life online. So that if YOU decide that YOU don't want to be a member of Facebook - fine, as far as Facebook is concerned. THEY still will own YOUR profile. If YOU decide that YOU made a mistake and revealed something YOU shouldn't have or needed to get past something that YOU had done and recorded, that's fine as far as Facebook is concerned. THEY will still own YOUR history. One of the key psychological benefits of a social network is not just the peer-to-peer communications that it fosters. It is CONTROL of the life that is being exposed by the owner of that life. That is translated to a profile when it comes to a social network and the actions on that profile. What makes Facebook particularly nasty here is that it says to the "friend" - "your ownership is an illusion. Once you commit - you commit. And then, heh, heh, heh, the data is MINE, MINE I tell you. MINE!! I AM FACEBOOK - LORD OF THIS UNIVERSE - MASTER OF THIS SOCIAL DOMAIN." OR to put it in little kids terms: What's mine is mine. And what's yours is mine. Some of this is understandable - though not forgivable. They want Facebook to be a business, not a hangout, and thus they treat the profiles as assets. This is no different on the surface of it than the salesperson who is treating their contact database as their asset and leverage (in their case, to protect their livelihood). But there is a different protocol that governs social networks. Peer-to-peer trust is one major facet of that governance. As a social network there are three things that have to be remembered at all times:

1. The social network is responsible for providing a reasonable expectation of privacy for each and every member of the network. That means that the individual who provides the profile retains ownership of the profile and is, in effect, licensing the use of that profile in a limited way.
2. That the terms of the "license" must be mutually agreeable and always transparent. There are no hidden or undue uses of the profile by the social network.
3. The social network is must do what it has to so that it is trusted AS A PEER by the individual members of the social network. This one is the most important and is critical to all businesses now. I'll be elaborating on this in future entries. For now, suffice to say, the social network can't be seen as an abstract entity by the individual members. It MUST be seen as a "trusted peer" to be successful.

Facebook is failing miserably at all of these and continues to make the kind of mistakes that will doom it in time to a footnote in the history of the social changes that have been roiling the world of human institutions in the last several years. That's sad. Look, I still like Facebook. I'll maintain my profile and you can see my Likenesses from PG to R rated. You can see who I'm poking (in a "good for all audiences" kind of way). You can read my conversations, see what other applications I use and what's going on with me from day to day. I have nearly 400 friends on Facebook and will keep growing that friends group. But at this point, I'll have a good time and put it to good use until it finally succumbs to the pressures of Google's OpenSocial API, Google's Social Graph API, some other social network that does get this and its own incredibly stupid mistakes - especially the ones that violate both public and private trust. In the meantime, I'll talk to my trusted peers on Facebook, as well as LinkedIn and Plaxo. But I have to say - Facebook, I don't trust YOU.