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.

Bits O' Honey Partido Uno

Quotes To Think About (& Use) In 2.0 Land

"A 2006 study by the Verde Group showed that people who hear about a bad shopping experience are less likely than the people who actually had the bad experience to ever set foot in the store." -- from "Word of Mouth Marketing", Andy Sernovitz

"That's the deal companies make when relying on the help of customers to grow: customers will volunteeer their time and attention, but they will fight for their status and power." -- from "Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message" - by Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba

"In this world of constant feedback, one element of some corporate cultures is definitely going away. Strategies based on deception are doomed to failure." --from "Groundswell" by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff

"...the human mind has no limit of developing, of realizing ever deeply and more adequately universal orders of life" --from "The Philosophy of Literature" by Gustav Mueller (when speaking about Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy")

"Community offers the promise of belonging....To beloong is to act as an investor, owner and creator of this place. To be welcome, even if we are strangers. As if we came to the right place and are affirmed for the choice."--from "Community: The Structure of Belonging" by Peter Block

Okay, everyone, I'm off to Sapphire 2008, SAP's shindig. They expect about 15,000 there. I'll be one of the herd. There as a "business influencer." Great title. One of the herd. I'll be doing Experience on the Edge (my podcast, if you haven't heard from there using my new Apogee Duet so I can get great rather than mediocre road sound quality. This will be episode #16 of the weekly verbal assault. Go listen to it), though it won't be about Sapphire. The Sapphire commentary will be #17 - and it will be impressions and maybe an interview or two. I'll keep you posted. Watch this blog for Sapphire coverage though.....

Technorati : Community, SAP, Web 2.0, social media, word of mouth marketing

The Best Powerpoint Ever?

A MAJOR high five to Paul Sweeney for his Tweet calling this the best Powerpoint ever. He may be right.

Chicken.

Technorati : Chicken

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

sitting at a patisserie in SF

this is a twitterlike presence message sentvvia mobile typepad. I'm sitting at a Cocola patisserie in downtown SF with my wife just loving life. Nothing CRM about this moment other than the fact I purchased stuff to eat and drink. Ahhhhhhhhhh.

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

Heading Home

Sitting at the always disorganized Orlando airport, thinking about random CRMish things. Doing this blog entry with Typepad for the iPhone.

Convergence thoughts

Some final thoughts on Microsoft. I'm not concerned when it comes to the quality of their Dynamics CRM product. It is genuinely their flagship enterprise business product and complete as a CRM 1.0 & with the Live version 1.5. But the messaging is truly an issue. As Denis Pombriant points out on my podcast Experience on the Edge episode 9 (http://www.mycrmcareer.com/eote) they are positioning as an ERP dominant business application with CRM too, rather than using their sexier, more exciting CRM product.

That said this could be a big Microsoft year if they drive Live and push CRM and also recognize that convergence doesn't mean ERP and CRM but consumer thinking and business applications. They have the bandwidth - they need the foresight and to remember their competition aka Oracle SAP and salesforce are already thinking that way and Google is coming up fast.

Okay, we're boarding.....

Constant Changing is All

Erika Morphy, in this morning's CRM Buyer points to a blog entry in the Perfect Customer Experience blog by a smart, smart, smart, CRM writer/analyst Louis Columbus who I've been following for countless years. The article is entitled "Customer Experience Management's Achilles Heel is Making Change Last" which is an entry by itself. Louis adds another "smart" to his legacy with this one because he points out something often overlooked in CRM implementations.

Constant changing has always been. (sorry, K.D. Lang....not quite but almost yours)

Wha'?

The point that Louis is making is that change at the workplace needs to occur consistently and the results aren't always dramatic. He points out that a successful change strategy depends on open communication, involvement early on of those affected, realistic guidelines for time and effort and managers who will learn the CRM or CEM system themselves, not just mandate to those who have to.

All of these are time honored and valid and this is an extremely important and intelligent reminder of how critical the transformation of corporate culture is.

One other thing:

Keep in mind that the change management program that you might be thinking Louis is talking about has no end point (though I presume there is a beginning somewhere).

None.

Nada.

Nunca.

Changing the culture in fact is not the way to look at it as much as incorporating continuous change into the culture of the company - that incorporation of change as a driver will change the culture of the company.

There is a VITAL point that has to be made here - once and for all.

The reason that change has to go on inside the doors of the business is because of change that has to be accommodated already going on outside the company. It is a change seemingly triggered by the entrance of Gen Y into the workforce and the political campaigns in the U.S. and other international factors that are both too numerous to deal with and too complex for my pea brain.The form this change takes is in the expectations and empowerment of the individuals that the company deals with day to day - that could be customers who buy stuff, internal customers like employees, the people who make up the suppliers and vendors that the company deals with. As eras move, as conditions evolve, and social, economic and political changes impact the thinking and emotions of members of the crowd (so to speak). Those changes have to be accommodated for two reasons.

1. They affect the employees who walk in the employer's portal - a.k.a. office door - each morning because consumer behavior is influencing the workplace more and more
2. If you don't, then you're going to have serious business troubles - because the level of expectation and the level of empowerment is so high.

In other words, all are being affected by the events, and sometimes transformative and other times incremental behavioral changes due to the transformation of all those conditions that make up the movement of a society day to day and over the longer time.

So, in the face of that, a company, with a business plan, and employees they hope to retain (unless you're the Oakland As - then you use Moneyball and trade them) because of their investments in the skills that the employees need, and because they have customers who are telling them "more, better, and more visible to me", the change must continuously occur to meet the changing conditions and behaviors that are continuously occurring.

Enterprises, large and small can turn a blind eye to it and the net result will be the good eye will be blinded.

And the third eye.

Technorati : CRM, CRM 2.0, Election 2008, change management

Happy Birthday To Me. Thanks 30 Boxes

God bless Tiny Tim, Facebook and 30 Boxes and automated messages - and my friends. I turn 58 today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I know. But what actually is both genuinely touching and interesting is that I'm getting a huge number of birthday messages from friends and user groups/communities/forums. The latter come in as "Happy Birthday from (user group name), (user ID)" which can move me to tears. I mean who didn't want a birthday message from NYFan.com? Actually, Borders sent me a message with a 25% book discount just for little old me. But the ones that particularly are something are my friends including some who I know well and who I never met personally, who are sending me birthday greetings this year in unprecedented numbers (I have over 35 already via email and its only 8:00am on the day....). I have to think that this is because of 30 Boxes and other like applications which capture birth dates from social network profiles and then send opted-in reminders to those who care to remember birthdays. I'm genuinely thankful for all the birthday greetings. I'm happy that people who I know care enough to send them to me. For that I thank everyone of you who cared enough to send one. What also interests me is that the influence of social networks and the availability of information from public profiles has proliferated to the point where 40 birthday messages is not particularly odd or unusual - more anecdotal evidence on the There are some interesting lessons for companies that might be interested in dealing with their customers.

1. Small personal gestures go a long way to the creation of advocates a.k.a. friends for life
2. Social networks have an enormous amount of power because they can agglomerate (one of my favorite, "use it on your birthday because you'll be forgiven that day" words) large amounts of personal information that enhance the overall experience when organized and used right - far better than a soulless algorithm (though we need those too) for customer intelligence and segmenting. Hence the future of folksonomies and social tagging
3. This information is available publicly and without the overt (but with the implied) permission of the provider. The privacy issues a la Beacon are potentially scary but keep in mind, as a customer/consumer/humankind member, you've given your implied permission for non-commercial use - most likely. Implied version of the Creative Commons license...just kidding, no such thing. Psych
4. The anecdotal evidence is getting overwhelming for the willing participation of professionals and friends in social networks.

So what does this mean? Only a bit at the moment, but it has huge implications for the tidal wave ahead. What is potentially disruptive is what's implied in how my birthday information was "acquired." My profile, my implied consent, my friends and algorithms that don't know me from Adam using my profile to find out something that when acted on appropriately has an emotional impact, all in all as part of a MAINSTREAM way of communicating. MAINSTREAM. MAINSTREAM. The stream that eventually creates the tidal wave and the change in the organization of culture as the media for knowledge gathering and means of communicating that knowledge changes. Okay, all. I'm done. Watch for my forecasts for 2008 very soon. I have a lot coming actually. Probably in three pieces. Looking at what the experts are saying and my take on it. Then a look back at how I did last year. Then my guesses for this year. Now to my birthday and my wife.

Elastic Bubble 2.0? I Don't Know. Clever, I Know

Do I think that this is another bubble? I don't know at this point. I don't think it has the same characteristics as the last one and I think there is a social change that might "elasticize" this current boom in technology - because the mainstream culture is more in tune with this - and Gen Y is part of that mainstream - and they devour much of this. I think fallout is likely but a burst bubble? I don't know.

But I think this is really clever and funny. So I'm showing it, elasticizing the bubble.

Technorati : bubble, social media, web 2.0

The Pure Arbitrariness of It All....Sunday is a Great Day For That.

This is a pure gathering of absolutely not-coherently-tied thoughts and ideas.

Favorite Rock Groups of All Time - Top 7 in No Particular Order

1. The Who
2. CCR
3. Traffic
4. Cream
5. Jimi Hendrix Experience
6. The Rolling Stones
7. The Beatles

Movies That Made Me Cry - I'm A MAN I Swear!!

1. Glory
2. Field of Dreams
   Old Yeller

Favorite Songs Of All Time Without You Reading Anything Into The Choices

• Sympathy for the Devil - Rolling Stones
• Bad Moon Rising - CCR
• The Weight - The Band
• Hey Jude - The Beatles
• All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix

Commentary on the Yankees

Joe Torre landing in LA with the Dodgers and Joe Girardi as the manager of the Yankees, makes some form of cosmic sense to me though I have NO idea why that is. I've read the articles that said, its good if Joe goes to LA because he's a native of Brooklyn, where the Dodgers orginated, and I suppose I like Girardi as the manager of the Yankees because he's the only graduate of my alma mater in the majors. That would be Northwestern University. So that's pretty cosmic, too, I think - especially if he gives me tickets. Now, we have to sign Posada and Rivera. A-Rod is a total putz and I wouldn't want the guy back - and I have been a supporter of his from the get go - even when he was bombing in the post-season and endured the wrath of the fans. But $350 million? 12 years? What an inflated ego. Enough is enough. I hope he lands no deals.

Back to CRM tomorrow.

Technorati : Beatles, CCR, Cream, Glory, Jimi Hendrix, Rolling Stones, The Who, Traffic, Yankees

Hey! This Social Networking Thing Is Great F---ing S**t!

Roger Stewart, one of the best editors publishing and a honcho at McGraw-Hill, sent me a (funny) note about this research report just finished by a professor at the University of East Anglia on the benefit of "unconventional" language in the workplace as a force for developing cohesive social relationships. For those of you at a loss as to what Professor Yehuda Baruch means by unconventional language he means CURSING you stupid @#&#*. Actually, though as stupid a piece of bulls**t as this might sound, there might be something to it if you take a look at social networks like Facebook and MySpace and others, the language pretty much is what passes for PG-13 or R on TV and in the movies. Its not all that unusual to read the f word or other permutations of the unconventional as ordinary language in the Facebook environment and there seems to be no offense taken by anyone. Though I don't think eliminating it would be a dramatic downturn either. Even the friggin' curse laden rants that are YouTube commentaries often enough aren't seen as out of sorts.

Oddly enough, and, given how absof---inglutely unimportant this topic is, there are studies on the frequency of swearing on MySpace that indicate that 41% of U.S. males with profiles, 34% of U.S. females, 60% of U.K. males (those a--holes with potty mouths) and 41% of U.K. females use "swear words" on MySpace. If you want a breakdown of which ones click on the link above and you can see it.

But, really, who gives a s**t?

Technorati : MySpace, Web 2.0, culture, cursing, social networks

LABEL WARNING!: This is on the Yankees, NOT CRM. Read at your own risk.

Its truly amazing when an organization that I have rooted for well over 50 years, makes such a classless move, when in fact, they've made so many before. Yesterday, the Yankees organization took the manager that was one of the primary reasons the Yankees pack in 50,000 plus at EVERY ballgame - break attendance records regularly, managed to make the playoffs 13 of the last 13 years, won 4 World Series titles out of 6 World Series appearances - this after 15 years of no playoff appearances in fact - and gave the Yankees a measure of dignity (though it wasn't easy with their idiot owner) after they had been called the Bronx Friggin' Zoo for years - and made him an offer that was performance based - with a nearly 30% pay cut for managing underperforming superstars and green rookies to the playoffs when they had been ruled out by everyone. Torre is a gentleman and a good soul who, while being of course a second-guessing fan, wasn't good at handling pitchers, but was superb at handling people and made ball players believe in themselves and perform up to their potential. But even more, the guy was a icon for NY. He's a native of the city and, perhaps with only an equal in Derek Jeter, was not just a manager but a face of the city. Which, being a New Yorker, believe me, needs a face like Joe Torre.

I know I'll go on to root for the Yankees. I know Joe Torre didn't die, for chrissakes. But how a team that I've invested 50 plus years of my life in to some extent - in a sport I totally love (me and Alyssa Milano) could do this craven thing astounds me. I not only wish Joe Torre well and the Yankees well, but wish that the classless Steinbrenner family - Dad and boys, and their toady president Randy Levine would just simply go away and own some other team. When ANY person is a dignified, classy person, they deserve to be treated with the dignity and class that they always showed. The Yankee management sure as hell didn't do that.

Maybe a boycott of Yankee Stadium in its last year..........

Technorati : Joe Torre, NY Yankees

Ninety Percent of the Game Is Half Mental - At Least

I'm never amazed to find that business and personal lives are entirely one and the same - especially among the business service professionals - in high tech and outside, with whom I work. I've always been far more amazed, astounded and flabbergasted by the people who are constantly stressing about how they're trying so hard to "balance their life" between business and personal. Or on the other hand, I'm equally stunned by who say (and seem to mean it when they do) that "it is (whatever it is, is) just business" when they make a decidedly cruel decision - one that spits in the face of compassion.

The fact of the matter is that unless they turn off their Blackberry Curves at 5:00pm and put them in their office desk drawer before they leave for the other side of the scales of justice and balance, there is no "just business" nor is there a "balance" between business and personal life that achievable - for the simple fact, we each are a single entity and have one life and what we do at work and at home, while different components of that single life, are, I would hope and think, governed by the same code of ethics, same principles, same ideologies, same emotional makeup and the same kinds of behaviors - with a few propitiatory tweaks here and there in a nod to whatever environment you're in at the time. But not tweaks to ethics and principles.

Theoretically.

I say theoretically, because there is incredible denial out there when it comes to work-life integration or that there is no separation between the codes that are at play in the part of your life devoted to work and the part of your life devoted to everything else.

If you google "work-life balance" there are 1,950,000 references to it. If you google "work-life integration" there are 37,700 references out there. So its clear which remains the buzz concept du jour. But work-life balance so called, aside from being some form of paradiso, nirvana or zen - depending on your bent - is a concept that can't be achieved realistically, nor do many people even in the 9-5 world live their life with that harmony. Far more of us actually do work stuff at home and home stuff at work - ranging from the simplest, "oh that's not a fair example" of calling the kids to see how they're doing or calling the spouse to remind them to do something - from work. Or at home, remembering you have to take care of something and going upstairs and sending an email after you had dinner with the family - and just doing it, no muss, no fuss.

Another easy example - when you have to remain late at work or often do a con call at night - you either remain late at work or go home and do the conference call. But the key here is....you do the conference call from either place. Fact is, telework is becoming something that employers and employees see as a benefit because it brings down office cost and clutter and is a much happier working environment. It is becoming such a prevalent trend that yesterday the General Services Administration (GSA) announced that they were looking to have 50% of their employees teleworking by 2010. That's amazing. That's a government agency. A gov-va-ment-a-gen-cy.

In fact, this is becoming an important enough topic for the Wharton School of Business to have conducted a Work/Life Roundtable on it.

What does this have to do with CRM?

A lot. The integration of our work and personal lives affects how customers deal with us and how we deal with customers. Physical location is becoming increasingly less important (though not unimportant) in how the customer-company relationship is conducted and the ability to be flexible and mobile more important. In fact, there is a reason that RIM - makers of the ubiquitous - and now cool - Blackberry (see the new wi-fi enabled Blackberry 8820 for something well worth it) have been rightly pushing mobile CRM and we're seeing an upsurge of interest in mobile CRM apps. The availability of CRM on the iPhone as the first identifiable business "category" to go to it, is also an indicator of what's going on with work/life integration and CRM itself (nb: I'm almost done with the CRM for the iPhone bakeoff testing. Teaser: mobile CRM on an Edge network with a rich environment is a friggin' bear. As cool as the iPhone is, CRM on a Blackberry, optimized for it, at the moment, is a better bet than CRM on an iPhone. More on the results after I get back from Gartner). Movin' and, successfully groovin' is becoming a 21st century mantra for how businesses and customers deal with each other. The office isn't the place the deal gets closed, nor is it the place the customer goes to find the company. As often as not, these days, its online that the bulk of the activity around the deals are done. Including conversation. Those activities, web or phone or whatever communications channel are done at the office, at home or on the road during the day or the night, depending on the time-related proclivities of the customer and the company rep. and the time zones.

All in all, an integrated environment. for work, home and anything else that engages you in your life.

Yogi Berra wasn't kidding when he said, "when you come to a fork in the road, take it." Because the two forks are really only one path.

Technorati : Blackberry, CRM, RIM, Yogi Berra, iPhone, work-life balance, work-life integration

Smart Casual: Two Journeys & The Story After

Yvonne and I take a cruise annually. Every-single-year-since-2001. Each year, we find out something new, about how we can experience things, life, how great the opposite sex looks in their national environments, where to shop for fantastic bargains, what kind of flora and fauna are endemic to the locales (meaning, we go to their zoos and frequent their aquariums) and most of all, we value an experience that's meant to be just that. An experience.

Thing is, though, that the cruise experience is almost the perfect paradigm for measuring and mapping a customer experience so my professional eye (the left one) gets mixed up with my personal eye (the right one) and I tend to view the entire trip in a cross-eyed kind of way.

What the hell does that mean?

Beats me.

Acually, I do know. I not only thoroughly enjoy, and at times, love, the trips (like this one), but I also get a more acute insight into how to think about the customer experience - so there is even some CRM professional value that I get from the trip.

No. I don't use that as a justification to write off the trip. I don't write off the trip. I shouldn't.

Should I?

Don't answer that.

In any case, there are a number of things that are memorable about cruises.

1. Each cruise has a different character with a vastly different experience even if the cruise line is the same and there are facilities in common to all or most ships
2. Each port of call has both a unique character and at the same time directly impacts the cruise experience as a whole - and would work diferently if it weren't associated with the cruise itself
3. You rely on the peer reviews far more than the marketing materials from the cruise lines - which are almost worthless - yet the peer review impact is far greater when it comes to the ship reviews than when it comes to the port. No one gives a crap about the port - mostly about the ship. It matters greatly there - but you weigh the discussion about each part of the ship appropriately. For example, I put FAR more stock in what I read on cruisecritics.com than on celebritycruises.com.
4. Little differences count big when expectations are based on past experiences with cruises. Less so for inexperienced cruisers - because there was no prior experience - and the only expectation of a cruise is that it will be a new kind of experience - which it is.

In fact, there is nothing more "experiential" than a cruise because the entirety of the cruise is designed to be an experience that is far more than its elements. Everything from the design of the lounges to the art on the wall to the level of service provided by the varying attendants and other staff, to (very importantly) the quality and variety of the food, is part of the totality of what you're paying for.

Which also means that since that's the case, a screw-up by the cruise line, depending on what the expectations are for the cruise, is something almost elemental, not just a f-up. It is feels like something really BIG - a core problem within its context, because the expectations within the context of the cruise are so high.

The irony of a bad experience within the high expectations of the journey is that in the grander scheme of things, it isn't much at all - a pipsqueak of a problem, at most. A screw-up on a well-appointed boat in a luxurious environment, is NOTHING by comparison to a missed food delivery to Ethiopia. But, know what? As misplaced as it seems to those of us who are strongly liberal, it feels really bad anyway.

But this isn't the story of screwups. Actually, we are having a great time and what screwups there have been are not mission critical or experience-desecrating in any way. I'll outline one or two later just to give you a flavor of what I mean by this odd statement.

Journey 1: Bermuda, The Cruise and the Smartly Casual

We are having a fantastic time in the Royal Suite of the Azamara Journey as we sit docked in Hamilton Bermuda (we're actually at sea heading back to the U.S), a beautiful town that is both high energy and low key - vibrant with life but enclouded with a rare kind of friendliness that suffuses and enmeshes everyone captured in it. Lovely, friendly folks zipping around on motorscooters, many of the scooters bright red with a couple of monogram letters on the side of them - JR - or something like that. There is something in the air, tonight, oh lord. (Phil Collins, sorry).

In fact, Bermuda is beautiful. Deep azure really does describe the bright Perrier-sparkling waters, and there are zillions of feathery cirrus clouds floating in the equally blue skies. The island is dense with foliage and good human beings who offer their seats to others on crowded buses, and a generally laid back good will.

In fact, Bermuda is not only beautiful but an oddly well run, smart casual country. "Smart casual" is literally the national dress code and the national demeanor. They actually have a dress code for day to day living that says that tank tops and bathing suits are unacceptable as regular attire and that the generally acceptable clothes code is "smart casual" - something a little less "formal" than our (the U.S.) "business casual" - at least during the day. In fact, its not unusual to see men walking around in incredibly well tailored suits - but the pants are Bermuda shorts. Looked smart and casual - but a little strange to my American eyes.

But it isn't Hamilton that drives the cruise experience, though the choice of Bermuda is an integral part of this cruise experience. The ship, the Azamara Journey - the new luxury ship for the Celebrity Cruise line - is the focus of the experience - which can be called "smart casual" as much as Bermuda calls itself that.

Its funny how cruise experiences can be so intense in a sort of comfortable way. Smart casual fits this ship. The very idea of a great Greenberg-savvy cruise experience is that it is intensely easy on you. I'm not using "intensely easy" as a cute literary metaphor either. That intensity is a profound part of the experience itself - and each ship differs - though there are ships with similar personalities - for example, the Azamara Qwest is probably similar to the Journey - though without the mistakes of this initial boat.

The intense easiness is characterized by its lack of decision-making. Pretty much the most important decision you have to make is are you going to take the elevator or the stairs to dinner.

Thing that makes this different from any other cruise is our past history with cruises and thus our expectations and the nature of how this particular line of cruise experiences is constructed. Not the ships, not the amenities, not just the environment, but the cruise experience as a whole.

For those of you who've read me for god-knows-what-reasons, you'll understand this one. Because I've been harping on the fact that the new business models are built around the idea of the company as the aggregator of the products, services, tools and environments necessary to create what the customer perceives to be an authentic (thank you, Joe Pine 2) experience that's suited for them - and yet can be shared with others so that its value becomes social.

What that means is that every single feature of a cruise, which all in all is a vacation getaway, has to be sculpted to both address a certain financial strata and yet at the same time, create a specific ambiance that each customer/cruiser wants his/her vacation to be.

In the case of the Azamara Journey, it was born of a collaboration between the small Azamara Cruise line and the more mega-cruiseline, Celebrity, owned by the oh-so-very-mega cruiseline Royal Caribbean, to provide a luxurious experience that is low key and laid back.

The differences between it and the regular Celebrity experience and other cruise lines are notable.

First, the ship is smaller than a typical Celebritiy cruise experience. On a Celebrity ship, there are 1700 passengers (about 3/5 of the passengers on a Royal Caribbean Blank of the Seas ship). On the Azamara Journey there are 700 passengers. On the Celebrity, around 850 crew (1:2 ratio to passengers) - on the Journey 400 crew (4:7 ratio - whatever that is - better than 1:2 though). On the Celebrity, the Royal Suite, which Yvonne and I bought for a 2-weeker to Hawaii last year, was 850 square feet of contemporary good taste and TV sets and internet connectivity. Here the Royal Suite, which we were upgraded to (great experience #1) - twice actually (see bad experiences below if you have a second), it is perhaps 600 square feet but is entirely comfortable. One big interesting difference. On this one - complimentary bar including a bottle of Perrier-Jouet Grand Brut NV. Didn't have that on the last ship. Also a bottle of J &B Rare Scotch, Absolut Vodka and another sparkling bubby - Bouvet Signature Brut - to add to the alcoloot. Plus complimentary soft drinks and Evian to either add to the spirits or to swallow frequently. Even though the room was not quite the wonderful Royal Suite of the Celebrity ship, the amenities were better and thus the feeling of luxury greater. Plus if we want to, we can take them home. Though we drank the Perrier-Jouet, opened the J&B and had a little, but won't be taking the other bottles home. Too much to carry given the other things we bought in Bermuda.

Additional examples, movies that were the $11.00 per variety on pay per view on the last ship (Celebrity Zenith), such as Will Ferrell's best ever in "Stranger Than Fiction" and "Flags of Our Fathers" etc. are all free here and "free" is part of the ambiance. So we've watched a lot of movies, which may seem ridiculous to many since we're sitting in Bermuda, (BTW, which we did extensively tour and shop in. Awesome Zoo and Aquarium), but it added to the laid back coziness we were looking for on this trip.

Another thing is that theater-style entertainment on this trip is largely nonexistent. Most cruises have elaborate shows with things like pro-level figure skaters doing ice shows on board the ships in the middle of the Caribbean as you pass by active volcanoes, or small budget shows that appears to look big budget but are entertaining B-level Broadway show tunes singers and dancers. But here, there is no real entertainment - in fact, so little that the first three days consisted of a magician, a dance contest for the passengers and an encore for the magician.

That suits us fine. We are just looking to do little more than relax.

But, this is all part of the experience.

Journey 2: Carnival Cruises, Styx, REO Speedwagon and, Oh, Journey

Let me take you to somewhere else for a minute. I'm reading Chuck Klosterman's IV: A Decade of Curious People And Dangerous Ideas, an enormously entertaining series of his always funny, sometimes great essays on pop culture. He's known for his pretty damned cogent take on the meaning of pop culture which he identifies by viewing things from the eyes of pop culture - (Pop-eye?) and with a very "I'm cool, but not faking it" perspective.

He has one essay in this book on a cruise called "Deep Blue Something: That '70s Cruise" that he wrote in 2005 about a "Rock & Roll Cruise" that featured (the real) Styx, REO Speedwagon, and Journey. And he points out that its not the cruise in this case as much as the idea that these rock bands from the 70s are on it - and they know how to play unlike contemporary musicians (this is of course disputable, but don't shoot me, I'm the messenger here) - and that's why people are willing to pay to see REO Speedwagon on a boat. The other reason that he says that it's meaningful for these guys to pay $3K per person is that these rock stars are also normal people which becomes apparent when they are comingling on the boat and people "f-ing LOVE that." That's right. They rock to pay the mortgage. The experience that THESE cruisers are having is intensely PERSONAL with these rockers and that is the dream that is real (my phrase, not his) for these ordinary folk-cruisers. That their rock heroes are like them - and thus, of course, ARE them, also.

How can you characterize this unique and singular cruise-not cruise experience? By the brilliant last sentence that Klosterman pens in the essay to the cruisers themselves:

"Don't ever stop believing. I mean it. Don't."

And if you read the essay, you'd realize he really does mean it.

What It All Means to CRM If You Really Care About That Part

What did I just tell you about, though? A cruise ship. An experience. But one entirely different than ours and one that I suspect that I would have loved too - if it had different groups. But you get the picture. These are designed to provide you with something that is memorable enough for you to want to repeat it with a particular and potentially different set of expectations for the next time out.

Some of the Glitches

Before I get to the final part - the nitty gritty - a few (very few) of the problems on the ship and in one case, before we ever got on and a brief discussion of how we weighed them (and why this means anything at all)

1. Our cruise agent (who is very good by the way), got us upgraded to the Royal Suite - twice. The first time, she sent us an email while we were away and said that she was waiting to hear from us as to whether or not we wanted the upgrade. We responded within 24 hours when we saw the email and the Royal Suite had already been taken. We were upset because our expectations had been raised - and then dashed. Better to not have raised the expectations at all in this case and I let her know it. Also, we were puzzled as to why she would hesitate to take advantage of this when offered. Who doesn't want a significant upgrade? This was very important and rectified when she went and somehow got a different Royal Suite upgrade for us. But the raising and dashing of the expectations weighed heavily at the beginning. "Better to have loved and lost, then to not have loved at all." Whoever wrote that is nuts.
2. There is what is now called opening seating or freestyle cruising. That means, rather than the standard approach to cruise dining - which is early or main seating (which is late actually) that is planned for and with you, you can eat when you want. Sounds great - and if the dining room wasn't jammed with tables so that a two person table felt like a six person table, it would be great but the dining room ambiance wasn't so good and it affected the idea. Again, its always personal preferences that determine the weight placed on this part of the experience. People who like six person tables would like this - even at a two person. (I'll bet you're thinking, "oh, he's right" or "wouldn't matter to me" as you read this. And that would be my point exactly).
3. The attendant service levels for our room were not as crisp or as good as the ones that we had in the Royal Suite on our cruise to Hawaii. This is an instance where the prior experience shaped the expectations. Without it, the service for the Suite would be no problem at all. But our expectations were sculpted from our last cruise, where the service was exceptional.

That's just three of the issues. Again, I don't want you to think that this was some bad cruise. It was great (though, the question is, should I care what you think? I do, but why is that - to get all existential on you for a bit - we had a great time, which really is enough, isn't it?). We would do it again in a heartbeat and I know I feel refreshed - which will probably last me all of another week.

That's what its all about, isn't it?

But you can't underestimate the need to share these things. Its not just a matter of how great it was for you - no matter how much you protest it was - it matters that you can tell someone about it. BTW, the business value of knowing that humans like to share, as obvious as that is, is immense.

CRM Lessons: The Art & Science of Sharing Experiences

Again, I quote that wise pop culture dude, Chuck Klosterman on this. He says in his essay on Johnny Carson, written when J.C. died in 2005, that art and culture's biggest social benefits are when it can provide "shared experiences (which) are how we connect with other people and how we understand our own identity." But the "pockets of shared experience" (the individual personalized experiences) may not be experiences that are easy to share. There is no guarantee that experiences by nature can be shared. There have to be vehicles created to share them.

These vehicles can be YouTube - I can't create the video on YouTube, but I can share it. It can be a Facebook application. The most popular applications - with downloads often in the million are the ones that can compare your likes and dislikes to those of your friends - ILike, the music sharing application, for example.

But the vehicle can be as simple as telling a story and the means to do that on a blog (like this one) or a social review site (like the aforementioned cruisecritics.com). The idea is that each time you read something about the cruise Yvonne and I took and the experience we had, you're not only reflecting on the experience we had, but the "what-if" experience you might have had, also. You are weighing and judging what we had.

But we get to tell the story and it feels good.

I hope the business value of this is obvious to you - my left eye shows me you see that. A great experience that I had and propagate can drive further customers - so its in the interest of Celebrity/Azamara to provide me with what I need to not just have a great experience but to tell a great story about it. And that means cruise veteran evangelists. That story leads to(potentially) new business as y'all who read this who want to go on a good cruise might consider Celebrity/Azarmara because I seemed to enjoy it. And Celebrity/Azamara might read this because it points out what they have to do to make me improve my story next time.

Oh yeah, one postscript. Probably because this ship left from Bayonne, NJ, there is an INCREDIBLE number of Yankees fans on the ship - I'd estimate (no joke) about 1/3 of the ship - rife with hats and teeshirts saying Posada, Jeter, and just the everpresent NY Yankees logo. The Yankees discussions (all diehards - of course, like me) was a way of bonding with people. Seriously. It was amazing.

Technorati : Azamara, Bermuda, Chuck Klosterman, Cruise, Customer Experience, Travel

Facebook Lawsuit: Cross Atlantic Capital Partners Scares Me

According to TechCrunch today, Facebook is facing another lawsuit- this one brought as a patent infringement case by Cross Atlantic Capital Partners for violating patent number 6,519,629. You'd think that this was something interesting but inevitable when it comes to business but this has implications that, at least to me, go beyond Facebook and right to the heart of social media.

Okay, before I launch here, I want to establish some bonafides.

I have experience at patent searches and reading patents for legal reasons, but I'm not an expert.

That said, I just read the entirety of patent #6,519,629 entitled "System for creating a community for users with common interests to interact in"

And I am astonished.

I'm astonished that the Patent and Trade Office would grant this patent to something so obviously broad indistinguishable in every way from any social network that has every existed online.

Did they grant this thing because Cross Atlantic Capital Partners (the assignee here is iKimbo, Inc., from here in Reston VA) called it a "system?"

This patent prints out to 22 pages not counting the images. I'm going to reproduce some short excerpts of their claims for the system they call an "Information and Application Distribution System (IADS)

Their single most important claim is number 1:

"A method for creating a community for users with common interests to interact in, the method comprising the steps of: receiving a creation transmission from a registered user, the creation transmission indicating that he registered user desires to create a community; receiving community identification information from the registered user; receiving a selection of at least one application object from the registered user; creating a community based on the community identification information and the at least one application object; receiving at least one communications address designated by the registered user, the at least one communications address corresponding to a user to receive a created community; and transmitting the created community based in part on the at least one communications address."

The patent goes to to claim that application objects are things like:

1. A chat "application object"
2. An instant message "application object"
3. A white board "application object"
4. A shopping cart "application object"
5. An invitation "application object"
6. A creation "application object"
7. A photo album "application object"
8. A store "application object"
9. A calendar "application object"
10. A video conferencing "application object"
11. A voice chat "application object"
12. An email list "application object"
13. A bulletin board "application object"
14. A pals "application object" (not often my friends get called application objects. Just kidding, litigious claimants)

Plus they claim subscription modules and subscription "objects" and community fields and pretty much every other technology piece that is represented in every other social networking site and platform I've ever seen or heard of. I won't bore you with further details except to say that the rest of the patent is the detail to substantiate this ridiculous grant and more ridiculous lawsuit.

What I read here is that the claim is to pretty much every piece of communications technology be it video, audio or text based as long as it is part of a system that is designed to allow registrants with profiles the means to communicate. It doesn't mean that they can sue email specialists or ecommerce cart providers unless they are part of a social network or user community. But they are laying claim to all the standard "stuff" that all social networking sites from Facebook to Flickr to Bebo to Ning use to create what both Cross Atlantic Capital Partners and everyone else under the sun calls "communities of interest." Meaning every group on Facebook meets that definition.

IKimbo

What, of course, makes this interesting is that the assignee is IKimbo, a company that developed Omniprise - what they called an "enterprise groupware application framework" at sometime in their short (4-5 year) life. Cross Atlantic Capital Partners seems to have been their chief investors, and maybe they see this as a means to reclaim a failed venture - 3 years after it shutdown in 2004 without a whole lot of notice. IKimbo was well thought of back in its day but this isn't going to help its legacy.

This Is Scary

What makes this lawsuit scary isn't just the obviously greedy, jealous nature of the lawsuit - that's typical of the filers of these kinds of lawsuits because they were unable to succeed on their own. What makes this particularly frightening is:

1. That a patent with this broad a scope was granted by the PTO. I honestly can't find one unique thing about the "system" filed that didn't exist before they filed it somewhere in some form. Maybe the form is unique for 2003, but again, while I'm not claiming expertise in patent law, this thing is so obviously high level that the patent grant is beyond rational comprehension, if not legal boundaries.
2. That if this succeeds, then there isn't a platform for any social network or user community "of interest" that isn't endangered - thus potentially choking off one of the more important forms of contemporary communication evolved over the past 5 years.

Could we live without social networks? Will civilization be doomed without them? Something tells me we'd get by fine. But allowing something so grotesque to win would be a miscarriage of justice and would set back one of the best possibilities for customer engagement I've seen in a long time.

And that would be sad.

But I'd better not contact similarly interested people by email who are registered on the same site I am.

I might get sued.

After all, I'm using at least one "application object."

Technorati : Facebook, lawsuit, social networks

Singapore Does It Again

"Welcome, Mr. Greenberg."

Just three words and you realize that not only ain't CRM so bad after all, but that an entire country can practice it and once again remind you why can be in love - with something that's also good business.

Of course, I'm talking about my trip to Singapore again and once again, I'm completely in love - with an entire nation. Or is it a city? Or is it a city-state?

All of the above.

The only downside of Singapore is that it is so unbelievably far from Manassas that a round trip to and from is 20,000 miles and THAT, my customer-seeking buds, is a LOOOOONG way.

But, damn if it isn't worth it.

National Service Excellence Initiative Progress Report - EXCELLENTE

As many of you know from my prior reports on Singapore, in August 2005, Prime Minister Lee announced what remains a unique and amazing program - the National Service Excellence Initiative. In his speech calling upon every citizen to make sure that the customer experience for every citizen, ex-pat and foreigner was in his words, equated with that of the Ritz-Carleton. It had been about 20 months since I had been there last. It was apparent that they had been continuing the effort because in June of this year Accenture had announced that Singapore was number 1 in the world (with Canada number 2 and the United States number 3) for their superb national customer service. But getting an award from Accenture - a company that, honestly, isn't exactly a company known for their own wonderful service culture - is nowhere near the same as actually experiencing it and I was going to see how well it was doing - at least anecdotally - because I had the opportunity to travel there due to the good graces of SAP - who brought me over to address the Singaporean equivalent of SAPPHIRE - the SAP Summit. In fact, I had three speeches in 2 days. One to the SAP CxO luncheon at the conference and another to the general body. Then on August 1, my dear, dear friend, colleague, contributing author to CRM at the Speed of Light and CRM veteran big time, Mei Lin Fung (<