Some Pre-Forecast Odds & Ends re: Social CRM

Before I push out my Forecast for 2010 (next week some time), I have a few short observations that are honestly somewhat random:

Facebook Does It Again – Not So Privately

All Facebook members received a message from Mark Zuckerberg this past week that effectively said that Facebook was going to make it easier on people to handle their privacy settings for their particular situation.  They required each member to accept some new settings (meaning that the member could certainly change them, but they had to do something.) or they would be prevented from using Facebook at all

But Mark Z. did it again. Fresh off the final court settlement re: Beacon – disaster #1; the ads without permission – Disaster #2; the terms of service change – Disaster #3; he pulls this new change in privacy settings – by making the default all information available to everyone – not friends or friends and friends of friends but everyone.  Which of course is in the interest of Facebook even if to the detriment of their members. Rather than maintaining the integrity of the original choices or setting the privacy settings by default to the potentially least intrusive, they were set to the most intrusive, proving once again, that Facebook, as cool as it is, as important as it is, remains as clueless when it comes to the relationship to its members as it ever has been.  They continue to astonish me – that a giant of their magnitude when it comes to impact has NEVER understood their customers/members and continually puts the members in harms way in the interests of….of…..what?

For a post that reflects pretty much what I also think, Jason Calcanis on Facebook Privacy Changes.

Musings on the Enterprise Analyst Diaspora of 2009

The world of enterprise analysts was shaken up in 2009 – more than any other year I can remember.  First multiple (informal) surveys were showing that independents had gained equal footing with the giant analyst firms. This actually wasn’t that surprising since its always been the case that the individual analysts including those who are employed by the analyst organizations are the ones trusted, not the companies per se.  In other words, at Gartner, let’s say, in CRM, people trust Michael Maoz and Ed Thompson, not Gartner, though the Gartner gravitas counts for something.  If either of them or both of them left Gartner, so would a significant chunk of business and level of trust.

What was apparent to me is that the leadership of the bulk of the major analyst organizations doesn’t seem to understand this.  The results of “no comprendo” has been that their best analysts – at Forrester in particular – left the house.  For good reason.

This year saw the beginning of a realignment toward independents and boutiques on the one hand and the continued consolidation of the 800 pounders on the other.  Some of the leave taking at some of the analyst firms was attrition due to recession. There were 13 firms who laid off folks in the beginning of the year.  AMR last month was acquired for around $68 million, by Gartner, consolidating the market even further. That move is not something that will be bad as long as Bruce remains as deliciously independent as he has been and Chris retains his rights to CRM insight in his own voice. Which is likely.

Perhaps the most significant move all year was the move of Ray Wang, Jeremiah Owyang, and Deb Schultz from Forrester to ex-Forrester analyst Charlene Li’s Altimeter Group.  This is HUGE.  For one, Ray is perhaps the foremost enterprise analyst in the world and a helluva guy. Second, Jeremiah Owyang is among perhaps the three most influential social media-focused people (not just analysts) in the world along with Brian Solis and Chris Brogan, neither of whom fit the analyst mode at all.  Deb Schultz is a world class analyst and consultant in innovation. Not a whole lot of others in her world are worth the trust that she engenders. To me, this was the move of the year and I’m not only saying that because of my personal regard for the people who make up the organization. These are superstars in their own right and the Altimeter Group is going to be among the most important analyst organizations over the next few years as they continue to grow. It does my heart good, too, to see that they are moving ahead quickly in Social CRM as one of their opening efforts and are in the midst of aggregating who the potential players are on the technology side of the house.  I have a stricter view than they do about who qualifies but I will say that with this group, their work in Social CRM can only be a huge benefit to the industry and  their exist a huge benefit to business as a whole.

Here is a list of the analysts that I trust the most when it comes to covering the CRM or enterprise space – not saying there aren’t others but these are top of mind but in no particular order:

(UPDATE: I inadvertently left off the Forrester analysts that I read religiously. Sorry. They are added below)

1. Denis Pombriant - Independent
2. Brent Leary – Independent
3. Esteban Kolsky - Independent
4. Mike Fauscette – IDC
5. Michael Maoz – Gartner
6. Ed Thompson – Gartner
7. Ray Wang - Altimeter
8. Sheryl Kingstone – Yankee Group
9. Bruce Richardson – AMR/Gartner
10. Josh Greenbaum - Independent
11. Vinnie Mirchandani - Independent
12. Michael Krigsman – Independent
13. Ian Jacobs – Datamonitor/Ovum
14. Jim Berkowitz – Independent
15. Dennis Howlett – Independent
16. Bill Band – Forrester Group
17. Natalie Petouhoff – Forrester Group

There are some not in the list because they don’t cover the enterprise or CRM space primarily – guys like Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group, who is a consumer side social superstar,  or Bruce Temkin of Forrester who covers the CEM space.Those two would be there if I included those domains in this list. Sometime early in 2010, I’m going to publish a similar list of those I trust in the social space as analysts – which is a work in progress for me at the moment. I’m still trying to figure out what and who. Also these are not people who are strictly bloggers but those who have rendered strong researched opinions on vendors and trends in the enterprise world – also who have shown some real depth and original thinking and are willing to criticize those who could also be their clients at the time they are criticizing them. That integrity is part of what makes this list my trusted analyst sources. Insights and creative thinking is another part.

One Last Time But Never in 2010

It amazes me that there seems to be this concerted effort to get rid of the name Social CRM or the acronym SCRM and replace it with something else. Sometimes the reason seems to be for self-promotion in kind of an alpha male “I want to rule the roost” way; sometimes its supposedly to remove the “taint” of the  association with that“failed” approach called CRM. That one strikes me particularly ironically because the implication there is that this $13 billion business has been a failure – and that businesses somehow are stupid enough to keep throwing money after it – though it always fails. Guess what? The value to business apparently has been sufficient to make it one of the areas that grew during the recession.  Businesses are just not as stupid as those calling CRM a failure seem to be implying. Get over Gartner’s 2002 55-70 percent number. That was 2002. This is 2009 and the success rates tend to be in the range of 55-70% at this point.

Other times, it seems to be because there seems to be an actual difference in approach and methodology with advocates of Social CRM. That part is great.  The debate and discussion around serious differences in how to construct the right business models only moves the new world we live in forward. But the part of that I don’t understand is why not just live along side Social CRM? What’s the reason to have to exterminate Social CRM in order to replace it with something else?  Seems there’s plenty of room for differences in thinking and methodology. Whichever businesses are interested in, they will adopt, and that will be on a case by case basis.  There doesn’t seem to be a need to get rid of Social CRM to have a “Social Something Else.” Just develop and mature the “Social Something Else”, as part of the pantheon of business choices available including Social CRM and let the games begin.

What I do know is this.  Social CRM is a term that has been accepted by a significant chunk of businesses and those in the CRM industry (naturally).  My guess is that its not going to go away no matter what efforts are out there to denigrate it.  Obviously I’m an advocate of it as are many others. Shoot, I just wrote an 800 page book on new models, frameworks and outlooks associated with Social CRM.  I found case studies everywhere on it. I found experts who could write to an area of it (around 70 and that just touched upon the amount out there) and I found companies that were implementing aspects of it and calling it “Social CRM”.  So there is a certain amount of popular acceptance that’s pretty undeniable.

But honestly, I don’t care about the debate over who calls what what.  If you’ve got a different framework, put it out there in the business world and let the companies decide which they want to use – or what parts of each they care to use – unless of course they are incompatible.  Call it whatever you want.  I just wish we could get past naming conventions and start presenting the frameworks and models so that businesses have their choices in front of them.   That would be a real discussion. Differences in approach, not differences in acronym.

Comments

[Microsoft CRM Implementation]

Nice post Paul, as usual.. :)

[Rick Bellefond]

Great post Paul,

Once again you give us some interesting things to think about.

Thanks.

Rick

[Beardd]

>> the part of that I don’t understand is why not just live along side Social CRM?

Nice post, Paul -

Harnessing Social Media is an essential part of a business' customer strategy & key to keeping customers.

The world has fundamentally changed - influence, it could be argued, is becoming the future of media itself. But, as Seth Godin recently noted in his blog, the reality is "you can't control what people are saying about you. What you can do is organize that speech. You can organize it by highlighting the good stuff and rationally responding to the not-so-good stuff"

So, organising that speech means enabling your company's ecosystem (staff, partners, customers, etc.) to communicate in an authentic and transparent manner. Having a set of CRM-based tools to help them manage communication is essential, as is a corporate strategy that understands and works in the ecosystem.

But, as you note, you need the FRAMEWORK - whatever take you have on CRM will only be partially realised without a matching customer strategy.

-= David
http://dpp.sagecrm.com/blogs/talking_about_customers/

[Mike Boysen]

My issue relates to continually having to rename these frameworks. Aren't the fundamentals the same? CRM works for me. I got off to a bad start on the topic because of the seeming penetration of social media pros with no CRM background.

There are probably a lot of case studies in the enterprise markets, I'm just waiting on my first customer to engage me for a socially enabled platform to support their new social business model. The geek in me is sure it will be fun. The business side of me wants to hear a darn good plan and set of measures for success.

Can't wait to read your book. I need to get off my butt and get a copy!

[A. Prem Kumar]

A great great great post Paul! :)

Facebook is only being Facebook - a whippersnapper that got so big (in number of customers not revenues) so fast that it thinks the world is int's pockets. Me being me I just changed the default Everyone to whatever I wanted. But not all are you or me, they are they, and they are mostly paralysed by the options given to them - by their own freedom of choice. And thus Facebook will get away this time too. So whats another litigation to them? They have a lot to learn from all the big brothers - Microsoft is one of their sponsors/investors too, and don't *they* know their share of litigations?

Regarding the analysts space - I did not understand the import of that survey when you ran it, nor was I exposed to all the analysts in the CRM/Enterprise space - but in the ensuing months I have had the good fortune to read most of the analysts' works/thoughts/recommendations and also the good fortune of exchanging notes/thoughts/opinions with them. What I don't like about that list is I don't see that great guy Paul Greenberg in it. May be because the list was written by him - but hey, I want to see my fav up there! :D

Regarding people trying to fight Social CRM - first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you - and thats when, you win. Most of our customers were happy enough with it when we said we provided Web 2.0 solutions. But now they are responding to Social CRM like never before - they are aware that this is a whole lot bigger than solutions that were called Web 2.0. Because now we are talking about the external facing solutions, not merely Ajaxifying the intranet sites or adding RSS to their web sites or such lot. Though they are not really sure of what to expect - Social Media solutions (typically Twitter/Facebook widgets &/or apps for broadcasting messages), Social Networking solutions (typically for more than mere broadcasting, but not quite building a community), integrations with online communities (building the community platform, the community of people itself & integrating with existing enterprise systems as a people/process/technology stuff), etc. - are a few of the emerging patterns in what our customers seem to demand when they hear the term "social". They don't really bother about it being "social" media/network/community/CRM/business/whatever. Of course theres difference between when we talk to the IT people and the Sales/Marketing/Service side of the business. And its interesting to note that we are increasingly being exposed to the business as opposed to when we are merely talking about CRM or BPM. And that in itself I think is a very good sign. Most of the IT decision makers with whom we have socialized the topic of Social CRM are intent on having a second discussion with their own team *and* the business present in the discussions! Some even are warming up to the idea of 2 day workshops around Social CRM!

And they are interested in this not because we are calling it Social CRM, but because its Social "something" and they want whats "in" it not what we "call" it. So am not getting into the semantics of what to call this new phenomenon. Any name is fine by me as long as I am able to provide value to my customers. But I can surely live by not having to educate my customers about all the myriad "social" XYZs out there & the nuances of the differences between them.

Great post Paul, looking forward to your predictions post. :)