PGreenblog

Live from Orlando: Sapphire 2009

(Because I think this is important and I have no time, I'm producing this same entry on both this blog and ZDNET)

SAP is always a bit of a conundrum to me. They have extraordinarily talented people, an incredibly deep product portfolio that they are always extending, more often than not make good acquisitions that take some time but work out all in all, and seem to be actually dedicated to transforming their ecosystem - internal and network - when the world's conditions merit it. Which is more than I can say about a lot of similar companies. On the other hand, they make business decisions that I politely would have to say are perplexing and statements that they just simply shouldn't make.

All in all, I have to say, before I get too far into this post, I am a fan of the company. I find them to be innovative in places I don't expect; with some caveats, especially related to Territory Management, they've developed a CRM product, CRM 7.0 that will be highly regarded and is a valuable addition to the choices that that enterprises have. More on that in another post. They are innovative in ways that have nothing to do with software - but have more to do with culture (collaborative value chain) and with perception and intellectual influence - their unique and useful Business Influencers Group, an organization that is an exceptionally smart idea - and unlike any other at any company I know. But SAP has these flaws that just...just...shouldn't be there.

Leo Aptheker Keynote Kicks It Off

CEOs, as far as I'm concerned, need to be visionary, not salespeople. Several years ago, in 2003, Craig Conway, then CEO of PeopleSoft, went and did this almost literal song and dance routine about "no code on the desktop" when speaking about PeopleSoft's first web-enabled applications and it sounded like a sales guy making a hard core pitch with a bit of theater thrown in that shamelessly (though I'm sure he thought it was funny) included his young children. There was no vision, there was no sense that you were dealing with a leader - just a guy trying to sell a product to an audience of about 16,000. It was pathetic actually.

Now, I'm not sure of the size of the audience at Sapphire 09, Chris Musico, an associate editor and bright bulb at CRM Magazine tells me is 10,000 here and 8,000 virtually - they call it their largest audience ever but there are not as many here as there were last year - live humans that is. The numbers are impressive.

But what I am sure is that Leo Aptheker knows the message and believes in it. His sincerity, to my slight surprise, came across, to the audience and if you followed the Twitter feed on Sapphire 09, you'd see that.

But that doesn't mean the message was perfect. Nor the vision was totally clear.

Leo began his presentation by a grim look at the world economy and the effects of the recession on how the world of business is going to have to function. The net of that part of the discussion is that companies will have to function in a world that has limits and that is at greater risk. This means that in order to bring forward the next generation of business, its going to require "clarity." That means a clarity of purpose and strategy. Businesses must be able to make strong choices based on a realistic evaluation of "the situation" and then executing on those choices. It means full visibility into the operations of an enterprise with speed and accuracy. It means leaders who think clearly and act accordingly. He mentioned that he had hosted a conference of academics from around the globe and they all decided that it was urgent to rebuild trust and confidence with all stakeholders - especially customers and shareholders. That, I have to say doesn't take an entire conference to figure out, but it was still good to hear it.

Clarity, which consists of transparency, accountability and sustainability drove the core of his keynote. Around that, which was, of course to be expected, he pitched SAP software and services and SOA architecture. One point that i found interesting was that SAP now supports more than 25 industry specific best practices based roadmaps. SAP is working toward cross pollinating industry best practices, which in theory might sound good, but when it comes to best practices, history kind of bears out the idea that one company's best practices might be the reason for collapse of another company - so cross pollination of industry-wide best practices might lead to nothing more than a bunch of bee stings rather than honey. So to speak.

Without going on forever on this, there were two specific areas that I want to cover because I see them as exceptionally important - one good - excellent in fact, and one the continuation of a mistake that SAP just seems to keep making.

The Good: Sustainability

I get the fact that my speciality is CRM so I'm not the most qualified to talk about sustainability as an expert. My commitments to being green (beyond seasick), carbon footprint reduction and using less paper tend to be at the level of citizen who owns a house who is trying to reduce energy use without freezing to death in the winter. However, I am more than aware of what has to be done at the corporate level.

When it comes to this, SAP, as evidenced not just by the passion and sincerity of Leo Aptheker on the issue, but in their actions as a company and in the products they've acquired and produced are going to be if not already a leading force in sustainable business over the next several years.

Aptheker pointed out that in 2008, SAP had reduced its total corporate carbon footprint by 6.7% compared to 2007. In fact, Peter Graf has been named Chief Sustainability Officer to deal with all things sustainability at SAP including not only meeting their corporate objectives but also to provide their related products and services.

Their commitment went beyond just the achievement of their corporate objectives. Leo showed a Sustainability Solution Map that was comprehensive and valuable. Here it is.

They have not only committed to be a company that is socially responsible, but they've developed an initial blueprint for other companies to be socially responsible and sustainable. That is something that no other company has even considered that I know, much less done.

But they've also monetized it and kept it at a viable level.

For example, the always incredible Ian Kimball, who does many of the SAP presentations to loud applause (guy is a master of this), showed a web based ecommerce application an SAP Web Store (a construct) that had a product - GPS system - that you wanted to buy. Under the GPS system was a note that said, "Guaranteed: Most environmentally friendly product in its class." That doesn't sound like much until lan actually took us behind the scenes and showed us the algorithms and dashboards and KPIs built into applications that had the benchmarks for that guarantee built in. In other words, it wasn't just a claim, but it actually met standards that were provable via app.

But they went beyond even that. They actually have identified a path for themselves as a company that means a rigorous adherence to a set of sustainability KPIs that are probably a first for the industry.

All in all this is a world-class effort that they mean. This isn't a marketing ploy or a trick to play on the conference. This is a passionate and serious commitment by a mega-giant company that can affect the next generation business models if they can follow through. I think they can and will.

The Bad: Once Again On Demand

I am constantly perplexed by the on demand strategy of this company. Leo was both vague and ultimately defensive and didn't provide any real reason to let me see that SAP is on the right path to an actual Business ByDesign product that is anything but fluff. I heard Leo make a commitment to "on demand" or "on demand, on premise, hybrid or anything that you want to use." I even heard him speak on the "cloud coming to earth" and their architectural map had a bottom layer of private cloud - virtualization - and public cloud in that order. But the delivery dates? Unclear. Again. It was almost as if he said, "We are committed to on demand and we'll deliver it to you....someday."

He even then said, "if you think SAP is a newcomer to on demand, then think again. We've been doing it for five years. You can do your research."

First, they have been doing it for five years - and doing it badly. I had a conversation in Dallas with an SAP VP when the first "hybrids SFA" came out and was told that the reason for it wasn't to meet a market need but instead to stop the encroachments of salesforce.com on their customer base. Awful strategy.

Not much real progress has been made. I truly hope that SAP someday gets this right because its almost impossible to be in the market without a SaaS product. They have Business Objects BI On Demand which is an actually good product, but we heard nothing about that. I guess we can continue to wait, but the message was "we don't have much yet" whether it was intended that way or not.

The Press Conference

While this was a comprehensive press conference that covered a number of "ecosystem" announcements such as a smart and valuable global services partnership with Cognizant, it too was highlighted by one outstanding discussion/announcement and, in this case one horrifically stupid comment by someone who should have known better.

The Good: Business Objects Explorer

One of the most intriguing products that emerged this conference was Business Objects Explorer, an analytics application that SAP claims may change the way that decisions are made forever. For me, that is a hard thing to say and see but no matter what this is an interesting and potentially important product.

What makes Explorer important is that even a mathematical moron like me can use it to get results of real interest and it provides results lightning fast, so that you don't have to crunch numbers for hours or days before decision gets made.

For example, if you are doing a simple product analysis, and you want to look up all the refrigerators in a massive catalog - style and price - it takes milliseconds to get an answer. They did a run on some actual data from Sara Lee, one of their beta partners and they were able to go thru 266 million rows in a third of a second. It was breathtakingly fast.

But you can do more complex analysis - let's say a comparison of television models that are over 43" and cost over $2500 or more that are located in inventory in the southeast states compared with all the same criteria for the EMEA and that are plasmas and LCDS but not DLP or any other variety. That would take a couple of seconds of clicking and, apparently, since they didn't actually do this study, less than a second to get the answers.

Here's a screenshot to show you the simplicity.

Now, of course, there are questions - which mostly revolve around data types. In the press conference Ray Wang, a superb Forrester Group analyst, raised the issue of data quality - what is the quality of the data going in - how that affects it? All in all, it will obviously but that's out of the hands of SAP. He also raised the question of Master Data Management (MDM) - can it handle multiple data sources with different data types? They say yes, but how well remains to be seen. The SAP claim is that it can do that or it can operate as "accelerated Explorer" - which enhances queries power and speed when it comes to SAP own's Business Warehouse - especially those that are over a million records in length - which even they admit start grinding BW's analytic capabilities when things get that big. Explorer can easily handle it.

The combination of the extraordinarily intuitive interface and the speed of results makes this a truly interesting and potentially leading product.

That's the good thing in the press conference.

Shame on John Schwarz

It was just one statement and I truly can't imagine that he meant to put it this way. But John Schwarz, former CEO of Business Objects and a member of the SAP Executive Board, tripped and fell flat on his face when he....well, here's a summary (paraphrased):

I'm sure that you heard that there was an SAP reduction in force that affected 3000 SAP employees. I just want to say that I assure you there was little impact in that loss and that in fact, SAP will probably operate leaner and more efficiently as a result.

I wonder if Mr. Schwarz, who I'm sure rests on millions of dollars of personal wealth, remembered that these people, who in effect he is saying are useless (no impact) fat (leaner), have families and no livelihood. I wonder if he remembers that we're in a recession and its hard to find a job now. I can't speak for how many of the 3000 are still not working, but I'm sure a significant amount are still looking.

I could excuse this shockingly cold comment by saying that Mr. Schwarz didn't mean it and he may not have. But he is a member of the SAP Executive Board and what he says carries serious weight. This was a cold, cruel and callous statement that can't go unnoticed. Literally everyone at that press conference I spoke with later (about 5 or 6 others) - analysts, journalists - were aghast at this.

There is no other way to be. Mr. Schwarz should apologize.

Consistent Doesn't Mean the Same

Last year at Sapphire, one of the things that struck me funny was SAP's incredibly scripted messaging which was so minutely micromanaged that it sounded inauthentic. This was around the RIM - SAP SFA for the Blackberry announcement. Everybody, regardless of where the message was delivered or who delivered it mentioned that they used their Blackberries as an alarm clock. Everyone. I commented on this at the time and talked to SAP about it.

Damn if they didn't do it again - this time around their message of Clarity and Timeless Software. Not more than ten minutes after Leo Aptheker's on the whole excellent vision and speech, John Schwarz said the same thing about Clarity and Timeless Software in the same way. Scripted and micromanaged again. Inauthentic again.

I won't dwell on it. Suffice to say, there are two mantras I recommend to SAP that they repeat - in different ways and tones of course: 1. Consistent messaging doesn't mean identical messagings 2. Authenticity trumps consistency everytime

Develop the message and then free your spokespeople to present it in any way they want to. Stop telling them how to say they. They have their own personalities and styles and interests and vocal chords. Let 'em loose. You'll get much better results.

In Sum: Day 1

Day 1 is always the key to any conference. The tone is set by the visionaries and the spokespeople and the revelations. All in all, SAP continues to impress me. They are locked and loaded and aware of the changes going on in who customers trust and how they communicate and they are responding. Leo mentioned the growth of Gen Y's influence in the workforce (BRAVO!) and that 1/3 of the baby boomers are on their way to retirement. He got the recession down cold in terms of what to expect and how to think about it. SAP is responsive and working toward doing what it has to so they can meet and participate in the transformation.

But they still have weaknesses that their competitors can exploit especially in the SaaS space. They didn't help their public image either with the Schwarz faux pas.

But on the whole, they are a company that is not only competing but in areas that matter like sustainability in business, it seems they are becoming actual leaders who have both smart business plans and a moral and ethical benchmark that other companies might do well to imitate.

Let's see what today brings.

Another Excerpt: CRM at the Speed of Light, 4th Edition, Chapter 12 on the Collaborative Value Chain

All of us'n that reside in the CRM universe or related dimensions, have a strong bias toward certain "terminology" shall we say? "Social" is an au courant word that embeds itself as deeply into our lexicons as as the need to be loved is embedded into the psyche of each and every human being. We hear of course "customer" all day long, "sales, marketing, customer support" and just a monster number of other terms that we are all using to the point of overkill.

But what we hear a lot less is "co-creation" (with the notable lovely exception of Graham Hill) and "value chain" and "collaboration" (except as sort of a hackneyed marketing phrase). So I'm offering up, for better or worse, a section of Chapter 12 of the 4th Edition of CRM at the Speed of Light. The Chapter, entitled, simply "Collaborative Value Chain" covers how to extend what was an enterprise value chain to the personal value chain of the customer which in conjunction is a collaborative value chain that works toward co-creation. Not an easy task at all. Because of the culture change necessary to even understand what it is, much less to actually accomplish it.

Of course, as always, we start with a Wordle of the entire chapter. I left this one as a black and white because of the way that the diagram organized itself with chain and value and customer(s) and business standing out - it was too good to pass up - even for color.

As always, I welcome feedback. This chapter is as yet unedited so it has some wiggle room to change things. Let me know. I'm sorry its limited to an excerpt so you may suggest something I've covered but do it anyway please.

Ecosystems Begin to Rule - Dinosaurs Roar and Die

By the time you get to this chapter, you, I suspect have realized that customers have become the dominant business force - so strong a controlling presence in the business environment that I think we should make customers a new species or at least a new genus. Ecosystems are beginning to rule the business planet and they demand value chains that incorporate all the elements.

By creating ecosystems, the business model shifts (see Chapter 6 for details).

1. From the world of the corporation to the world of the customer.
2. From separation of business from personal to the unification of the two - at least at an emotional and intellectual value.
3. From value residing in the products produced and the services created to the customer themselves.
4. From looking at the return at investment to seeing a return on customer.
5. As we saw in Chapter 6, the business model has evolved too. From a business model where the company was the producer of goods and services to a model where the company is an aggregator of the necessary components to optimize a customer's individual experience.

Take a look, for example at a Microsoft acquisition reported in the NY Times on Monday February 26, 2008. They acquired Medstory that applies artificial intelligence to medical and health info in medical journals, government docs and the unstructured Internet through a sophisticated search engine.

Why in hell would Microsoft do that? Well, a little math - addition works here - is in order. Last year they purchased, and this is the real name, Azyxxi - which is either a software company or Superman's old nemesis - oh…software it is...that retrieves and displays patient information from multiple sources including documents, x-rays, MRIs, and ultrasound images.

Why?

The article explains the "why?" in two places. So patience will be rewarded, brothers and sisters:

"The Med story purchase," said Peter Newpert, vice-president for health strategy at Microsoft, "was a first step in a broader company strategy to assemble technologies that would improve the consumer experience in health care."
AND

"…these companies and others are seeking ways to build businesses on the Internet that profit from what is called consumer-driven health care. The notion is that shifts in demographics, economics, technology and policy will inevitably mean that individuals will want to, and be forced to, make more health care decisions themselves... Aging baby boomers, accustomed to personal choice and to technology, tend to want a say in their treatment decisions."

Does it make some sense for Microsoft to acquire those companies then?

Actually, not if you leave it at that. Why healthcare? They already have the XBox 360, Windows Vista, MSN Search, Office 2007, CRM Dynamics 4.0, ad infinitum and have penetrated both the personal and the work side of life. Do they need more than that?

Yes, but to see that, kick it up a notch.

It makes perfect sense if you are trying to create the all-encompassing environment that addresses all facets of business and everyday life. Health care attends to key portions of that personalized value chain - the individual's approach to gaining control over a hopefully rich and long life. In other words, with the availability of comprehensive sources of information previously only seen by health professionals ranging from the ability to find how one drug interacts with another to your direct health records to references for experts in a particular health field, an opportunity to get some control over your health issues is now extant and how it gets treated is more under your control, because you have the mechanism to get whatever information you need to do that.

Okay - Interlude

Before all you 1984-readers and privacy paranoiacs get up into Microsoft's face about controlling your life and fulminate about the implications on privacy of this strategy, take a deep breath here. Remember a few things

1. Microsoft provides tools - not ankle shackles, Technology tools. These actually can help you.
2. YOU CONTROL YOUR LIFE, no one else. Not even Steve Ballmer or Larry Ellison....
3. Use reason, not hyperventilation.

Okay. Deep breath. Now, back to the show.

Microsoft's acquisitions are wise moves for them because they provide a full featured environment that aggregates the knowledge that you individually need for your health - making you want to use the one-shop-stop resources (at this phase, in principal) that are powered by Microsoft because of a powerful incentive - convenience. If you remember your chapter 6 test questions, aggregation is the model that's powered by convenience.

But all that we've looked at to date - the back and front office integrations, the partners and vendors, the acquisitions, the customer involvement are the elements to build a collaborative value chain that drive customer engagement. How do you build it? Then who is the best at it? That's what we're going to answer in the next episode of "Who Do You Trust to Handle Your Agendas?"

Building the Collaborative Value Chain

I'm now presuming we're in agreement that we have to be willing to go beyond the "ordinary" extended value chain of company, partners, suppliers and to the CVC when appropriate. That means engaging customers and remembering that there are other experts who need to be a part of effort.

If that's true and I'm not blowing smoke, then I'm going to outline the steps to prepare the way for a collaborative value chain - what has to be in place to make it happen.

Steps to the CVC

Step 1: Make sure that the internal processes, technologies, metrics, and corporate structure are aligned appropriately. If there is something that's internally broken, then the effort will be doomed from the start.

But this isn't the typical alignment based on efficiencies. Many companies will use processes like Six Sigma or lean manufacturing to design their systems to both reduce deficiencies and align based on purely internal criteria. Even though I'm speaking of internal alignment, it's in conjunction with customer focused objectives so it isn't purely agnostic. For example, if you have an accounting process that is efficient and saving the company thousands of dollars a year, but its impacting customers negatively - which this meets a possible Six Sigma objective, it doesn't meet a CRM objective - which is to provide positive impact to your customers - or minimally, not impact them badly. Even if you lose the savings by changing or discarding and replacing the process to make it work in a more customer-positive way, it's worth it. The alignment of all internal objectives is painted with brush of the customer's expectation.

Step 2: Make sure that you have all the processes and technologies associated with external interactions working well. Typically, this is going to take the form of web-based activities. That means that the communications media - blogs, wikis, podcasts and the more "traditional" like email have to be working effectively amongst the elements of the internal ecosystem and for the customer. You need to also have processes, procedures and governance in place for how you and your customers or your partners will share intellectual property and information that ordinarily is considered competitive. Agreements need to be in place and the rules of the game have to be defined clearly.

This is probably the most important single part of the first two steps. The reason is that you might be doing collaborative forecasting or joint scheduling with your partner, or you might be handing over product design documents. You might be sitting down with a customer who is reviewing the product that you and they just developed. There are clear hurdles that need to be overcome when it comes to how you participate with each other and what kind of legal considerations have to be given.

This isn't that unusual. Its Neanderthal manifestation was software companies providing customers with beta software for them to implement and test for free. In return for the participation in the beta program, the customers got to use a licensed pre-release version of the software prior to its release.

But that wasn't just a matter of installing it and then starting to use it. Since it was beta software and being put into a laboratory environment by a rather bold customer, liability had to be assessed; agreements that took that liability or lack thereof into account had to be signed. Non-disclosure agreements (NDA) had to be executed so that the nature of the new version wouldn't be leaked to the press or competitors. The software needed to be in a specific environment which may have forced some investment by the company.

In other words, the t's were crossed and the i's dotted before the program got underway.

This is no different except that if there is a jointly held asset, how that manifests has to be worked out from the get go. Who owns what for how long and what the expected uses are has to be considered in the preparation.

Once these things are done, then the final step can be taken.

Step 3: PricewaterhouseCoopers has a lovely description of the third step, though that's not their third step. This comes from Matt Porta in an article in Cygnus Supply and Demand Chain on what is a maturity model for the collaborative value chain:

"They recognize the potential of the new business model enabled by the Internet and collaboration. They have a track record of applying new processes and using technologies in new ways. They are moving beyond collaboration with supply chain partners and are starting to include customers and the sales and marketing processes into their collaborative value chain. These companies seek to link the entire customer-driven value chain in a new way to improve their competitive position, to drive customer loyalty and to improve profitability."

Step 4: Make sure that you have clear management for the CVC - someone who will be the facilitator and have decision-making power. The reason is that there are substantial and complex decisions that have to be made. The CIO is actually a good choice for this because of the impact on business rules, IT and processes - in addition to the social aspects of the CVC. That's a first. I never thought I would see the CIO as a viable choice for anything in CRM. Regardless of who is chosen ….they should be a champion for the idea.

Step 5: Remember that the CVC requires not just your customers, vendors, partners and suppliers, but also industry and other expertise. As you'll see below SAP has MyVenturePad.com as a place to access this industry experts so that the benefit of third party knowledge can be realized.

Needless to say, this isn't meant to be the exhaustive guide to creating a CVC - just an indicator of what it takes to bring together the internal and external resources that are necessary to align the processes, technologies and social interactions in an exhaustive way so that innovation and collaboration are encouraged and customers in particular are engaged in creating what is important for them and other customers. I didn't really elaborate here on the cultural issues involved in this kind of effort. If interested, check out Chapter 21 where I discuss how SAP, in particular, made those cultural changes - in fact more effectively than any other company that I can recall.

Technorati : CRM, CRM 2.0, CRM at the Speed of Light., Social CRM, co-creation, collaboration
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Sven, Just Shut Up

I doubt there is any human on this planet who a. can read and/or b. has an asset that doesn't know that we've been spiralling into a likely recession which could last awhile. That's pretty stressful I'd say, wouldn't you?

If you checked out my last blog post, you probably noticed that I called upon the majority of the CRM software vendors to take some business leadership and do something for people, not use the crisis to figure out a better sales pitch for software. I'm not saying don't sell software - if they didn't, it would make the crisis worse, since business would fall off, n'est ce pas? But don't use the crisis as the excuse to pitch. Provide people in pain with some help in finding pain killers.

Well, that goes to what I want to rant about today - and rant is exactly what I mean.

I'll explain.

My wife and I like to cruise. I don't mean use our '57 Chevy (since we don't have one) to go out on the mean streets and roam, but to go on ocean and sea traveling vehicles a.k.a. ships that take us to exotic climes where we can rest and relax and hang. Since we've been reasonably profligate spenders on these things, and tend to cruise on slightly upscale lines (as opposed to the heavily expensive super blue blooded ones) we get a lot of cruise pitches in the mail from the super blue bloods. Well, a couple of days ago, we got one dated October 3, 2008 that made the red part of my blood boil.

It came from the desk of Sven-Olof Lindblad, the presumptive President of Lindblad Explorations, the cruise line that is VERY expensive, that handles among other things the National Geographic cruises to places like Antarctica - in luxury of course. I don't mind that. I don't mind getting the literature and fantasizing about the lush locales and the stunning scenery and the life in the lap of luxury that they all promise. Hell, its fun to think about and its marketing at its most descriptively saccharine.

But this was different.

Here are the first four paragraphs - exactly as they are written. The heading is Sven-Olof Lindblad, which makes me presume that they want me to think this is a personal message straight from the jefe's desk. Signed it "Sven" in that fake pen-like signature. Note the personalized greeting.

"Dear Traveler,

It is Friday, October 3, 2008. The last two weeks have been remarkable. One major financial institution after another has collapsed or been bought or is waiting to be rescued by the government. The stock market has behaved like a gigantic roller coaster. And today, or by the time you get this letter, Congress will either have voted or not voted to inject massive government funds into the financial institutions. Confidence in government is at an all-time low.

Would it be fair to say we live in stressful times? I think so, because uncertainty in one form or another is all around us in abundance. Is this making you feel overtly concerned or nervous, even frightened at some level? That's stressful.

I don't want to be presumptuous, but I suggest you do what might seem counter-intuitive at this moment - make plans to travel somewhere with us in the next nine months. This isn't escapism or self-indulgence; its the antidote to toxic stress and uncertainty.

Focus on what has lasting value, what endures - Nature - and you'll be making the only fool-proof investment you can make right now, for the short and long term. Let me explain why."

The BIG Problem with This

Do you see what this....this.....(fill in favorite pejorative) is doing? This is opportunism at its most rank, its most foul, its most disgusting. Our really concerned friend Sven tries to take advantage of the stress and fear created by the economic uncertainty.As a benevolent buddy, Sven suggests something "counter-intuitive" like paying $40,000 so that you and your significant other could have "the antidote to toxic stress and uncertainty." Probably HIS antidote because of his stress and fear over what perhaps is Lindblad declining revenues (I don't know that though),despite the fact that the clientele Lindlbad has doesn't have the same monetary concerns most of us do. This is a man who rings entirely untrue when it comes to his concern for his customers. He clearly doesn't give a damn. That horrid line about the "focus on what has lasting value, what endures - Nature...." is nothing more than him using a peaceful image of something stable to get you to spend your money on Lindblad Explorations. Note that in his little missive above, he doesn't even say, take a trip - he says take a trip with us . So, I presume, the trip I am already taking with Celebrity Cruise lines (set up LONG before this crisis) won't reduce my stress or decrease my fear. Only Sven and Linblad Explorations can do that.

I don't care that he is trying to sell his product. I care that he is effectively lying to his customers about his reasons for it. As a result, I will NEVER take a cruise with Lindblad Explorations.

There is a line that a company shouldn't cross - and that line is deceiving frightened people - especially during a crisis. This is bottomfeeding. Sven should shut up because he crossed the line - and it wasn't the International Date Line.

If you make his "fool-proof investment" you've only proved yourself a fool.

The Audio

If you would rather hear me rant about this than read about this (a literary trick, since you've already read about this), here is the snippet of the rant I did on Brent Leary's wildly popular Technology for Business Sake radio/internet show yesterday, kindly provided to me by Brent himself.

Technorati : CRM, cruise, customer experience, customer service, economic crisis
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Oracle OpenWorld 2008 - LIVE FROM SF #9

Par-tay!!!

Okay, denizens, I'm going to tell you the story of a party - what will end up being the hottest ticket at Oracle OpenWorld, or, hottest wristband anyway, minus the Wednesday night (conference mandatory) concerts which are UB40, Elvis Costello, Seal and others. Though on that one, for my tastes, there is NO WAY that it will be SAP's Sapphire choice of Eric Clapton, who is my rock god. So maybe the Oracle Social CRM party, hosted by Anthony Lye, SVP Oracle CRM and about 15 partners including some of my favorites - Helpstream, Eloqua, and InsideView, oh yeah, and IBM - was the coolest of wristband wearing events.

I know this. The expected turnout was 400 or so. They had 850 (I think I sent about 150 their way) and they had to close out registration for fire marshall purposes and for probably, running out of food purposes.

It was held in the Grand Ballroom of the Palace Hotel, which makes you think that it was a elegant black tie affair - but it was "lose the black tie" and wear black jeans or business casual thang" Lots of drink, food and noise, vendor demo tables all rimming the room. When I arrived, I saw ubercool Oracle dude, Steve Diamond, a CRM Senior Director at the door, being the bouncer - though I didn't see anyone bounced on my way in. But Steve would do it, I'm sure, if need be, but in a nice way.

It was a blast.

Truthfully, it didn't start out that way. Given that this thing was at 8pm and ran until midnight (I limped off on my bad foot at 11:30pm or so), I'm not exactly sure why they made the decision to demo the Social CRM applications which had been seen at least twice during the day and probably by either a majority or plurality of this clearly ready to rock crowd - I do mean CLEARLY READY - who wanted nothing more than food, drink, and conversation. Lots of it. But there were an annoying number of speakers - of the electronic kind - situated so that even if you wanted to talk through the demo, you couldn't unless you left the ginormous ballroom and went outside.

Right after that, they played, again with the monster speakers, Siebel Trivia, which was great, I'm sure for all the Siebel vets there - and there were a HUGE amount of them - but escaped not only folks like me who couldn't answer questions about Siebel verticals and consumer packaged goods - but really wanted to eat, drink and party.

But luckily, those were the only glitches in a really cool evening.

I ran all around the ballroom, drinking Perrier with a twist of lime all night - no alcohol - my 58 year old body can't tolerate much more than one drink and I'm totally out of shape - not having worked out since the accident - so sparkly stuff was limited naturally carbonated H2O.

I think throughout the night, I ran into about 500 Siebel veterans (not trivia experts). For example, Kevin Nix, one of the nicest guys who ever walked Siebel's halls was there. When at Siebel, he ran all of product development for the company. Now he owns a cool start-up called Sky Data, that does social network aggregation for business on mobile devices including the Blackberry and Windows Mobile, and soon, the iPhone. Kevin and I were talking and about half the people in the room had either worked for him directly or knew him from his Siebel days. Oddly, this kind of environment created this interesting camaraderie that permeated the room, as old friends caught up and non-Siebel revelers were engaged to blab away the night. Anthony Lye was circulating the room and chatting up an incredible number of people, with a big smile on his face most of the night. Josh Weinberger, the managing editor of CRM magazine, and one of the best and coolest people in the industry - hell, that I know all together - was animatedly discussing several things that were not only engaging but were in perfect sync with his animation. (Parenthetically, Josh, who is someone I not only admire, but trust as a friend, gave me a totally amazing compliment, when he said I was "fearless." That scared the hell out of me! (take THAT, Alanis Morissette. Some of you will know what this means).

Denis Pombriant, key industry analyst was coolly walking the party grounds, wending his way through about a million groups of 3 or 4 playaz, and stopping traffic with those who wanted to talk to him.

Mark Woolen, Oracle's VP of CRM Products, was all over the place, always grinning, laughing and genuinely enjoying the company he kept.

What was interesting is that there were a LARGE group of ZDNet bloggers and Web 2.0 wunderkind there - more than I expected who were moving around conversing with the crowd. My personal favorite is always my friend and business partner Chris Carfi who is the holder to the keys of one of the best blogs on the net, The Social Customer. He actually is kind of a bridge between the enterprise world and the Web 2.0 world - from the Web 2.0 side. I play that role from the CRM side. Chris's buds like Steve Gilmore and Michael Vizard and one of my new favorites, Michael Krigsman, a long time enterprise focused ZDNet blogger who I follow and who turns out to be not only the excellent strategic writer I read all the time, but a genuinely kind person. Something I wouldn't have found out until I met him.

The party just kept going and it was actually good hearted and good spirited though sometimes too crowded - I mean 850 people can do that - and difficult to maneuver through. But the drinks flowed, the discussions were both business, highly personal and even sometimes revealing because all in all people felt the vibe in the room.

I spent my night talking with all of the above and many others like Alicia Wu, the Oracle Product Manager for Sales Library; with John Burke, Group VP of Applications. All relaxed fun informal. People were wandering over, new groups formed, melted, formed, reconvened, dissolved while certain other folks I knew I could hear everywhere.

One other thing that made the party a blast was its messiness. Not messy in that "stuff all over the floor" way, but a party that had a disheveled atmosphere. Hair messed up, drinks in hand, spilling a little, not a lot, smiles all around, kind of messiness.

All in all, a damned good party though next year - lose the demo and the incredibly LOUD speakers - maybe less of them - and it would be, at least within the confines of the CRM world, an A-lister.

Inspired By People: CRM at Its Truest & Finest - Favorite CRM Personalities 2008, Part 2

A few days ago, I named my favorite CRM vendor related human beings. Now I want to tell you about what might seem to be an eclectic grouping with the only common thread being that they don't work for vendors. But, all in all, these are amazing people who you should know. Many of them you might know. Some you may not. But what I want to let you know is how good they are as people, not just their remarkable skills and competence - which are, I admit, part of this. All of them are accomplished human beings. I hope that you have the same opportunity that I have to know them for who they are. Its my honor. The list....

Analysts

• Independent Analyst - Denis Pombriant, Beagle Research - This one is easy. Denis is not only perhaps the most astute and foresighted analyst in the world of CRM, nay, varlets, not just CRM but SaaS, and now Energy, but he is a man blessed with a good nature and great sense of humor - the sense of the ridiculous that characterizes the most human of sentient beings. He is simply lovable - and you should listen to him too, because he really gets the next big thing. In fact, go to his site and get his CRM, Sustainability & Peak Oil white paper. Now.
• Corporate Analyst - Michael Maoz, Gartner Group - Michael is one of the most respected analysts in CRM - for his straightforward candor with vendors, regardless of what anyone thinks, and for his ability to just find the next trend almost flawlessly - see the intent driven enterprise stuff he does - but I'm not lauding him for that. Without too much detail, several years ago he put his family over his career because he loved them - period. While that sounds easy enough, it isn't as those of you who get LARGE promotions know. He is a good man with an intense devotion to those he cares about - family, friends, and yet he balances that with his superb analytic skills
• Analyst Who Walks the Walk - Brent Leary, CRM Essentials - Brent is amazing. Its not often you run across an analyst on the fast track who is also DJ-hip and actually uses the tools that he writes about and is funny and smart. Brent is all of them in spades. I run across analysts all the time who are academic and don't even know how to use what they write about. That ain't Brent. And damn if not only does he use them, but he's a regular guy with zero pretense, sharp insight, especially in social media & small business, and loves what he does.
• Best Under-the-Radar Analyst - Louis Columbus, Cincom - Technically, Louis works for a vendor which is why he currently is an under the radar analyst. But the man has insight. Damn he really does. And he is happy to present it to others, through his writing on the Cincom blog, The Perfect Customer Experience and through his tweets on Twitter and through his writing on CRM Buyer and other venues. But there is so much more to him - kindness that seems to be part of genetic coding, it runs so deep. When I was recovering from being hurt in the nearly fatal car accident, he showed a level of concern that moved me and, no doubt, aided my emotional recovery. But he is like that with everyone. A good man, a man with a soul. Plus, the dude loves baseball the way I do.

Other

• Best Thought Leader in Her Own Right - Ginger Conlon, 1to1 Media - Officially, Ginger is a journalist and editor-in-chief who work for 1to1, part of the Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, uberbusinessguru empire. But here's the thing. Ginger is a thought leader who drives a lot of the industry thinking around particularly the use of social media. She is smart, funny, warm and balances a personal life with a business life that ain't often that easy. She does it with grace and class, too - and is a blast to hang out with. She's a powerhouse in her own right. And mine right too.
• Best PR Person to Deal With - Aly Sax, UbiquityAS - I deal with PR people enough in a week for a year. I get about 20 requests a week for something or another and phone calls and other things on occasion. They are rarely from an internal person at a vendor - but they are from all shapes and sizes of PR firms - big, small, traditional, hip - you name, I get something. But once in a great while, someone stands so far out that I fall in love with them - in a platonic way of course. This would be Aly Saxe of UbiquityAS who handles both Pat Sullivan's fascinating venture Flypaper and Tien Tzuo's new success, Zuora. Aly is someone that I can blab with all day and would if the time was there. She is not only a great PR person, but a great person - who shares my love of animals and makes no bones about it either. She is a person who cares about all living creatures, not just the companies she represents. She is interested in who she is talking to, not just what they are in title and reputation. That is something else for anyone, much less a PR person. Aly is the cat's meow. She'll know what I mean.
• "Goodest" CRM Practitioner - Scott Rogers, David's Bridal - David's Bridal has been my client for more than six years. In that six years, I've had dozens of other practitioner (non-software/consulting providers) clients, mostly Fortune 1000, sometimes smaller and dealt with hundreds of other people who are CRM focused. No one, I mean no one has ever earned my trust the way that Scott Rogers has. Not only is he immensely knowledgeable about CRM, but he is a fundamentally good person with a big heart. I trust him totally and that says a lot. He is one of the main reasons I continue to like CRM at all. Simply because he is who he is.
• The "Charitable Heart" Award - Bruce Culbert, CEO Isymmetry - Bruce has been someone who I've known a long time. He's a man of influence in CRM. He's been a big player in the field - heading up eBusiness at IBM; SVP of CRM and Supply Chain at Bearing Point; head of professional services at salesforce.com and my business partner in BPT Partners. Millions of dollars are the world he walks in. But even bigger than the numbers is the hear of this man. What most people don't know is how he works in his personal life. He is the single most charitable individual (along with his wonderful wife Sue) I've ever met - taking kids who would otherwise be lost into his home and heart, helping out and being loyal to family and friends in ways, which while I'll leave as private matters, are beyond what most humans would ever even consider, much less do. He lives life governed by good acts - and that is rare and wonderful. I'm proud to know him.
• Best CRM Person in Academia - Dr. Jeff Tanner, Baylor University - If you met Jeff, you'd never guess the man has so many academic successes that he could be a snot like several other academic "names" I could think of. But this just ain't Jeff. He heads up Baylor's CRM MBA program, is the Associate Dean of Research and Faculty Development, has written the best selling textbook on selling of all time and multiple other books. But this guy is sweet, funny, very southwestern, raises thoroughbreds because he loves them, not just because he wants to raise Majestic Prince and just radiates a down-to-earth demeanor that makes you want to hang out with him. And he's so DAMN accomplished.
Smartest Guy in CRM - Graham Hill, CACI Customer Solutions Group - Graham is one of these ravenous sorts of fellows, with a droll wit, a memory that is extraordinary for how much it holds and a set of brain waves that combines things in ways I could only imagine. He is also fearless and acerbic and yet an amazingly nice guy who only wants things to be good. You need to be following his thinking because its, well, um - brilliant.
• Most Under the Radar Good at What He Does - Bill Howell, MyCRMCareer - I met Bill Howell through Bruce Culbert. Bill worked for Bruce at IBM and has been a friend for a long time. I have to tell you something. I am blessed to have gotten to know this guy. I'm sure you can tell me of others who are incredibly capable, and I have no doubt they are but I've NEVER met a person who is totally effective, humble, warm, kind, and at the same time, knows when to tell my chattering self to shut up when necessary - without losing an iota of good humor or humility when he does. Wow.

Journalists

• Best Writers in the Biz - Dead Heat - Marshall Lager, CRM Magazine; David Sims, TMCNet. I can't tell you how much I love these guys. They are amazing - beyond amazing really. Both are spectacular writers with totally different kinds of styles. Both are brilliant in their field - and others I think - and both are great human beings. Marshall is one of the most natively funny writers I have every read - anywhere - with that amused, sometimes self-deprecating sense of satire - yet his analysis of the trends and the twists and turns in CRM are as good as or better than many analysts out there. He is a good person with a heart of gold, that I'm honored to call a friend. David is of a more literary bent in his First Coffee column which he writes for TMCNet. He is a master of metaphor and almost a throwback to the New Yorker style of literary humor that I am drawn to. We share a love of American humorist S.J Perelman for his command of the English language. David wrote the best line about me I've ever seen when, in one of his articles, compared me to S.J. Perelman for "(my) striking use of black type on white pages." He staggers me - though he is wrong - I don't think A-Rod is underpaid.
Best Management-level Editor - Dead Heat again - Josh Weinberger, CRM Magazine Chris Bucholtz, InsideCRM - These two are very different - in style, personality, and even management approach. And both are responsible for keeping their respective publications at the top of its game. Josh is a 2.0 fella - who uses the tools and has a management style that says his charges are adults and deserve the room to grow and evolve. He does it all with a wicked sense of humor and a warmth that isn't the norm in the world of journalism. Chris is a killer editor who knows what he has to do at InsideCRM and has that sense of irony about his job that makes InsideCRM a fresh presence in the CRM world. A good man and a believer in doing the right thing.

Enough, No More....

Alright, I'm sure that you're sick and tired of my homages to people and are longing to get me back to my more sardonic NY-style chakras. Too bad. These are the people who you should be getting to know and trusting because they are humane and decent and REALLY good at what they do. So indulge me for a bit. The accident made me realize that while it might be nice to analyze and segment and do the hottest things like "persona building", we have some damn fine people in our world and we should be glad for it. I'll get back to the other stuff later. I'm on the plane right now for Oracle Open World and will report back to you - somewhat - on what's going on there in CRM. They expect 45,000 people. I just gave you about 20. There are about 20 or 30 more I can give you easily, but my fingers are tired. I'll be talking about them in other ways in the future - people like Neighborhood America's Michael Thomas and Kathy Boyd, actually my brother, Bob, but he'll get his own entry - that's special - Chris Carfi of Cerado, multiple people at SAP, Zach Nelson of NetSuite, and on and on. But that's for another day and another time. Right now, I'm going to read a white paper on CRM and Social Media - another one.

Reflections: The 2008 CRM Best & Favorite Personality Awards

I'm sitting in my charming room at at the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville TN, lured by the SAP ASUG confab at this property - which apparently is the largest hotel property outside of Vegas - a rumored 3800 rooms and a place that I've got lost going to and coming from my room about 10 times already.

I'm no country western fan AT ALL but even I have to admit that its really kinda neat to have a wakeup call from Charley Pride one morning and then Wynona Rider another and have a choice of about 7 or 8 other country stars like Trace Adkins or George Jones to summon me from slumber. This whole place radiates a ginormous twang. Its lush with overgrown vegetation, huge high glass ceilings with those fly eye numerous planar facet cuts so that you get the idea you're part of this lively, giant hydroponics lab that has restaurants and shops.

Sometime in the next two or three days, I'm going to send y'all my look at the SAP ASUG event, somewhat unlike any other event I attend because it really is SAP fanboys who come to it. The dive on the products is deep. But, all that in a couple of days or so.

I've been sitting in my room this morning, reflecting on how this would be the best year of my career if it weren't the worst year of my life - and it made me remember something.

Best Year of Career

I've had an unprecedented year when it comes to my career. This blog was named the best blog in CRM by InsideCRM. I was named the most influential person in CRM (outside of vendor personalities) by InsideCRM in early 2008 and then named one of the most influential people in CRM last month by CRM Magazine (They called me "The Herald", which I loved). My brand has expanded widely and I'm known around the world. There are 85,300 google references to me as of this morning ("Paul Greenberg", CRM), I tripled my income, people actually seem to want to take what I say seriously - which is always a marvel to me and something I appreciate well beyond my New York bred self-sarcasm. This has been a career year and if what is working for next year (including the publication of the 4th edition of CRM at the Speed of Light) is any indicator, next year might top it.

Worst Year of My Life

Yet, it all pales when it compares to my personal year which has been marked in a major way by three events which I'll catalog but not dwell on for obvious reasons:

1. My wonderful father died kind of suddenly in January at the age of 93 - no matter what anyone says about his long life - I wanted it to be longer - a lot longer.
2. I had that incredible brush with death with that bizarre car accident on August 1 - which I'm still recovering from - that put me within about 6 inches of death and instead left me with lots of external damage but not much else bad. I'm thankful beyond words for that.
3. Finally, our 15 year old most beloved animal ever - our cat Sweetpea - died in mid-August - something that I still deeply mourn - and if you're an animal lover - you'll understand. If not - try to.

Lessons

All of this combined has allowed me to examine a lot in terms of what I do and how I act and what I want. While I have no final conclusions on much of it - since August isn't that long ago, I haven't had time to complete this phase of my thinking yet - I did realize a few things. And one of them, and the reason for this blog posting, is how we all think of CRM - or at least I often do.

When I speak with people about "customers" and "practitioners" and "vendors" - at best, in a normal conversation, I'm talking abstractly about them - almost as categories. Sometimes it may be "customers as segments" or "vendors a.k.a. specific companies like SAP or Oracle or salesforce.com." The practitioners" are, at best, companies that use CRM in their day to day doings. The practitioner discussion can get as academic as a discussion of the practitioners as a "case study."

But what is usually ignored except, on occasion, when we talk about "social networks," is the human beings that actually compose all these institutions and are the foundation of the abstractions we write and speak about. Even the social network discussion abstracts them - to "community members" pretty much.

The exigencies of our business and the sheer volume of people that are involved tends to diminish the individual humans who are the centerpiece of the interactions we so lovingly croon to. We forget that they are actually individuals (Or I do) with names and lives and things that they love and things that affect them, and dreams, aspirations, desires, fantasies, accomplishments and all that encompasses a life - not just a job, or a job description or a role or a "persona" that helps us sell to what we see often as mannikins with wallets.

They make up business and "not-business" institutions and they each affect each thing they are involved with differently.

I'm not sure that this really explains it. But there is even another element. There are people in the CRM industry who work really hard every day and either are not recognized for what they do, or are not recognized for the wonderful humans they are.

Its hard to explain this but I'm going to recognize a few of them that I know (out of thousands I know) for their special accomplishments and their wonderful human natures. Some you'll know - they get the public "industry" recognition. Some I'm exposing to the lights of your eyes for the first time maybe.None have any idea that I'm doing this. This entry and a subsequent one are dedicated to the personalities who do extraordinary things every day and may or may not be recognized for it. I"m recognizing them for it because they are wonderful. Hopefully, I've earned the right to do this in the eyes of each of you.

The 2008 CRM Personality Awards Winners, Part 1

My Criteria

I liked them a lot and know that others do too. I know that they are respected among those that know them for the same good characteristics that I recognize in them. They are good human beings who are known for that - and for how well they do what they do.

Today's awards, those who work for vendors. Tomorrow, the non-vendors which includes all the rest of the industry. There are many other just plain great and immensely talented people in the industry. These stand out even among those.

Vendor/Service Provider-Related

• Greatest Customer Advocate at Any Vendor (HOF-level) - Jim Goldfinger, SAP - Jim is, without a doubt, the best person I've ever seen anywhere when it comes to dealing with customers. His title? Senior Director, Customer Value Network at SAP. His title doesn't BEGIN to tell you his commitment to the SAP customers. This isn't a "have to engage customers thing" with him. He is the most caring person I've ever seen at any vendor - maybe anywhere - when it comes to making his customers happy. He throws parties - sometimes on his own nickel. His customers trust him so much that when he says to them you can call anytime, they take him up on it. The customers LOVE him. I mean LOVE him. I did an interview with him at ASUG that I suggest you listen to.The measure of the goodness of this man comes across in the interview. If there were a customer advocacy hall of fame, he'd be in it. Because he means it.
• Best Interacting with Media & Analysts - Dead heat here between Mei Li, the beautiful and beloved Senior VP of Corporate Communications at NetSuite and John Taschek, the astounding and warm (see below) Vice President of Product Marketing Strategy at salesforce.com. Two very different people with a common trait. The media and analysts love them because they are genuine. Mei Li, someone near and personally dear to me, even gets the crusty denizens of the traditional media - e.g. print media - to give her hugs when they see her. She has been a friend to dozens of damaged press brains, not only providing them with what they need in a timely way, but also providing them with a sympathetic ear for their personal travails. She treats them well, as people, not pencils with bodies attached. John I'm going to hold off on, because he is the winner of another award - and I'll tell you about him there.
• Most Gentlemanly Marketing Person - Derek Grant, Pardot. Pardot is a small company with a good marketing product. Derek is a big hearted man with a great approach to marketing. He is a gentleman. If you inhabit my world - and multiple other worlds like it - marketing people are calling all the time. All the time. ALL THE TIME. Most of the time you shrug it off, realizing they are doing their job - but that doesn't mean you take the call either - because they have a job to do but you also have a life, too. But Derek's approach is so charming, so just plain decent that I am happy to talk to him because I like HIM. Pardot is a good product for small businesses and have some good things down the pike too. But Derek has a welcome mat at the speaker of my cell and landlines because, well, he's a gentleman.
• Most Exceptional Executive Assistant - Jackie Lopez, NetSuite - Jackie is the EA to Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite. She is incredibly effective, getting everything done that has to be done in the time that it needs to be completed. She is warm, personable, and personal, yet professional at all times. There is no one I'd rather do business with than her. I'm glad to know her. There are lots of wonderful Executive Assistants, who like Jackie, are the indispensable right hands of the CEOs. But Jackie stands out from even them.
• The Secret Vendor Intellectual - Anthony Lye, Oracle - Anthony is the SVP of CRM at Oracle. He is one of the best at that, driving a large group of successful execs to meet a substantial annual revenue objective. Ahhhh, but, that's the public thing that senior management is tasked to do. What does my heart good is that he can discuss ideas, concepts, existential philosophical outlooks. He can formulate a way of putting something that is interesting and makes me think. For example, he had the idea of what I ended up calling an "outcome based social network" - essentially a short-term short shelf life social network that is tactical in purpose. An idea. Not a product. Not a road map. An idea. And THAT is why Anthony is so refreshing.
• Most Under-the-Radar Exceptional Person at a Vendor - Margot Heiligman, SAP. Many of you probably don't know Margot - hence the "under-the-radar" designation (duh). She is a Subject Matter Expert Manager for the Business Influencer Group at SAP - a program that I wish other companies would emulate - though, I presume SAP hopes they don't. Margot is extraordinary. Not only does she get things done in astonishing ways, but her range of knowledge and interest in things is both broad and deep and her genuinely good nature is always at the forefront - a lovely human being.
• They Get "It" - Most Under-the-Radar Senior Management - Large Company - Andy Mulholland, CTO Cap Gemini Ernst & Young - I met Andy after they did a note on CRM 2.0 a few months ago and the man is just sharp. Yet, while he's somewhat visible to all, not enough know him or what he knows. He simply gets it and can articulate that selfsame "it" when it comes to how the business/customer relationship works.
• They Get "It" - Most Under-the-Radar Senior Management - Small Company - That would be Brian K. Magierski, the Chief Development Officer of nGenera - the company that splashed on the CRM team by being the first serious Web 2.0 company to buy a known CRM vendor - Talisma months ago. He and I conversed a few months ago for CRM at the Speed of Light, 4th Edition. I was stunned by how cogent his explanation of what was going on was and how well thought out his solution to the transformation was. More should hear this man speak out about it. Hopefully, this is the first step in bringing him into a different daylight than the one that he already is in.
• Best Marketing Real Person - Jeff Pulver, VP Marketing, Workday. I've known this Jeff Pulver for over ten years and he is the most approachable, least hype-driven, smartest marketing leader I met. I'm not the only one who thinks that either. He was one of BtoB Magazine's chosen luminaries in 2007 and recognized throughout the industry. He has been the chief marketing person at Epiphany, Siebel, Rearden Commerce and now Dave Duffield's PeopleSoft reconstruction on demand - Workday. Mostly, he is an amazing funny friendly person who everyone loves. Marketing is his job. Living is his love. Great music dude also.
• The Incredible Decency Award (Vendor Version) - John Taschek, VP of Product Marketing Strategy, salesforce.com - He is hands down decent. He is a good man who's decency transcends his work and extends into the way that he treats everyone he knows. He radiates good will and all those who know him like him and trust him - and, take my word, there is reason to.

That's it for today's round. Tomorrow, we'll look at a bunch more. Sometimes, its about the human beings, not the abstract categories we often substitute for people. I want you to at least get a glimpse of some of them. Needless to say, my panel of judges consists of:

1. My head
2. My heart
3. My hands

G'nite y'all.

Painful to Write

This entry is not going to be my normal entry; you know - good humored, witty, full of profound insights into the minds of the Dark Knights of business - a.k.a. customers and of course, a work of literary artistry. I'm the only one who thinks that, you say. Not true. I can point to...to...um...my wife......my brother.....my mom......my.....cats.

Actually, I'm going to have some trouble writing this - not emotional but physical.

I was hit by a car on Friday and....this isn't just me being dramatic...I was nearly killed. But needless to say, since I'm not sure that there are computers in the "other world" and I am writing this on one, I must be alive. Though its still a little bit surreal and all in all a little frightening in retrospect.

I'm going to spare you all the details, since my hands are far too (temporarily) damaged to write a long thing about it and I'm sure no one but me is really that interested. Let's just say, I was hit by my own car - yep, my own car - TWICE (I just found out last night). Mike, my next door neighbor who saved my life saw me, as he put it last night when he came over, "you were in the street on your hands and knees and your car then rolled back again and CLOCKED you." I've since gone to my car and apologized for whatever it was I did to it. I didn't know it was mad at me.

All in all, I woke up in a hospital after having been medivaced with severe head trauma and lots of everything else to be sorted out. The reason I was medivaced to Inova Fairfax Hospital in Fairfax Virginia is because the hospital nearest me - Prince William Hospital - HAS NO EFFING TRAUMA CENTER!! That's staggering to me, given under other circumstances, that could be a life and death distance.

In any case, I was treated by a huge group of extraordinary doctors and nurses at Inova Fairfax - a hospital that had a great reputation that preceded my "visit" to it. BTW, I don't remember ANY of the events until I woke up - apparently for the third time - in the hospital. Though I remember some things going on in my head. This all happened on Friday evening around 5pm. I was released by Saturday at 1:00pm.

In fact, when the doctor came in to see me on Saturday morning to ask me "how are you doing?" I answered,

"Under the circumstances and given that:

I am alive.
I didn't break a bone.
My car didn't hurt or damage anyone or anything but me.
You won't understand this, but the cat was saved.
I have people who love me and care about me
I have no spinal or neck injuries
I AM ALIVE!

All in all, it wasn't a bad day. Everything went right that might have in a day that was entirely wrong."

Which, as cute as it sounds, is entirely how I feel.

So forgive me if my cogent insights (ask my mom) on CRM are a little spare. I'll try to keep up for the recovery period - shouldn't be that long. I look uglier than I feel, but I wanted you to know that I truly appreciate that you read this blog and pay any attention to me at all. That's something that was a comfort during the worst of the awake part of this ordeal and I realized how grateful I actually am to people who care enough to read what I think.

Thank you very much.

Technorati : Culture, Medical

Another Day, Another CRMSOL4 Excerpt

Once again....an excerpt. Yup. In keeping with the new tradition of love, peace and.....oh wait, that was my tradition in the 60s. I'll start over. In keeping with the new tradition of love, money and alcohol....oh wait, that was someone else's tradition in the 80s. One more time. In keeping with the new tradition of love, community, sharing and transparency, once again, an excerpt from CRM at the Speed of Light 4th edition. This time Chapter 1.

This is a good time to let me know if this is off the mark, wonderful, needs some tweaking etc. for both style and suggested content. (After all, this is ONLY an excerpt). I stil have time to fix things in the book, though not much more. I'm planning on publishing as many excerpts as I can before I run out of writing time for the book so....

Once again, we begin with a Wordle for the entirety of Chapter 1 (with only 100 words tagged).

This excerpt is a quick look at the business ecosystem back in the day it was centered on the enterprise, not the customer. You didn't really think that I'd give you the really incredible stuff here did you? Who'd buy the book if I did that?

What's A Customer Ecosystem?

Wikipedia defines an ecosystem as

"The interactive system established between a group of living creatures and the environment in which they live. The centerpiece of this definition is the idea that living organisms are continually engaged in a set of relationships with every other element constituting the Environment in which they exist."

A customer ecosystem is simply the totality of interactions centered around customers that takes place over time. The customer sits at the hub, rather than just being a spoke in the corporate wheel. The relationship changes from one where the customer is the object of a sale to one in which the customer is the subject of an experience that he or she controls with businesses. How'd that happen? I'm so glad you asked. Gather 'round the campfire.

Once upon a time in a land not so far away…..

The Product-Focused Corporate Ecosystem

If you tool back to the 1950s and 1960s, it was a different world. Madison Avenue advertising agencies created markets and market demand, manufacturing ruled the universe and the way information was captured was, shall we say, primitive.

Typically, you would read a magazine or watch TV in black and white and see something of interest to you. If you were reading Life Magazine, for example, you would find the ad, clip out the coupon that was in the magazine, characterized by a cute little pair of scissors, fill it out, put it in an addressed envelope with a 3 cents stamp and send it off to the producer of the "item of interest." Then you waited two weeks or more to get a brochure from the manufacturer, read it, decided based on the manufacturer's information whether or not you wanted it, went to a store that sold it, listened to a salesperson's pitch on it - maybe or maybe not you had the benefit of a neighbor who owned it - bought it (or not) and hoped for the best. You had NO control over the information and no access to knowledge of the product beyond that given to you by the manufacturer.

According to a Business Week article in 2004, during the 60s, an advertiser could reach 80% of U.S. women with a single ad aired simultaneously on CBS, NBC, and ABC - which of course represented the only three channels - and the only TV networks that existed . To reach that same 80% in 2008 it would take at least a parallel airing on a minimum of 100 channels and that's only if that many women were watching TV at sometime.

Additionally during this era and throughout the 1980s, newspapers were the only real source of other media that were mass consumed so a well placed ad in a local or national publication would reach to the specific groups that were being targeted by the of selling standardized products to a mass market.

But, as we shall see in a moment, we now have the Internet and a major decline in the number of print media readers as more and more get their content pushed to them via the Internet or at least will scroll to CNN or ESPN or even the New York Times online before they touch a TV set or newspaper.

But back then, that wasn't the case, folks.

Because the products were standardized, and aimed at broad consumption - not at all focused on individuals, the product manufacturer was in control of supply. The retailers owned the market. And they all owned the knowledge flow in conjunction with the advertising agencies that manufactured that information. Because the post-World War II period - at least in the U.S. - generated wealth unheard of until then, the demand outstripped the supply - making the producers and retailers happy.

These consumable products were mostly generic - for one reason - customers were perfectly willing to buy them. The expectations of the customers were low. As described in a CBS Marketwatch article in June 2008,

"Customers 1.0 were dutiful consumers of mainstream messaging and one-size-fits-all goods. They would gladly drive miles out of their way to visit retail outlets, they readily leaned heavily on advice from retail clerks in making their selections, and they happily bought goods from among arrays of pretty generic offerings. They put up with long lines and poor service, because retailers had the power and their customers were just grateful to get the goods."

The corporate ecosystem was in the hands of those who manufactured products and they dictated the terms to customers with low expectations.

CRM as a science didn't exist. It seemed to be there in the often abused and not really believed term "the customer is king." But with the limited tools the customers had and the limited availability of information, if the customer was king, the manufacturer was a god.

The Customer-Focused Corporate Ecosystem

But from the late 1980s and on through early part of the millennium, technology that could increasingly deliver more customized goods at lower prices more quickly in combination with the vast increase in the availability of information that wasn't from the manufacturers themselves. The low cost availability of courier services like Federal Express (FedEx) or United Parcel Service (UPS) meant that they were able to deliver products at reasonable cost with lightning speed for roughly the same price regardless of the size of the retailer to anyone.The size of an enterprise or its ability to shave cents off of a price was no longer the game changer it once was. As a result retailing moved to category-killer or niche products that customers wanted and were willing to spend money at Costco or Sam's Club where high volume purchases brought significant price discounts. If you shopped in the middle, you could shop online. In fact, as the millennium hit, the ability to get those ultra-niche products at sites like eLuxury.com took away the margin of advantage, leaving only the caché of the shopping experience in the Prada store in Manhattan, not the product availability. But as we will see throughout this book, great experiences trump the availability and price of goods, more often than not.

There were wrinkles to the lower end of the equation too. Stores like Walmart.com gave even greater discounts online and sites like Overstock.com were able to make high volume purchases and then sell single items to consumers at a high volume price giving them a margin of advantage over Costco and BJ's Warehouse where the high volume purchase was required. Game, but not set or match to Overstock.com

That's because the set and soon the entire match was being won by the customers and on a new court.

That court was the Internet.

The power of the Internet for both customers and businesses became apparent in the mid 1990s when both ecommerce and online review sites began to become increasingly popular ways to do business and communicate. It made information easily available directly from the manufacturer or retailer via their websites and it gave, for the first time, an independent voice to the users of the products and services being bought - often far more knowledgeable than the actual producers; mostly because the producers didn't use them.

Retailers began to the see the value of this too. They started allowing customers to order online and pick up in stores or get the products shipped. With the 1995 growth of Amazon.com, came the BarnesandNoble.com experience soon after. The difference, aside from the Amazon shopping experience appearing considerably more personal and entirely more engaging, was that bricks and mortar bookseller Barnes and Noble moved to allow customers to order books online too.

Over time, the digital and physical business worlds began to intertwine. Retailers let you order online and pickup in stores (Best Buy), travelers could get their tickets online and then print out their boarding passes from their PCs (United); you could buy your clothing online and return it to a bricks and mortar store anywhere (Nordstrom's). But it didn't stop with that. This signaled a shift to the customer's unique capabilities to command how he or she purchases. Along with the leveling of the playing field by the courier services, increasing Internet use, better web security protocols and the evolution of Google search also translated to the customer being able to more safely find other providers of the products and services that they wanted anywhere around the world with equal alacrity. They didn't have to be limited to their neighborhood stores any longer. All avenues were opening up for ecommerce. As they said in NY in the 1930s "the world was their (customers') erster." That would be "oyster" for those of you unacquainted with Brooklyn's regional dialect transliteration.

Obviously, given the choices that customers now had, businesses at every level, consumer or with other businesses, had to widen the choices that customers were being given. Products and services were no longer the differentiators that they had been. Price and availability were no longer the way to a customer's wallet share.

Experiences became the thing.

This wasn't a big surprise to some. In 1998, Joe Pine II, who you'll meet next chapter, and his business partner at Strategic Horizons, LLC, James Gilmore, wrote a groundbreaking book called "The Experience Economy" that discussed not just the desire of customers to have an experience with the company but the approaches that a company could take to commoditize that experience in ways that the customer would be willing to pay for. As we'll see, no customer is concerned about paying premiums for things.They just have to want them enough to make the purchase. The most famous example of that is, of course, Starbucks. Five bucks for a cup of coffee that costs about 45 cents to produce including overhead. Hmmmm. That would be more than 1000% margin. What for? Not just the coffee but the Starbucks experience. You know what it is - or at least - was. You felt cool going to Starbucks and working on your laptop with then free - no longer - wireless connectivity sitting on a couch gabbing with your friends. You weren't drinking coffee; you were sipping something with a ridiculous name - "Vente Mocha Cappucino Skim Latte." Weird, maybe but oh so trendy. Guilty pleasure. Five bucks.

This was a significant transition point in treating customers. because as we will see the business model began to shift for how customers interacted with companies.

CRM grew up in this era. The idea of how you were going to manage your customers in ways that retained them, or in more lucrative periods, acquire them became of paramount importance as the playing field in the competition for customers became more level. CRM 1.0 promised efficiencies in your operations - especially with customer facing activities like marketing, sales and customer service - that would free up your representatives to spend more time with customers doing what they did - selling to them, solving customer service problems. Sales force automation (SFA) was the lead application and sales effectiveness the primary strategy. For the simple purposes of this section, the questions that CRM was supposed to answer during this time were:

• How do you manage the relationships you have with the customers in such a way that you can increase your revenue opportunities with them?

AND

• How did you capture and aggregate enough customer data to give you a well rounded record of customer information to help you make better decisions on how your customers would respond to you? This was the Holy Grail of CRM at the time. The consistent 360 degree view of the customer available to who needed it, when they needed it

Things didn't stop here. More consumers were becoming aware that they actually were empowered in ways that had been previously unavailable to them - largely thanks to their ability to communicate via the Internet with complete strangers. It was apparent that the users of the products not only knew more about the products than the manufacturers who made them or the retailers who sold them, but they could communicate that knowledge to others easily, at their leisure. The result was the Cro-Magnon version of user generated content (UGC) - the review site.

Do not underestimate the power of this. We'll take a look at their power in later chapters. Just trust me here. Study after study shows that people trust their peers or supposed peers more than any of the corporate declarations of quality and value that are issued about products. Their decision-making process (See chapter 16) is complex and never a matter of just good review v. bad review.

But this was just the harbinger of something much more important and deeply affecting.

Technorati : CRM 2.0, CRM at the Speed of Light, customer ecosystem

While I Work, The Good Stuff Keeps Coming

You need to check out what Thomas Vander Wal has to say at Personal Infocloud on the "Granular Social Network" because the insights are meaningful, not just interesting. The idea is that as individuals we each have specific interests. We are connected to other individuals each with their own specific interests, which are not necessarily the same as the interests we have. While, for example, many members of our personal network might share an interest in music - a. we only know what music they are interested in when they share that with us - so we may know they love hip hop and while they love classical too, they may not have told anyone. Plus our interest in knowing what they like might wax and wane according to who it is and the moment of time we're in.

Problem is that the tools that are out there for capturing the conversation of the digital social networks don't understand this complexity and aren't organized to capture it according to what is being shared or the weight of the interest in what is being shared by all and each of the individuals involved in the network, so the level of knowledge that businesses or whoever has of actual interactions among network members is minimal and often not even right - though it may seem right.

This dovetails, though is not identical to, my thinking on the personal value chain and how each individual has their own value chain (see the posting on The Company Like Me Part I for details). What affects someone and what is important to that someone is not an easy thing to figure out and often when someone responds to you in a way that you love or hate, the reason for that response may have little to do with you as a person or as a business.

Problem is for businesses to get that "perfect" customer record and that Holy HOLY HOLY Grail of a 360 degree view of a customer, they have to be able to capture as much of that granularity as they can so that they can enrich their knowledge of their customers, but also so that the customer can have the optimal experience that his makeup allows him to because the company has gotten the approximation (best they can do) of a peer level knowledge of that customer and provided him with what he needs, accordingly. All this emanating from a personal value chain which is impacted by his granular social network.

Keep in mind one thing. Because of the complexity of relationships, and because of the spirited independence of the individual human soul (generally) the company can never CONTROL the personal value chain that has been impacted by this granular social network. Humans are just too damned singular!!

Get it?

Listen and watch this Thomas Vander Wal video treatment of the granular social network.

Granular Social Network from Thomas Vander Wal on Vimeo.

Technorati : CRM 2.0, Thomas Vander Wal, social networks

Sometimes Technology Amazes Me and I'm Not A-Skeered.

I'm of the mind that Cisco is the great hidden player in the world of the social customer. Though at this point the whole subject is getting so pervasively staggering that I'm just going to call it Sentient Being 2.0 or Gaia 2.0 or something. I think that there is so much going on at Cisco that we don't cover in our analyses and yet, I see them everywhere doing amazing things. I want all of you to just simply watch this video and though the technology is amazing and part of it all - listen to the discussion toward the end. Cisco just seems to understand. They seem to understand. They just seem to.

Technorati : CRM 2.0, Cisco, Enterprise 2.0, social customer, telepresence