PGreenblog

CRM Idol 2012: The Second Season is Here! Cue the Music.

Okay, I'm done teasing.  Without further ado, welcome to CRM Idol 2012.   The submission period opens today.  We are pumped and we are ready to roll this year. Without saying this to hype it (mostly), we think that this, our second season, will be more exciting and bigger than last year - and have more impact.

Face it, last year, we did it by the seat of its pants, improvising as we went, changing the rules - well, tweaking them when they needed to be tweaked. For example, realizing that we need a semi-finalist round which wasn't in the original plan or the original announcement.  But we are WAY past that stage now. We have a great strategy, the program is solid, the participation on the judges' side is up from 45 to 75 this year with more and more influencers joining the effort.

So what's different?  The submission process has dramatically altered. We realized last year with the overwhelming response we got that we had as many people on the waiting list as we had participating. We thought it probably wasn't exactly fair, though it was necessary, that about 60 companies didn't get a chance even though they were able to submit in a timely way but not the fastest.

So this year, we've eliminated "first come first serve." The submission period starts today and closes at 6pm Pacific Time on May 25.  There are no exceptions after that date. Rather than first come first serve, the Brain Trust - the original primary judges will select the contestants - 40 from the Americas; 20 from EMEA, and new to CRM Idol 2012, 20 from Asia/Australia.

The trick is that this year an email declaration won't do. There is a submission form that you can get and must get at the CRM Idol website.  You'll note not only are the same stuff as last year there but also a few new items. EVERY single thing, including financial information, must be disclosed.  The financials will be kept confidential; we are not asking for documentation, we just need a true number from you so we can assess eligibility.  If you're reluctant to do that, please don't apply.   See below for the application procedure.  I don't want to bore you with more details here.

This is exciting and there is some actual measurable benefit for you, if you are an emerging technology company less than 7 years old and with under $12 million in revenue (requirements are up at the CRM Idol website).  For example, on the most dramatic side, 3 CRM Idol contestants were acquired. In the case of one, we were explicitly told that their position in CRM Idol was a part of the valuation.  We have been told by countless other contestants that their experience with CRM Idol, which puts them in front of the most experienced and influential people in the CRM and related industries changed the nature of how they do business today.   Heady stuff for us at least.  And valuable for you.

Don't forget we have the mentoring program that comes along with it.  The extended judges are assigned a contestant company and work with them to prepare the briefing/demo (changes there too. See the site) that they need to impress us primary judges as to why you are the without a doubt the worlds greatest company.

Plus the prizes -ranging from free consulting, to free lead gen webinars to free software/services to pitches to VC firms, with more added every day, - are worth it by themselves, even if you don't interact much with the species.

So suit up, companies. Here's what you gotta do.

1. Go to the CRM Idol website starting right now.
2. Read over the rules on the site.
3. Register on the site.
4. Follow the instructions that are provided after you register
5. You will be sent the candidacy form.
6. Fill it out COMPLETELY. Refusal to answer any question are immediate disqualification. If we see something left out, we'll ask you to fill it out.
7. When you have completed the form, send it to submit2012@crmidol.com ONLY.  If you send me or any judge the form or to any other CRM Idol address, it will be discarded. Seriously. If you have any technical difficulties accessing the address (e.g. bounced email) you can contact me and let me know of the problem at paul-greenberg3@the56group.com.  Don't send me your submission.  Just let me that you're having a problem.
8. May 25, 2012 at 6:00pm Pacific Time U.S. is the final deadline for submission. No late submissions will be accepted.
9. Watch the site and the twitter hashtag #crmidol, Twitter ID @crmidol and the Facebook page for updates.
10. On June 1, here and in the other media venues and of course on the site, we'll announce the contestants.

This is going to be a blast! Okay, so we're not Steven Tyler, Randi Jackson and of course, the inimitable J.Lo.  So what? We are who we are.

And we are ready for you.

Are you ready for CRM Idol 2012?

Following On More Than Friday: The Experts Worth Checking Out

Note: I'm actually on a vacation, just finishing an incredible cruise through the Mediterranean and now on Day 2 of a 3 day stay in Barcelona. All in all a dream vacation to tell you the truth. Best ever. But I HAD to finish this post. An addiction. If I left you out and I actually do follow you as an expert, I apologize and will update this list in the near future. Forgive me. I'm loving this trip to much to worry about the rest of it all. Also, please let me know who teaches you. Not just who you read but who teaches you something of value - and moves you forward. Either ZDNet or PGreenblog which will have this post will be great for the comments. Please.

There’s was this list going around a few weeks ago that seemed to be saying that somehow those on it were "the" SCRM Top 50 "experts." After seeing yet another list of another group of experts or influencers in CRM, I realized I'm having a problem with all of these lists. The problem isn't who's on the list, though about 20% of the people on it, I've never heard of - which is highly unlikely if they are influential. The bigger problem I have with lists like this is in this case is that a list like this is now calling the chosen ones on it, "experts." This particular list is saying that the top 50 SCRM experts are sorted by a combination of some sort of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn followers, friends and other connections. Hopefully, the use of the word "experts" here was a poor unconscious choice of words, because I'm hard pressed to understand how these criteria are linked to expertise.

Look, I have a really hard time seeing a combination of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn compadres as a measure of influence,much less expertise. How this T+F+L combo scrubbed with an algorithm or two qualifies someone as an expert, I'll never know. (hat tip to Groucho Marx). I just get the feeling that even beyond this list (no offense intended, list producers), we are reducing the value of expertise to something that means "someone will listen to you beyond your mom and/or dad." All it seems to need in the world of Social CRM is a comment in an #scrm hashtag or some SCRM related keyword in combination with retweets, Facebook wall posts and god-know-what on LinkedIn to be anointed the god of an industry. Now to the authors credit, they said in their post to not take the numerical order of the list seriously. Which I didn't.

Whatever.

It’s just not the way I roll. Or most of the people I know either.

Please forgive me if I sound somewhat grouchy, but I’m seeing lists like this everywhere that are based on some quantitative calculation that are then being acclaimed as definitive. Reality is that they aren’t definitive and they actually provide little value and more confusion than not.

Here’s my take on all of this. The value of an expert is that they are able to teach someone something in a way that the person learning can understand. In other words, not only do they have depth in a discipline or domain of some sort, but they also think about who their audience actually is and what they do and how they live and, most of all, how they think. The reality is that each person, regardless of their proximity to a particular demographic, thinks differently than the next person. They think in different metaphors. The expert – at least the experts that I think deserve that designation are those that think about that audience. They aren’t just people who spout stuff about a subject or who build up a big Twitter following or who have lots of Facebook friends. They are people who have an expertise that they can impart in the metaphors of their audience so that their audience really understands what they are trying to say. These are people who think about doing that too.

The people that I’m going to recommend here are those I look to for learning. They are the ones who actually teach me something. They don’t just rehash others stuff, they don’t spend their lives arguing their picayune niggling gripes about "definitions"; they aren’t in business to maneuver themselves into leadership positions. They don't backstab or spit at others due their own inadequacies. They've become experts because they've earned the recognition, not because they are trying to get it.

These experts have ideas that create the seeds of new concepts, or they provide unique frameworks in how they look at a subject, or they are able to advance a discussion in a way that didn’t seem possible twenty minutes before I read the article/post etc. They are thinkers who love ideas and love executing on the ideas. I look to different ones for different things. There are many others who I read that I enjoy but they aren’t the ones that consistently move me to another place in how I’m thinking about something. The ones that I’m highlighting are those that do make me think differently more often than not. I'm going to specify what each does - for me, at least. Others who aren’t on the list, please don’t take offense. Its quite possible I simply forgot to include you - and for that I blame a senior moment or two. Or I enjoy reading what you're saying and on occasion you too move me to new concepts and ways of thinking. But the ones here are the ones who consistently move me to change how I think and change what I think about, and they are my gods and goddesses.

I've listed them by category – The links to their name are to their blogs. Or barring that, to their twitter handle. They are in no particular order at all. All of these are regular or semi-regular bloggers or writers. These are not book authors who don't blog much. That means you won't see Joe Pine II or Lior Arussy here since they don't blog enough - even though they are expert when it comes to customer experience. Folks like them will get a separate post when I lay out the books that affected my life and impacted what I think in business. They also are not those who own the social sites or the aggregators, so you won't see Robin Carey or Bob Thompson here, both of whom are true influencers. Also, for those here, there are overlaps with some of these guys being experts in multiple categories but I’m only putting a person in one category. There is room for only so much knowledge between my ears before it fries my brain.

Social CRM

1. Ray Wang
- Ray is not only one of the most astute enterprise analysts I've ever met but he has a solid grasp of Social CRM and how to apply it in the real world which is something that is painfully needed in business now. He also has a heart of gold and a great head for business. He was voted the equivalent of the Analyst MVP two years running for good reason. He is one of the few must-always-read-even-if-you're-in-a-hurry pundits around.
2. Esteban Kolsky
- This man will frame you. Well, okay, so I'm taking some dramatic license here. He is a master at developing the kind of insights businesses need when it comes to SCRM and then creating frameworks that actually make some sense for businesses to apply. He does this on a solid intellectual foundation and a practical history as a former Gartner analyst. Plus he is really very funny.
3. Brent Leary
- He is the master at the application of SCRM to small business. Very few people can even understand how to apply CRM much less SCRM to small biz. Brent does both and straddles both worlds - CRM and small business as an influential. He can be found on the American Express Open Forum, BET, hanging out with Anita Campbell and of course among the glitterati of the CRM world too. Watch his real world examples of small business success carefully. Plus watch our show The CRM Playaz. Wicked.
4. Jeremiah Owyang
- A year and a half ago, Jeremiah was a social media rock star, now he's put the enterprise into his bucket and he's not only learned it but he's actually begun to master it. His insights into companies he's in touch with are not only priceless but actually usable when making technology decisions. I keep learning.
5. Denis Pombriant
- What can I say about Denis Pombriant. For all things SaaS, all things macroeconomic and all things SCRM, he's da man. He is the one who realized that salesforce.com was not only an upcoming company but would be something of a force of nature in the CRM and enterprise world. He called them a "disruptive innovation" when no one else did. Now he's talking about sustainable CRM companies - take heed.
6. Prem Kumar
- this guy is actually the chief SCRM evangelist at Cognizant - a company that is actually beginning to get it and Prem is a guy who totally gets it. He has a keen sense of the technology and a fine sense of the strategy.
7. Mitch Lieberman
- a former VP of SugarCRM, Mitch earned his way up to thought leader even when attached to a vendor. He is an astute analyst who sees SCRM with a depth of perception that most don't. What Mitch does uniquely is take an idea out there and then drive into it so deeply that you can see all the implications and questions that are contained in the idea. Plus he can do it with a sense of irony.
8. Martin Schneider
- Martin has achieved that rare consideration. He is a current vendor employee (senior director in fact) that actually transcends his company's particular interests. Not terribly surprising in his case, since Martin was a leading analyst in CRM prior to his sojourn at SugarCRM. (they seem to spawn these types at Sugar don't they?). He understands Social CRM strategy and writes short cogent pieces on what to be looking at when thinking "strategy." Not many do that - or write as well as Martin. Or can play in a rock band as well as Martin. He was even a pro at that!.
9. Mike Fauscette
- I've known Mike for 12 years (he co-authored my very first book with me on PeopleSoft in 1998) and he never ceases to amaze me. Currently the head of IDC's enterprise applications practice, he has perhaps the best grasp of social business in the industry and a laissez faire attitude that I love. He genuinely sees how business needs to run when it comes to CRM and SCRM because he was a practitioner himself and also worked for vendors. His experience is perhaps unparalleled among SCRM thought leaders. And that counts for a lot. Besides, the dude can really write.
10. Brian Vellmure
- Brian is a big idea kind of guy. Look to him when you want to know the difference between, say, traditional CRM and social CRM or understand a concept like. He makes it easy to understand and makes me think "why didn't I think of that?" constantly.
11. Michael Maoz
- Michael is the 800 pound gorilla of the 800 pound gorillas. He is the most utilized Gartner analyst, bar none, I hear tell, and there's a reason for that. He is foresighted - having figured on this social thing for the last 5-6 years. He is ruthlessly honest, not really worrying about anything but doing the best thing and the most honest thing for his clients. And he has a unique take on the social CRM world - one that's actually realistic, rather than some of the fantasies that are floating around. He is one of the few analysts who has truly gotten Social CRM and remained connected to an analyst firm. Michael is one of the Gartner analysts responsible for the new Social CRM Magic Quadrant that they are releasing, I think, at the Gartner 360 CRM Summit, that I'm speaking at multiple times - once with the subject of this particular paragraph. Coolio.
12. Mark Tamis
- Mark is a smart dude. He drills down deeply into concepts ranging from how strategies work (and differ in customer-driven enterprises to the depths of transparency and authenticity. He doesn't write enough but he writes really really well. Moves the needle.
13. Chris Carfi
- Funny, just as I'm writing this, Chris Carfi joined Edelman Digital as a leader of a group there that will handle Adobe and make sure they stay in the social age. There might be no one better suited than that. Chris is arguably the guy who coined the term "social customer" having developed his blog "The Social Customer" some 6 or 7 years ago; long before anyone else was even thinking of what that social customer might be. He is one of the few who started out in the social and CRM worlds simultaneously and managed to magically and accurately stitch the info. A long time compadre of mine who I think has miles to go before he sleeps in the words of the immortal Robert Browning.

CRM

1. Bill Band
- Bill Band, who has had years and years of industry experience is not an expert on Social CRM though he fully understands it. But when you're looking at traditional CRM and its practicalities and how those practicalities are evolving; well, there aren't many who can give you the step by step than Bill does. Forrester is lucky to have him frankly. I only wish he blogged more than he does.
2. Jim Berkowitz
- Jim is the "tool guy" for CRM. Want to get a unique take on vendor capabilities when it comes to enterprise software? JB is your man and reading him is the plan, Stan. (that so dates me.). Jim spends incredible amounts of time understanding how features and functions can be valued when it comes to enterprise software and the businesses that are going to apply it. If you're trying to understand the selection process, he's your man. If you want to know what tools to use, he's your man.
3. Mike Boysen
- Mike Boysen is an iconoclast. A kind of retro-iconoclast who places a great deal of emphasis on what works and what doesn't when it comes to CRM. While he's not convinced that SCRM is going to be the harvest of bountiful plenty that most of us think, he is convinced that it has it's place in the world of traditional CRM where he is an expert - and an expert with a wry sense of humor. A very wry sense of humor. Land on earth is the location for Mike and how he moves the discussion on CRM forward.
4. Don Peppers & Martha Rogers
- I'm only putting them under this category because they are key business strategists who have shaped the industry for decades and continue to make their mark - and I'm not sure where else to put them. They have been a team forever and they have a quality company that comes from quality thinking - and a quality staff. Not only have they been the creators of 1 to 1 relationship marketing - the forerunner of personalized insight and interaction, but they also sparked the industry discussion with their notion of Return on Customer (ROC) - which transcends ROI. Whether you agree with them or not on this (I do with modifications), they moved the needle and continue to do so with their 1to1 publications.

The Enterprise

1. Josh Greenbaum
- Josh is tough. Really tough. I've heard him at vendor conferences asking what are perhaps the toughest questions that vendors will get at any time during the conference. But the answers are translated by Josh in ways that provide what is one of the most coherent voices in the industry when it comes to interpreting the complexity of large enterprise software vendors and the practitioners implementations of the large "stuff."
2. Michael Krigsman
- Michael has a unique role in the world of experts and influencers. He documents failure so that success can be learned. What he's able to do, which no one else can, is identify problems that have damaged other companies and then provide a foundation for not committing the same mistakes twice. He is thorough, thoughtful and has the good of the industry and interested parties in and around it at heart. He is a must follow who helps the industry.
3. Vinnie Mirchandani
- Vinnie is best known for his blog "Deal Architect" (see name link) which covers all things topical and enterprise; but he is best represented by his other blog - New Florence, New Renaissance and his new John Wiley published book out at the end of this month - The New Polymath: Profiles in Compound-Technology Innovations - which takes a look at innovation and transformation in the business world from the perspective of a renaissance of new ideas. If he weren't a Tampa Bay Rays fan, he'd be perfect.
4. Dennis Howlett
- Dennis is a man of ascerbic wit, passionate belief and devastatingly accurate insight into the enterprise - and he has NO problem saying what he thinks often with a very sharp tongue. He scares companies but actually makes his readers (among them me) think. He is a powerful influencer who understands the enterprise software industry better than most - especially the financial/ERP end of it - and has the chops to prove it.

Co-Creation/Innovation

1. Graham Hill
- Graham is always one step ahead - he is an innovative and brilliant thinker, a no holds barred fighter for new business ideas and someone who makes you think, not about social business 101 but about social business 202. Thing is, he isn't just academic either. He has years and years of experience of doing this for companies. Years. Light years. Check out his Social Business Manifesto from last November, his very last Cust0merThink post. A critical post.
2. Wim Rampen
- Eighteen months ago, I didn't know Wim. Now I do. I'm glad i do, because he is also a key thinker in the co-creation/innovation, social business 202 world. Guy has a brain that must run hot because he is always applying the lessons of co-creation to real life. Not easy to do, given the infrequency of success that the combination has. But he is an optimistic guy who is a forward thinker that simply should be read.

Enterprise 2.0

1. Sameer Patel
- Sameer is an enterprise software industry veteran, who is not only one of the best writers on collaboration out there but also a keen observer of what's going on when it comes to trends. He is someone who gets down to the core of an issue or digs out a strength where others may just gloss over it. He is one of the clearest voices and strongest influences in the Enterprise 2.0 space.
2. Dion Hinchcliffe
- Dion is a superstar. Joining the Dachis Group in April hasn't changed a thing when it comes to his incredibly comprehensive, cogent blog posts - often for ZDNet (see blog link at name). He is someone who blogs less often but when he does, his blog postings are blockbusters. They establish frameworks, interconnections (e.g. between Enterprise 2.0 and SCRM), maturity models, technology models, you name it. What is astounding is how clearly he does it. He is a serious must read in this space. Deep, deep knowledge. Plus an aggregator of resources of the first order.
3. Oliver Marks
- Oliver, who is partnered with Sameer Patel in the E20 space is also someone who you need to read. He is an astute thinker who covers issues in the collaboration space as often as he covers techniques and approaches. Someone who gets down to the core and is scrupulously honest in his assessments with no agenda but reality.
4. Andrew McAfee
- While I'm always called the Godfather of CRM, Andrew McAfee is the father of the Enterprise 2.0 - and has been since his 2006 publication in the Sloan Management Review of Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration. Honestly, aside from his deep commitment to the Boston Red Sox, the man has nothing wrong with him. He is the guy who created the SLATE model of E20 (see the article) and made the idea of using social tools internally at a company, not just interesting, but de rigueur. Someone that you must pay attention to because what he says in his writings and books is just right and provocative. Just get a load of his latest blog posting on the iPad, which is awesome, ascerbic, funny and pointedly right. He sits on the curve in a way that makes the curve move ahead of itself. If you catch my drift. But that Red Sox thing.....

Journalists

This category bears explanation. These are the journalists, some who blog, some who write regularly for publications - all of whom have a leadership position in the CRM and SCRM world one way or the other. Each of them is a terrific writer as well as an original thinker. Each of them, to one degree or another, falls into that hazy space between journalist and analyst, meaning they are journalists with a well formulated opinion. Their advantage over analysts is that they write better. You should follow them. You have to. You NEED to. You want to. When I snap my fingers, you will. AND you will feel refreshed, as if you came out of a deep and satisfying sleep.

Oh yeah, since they aren't all bloggers regularly, I'm going to point you to their articles if need be in the link of their name.

1. Josh Weinberger
- Josh is flat out brillant, insightful, always on top of the CRM/SCRM industry and actually practically conversant with all the tools of the trade, ranging from the software that runs businesses to the B2C stuff we are now discovering might have business value such as Foursquare. Read anything you can of his. Just do it.
2. Chris Bucholtz
- Chris Bucholz makes the industry a bit stronger for his range of knowledge, his writing skills and his sense of humor. He is actually the former editor of InsideCRM now the editor and chief writer for Aplicor's Forecasting Cloud - a compendium of daily writings in CRM, ScRM and even some ERP as of late. But don't let his cogent thinking get buried in all the other writing. Even if he wrote alone it would be worth it.
3. Ginger Conlon
- Ginger is someone who tries to keep her profile low (she is currently editorial director of 1to1 Publications) but can't because she is so good at thinking about things. I asked her to contribute to CRM at the Speed of Light's 4th edition, because I think so highly of her. She is a veteran of the industry, though not very old, with a background as editor-in-chief of CRM Magazine in her past. AND she gets all the social stuff. All of it.
4. Marshall Lager
- Marshall is something unique in the CRM industry. A great writer, with a rapier wit who has made the transition from pure journalist to analyst/consultant without losing an iota of his writing skills - making him well qualified to get across the ideas that he has to.
5. David Sims
- This guy might well be the most literate journalist with an opinion in the enterprise software world - and possibly the funniest. Thing about David, who has been writing for years - for TMC as a columnist and blogger, CustomerThink, etc. is that he has strong opinions and is an original thinker, but he does it with a literary humor that both enhances and masks the insight. He is SO worth reading. I've been a devoted fan (and friend) for years of this man. You should be (both) too.
6. David Myron
- David is a tone setter. As jefé of CRM Magazine, and one or two other Infotoday properties, he is not only doing what superb editors-in-chief do (don't forget I have a degree and an editorial work history in journalism, so I know what it takes to be an editor-in-chief), juggling all the time, but his editorial content sets not only the magazine's pace, but often sets the industry's pace. Be aware, be very aware of what David says.

Analytics, Measurement

1. Michael Wu
- Michael is the Principal Scientist of Analytics (for real) for Lithium and its rare I read someone who understands analytics better and more...analytically than Michael. For example, he actually is looking at what makes for identification of a true influencer - rather than the gross oversimplification that's going on now with T+F+L = Superman as the going industry standard. He shows me something new in the world of analytics, without any overt Lithiumesque interest in the writings. Most recently he is distinguishing between communities and social networks in a two part post. Part 1 and Part 2. Gotta read this dude.
2. Jim Sterne
- Not only is Jim Sterne one of the granddaddies (metaphorical, peeps, metaphorical) of Web analytics - and the president of the Web Analytics Association, but he is now a pioneer in social media analytics, the current author of a successful book in the field called "Social Media Metrics: How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment" and is a constant presence in the refining of these newly developed metrics.
3. Dr. V. Kumar
- Even though he's really more of an author than a blogger - in fact, I don't think he has a blog, I'm going to break my protocol and include him here because he had such a seminal influence on my thinking when it came to the measurement of advocacy. I always knew that Net Promoter Score, while a good start, was hardly sufficient for measuring the social customer's power in and value to business. When he extended Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) to include Customer Referral Value (CRV) among other measures and asked four questions with number 1 being NPS - would you recommend this company to someone you know - I thought - 'ohhh-kay". But it was question 2 that was both an epiphany and a "duh" moment - "Did you recommend this company to someone you know?" that I knew that I loved this man. He is a distinguished marketing professor at Georgia State University, the executive director of the GSU Center for Brand Experience Excellence and a must read. His book is "Managing CUstomers for Profit" and its a great start to a new version of measure for social business.

Social Media

1. Brian Solis
- Hard not to think of Brian. He's a vibrant, visible presence and what I've always called one of the "Big 3" of social...whatever. (The other two are the aforementioned Jeremiah Owyang and Chris Brogan). He's easily one of most influential and most respected guys in the world of social media and is spending serious time putting thinking about Social CRM and what he sees as a successor to it, SRM. While I can't say I can fully buy into the SRM side of it, I do fully buy into Brian. Also, he is so active in social media that people forget that he is a highly successful PR guy and his blog PR 2.0 is actually fascinating. Plus he has a new book out called Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web which is a social marketing book more than a social media one. And really, really good.
2. Paul Gillin
- I've known Paul since he was the Executive Editor of SearchCRM about 7 or 8 years now. Not only is he an expert in CRM, but he is also an expert in social media from a standpoint that few others are. First, he has a B2B knowledge that is unparalleled in social media. Second, his expertise is eminently practical. Meaning he is not theorizing on definitions of things, he is telling you how to do something. Want to blog? Here's how, here is the supporting arguments on its behalf to your left brained boss, your right brained boss and your colleagues. Here are what you can and can't do...you get the picture. He has two books out now, The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media and Secrets of Social Media Marketing: How to Use Online Conversations and Customer Communities to Turbo-Charge Your Business! and a third coming in January 2011 on social marketing.He is also the only columnist I read religiously in B2B Magazine - even with my secular behavior.

Sales

1. Anneke Seley
-Anneke wrote a book on Sales 2.0 and she blogs on sales 2.0 and she knows sales 2.0 better than you do. She is a long time industry veteran with insight and is a delightful person. You'd think the latter is enough to make you want to make you read her blog but, honestly, her insights are the real reason.

Customer Service

1. Natalie Petouhoff
- I've known Dr. Nat for years. Many years. Though she's a lot younger than me. She is formidable. Tres formidable. While she is currently heading up all social media efforts at Weber Shandwick (good move, WS), she is still one of the foremost experts in "social" customer service that you will find in the world. She has a solid research background and methodology, an intuitive sense of what's right when it comes to treating customers well that overlays that, and is just a good person who is able to turn that goodness into something substantial and interesting. I'm not sure where her new position will take her, but I'll follow.

Marketing

I can't say that I really can find anyone that rocks my boat here though there are many that I read ardently. I think this is a transformational period and there's a lot of both good stuff and noise out there but I can't clearly distinguish one from the other yet, so I'm going to leave this category alone. Though some of my social media experts are also marketing guys - so just reiterate them.

Public Sector/Politics

1. Andrew Rasiej
- This guy is amazing. He not only runs PDF - the Personal Democracy Forum - one of the most influential progressive institutions in the country - with an activist bent - but also is one of the jefés of TechPresident, which could be the most significant political blog in the country. He's also a true New Yorker - acerbic and honest and an ardent Yankees fan. A perfect person.
2. Alan Weber
- This guy, now at Altimeter Group with Ray Wang, Charlene Li, Jeremiah Owyang and a host of other superstars, has serious chops when it comes to the comings and goings of the public sector and the future of government as it links to the new technology paradigms. I have to say that I almost envy his depth of knowledge, ability to extract information from sources and his analytical skills. Public sector ain't easy to decipher yet, somehow he does it.
3. Alan Rosenblatt
- Alan is the Associate Director for Internet Advocacy at the Center for American Progress - the most powerful progressive think tank in Washington DC (I sit on their New Media Board of Advisors). Alan is also a tireless champion for constituency engagement utilizing the new social tools to empower citizens. He blogs for multiple sites including TechPresident, the CAP blogs and the Huffington Post. The man has mad advocacy knowledge and skills and if advocacy is something you think is important, whether in politics or business, then Alan is your man. Just read him, and if you meet him, offer him a single malt and you'll get the conversation you're looking for.

Mobile

1. Sheryl Kingstone - Sheryl works for Yankee Group. She is the Yankee Group star (no disrespect to any other Yankee Group analysts when I say this). She is the analyst most responsible for "the Anytime Anywhere Enterprise" that Yankee espouses - which of course includes a mobile component. Sheryl has been one of my ongoing beacons for mobile trends for as long as I can remember -which of course means since she was about 6 years old. I trust her thinking and judgment.
2. Michael Gartenberg
- Michael has been a bastion of mobile insight forever and a little longer. He is now at Altimeter, was at Forrester and was always someone that people just listened to. Among them me. For me, in the mobile world, he (and Sheryl) are it. 'Nuff said.

Others

These are those who either defy classification or who's category doesn't include that many but are exceptional thinkers who are actually ahead of the curve.

1. Doc Searls
- Doc is in his own category - and that would be Vendor Relationship Management (VRM). In principle, VRM is an important addition to the scholarship of social business. It helps define the customer's individual behavior when it comes to all businesses that he/she interacts with - in reality or potentially. It dovetails from my standpoint with what I call the personal value chain of an individual customer. Doc, one of the authors of the seminal Cluetrain Manifesto, drives VRM like no one else. Whether or not it becomes the "movement" (the labor movement for customers) it should be, remains to be seen. But what doesn't remain to be seen is Doc Searl's importance in the social business landscape.
2. Thomas Vander Wal
- What can I say about Thomas Vander Wal? He is the father of folksonomy and social tagging. He is the person who developed the social stack that I use for my discussion of social characteristics in enterprise software (that is software mimicking human behavior). He is constantly evolving new ideas on how to humanize the software and business processes that are supporting 21st century business so that business is able to gain greater insight into their customer base. YO'd be wise to read him because if you do, you'll be ahead of the curve - one that your business needs to be ahead of.
3. Lisa Stone
I love this woman (you know what I mean). She is a co-founder of Blogher, recently named one of 2010's 100 most creative people in America by Fast Company and one of the most generally astute bloggers anywhere. I am a fan who simply loves what she does. Its also nice that she's the significant other my my dear friend and influencer mentioned above Chris Carfi, making me thrilled to know them individually and as a couple.

Vendors Who Have Blogs that Transcend Pitches

I'm not going to go into a breakdown of each of these except to say that please check them out. Each of them has a unique perspective that's interesting and transcends their merely mortal business interests, though clearly doesn't ignore them. In the case of SAP, they have so many blogs that I've chosen the properties of SMT that they are the chief sponsors for and have some of their staff writing for. Also, interestingly enough, I'm noticing that the blogs that I do follow in marketing are mostly vendor blogs. Not sure what to make of that except that the marketing industry is still working it all out.

Okay. All in all, I've got the links for you. Click and read. Follow the yellow brick road.

1. Lithium
2. Attensity
3. SAP
4. Infusionsoft
5. Eloqua
6. Radian6 - in this case, look at the bottom of the page for their extensive list of blogs and podcasts
7. SugarCRM
8. Aplicor

Yet ANOTHER Excerpt from CRM at the Speed of Light, Chapter 4

By the way I've done this so far (chapters 1,2,3,4) you'd think I was pretty organized, wouldn't you. HA! Fooled you. I'm jumping all over the place doing chapters and if they fall in order of completion - a SHEER coincidence. This is the chapter on Customer Experience (not the chapter on mapping the customer experience - which is Chapter 21. I TOLD you I wasn't organized!). I've given you a case study excerpt that I think you'll find interesting - though the company, American Girl, has been discussed before.

As always, the Wordle of the entire chapter- not just the excerpt - and then the excerpt - not the chapter. At least this one looks like I wrote the chapter correctly.....

(1)The Transition from Management to Engagement through Experience

"Companies used to focus on making new, better or cheaper products and services...Now the game is to create wonderful and emotional experiences for consumers around whatever is being sold. Its the experience that counts, not the product…People…want capabilities and options, not uniform products…business is there to provide the tools." (Source - Business Week 12/19/2005)

"We have to create a great experience every time you touch the brand, and the design is a really big part of creating the experience and the emotion. We try to make a customer's experience better, but better in her terms." - (Source - A.G. Lafley, CEO Proctor & Gamble)

Why should customer experience supersede customer management as the operating paradigm for a successful CRM strategy?

Simply, customers are demanding it and customers are human beings like you, who I presume, remembers that you are a customer too.

This is more than just a nice homily to the personal side of human beings. This is a foundation for CRM if it's to be done successfully.

The premises are not too complex:

1. If a customer likes you, he will stay with you.
2. If a customer doesn't like you, in time, he will leave you.
3. People are looking to control their own lives.
4. People are looking to fulfill their own agendas. They are self-interested.
5. If you help them control their lives and fulfill their agendas in valuable and unobtrusive but memorable ways, they will like you.
6. If you fail to help them, they won't like you and won't continue with you because someone else will help them.

Those premises are the entire practical foundation for CRM 2.0. Simple, but the rest can be complex. I'll simplify the complex for you this entire book. I promise.

(2)The Experience Economy Realized

In 1998, Joe Pine 2 (who you met in Chapter 2) and James Gilmore wrote what has since become a classic, "The Experience Economy: Work is Theater and Every Business a Stage." Their central premise was that customers were looking to businesses to provide them with not products and services, but experiences. Products and services, the backbone of the old business model, were created to be in service of the experience. They also made the point that customers would pay premiums for those experiences.

What Pine & Gilmore make clear is that these experiences are the foundation for how the company constructs its business model (see Chapter 6). Products become the props and services the stage for the experience. The enterprise is able to charge for the experience which is both personal and memorable. I would add also sharable to their equation.

This is perhaps the most important aspect of CRM 2.0. A personalized experience that is shared - at least can be shared - is what differentiates one company from another - and engages the customer in ways that are unique and immersing.

The way that Pine and Gilmore put it was that this could be a commoditized experience. I would simplify it and say, if the customers find it valuable, they'll pay for it.

HORRORS!! How do you pay for an experience? Easy. With money.

I need to assert reality for a second. No one is talking about those who are having difficulties meeting bills or who have to scrape by each paycheck or who have no way of earning a living. These are for those people who can afford it. This is a business strategy, not a social strategy. Many businesses, like salesforce.com, have strong philanthropic programs that aren't just for PR purposes. But what we are talking about is something that people pay for - like any other commodity. This is not to be confused with their deeply personal and organic experiences that happen spontaneously. These are created experiences designed to delight and be memorable. They are authentic only in the regard they are what they are openly intended to be. Please don't confuse authenticity with spontaneity or natural growth.

Pine and Gilmore knocked it out of the park with their notion of how business experiences worked. As the millennial divide was crossed, customers' demanded personalized experiences as part of the way they were engaged and treated by the companies they were choosing to deal with.

While, of course, Starbucks, now in trouble, is the classic experience that since Pine & Gilmore has been used by the rest of the known universe, the Experience Economy is best reflected by one even more calculatedly encompassing experience - Mattel's American Girl dolls and the world that has been built around them.

(3)American Girl - A Cup of Tea and $200.00

The average cost of a pair of Fisher Price dolls is $38.00. The average cost of a Mattel American Girl doll duo is $205.00. Gaack.

Why is that?

Because American Girl has been intelligent enough to understand that their market is the mothers and grandmothers of the little girls whose imaginations they intended to capture. Rather than just sell a product, they are selling a story. This is an experience not just a plastic object. Here's how it works.

(4)American Girl - The Company

Where Fashionology LA is new, less than a year old, American Girl is an iconic company to both young girls and businesses looking for a model of success. It was founded in 1986 and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Mattel, Inc. in 1998. The numbers of staff are between 1800 and 4700 during the holiday rush. They have their HQ in Middleton Wisconsin with 560,000 square feet of doll brainpower. Over a million people a year visit their American Girl Place stores and 650,000 subscribe to the American Girl Magazine, making it among the top 10 children magazines in the United States. All in all, the numbers are big, but as you'll see, the customer experience is even bigger, which makes for an even bigger return on investment (ROI).

(4)American Girl - The Movie

In July 2008, to primarily positive (81%) reviews, a movie, starring new wildly in demand kid actress Abigal Breslin, Chris O'Donnell, and Julia Ormand, called "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl," hit the theaters. Note the title. Yes, this was based on the American Girl doll character Kit Kittredge, a doll with a life history in the 1930's U.S. Depression era.

The plot in a nutshell - Kit Kittredge, daughter of a dad with a failed car dealership, and a mom taking in boarders to make ends meet, writes articles on a typewriter in a tree house. She writes an article on a hobo camp that she tries to get the newspaper editor - who is mean - to publish. He refuses. In the meantime, her mom buys chickens and Kit goes around selling the eggs. Her mom's locked treasures are stolen and all signs (a footprint) point to a hobo boy named Will who is innocent. Kit and her friends Zach, and Ruthie (another actual doll) investigate to prove Will innocent.

What makes this truly amazing that this is the 4^th film production for American Girl - the first three were made for TV movies.

Even more amazing is the following illustration (Figure 1):

Figure 2: The Experience Counts: American Girl & the Movies

Look at the prices for the various products. Kit and Ruthie are $205.00 for the pair plus a few accessories, though you can buy them separately. Then there are coordinating items like Kit's Dog Grace, adopted in the movie for $18.00 or her tree house for $250.00. Plus there are the "you might also like" items like Kit's bedroom collection - $135.00 or Kits Bed and Quilt set $80.00. This might seem insane to you because you're a guy without a daughter for whatever reason, but there are parents and grandparents paying for this without reservation - even if a large gulp precedes the unreserved payment.

But the experience doesn't stop with American Girl movies. That's just a small part of this.

(4)American Girl - The Store Experience

Four hundred dollars for a visit to an American Girl store is de rigueur. When you go to the store, you can get your doll's hair done (and yours), have lunch with your doll in the café - which is amazing, since to my knowledge, dolls don't have digestive systems. Even though, mom and youngster can eat hot dogs, lemonade, and dessert while their dolls are sitting next to them in special doll chairs attached to the table. Of course, in keeping with what you will see is their model, the chairs are also for sale. Now look at what varying permutations of the hot dogs and lemonade will cost you in the American Girl Place (one of two types of experience) store at Chicago's high end Water Tower Place.

• Brunch is $18 per person, plus tax.
• Lunch is $20 per person, plus tax.
• Afternoon Tea is $17 per person, plus tax.
• Dinner is $22 per person, plus tax.

It doesn't stop with just food. There is a theater where you, your child and her doll can watch " The American Girls Revue^® for $28.00 per person. In case you were wondering, the doll is not a "person" as far as the price goes. There is also always Bitty Bear's Matinee: The Family Tree™, for a mere $15.00 per person.

In preparation for that big matinee, you can get your dolls hair styled for between $10 and $20. For a further price, you can get a photo of you and your doll taken that is then placed on the cover of a souvenir issue of American Girl Magazine (only $22.95 for six issues of the real deal).

But it doesn't stop there either. Needless to say, each store has dolls, books with the stories of the dolls, and clothing and accessories for the dolls to buy.

In addition there are special services like birthday parties, personalized tours and activities and…

Then there's the dolls themselves.

(4)American Girl -The Dolls

The American Girl experience is of course organized around the dolls themselves. There is a certain almost scary brilliance about how the dolls are used. They are not just products, but, as we will see in Chapter 6, the dolls are the centerpiece of the new business model that drives CRM 2.0 - which is, as we will see in detail in Chapter 6, an aggregation of products, services, tools and crafted experiences that are made available to customers to fulfill their own agendas and personalize their own experiences.

There are multiple lines of American Girl dolls but two are significant for us - and for space considerations.

The most famous line is the American Girl Collection line. The dolls each represent a period in history that has a story around it for the doll themselves. For some reason, the years that they represent all end in "4." I have no idea why. In any case, each of them has a book that tells their story and a line of accessories and clothing that reflect both their heritage and history. For example, here is the Kit Kittredge story according to Wikipedia "Kit Kittredge is growing up in the early years of the Great Depression in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her family struggles to adjust to the realities of the economy after Kit's father loses his job. Although referred to as 'Kit' in almost all books and promotional material, Kit's full name is Margaret Mildred Kittredge. She got this name when her father kept singing her the song, "Put All Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag", after he learned it when fighting in World War One. It should be noted that although the year 1934 appears on the cover of the book, 'Meet Kit' is actually set in 1932. The Kit books were illustrated by Walter Rane."

There is also a line of contemporary dolls that becomes significant (more or less) if you remember the Edelman Trust Barometer back in Chapter 1. They were called "American Girl Today" but in December 2005, the name changed to "Just Like You" dolls. 2005 was the year that "someone like me" became the most trusted source. I'm not sure that they are directly related but this reinforces the trend that occurred that time - a nodal shift toward a customer ecosystem dominated by peer trust - and moving away corporate trust.

The way the doll works is that you get 28 options each with a unique combination of face mold, skin, hair and eye color that your little girl can customize to be whatever she wants. This is directly in line with Pine & Gilmore's concept of the commoditization of experiences. You provide the customer with choices that are substantial and flexible and they pick and choose according to their personal desire. That's exactly what the story is with the Just Like You dolls.

(4)Why It Works

American Girl seems to be pretty money hungry, exceptionally pricey, and yet, parents I've spoken to who can afford to provide their children with this experience have no problem with the cost because of the incredible thrill that their kid(s) get from the visit, the stories being told and the totality of the experience.

What you are paying for here are not dolls but the tools for the child's imagination and the memory of the experience. They are engrossed in the story of their doll. It has a specifically imagined personality and also an actual story to go with that personality. That story is supported by the accessories, the clothes, the furniture and then the ambiance and attention that they and the doll get when they go to the store.

Yet, the target market is the parents and grandparents who can pay for it. People are willing to pay for a premium if they see the value in paying for it. They are willing to pay the extra if there is a memorable and sharable experience associated with the purchased goods. CRM 2.0 aims at that experience squarely because it is the experience that binds the customer to the company in ways that a product sale alone never can.

Think of it this way. The memory of the experience will be there when the dolls have long turned to whatever it is plastic degrades to.

Oh, want some numbers? Here goes. While Barbie sales in 2006 were down 13%, American Girl sales were up 15% to $436,000,000 with an operating profit of $100 million. That represented 8% of Mattel's gross sales and, get this, 15% of their operating profit.

To continue this string of left brained return, there were over a million visitors in 2006 and their revenue per square foot topped $500, which outside of Apple stores, which is an insane $2800 per square foot, is the highest rate in the world.

Not too shabby for dolls.

    Technorati : American Girl, CRM 2.0, CRM at the Speed of Light, etc.

DirecTV Doubles to Left

It's that time again.

Every two months as you probably know, Ellen Filipiak, SVP of Customer Care at DirecTV writes a blog entry on the progress they're making in both fixing the problems that they've had with a lot of their customers over a long time and the new stuff they're doing. While the reviews have been mixed, I have to admire Ellen for her absolute commitment for sending me something each two months and always on time. She's been awesome about that.

AND

This month, the discussion is considerably more straight - comparing where they were a year ago (when she came onboard) to where they are now - which is a legitimate horn tooting because it acknowledges the problems they've had in the past with their customers and shows what they're doing to fix them. The fact is, as a customer I want them to both acknowledge it and to then solve it. I don't want them to be bad. I want them to be good. This month, a real live set of steps. Not marketing hype. Straightforward. Good for her. Looks like she might be the person DirecTV needed.

Ellen, take it away.

Filipiak Steps to The Plate....The Pitch....And There's A Drive!...

Hello, Paul!

As 2008 moves forward, I thought I might return back to an earlier post from late last year to highlight actions we've made within DIRECTV as a result of our call center visits to learn more about the customer care organization and find ways to improve on current practices.

We also reviewed our online site and fundamentally asked ourselves how we answer each customer inquiry to discover better approaches to customers' questions.

Here are actions resulting from that review:

First, we made changes to our online platform. We made it much easier to register for online services; we reshaped our programming and hardware ordering areas; and upgraded our e-mail service to help customers find answers faster.

Regarding registration, customers requested two things: make it easier and provide flexible ways to retrieve their password and allow updates to their e-mail address at log-in. Our web team took this feedback and implemented these changes late last year. We've since received positive feedback from customers on these changes.

Until recently, adding hardware and changing programming was not intuitive or well-coordinated. Many of our new offerings are dependent on specific hardware tied to specific programming - so linking both made sense. Now, where programming and hardware choices are dependent and a customer has a decision to make, we added clearer messaging to help them make that decision. So if a customer decides to order our HD Access programming package, we now check their account to verify they have an HD receiver, and if not, we show clearer messaging that indicates it's required to have both. At this point, we provide the customer a choice to continue with their order with an HD receiver added or make another choice. Again, these changes were made by our web team based upon customer feedback.

We are also upgrading our e-mail software so that many questions can be answered while still on the site, rather than waiting for a person to respond. If the question requires a personal response, our new e-mail process will gather more customer information, helping our agents respond in a more timely and accurate manner.

Also, we will be adjusting our hours of operation on May 11^th. We will be available 24/7 to answer technical questions and our automated self-service options (web and phone systems) are also available 24/7. Since most customers call with billing, account, and installation questions during the day, we are changing our hours and are readying our staffing levels to match that. Our new hours of operation for non-technical calls are 8:00am to 10:00pm based on the local time of the customer.

Finally, we are in the process of revising which calls each representative takes to help resolve issues the first time a customer calls. For example, over 80% of the time a customer reports a problem ordering PPV, the issue is related to their bill. From a customer's perspective, it seems like a technical issue - PPV won't work. However, by sending these calls to a billing agent, we can resolve the root cause of the problem. For the small percentage of calls that require technical assistance, we can also get them to a technical representative quickly.

While each of these changes has been quite an effort by numerous teams here, we feel each will make a difference in how we serve our customers as we continue to listen closely to their needs and desires throughout DIRECTV.

As always, I appreciate the opportunity to share the changes we are making and to hear your feedback. Enjoy the upcoming baseball season!

Regards,

Ellen Filipiak

Senior Vice President, Customer Care

Ellen.Filipiak@directv.com

Technorati : CRM, DirecTV, customer service

Politics Online - 15th Annual, 600 Strong, First Class

I'm a political junkie. I admit and I've been politically sober for....ummm....a lot of years. Its important to admit it. I was in politics once and now I'm not but nothing gets the blood rushing to my head (you figure out which one) like political discourse and, with the rapid accession of technology and sudden interest in customer engagement a.k.a. constituent relationship management a.k.a. CRM (thank you, Barack Obama) and the revivification of a 60s-like environment in the U.S. its all good and exciting and I LOVE IT! For awhile now, I've had a spotty (but soon to be official) relationship - far less than I'd like - with the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet (IPDI), a think tank associated with George Washington University. In fact, I like these folks so much that I'm going to be the 2008 Practitioner Fellow for IPDI and I'm proud of that. They are concentrated on the application of web technologies and social constituent strategies to the electorate and I'm proud of being associated with the thinking. Which brings me to what I'm going to be jotting on here: The just finished 2008 Politics Online Conference.

Politics Online 2008 - Tipping Point or Tippling Point

On the balance, day 1 of the conference which was all I was able to attend due to work that I needed to do, was extraordinary with 600 of the most concerned, lively attendees I ever encountered. I have something of a political past and I saw a plethora of the idealist variety of politico - of course mixed in with the usual politic self-aggrandizing type who's in it for the "whatever they are in it for". But this is a younger crowd and IPDI brings that exuberance and social concern out - so that's who predominated. Exciting for an old child of the 60s like me - especially when I saw how they debated the issues that technology brought forth. My expectations on this were sky high and other than the opening plenary session, which I hated, it was amazing. I'll spend some time speaking to why I hated it and then more time telling you about the rest of the conference which more than made up for the "defensive contrarians" on the initial panel that opened the conference. Before I get into it, let me tell you that the work done by the Director of IPDI, Julie Barko Germany (and her staff and partners) was abso-friggin'-lutely spectacular. The level of conversation was something that was balm for the soul and fire for the heart - because it was typically (with some exceptions) about the application of technology for social good in the political realm. These were people who not only thought about the technology as cool but saw it as applicable to solving greater problems in the world - hunger, global warming, etc. They were Republicans, Democrats, representatives of every campaign, federal, state and local offices, party organizations and advocacy groups galore. There were technology vendors, of course, like Blue States Digital who seems to lead in developing state of the art political digital environments - though that is observation, not core analysis (that will come some time soon). But the discussion and buzz around how to utilize social media, CRM and social networks for campaigns, congressional offices, advocacy ad infinitum, was intense and bracing and fascinating and made one (me) want to roar back into action. So, as I listened to the plenary session in the AM, my dismay began to rise as I heard two academic elitists - meaning people who were more interested in defending their quirks and their positions by rising to the level of obnoxious than providing anything of value to the 600 eager listeners in the audience. What was horrible was the arrogance of all but the Google guy (former DNCer Bob Boorstin). I'm not going to give you their names but will call them the USC guy and the "So-Called Futurist." Their fundamental premises were cynical and they treated the audience with disrespect - and had little of value to say. For example, the USC guy bristled over one of the audience saying that 70% of internet traffic was porn and he almost yelled at the guy saying that this was untrue and that a recent USC study proved it was 40% - like that actually mattered. But even more was his assertion that with the rise of ubiquitous computing and the ability to increasingly personalize content delivery, he was afraid of "balkanization" - meaning that you would only receive the opinions and ideological statements and "stuff" that you wanted to hear - and he PROUDLY showed how noble he was with "I listen to Rush Limbaugh every day" - as if he deliberately exposed himself to dangerous toxins each day in the interests of free discourse and contrarian opinion maintenance and purity. While sitting there, I wondered what planet he lived on. Did he ever have sex with another person or go to a conference with 600 people or interact beyond third party communications? If you don't live 100% on the web and can't control all the activity that gets pushed to you AND you in fact, actually meet with other humans out there, then the odds of you never hearing opinions that aren't filtered toward your thinking are about ZERO. We are humans. We interact. We differ by a lot or a little but we differ - all of us. There is NO way his so-called "balkanization" can happen because we live in a society - and we will personalize all we want on the web and still hear contrarian thinking. Way the world works, bunky. The "So-Called-Futurist" was actually more offensive. He not only threw technology terms like WiMax and RFID at IPv6 at the audience without any clear explanation as things that will impact us greatly in the next 18 months but then got into this weird ubergeek discussion about trust, privacy, etc. that led him to say the best way to deal with these issues was by never joining social networks. He was SO proud of this. First, I doubt that the implementation of IPv6 or WiMax will be effectively even near complete within 18 months. For example, Sprint, who was the big pusher of WiMax and planned a 3 billion dollar investment, effectively withdrew that idea and investment sometime in the last few months because they began to see the issues that it brought up. While IPv6 is certainly the way to go, its impact won't be felt for awhile, because at the moment, there is a perception that we have sufficient room in the internet address space to hold on for a bit. He was saying what he was saying because he likes hardware and he likes to show off to audiences. His cynicism was blatant besides. His "I don't join social networks so I don't have to deal with issues" was no different in concept than a recluse who thinks the human species is 'dirty" and the best way to deal with it is to avoid it. Ugh.

But The Best Was Yet To Come - And It Did

Okay, that gets rid of the ONLY blight on this wonderful event. Because the rest of it more than made up for these misogynists. The bulk of the rest of the day was breakout sessions and I attended two and at the same time moderated one of them.

Going to School and Learning Something Important - Two Times In A Single Day

I attended two of the panels in breakout sessions - one on the development of mobile social applications and another on the application of social networking to political campaigns. While both were great, I want concentrate (for space and time reasons - though not the existential variety, the pragmatic - meaning I don't want this to be too long nor do I have much more time write it) on the latter not the former.

Social Networks - Political Campaigns

This panel was run by my friend and colleague, TechPresident blogger and key player at the Center for American Progress Alan Rosenblatt. Also, I might add a truly discerning drinker of single malt scotches. On his panel he had the social web jefes from Ron Paul's campaign, Rudi Guiliani's campaign, John Edwards' campaign, and a guy from Fred Thompson's campaign. As Alan pointed out, Clinton and Obama weren't there because that happened to be the day of the Ohio and Texas primaries so they were kind of tied up. This was packed and fascinating and buzzed the whole time. The discussion was about the application of social networks to campaigns and the lessons learned when it came to failures and successes in how to do them. Justine Lam, Ron Paul's key web strategist, pointed out that he had 84,000 Facebook friends, 106,000 Meetup connections and 109,000 MySpace friends and that level of connection was one of the key reasons that he was able to raise the kinds of funds he did - $20 million in the fourth quarter of 2007 for a campaign that couldn't win. She made the point that actually only Richardson and Obama built their own social networks (though I'm not sure that's the case) but they found that $1 million quotes to build one were too high so that they did more of a reach out and work with existing social networks. Many of Paul's supporters were already on the web - marginalized (her term, not mine) programmers and others who were Libertarians or anti-war Democrats or youth for whom "freedom" resonated as a message. The value of this was that by intersecting social networks of those who were likely to support him, the supporters took ownership of the campaign from the ground up. Guiliani's approach was too late and too little but there was a plan for social networks. The campaign developed a Team Rudy social application and the results were amazing - within a month email signups tripled and fundraising escalated to the point that at the nadir of the campaign (Jan 2008) they had their best fundraising month. But, as she pointed out, a bad message or bad strategy still trumps a web presence. The John Edwards campaign had a web strategy built around integration, interaction and accessibility. They were unique in their creativity too. THey sponsored a contest with Eventful that worked kind of like this

1. Demand Edwards on Eventful in your community
2. Ask Edwards question
3. Then based on Eventful numbers someone won and Edwards would directly and personally answer the question you asked.

Or something like that. They did events online with Elizabeth Edwards - so they were always accessible. There was one really interesting technology they used - Upscoop, a free tool from Rapleaf, that lets you upload your address book and then searches over 400 million profiles and tells you what social networks those friends in your address book are on. Doesn't do Outlook as far as I can tell. But THAT is really interesting and a great idea. I could take you on and on in this particular panel because it was invaluable and shows how important a campaign's use of a social web strategy was critical to any progress and was going to be more critical as time progressed.

Making Data Actionable, Dudes

I was the moderator of a panel that wasn't all that exciting by name, but ended up being very exciting due to the participants. They were:

1. Me
2. Bob Greenberg - President of GH International (a forty person company) and the leading homeland security consultant in the U.S. - with a strong focus around the use of social technologies in homeland security (and he's my brother)
3. Bruce Culbert, CEO of Isymmetry and the former head of BearingPoint's CRM and Supply Chain practices; creator of IBM E-business
4. Scott Rogers, Senior Director of Customer Initiatives at David's Bridal - a practitioner star
5. Thomas Vander Wal, the inventor of social tagging and President of InfoCloud Solutions - a Web 2.0 legend

We had about 40 attendees to the panel and the discussion was wide-ranging from Bruce identifying the key ways to think about data - one of which was making someone accountable for its use; to Bob discussing the Virtual Alabama use of Google Maps Enterprise Perpetual License as a core for this brilliant first responders site; to Thomas identifying how to use social tagging in a campaign; to Scott talking about how David's Bridal handled web complainants with specific strategies and criteria for action. There was a key discussion around microtargeting that bears some repetition because it was a theme throughout the day and a subject of some real interest, concern and occasional ire. For those of you who don't know what it is - it's the practice of granular targeting of a prospect so that a super-targeted highly personalized explicit message could be sent to the constituent OR so that a potential voting pattern could be uncovered. So for example, if I knew what scotch you drank, what books you read, what kind of house you lived in and what car you drove, I'd have a good chance of knowing who you'd vote for AND I could send you messages that reflected all those preferences. One thing that I pointed out, thanks to a discussion with Alan Fuller, a principal in Flat Creek Consulting is that if the culture of the political entity remains the same, then a microtargeted message is still just an outbound message shoved down someone's throat - the difference between refined and raw sugar. Microtargeting's value comes when it helps you understand your constituent in a way that allows you to serve them better - not spew on them more specifically. Social tagging is one tool that allows that granularity and exposes that knowledge but is in the hands of the constituent because its their tags that are the core of the granular knowledge.

Who Won?

There is no question that IPDI pulled off something that is vitally important to the future of politics in the U.S. Why? Because it embraced and started the dialogue on what is the most important issue facing a campaign - win or lose - or an elected official. How do you engage your constituent in an era where their expectations have dramatically changed. This is a conference that actually went a long way toward doing that - and focused on which technologies, strategies and cultures were critical for that success. This was honestly a case where the cynicism of a few was drowned in the enthusiasm of the many. The wisdom of this crowd of 600 prevailed. IPDI Rocks - exactly when it should

DirecTV Progress Report #2 - Ellen Filipiak Takes The Floor Again

Hello all, I'm back from Singapore. Got a bunch of other matters to cover with you including the Singapore trip, the beginnings of the CRM iPhone Bakeoff and something I'm writing on 2007's greatest concept, Neo-Narcissism. Blog entry to follow on that today. But first, I want to present the latest in the every other month progress reports from DirecTV, written by their SVP of Customer Care, Ellen Filipiak. She was timely in getting it to me. The reason its a few days later than August 1 was because I was in Singapore. So the lateness is my fault.

Please feel free to comment all you want about it. I'm printing this exactly as I got it with no changes except to make it bold. In a few months, I'll do an analysis of what we've all seen, but I will say she seems to be making some genuine progress. You'll note the differences between June 1 and this one in tone, content, approach and information....

Greetings!

In my last update, I shared that I was planning to visit most of our call centers with the express purpose of listening to customer calls as well as getting feedback directly from our representatives on ways we can improve service to you, our customers. Many of the comments I heard match what customers say when communicating directly with me or other members of our leadership team.

At DIRECTV, we handle millions of phone calls each and also make about 1 million visits to customers' homes on a monthly basis. The vast majority of these "touches" are handled in one call or visit. Like most organizations, though, we have areas in which we need to make improvements. I would like to share with you some of the areas we will be working on.

Providing accurate and consistent information

During my site visits, I learned that the knowledge tool our representatives use as a resource to help our customers contains some conflicting information. We are in the process of reviewing everything and removing outdated and conflicting information. We have also put into place a new review process so we can ensure this situation does not occur in the future. Pretty basic….we just weren't doing it as well as we could.

In addition, we just completed a review of all of our troubleshooting materials and guidelines, in conjunction with our field operations, engineering and training teams. We have made several modifications to our troubleshooting procedures, which ultimately will help us identify and resolve problems more quickly for our customers. We will continue to refine these efforts as more models of hardware become available, especially High Definition products.

We have also been reviewing how calls are distributed to our representatives, to make sure our customers are getting to the person who can best assist them based upon the reason they are calling. For example, we want to make sure that our customers calling with a question about their receiver or picture quality, is immediately given to a representative who has been trained in technical troubleshooting. Similarly, if the call is about a bill, we want to send it to a billing representative.

We know that it is very frustrating to explain the reason for a call, only to be transferred to someone else. By making some changes in our routing, we have already reduced transfers from one agent to another, although we still have work to do on this.

Simplify our promotions and fulfillment process

It looks like one of the most frustrating issues for customers has been with our rebate and fulfillment process. Earlier in the year, we did not do as good a job as we could have explaining what our customers needed to do in order to receive their rebate or gift (such as a portable DVD player). Also, the forms were not being processed in as timely a manner as they should have been.

We have simplified these processes for future promotions and have given our representatives more tools to help customers when questions do arise.

Better coordination with our field operations team

We are working closely with our field operations team to ensure we have better, more accurate information to provide customers who are calling about the status of a technician arriving at their home. We have not solved this issue completely, but are working on this, and I will post updates on our progress in the future.

We are also working on ways to ensure the order the technician has contains the list of all of the equipment needed to complete the work ordered by our customers. While our technicians carry some additional inventory with them, occasionally, we don't have enough equipment to complete the job at that time. We understand how frustrating this is, and have taken additional steps to review the accuracy of orders prior to them being given to technicians.

I also wanted to remind everyone that there are many different ways to reach DIRECTV. On www.directv.com, you can complete many transactions (such as paying your bill or ordering a movie) as well as find information about our products, programming, pricing as well as troubleshooting tips. You can also complete many transactions in our automated phone system at your convenience.

Finally, I wanted to acknowledge that we have had some challenges over the past couple of months with the software systems we use to support customer care. This has resulted in us not being able to assist customers immediately when they called us. We apologize that this occurred and want to assure that we have taken the appropriate steps to prevent future problems.

My team and I are aggressively working the items above as well as many other initiatives, which are fundamental to identifying and meeting our customers' needs. As always, I appreciate Paul's letting me share updates with you, and look forward to providing more updates in the coming months.

Regards,

Ellen Filipiak

SVP Customer Care

    Technorati : CRM, Customer Experience, DirecTV

Light At The End Of The Satellite: From DreckTV to DirecTV - I Hope

Take a look the right. You'll see that there's no counter anymore on the DirecTV side. Why, you all ask? That is curiouser and curiouser...devotees of Alice In Wonderland might think, lifting their eyebrows.

It's gone because I had what turned out to be a very pleasant and productive chat with the new Senior Vice President (3 weeks on the job) of DirecTV Customer Care, Ellen Filipiak about not just what I saw as my gripes with DirecTV but what I saw as their CRM issues - all those outlined in prior posts. She was candid and because she is THAT new and I admired her candid responses and her charm too, that I won't repeat what she told me. But I will mention what we've worked out.

Ms. Filipiak has agreed that she will post the status of the DirecTV transition from anti-customer (in fairness, my term, not hers) to customer-centric on this blog every two months starting with a post on June 1.

I believe her and with that, down comes the counter.

The calendar for her comments will be:

June 1, 2007

August 1, 2007

October 1, 2007

December 1, 2007

Ad infinitum

I think that she's a good person and was honest and forthright with me. So let's cut her some slack, give her some time and hope that we get the authentic picture from her on what's going on with DirecTV.

Industry watchers and DirecTV customers take note.

I know I'll be watching more than just TV here.

Technorati : CRM, DirecTV, authenticity, customer experience, customer-centric, trust

So Far DreckTV Hasn't Learned A Thing

Further Update: 72 Hours After Last Call

On Monday, I spoke to DirecTV's Office of the President and ran into an account manager, who, as everyone did, apologized to me for the shoddy treatment they received and then, when I asked her to read the blog entry which of course catalogs this whole sordid affair, she said:

1. They have only restricted access to the Internet so they can't go to the blog
2. They have no email address I can send anything to
3. So the only thing I could do is print out the blog and fax it to them.

What, of course, is astonishing, is that this is the President's Team - the high end troubleshooters who are directly accountable to the Office of the President at DirecTV. There is no inbound access to these people except fax and phone and they aren't trusted enough to surf the web.

I asked to speak to a supervisor.

This was Monday morning at about 9:30 PST or so.

They said that a supervisor from the President's team would call me back between 24 & 48 hours.

I gave them my cell phone and office phone to call.

Its now just short (4 hours) of 72 hours.

And I'm waiting for that call....

Comcast and other cable companies got the Major League Baseball package last night.

Just a thought right now.

Random and Tired

Next entry after this one is gonna be the Neighborhood America profile. But today, I'm REALLY tired. Woke up at 2:00am and never went back to sleep. So I'm taking a break from my preparations for the certification series on social media and business that's being co-taught by me and Chris Carfi, the social customer guru who runs the (what else?) Social Customer blog, one of the most influential business-focused, way cool, 2.0 blogs in the industry. We're opening in San Francisco on March 27-28. If you're interested, go to the BPT Partner's website and sign up. This is a good time to do it. You can still get the discounts, and if I love you, I might be able to get you a great deal or even a free pass to the course.

But I have to love you.

Random Musings From a Set ofTired Synapses

Here goes.

Companies to Avoid Like the Plague - You're gonna know these companies because they're big and famous and gross. First, Creative Labs - the Soundblaster people. Why, because they truly suck at customer service. I have yet to run across a company that is either so grossly incompetent that is actually staggers the mind or just doesn't really care about customers. The short story: I have a problem with their wireless G55W 5.1 speakers, which just don't seem to configure correctly. I also have an X-Fi Gamers Edge card that came with my new system (I'm so mad, I'm not even gonna give them the benefit of a product link). I've been emailing with their tech support guys since the beginning of February. Why that long? It takes them 5-7 days to respond to EACH email. The last email indicated that I might be missing a cable. Normally, you would think that they would simply say "We'll provide you with a cable." That's all of $5.00 worth of effort for them - including the friggin' cable. Not them. Their response is the following, word for word:

Dear Paul,

Thank you for responding to Creative Customer Support. We appreciate the opportunity to assist you.

In response to your email, the Green, Black, and Orange cable should have been included with your Gigaworks 550W speakers. If you look on the package contents listed online (http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=4&subcategory=25&p

roduct=14661&nav=packageContents),

should be listed as the "Three mini stereo to dual RCA cables (for connecting to your Sound Blaster or other multi-channel audio card)."

One end of the cable should be the three Green, Black, and Orange 1/8"

minijack connections. The other end should have RCA connections. If this cable was not included with the package, you may need to check with the place that you purchased it from to verify that you didn't get an Open-Box item. If you didn't purchase the speaker system too long ago, you should be able to exchange it through them.

If you still require assistance, please reply to this email with any previous correspondence to ensure the quickest and most accurate service.

Best Regards,

(PG: I REDACTED THE TECH'S NAME)

I kid you not. They won't even send the cable, saving me what is already a massive headache with a VERY expensive speaker set and card.

Avoid these fools at all costs.

The other?

DirecTV.

I'm a premium A-list customer with them, spending a bloody fortune every month and the MLB package every summer. I needed some repair and a new install and they basically said, "hey, A-lister, thanks for your business. We TRULY appreciate it. We'll have someone out there in a MONTH to take care of the repair and install." Then when I spoke to the supervisor, he tried to convince me to be grateful it wasn't three months! He claimed they were adding people as fast as they can. Smart guy but I'm not convinced. As soon as I can figure out an option, I'm gonna take my A-list butt out of there.

A month. So glad they "value" my business - at zero it seems.

CRM for Google. Gag. - Etelos announced their "beta" of CRM for Google, a couple of days ago. I'd like to write a long review on the quality of the functionality and the features compared to other appropriate CRM applications/services on the market, but there isn't enough functionality to do that. After reviewing what Etelos had at their site, including a series of REALLY lame videos on the offering. What's astounding to me is that all this offers is contact management, calendar management and scheduling and some other PIM capabilities with a sprinkling of some sales "stuff" - hard to call them functions. They try to pass off a couple of email marketing features as CRM - and that's about it. I actually thought this might be one of those really funny spoofs from "The Onion" but it was real. This doesn't even qualify as a bad beta, nor does it fit the "throw it out there because we can get fast feedback in a web 2.0 world" sort of way. It simply stinks.

SAP Moving Back to Apps? Heard It On The Grapevine - In the midst of all the buzz around Oracle's purchase of Business Intelligence vendor, Hyperion for $3.3 billion - the same Hyperion that runs a lot on top of SAP applications, and in fact has 55% of its financial base with SAP applications, AMR's Bruce Richardson made this curious statement in his First Thing Monday column this past...Sunday (really):

"In recent days, I have been hearing that SAP is moving away from stressing its position as a platform vendor and moving back to emphasizing its strength as the applications leader. Indeed, SAP issued a statement yesterday saying that "the Hyperion deal is one more way that Oracle attempts to hide the fact that applications is not its core business, whereas applications has been, and will continue to be, SAP's core business."

Last week, John Hagerty wrote about SAP's purchase of Pilot Software, an early pioneer in executive information systems and maker of PilotWorks, a strategy management and execution monitoring suite. He wrote that SAP "is starting to get aggressive in filling gaps in its vision."

I haven't heard that anywhere else, but if last week's CRM conference is a marker, I didn't really get the more democratic "we're a platform that can work with anything" vibe from the event. It was more "we're SAP and we've got a smokin' hybrid model." So maybe he's right. It bears investigation. It would be good news for salesforce.com and bad news for Oracle if that's the case.

Finally, The Onion for Real - You ever read The Onion? If not, you should. Its a newspaper (print) and online presence that pretty well mocks everything with fake and sometimes prescient headlines (they had a mocking article on a 5-blade razor and voila, the Gillette Fusion comes out a few months later. Even sadder, I actually use it.). TechCrunch, on Tuesday, reported that The Onion had a article on announcement by Steve Jobs of the "iLaunch" , a product that will revolutionize launching products. A riot. Check it out at The Onion. Even better, The Onion did an article back in August 2005 that reported on the release of "Google Purge" a product that will destroy everything Google can't index. Although maybe that was the Wall St. Journal....? Nah.

They are just so cool.

I'm tired. Bye.

Technorati : CRM, Google, SAP, The Onion, bad companies

Pro-Am Finally Means Pro-Active

My degree is in journalism. I love newspapers. It is just AWESOME to me to read a Sunday paper and even the ads for (geek alert) Circuit City, Best Buy, CompUSA and others and drink a good cuppa Kona café while perusing the press.

Even better…do all that and I go downstairs into my basement home theatre dubbed the Ecenter and put on something ranging from classical to Christina Aguilera's Back to Basics, or the new tone poem from Norah Jones and read the paper and sip the java.

Ummm.Ummm.UMMM.

But I think its been pretty obvious that one of the domains most shaken up by the web 2.0 world has been media and particularly the print media which is ignored by the younger set for the far more visceral audio tunes of podcasts and iPod songs and the even more engaging visual delights of Web and soon to be ubiquitous mobile video from the likes of YouTube and ESPN.

Let me make this blatantly clear.

would you rather see?

This?

Or This?

I rest my case.

The fact is though, that we're not just viewing things from a visceral standpoint when it comes to reporting. Actually, with all the blasts at the media, and all their exaggerations, vagaries, overhype of stories that are meaningless; their pandering to the lowest levels of taste found this side of Twinkie and their clear and unadulterated claims of no-bias when that's absolutely impossible, the truth be told, most reporters in the print media or on TV are honest professionals - and I emphasize the words "honest" and most germane to this blog entry "professional."

That means that user-created content and collaboration with the customer and "citizen journalism" buzzwords aside, they know more as professionals than we do as amateurs - usually. Not always.

Long Live Heretics!

See, I'm gonna be a 2.0 heretic here. Meaning that despite my clear love of the entire Web 2.0/CRM 2.0 "thing", I'm gonna violate the temple of 2.0 culture and say something that (horrors) I know that people who love all things 2.0 don't want to hear.

All user-created content isn't good.

Yes. Once again.

All user created content isn't good.

The movement that is creating the onrush of user created content is good.

But a LARGE chunk of what is created by the users sucks big time. I mean, did you see those horrible user created commercials on the SuperBowl? That "Chevy Car Wash" winner of the College Ad where guys couldn't get their hands off a Chevy and stripped down as they stroked it. Not really funny. Professionally produced, amateur written.

That would be this one.

Okay, but enough. What I'm saying is that this isn't the era of "anti-professional" just the era of "self-expression," some of which indicates serious talent, some of which indicates serious vitamin deficiencies. So be discriminating. There is something important & valuable about people who are experts in their craft and love it perhaps too, and something important about customers' desire to collaborate and participate in activities that both enhance their own experience and benefit the companies that they are utilizing to enhance that experience.

All in all, the qualified meaning of co-creation of value. Not the unqualified adulation of user-created content.

All of which brings me to something I found very interesting in the world of the print media.

Gannet is a Bird; Its a Plane (well, no it isn't) Gannett is a Media Chain

Innovation springs from places that are often unexpected. While the major media like the Washington Post and the NY Times are making admirable efforts to digitize and be more "relevant" - their efforts tend to be more toward the purist social network side of the 2.0 electronic house. Oddly, the effort is springing from a source that I wouldn't have expected. The ownership of the newspaper that sits outside your hotel room door most every morning you're there - yes, USA Today and bigger YES, The Gannett News chain.

They are leading a charge that according to a Washington Post article last November that I just ran across, is radically transforming the way that they (and hopefully, other print media) do business:

They will be "incorporating elements of reader-created "citizen journalism," mining online community discussions for stories and creating Internet databases of calendar listings and other non-news utilities."

That is amazing when you realize that most of the other newspapers, even including the pretty surprisingly progressive NY Times are thinking that the new media is developing digital editions that can be read with digital readers. Even this slight move to the fore is considered a radical departure from the eras of Heywood Hale Broun, Walter Winchell and Arthur Sulzberger. So what Gannett is doing is beyond the journalists' pale.

The Gannett initiative is all encompassing and has created quite the fervor around the blogosphere. For a whole compendium of posts on the subject, there is a great blog called CrowdSourcing: Tracking the Rise of the Amateur that has a strong blanket thrown to cover this thing here worth looking at.

The initiatives involve transforming not just the structure and practices, but the culture of all the Gannett regional properties like the Indianapolis Star, the Des Moines Register and the Cincinnati Enquirer, among others. They don't even have newsrooms anymore but they are calling them "Information Centers." Here is the Gannett definition of that from a FAQ on it that you can read here:

"The Information Center is a new way of transforming the process of gathering and disseminating news and information. It is the evolution of the newsroom, focused on gathering the information our readers and viewers want using words, images and video and distributing it across multiple platforms: the daily newspaper, online, mobile, non-daily publications and any other media possible to meet our readers' needs. Creating an Information Center means retooling the newsroom, expanding into multimedia, embracing community interaction, shifting resources and rethinking the way a community is covered. Gannett's Newspaper Division, which has conducted a series of pilot programs to create and test the Information Center concept, organized the Center around seven key information gathering areas: digital; public service; community conversation; local; custom content; data; and multimedia. (More about each desk below). Information Centers can be tailored to fit the needs of the individual operations in each division. "

But that's not what I want to talk about. There is plenty out there on that. I'm focused, laser-like, dead-on, micro-directed at the "citizen journalist" part of this; the use of user-created content in this and what has been nicely called "crowdsourcing" by Springwise and many others in the biz. What biz that is, I'm not sure.

Crowdsourcing v. Pro-Am or Are They the Same?

Just to make one thing real clear. Crowdsourcing is NOT a term that applies to just the citizen journalist out there. Its a term for utilizing human resources outside the corporate firewall. So what I've written on Proctor and Gamble and their use of the scientist networks to help provide a significant percentage of their innovative ideas is crowdsourcing. The mod community in the PC and video games world is crowdsourcing. The use of the 400,community members to design, vote on and buy the teeshirts that Threadless sells is crowdsourcing. Expert doesn't have to be the operant term. Amateur sources who can be problem solving humans are perfectly acceptable with this approach.

One permutation or, really, justification, was James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds.

The book's premise was that the greater knowledge came from the vectored results of the totality of the crowd. I think there's some validity to that idea, but it does at least explain how to approach the sourcing of crowdsourcing.

What Gannett is doing is more interesting, really. They are utilizing the strength of their professionals to, as Michael Maness, the VP of Strategic Planning points out in BusinessWeek, " "The pros do the heavy lifting and build the framework and structure...And the audience can come in and fill in." An example of the successful use of this in a Gannett property that seems to be circulating a lot is the Ft. Myers News-Press found that home buyers were being hit with $30,000 bills for water and sewer line connections - WAY in excess of even the supernatural when it comes to this kind of plumbing effort. The news guys put a short item in the paper and online and asked for input from the citizens, providing the online tools for the input.

BOOM!!

Blueprints showed up online, discussions back and forth between the journalists and citizens and between the citizens and other citizens. Then documents began to appear suggesting illegal activities. There was increased coverage. The scandal hit. The traffic on the site (micro-site actually) became huge and the $30K was no longer the price - apparently.

This is great and a new approach to journalism that isn't new in other fields. But there are two problems. One - general. The other - Gannett.

General Problem

The quality of the material is still from amateurs and can be misleading potentially. But this is a really good thing that's going on here. Just be aware of the misstep.

Gannett Problem

This is a notoriously cheap bunch - penny pinchers. So the suspicion is that they aren't being pioneers in something new and exciting, but cost-cutters with the appearance of something new and exciting. So if it starts to cost something then the new and the exciting become the old and boring fast. But if they are truly trying to innovate so that they can engage the readers in a new more interactive/collaborative model of journalism, then its likely the harbinger of the CRM 2.0 approach to journalism - which is the the true citizen involvement in the stories that affect their destiny.

And that's a good thing. I just hope that it stays good.

Technorati : CRM 2.0, blogs, citizen journalism, podcasts, social media, social networks