_______Ass 2.0: Finally.

I'm hanging out in a room at the Sofitel Watertower in Chicago a hotel that I have to say provides me with kind of a mixed appreciation, leaning to "uh, no, not coming back." The utility sucks, the ambiance is nice. You get to be in a cool hotel that just doesn't quite work.

I was here to keynote the CRM Acceleration event for SugarCRM in Chicago. SugarCRM is a company that I've liked quite a lot for its features and functions, have never liked for its "developers interface" despite the protestations of its staff and advocates, have been highly impressed with their innovative model which is based on an open source development community and loved their sense of continuing innovation including their technical smarts like adding a module builder for composite applications in version 5.0 (just releasing enmasse next week) and at some future date adding all the Web 2.0 "stuff" I'm always harping on. Interestingly, I noticed this morning, that, according to DestinationCRM SugarCRM (and many others) may have been mini-trumped by RightNow, who seems to be finally aligning their messaging with their product in the release of RightNow 8.0, which has a number of Web 2.0 parts and pieces that they've added to their mix - including a knowledge syndication widget which delivers relevant product info to endusers on whatever sites sell the product, site mapping spyders and a new interface that is apparently easier to navigate and much more icon-driven - though, I haven't seen this yet. I'm intrigued enough to take a thorough look though.

But this isn't about RightNow. In fact, one other thing about SugarCRM. I love their staff. They are amazing people all the way around. Great personalities, tremendous enthusiasm for what they do, highly articulate, fun, and great looking too, I might add (mightn't I? he said with an emoticon of a big grin on his face)

When I spoke on CRM 2.0 to the roughly 70 SugarCRM customers and prospects yesterday , I brandished the current issue of CRM Magazine (December 2007) which has a great headline and even better articles.

The headline:

"2.008: It's All Coming 2.0gether: The future of CRM is now in the hands of the customer"

Niiiiiiiice.

The entire time I spoke, I was thinking that not only are people increasingly getting it but they're sitting in audiences. This audience was by far the most savvy users that I've seen with about 70% of these hearty Chicagoans (and a lot from New Jersey for some reason) using social sites of some sort and, among the more amazing things, about 90% of them having played video and PC games and admititng it, unlike many other audiences I've run across in my vast pantheon of speaking gigs.

Good folks there too.

But now for the meat (forgive me, vegans) of this thing:

As of this month, CRM Magazine is now back in my absolutely must read at all costs publication bucket - which is typically the size of a Fisher-Price kiddy pail. Not because they quote me a ton in this particular issue (they do - and more on that in just a bit) but because they have writers (actually their Senior Editor) who truly see how the future is shaping up and is not just dispassionately writing about it. That means in particular, Marshall Lager, who has been one of the best journalists-as-a-writer I have read (that's in general - not just in CRM and he has an excellent blog, BTW), Reading him is now an absolute must, must, must. He is one of the small handful of CRM infused scribes who sees the changes that are going on in the way they have to been seen - as social changes that impact business - and doesn't, as a lot of CRM related Gen Xers do, just kind of live in the change. Most importantly, he can extract the key concepts and then explain them in the most important way a writer can - coherently.

CRM Magazine's December 2007 issue, to the credit of David Myron, their Editorial Director and Josh Weinberger, their Managing Editor, made this issue more than relevant, they made it VERY important, because a traditional industry standard publication is using a flamethrower to cut a swath through the CRM community about how CRM 2.0 is going to look in 2008 - and they are dead on. The rest of the cover, just for example, reads:

• 11 Ways to ensure you hear your customers
• When marketers no longer control the message

Articles are titled:

• Power to the People
• The Buyer is Your Owner (which is an article about the course on social media that Chris Carfi and I teach for BPT. Incidentally, of course)
• Social Networking: The Harbinger of Trust (this is Editorial Director David Myron's lead editorial)

Etc.

But there is one other thing which I found both incredibly hilarious and also just the right thing to do.

There is a typical decorum in the world of magazine publishing that lends itself to the descriptive moniker of "august" (That's au-GUST, not AU-gust the month). Magazines are supposed to be the repository of important things (unless you're a tabloid style Page 6 trashmonger type of mag) and their demeanor is one that calls for language that fits the profession that the magazine covers or the area of interest. The buzzwords are all there as are the editorial "checks and balances."

But that can have an effect on the authenticity of the voice of those the publications are quoting. Which isn't really a great thing.

I have been edited a lot when I speak because, while never EVER obscene, I am a little let's say, idiomatic, or use salty dialect once in an appropriate while. What I love about this issue and Marshall Lager and the editors who let this get by, is two quotes that are in the feature article from me (among many more decorous quotes). They are:

"Old analytics aren't adequate anymore; customer satisfaction doesn't work," Greenberg says, noting that bad metrics are often worse than no metrics at all. "One rating organization - a dumb-ass company I won't name (Blogger Note: It was Nielsen) - decided to measure web pages by 'length of time viewed.' If that's the case, everybody should go to my blog, leave the computer on and go on vacation."

AND

"Look out for Zoho, because they will kick ass...."

What I LOVE about this is that he actually writes what I said, not a cleansed, mouth-washed-with-soap version. That's my authentic voice and -- well, thank you very much.

So, thanks, CRM Magazine for using that flamethrower, thanks for quoting me a lot, thanks for making Marshall your key writer, and thanks for being authentic with the voices of the people you're quoting.

All in all, you're kicking ass, too.

Technorati : CRM, CRM 2.0, RightNow, SugarCRM, customer ecosystem, customer relationship management, social networking

Comments

[Rajesh]

Sugar CRM url not working.
Very nice article otherwise and I kinda of agree your thoughts about Beacon

[Kirk Kuykendall]

Paul... what don't you like about the Sofitel? I've stayed there a few times (in fact I was there just last week) and have always had a good experience.... though I prefer the Park Hyatt if it's available.