PGreenblog

A Company Like Me, Part 1

CRM 1.0 has been a series of processes, technologies, and methodologies organized around the operational tasks that were designed to institutionalize a way of managing customer-company interaction.

CRM 2.0, while incorporating what CRM 1.0 does, also incorporates the personalization of those customer-company interactions and the integration of the customer into the planning, strategies and direction of the company through use of tools, products, services, and experiences so that the customer feels that they are participating in the companies that they choose to do business with.

CRM 1.0 concerned itself with the customer as the object of a satisfactory sale. CRM 2.0 concerns itself with the customer as the subject of a satisfactory experience.

In their own ways, they both attempt to institutionalize practices that allow better customer-company interaction. Their respective visions are driven by the expectations of the social forces in command of the contemporary business ecosystem of its era (we are narrowing this conversation to just business here regardless of the broader social implications). In the CRM 1.0 days that would be the company and the enterprise value chain associated with it. In the CRM 2.0 days a.k.a. right-this-2008-second that would be the very empowered customer and the peer-to-peer social networks associated with it.

But there is one other facet that can't be ignored for CRM 2.0 - and that is that we're not just talking about personalization, but we're talking about humanization.

Humanization? Huh?

What that means is that because the contemporary empowered customer is enmeshed in some way with a network of peers, their expectations are dramatically changed. They are straightforward changes, though. They expect that they can interact with a company the same way that they interact with a friend or a peer who they can trust. That means that they expect a personal relationship to the company, not just to a person in the company, though that may be how the relationship manifests itself a larger number of times. That also means that they expect that the attributes, the characteristics of that deeply personal connection they have to a peer is part of the way that the company interacts with them. That means that trust and transparency have to permeate the company's DNA. That means that the company has to have something distinct about them. That means that the customer is expecting the company to converse with them, not push corporate hype at them. It's why you see contemporary marketing so geared toward buzz and word of mouth and engaging customers in conversation through use of social media like blogs, or engaging internal customers in a valued conversation through a wiki.

Its also why coolness and style are now factors in that conversation between customer and company - because they are intimate parts of the conversation between friends.

This level of humanization is fundamental, but not necessary defining for all companies. While customers have a much more demanding level of expectation, they still simply purchase things in a utilitarian fashion from a plurality of companies they deal with, and they don't have that level of expectation from any particular company that they interact with like that. They treat the company as the (the shoe is on the other foot) object of a purchase. But the state devoutly to be desired by the company is not just the repeat purchaser, though that's certainly good, but the advocate who is going to say, "this company loves me the way I love it." So they have to gear their strategies toward getting that kind of customer (whether B2C or B2B, dammit) and settle for the customer who merely returns to buy.

Why I'm Even Writing This

This is my usual long winded highly conceptual way of talking about something that is important to me. But first a little longer, higher speed wind (take that any way you want). As y'all know, I'm not exactly unopinionated. I tend to be pretty passionate about what I write and I make it REAL clear whether I like what a company is doing or dislike what a company is doing. If I sense injustice, I go after it. If I think a company has done something good, despite my prior dislike of their actions, I say it and I make the necessary turn. I have no gripe against individuals unless they act in a mean spirited way and then I'll go after them. But all in all, I have no particular love or hatred of a company per se - just their actions get me hot - either in a good way or a bad way.

Edelman Trust Index

Some of you may have heard of the Edelman Trust Index - a measure of what kind of characteristics govern whom and how you trust. The most common trusted source for the contemporary soul is "someone like me." I trust those who are most similar to me. That would ideally suit a company that does it right too. Not only has the company provided me with what I need to sculpt my version of a relationship with it, but I actually see that the company's culture is "like me" and that they are able to institutionally reproduce that state - meaning if someone at the company who I've been dealing with who I feel a kinship to, leaves, though I would miss that person and perhaps continue my relationship to them outside the company, I would still not have a diminished relationship with or feeling about that company.

The True Subject: Neighborhood America

All right. All that said, I'm now going to get on with it, because, even with my vendor-agnosticism a constant suit of emotional armor for me and my willingness to judge vendor companies, not by only their culture, but their actions - and to do that both universally and discretely, I have to admit there is one company that has reached that exalted state of piercing my armor - that I actually have that peer-to-peer institutional relationship as well as a number of personal friendships and warm acquaintances. That would be Neighborhood America. But I'm going to make you wait until later this week for the why that company fits this concept, because I REALLY want to post this blog entry and that's gonna take me some time. Consider this part 1.

The Terran Trio: "I Think Therefore I Am", "I Am Therefore I Act", and "Live from NY, It's SATURDAY NIGHT!"

Just a forewarning. This is a really, really strange entry, especially if you've followed my stuff for awhile (though maybe not if you know me personally):

It Starts Here.....

Not sure whether or not any of you have ever been students of philosophy, but if you have, you probably heard one of the greatest almost cliche-ish philosophical declarations. That would be the Rene Descartes "Cogito, ergo sum" "I think, therefore I am." This masterpiece of Cartesian understatement is more accurate as "Dubito, cognito, ergo sum" - "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am, " but however its used it has been seen as the philosophical proof positive of human existence - cognitive reasoning - for hundreds of years - though not everyone in this world is a fan of the man. The idea behind is simple. I doubt, and someone must be doing the doubting, which proves that I exist or I wouldn't be able to think about the fact that someone (me) is doing the doubting.....or something akin to that.

Okay. We've established that we exist and we exist apart from non-reasoning creatures though with all creatures nonetheless. I doubt that animals doubt their existence which proves their existence though really it proves my existence because I'm the one writing about their existence; they aren't writing about mine and then does that mean that they don't exist in their own minds, but we know they do and ARRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH! (I wonder if I exist in my more animal-like states of mind?) (GAAAAAAACCCKKKK!)

Time for a 21st century makeover. (Still wondering what Saturday Night Live has to do with this?)

So, I'm declaring a new post-modern Cartesianism. "I think therefore I act (or I should act - shouldn't I?)." Now this statement of mine has no inherent reasoning or even logic that I can see (though it sounds like a philosophical dictum) Just because "I" think (Understand) doesn't mean "I" act on that understanding (that would be active knowledge), thus stopping me (that would be the real me - Paul Greenberg rather than the universal "I" - the generic individual mentioned above. We're heading toward another GAAAAACK here)

Actually, lets refine this a little. In fact, rather than a post modern Cartesianism, let's call this a neo-Dante-ist perspective.

Dante Alighieri, best known, of course for his "Divine Comedy" poetic trilogy, wrote this work called "Convito." In Convito, he identifies Love (in part) as the "deep contemplation which is the earnest application of the enamoured mind to that object wherewith it is enamoured." His thinking follows that since this love is based on reason and logic (though highly emotional - whole brained, not left brained) it can be universally shared and the more who participate in that sharing, the greater it becomes. So the actions of reasoning being who are participating in the sharing of Love (with a capital "L") according to Dante, is something that makes it greater. (Still wondering about Saturday Night Live aren't you? AND wondering if I've lost my mind? AND wondering what in the eternal spirit's name does this have to do with CRM?)

Okay, time for the payoff in this insane posting. (you do knowing I'm playing with you, right?)

All this means that when Beth Comstock, President of NBC Universal Integrated Media says to Fast Company last May:

"If consumers are in control, they're going to figure out how they want to watch. We have to find the right solution."

and then she goes out and does something about it, she is acting on what she thinks AND providing the means to share in the results which make them greater still. So Descartes and Dante can stop rolling over in their resting places. I'm applying them to the 21st century now.

So what are the "objects of the enamoured mind" here? Saturday Night Live videos.

Wha'?

Last night, Yvonne (those who don't know. My wonderful wife of 26 years) and I were watching Christopher Walken hosting Saturday Night Live. He is the best host they've ever had and was one of the main characters in one of their greatest skits ever - More Cowbell. (Wanna watch it?)

At the end of the show, they announced that you could go to NBC and embed some of their skits for tonight (and prior shows) onto your blog or website. I did a doubletake and thought - WOWEEWOWEEWEE! This is coming from the station that actually tried to remove one of the key things that made SNL popular again from YouTube et. al. That would their Lazy Sunday Digital Short that had over 6 million views and, in the pre-Beth Comstock days, drew attention to SNL again.

They have come around to Beth Comstock's (and Dante's) view on both user generated content and sharing - you share and the more who participate in the sharing of that object (content), the greater it becomes. Now bloggers are encouraged to embed SNL skits into their blogs - and in honor of that - and Dante and Descartes (who lived two hundred years after Dante - a case of Descartes following the....never mind), I'm going to embed a couple of Christopher Walken skits for you from last night one in particular where Kristin Wiig is a riot (you'll have to suffer a commercial or two though):

Now a couple of more that NBC provided from earlier shows that I love.

First a great appearance by Mike Huckabee, easily the funniest by far of all the presidential candidates (though I'm a Democrat and Obama guy):

Now one by Joshua Hill (Superbad etc.) as a six year old Jewish comedian with his single parent Dad at Benihana's.

Wow. What a post. All that philosophical stuff to tell you that I love SNL skits sometimes and Christopher Walken.

Though there is a point here.....

The point is that NBC and many other companies are figuring out that the levels of participation of the population in producing and sharing content is now skyrocketing to the point that its become a mainstream activity - unleasing waves of participation and innovation (potentially - and along with a lot of shlock too) at unprecedented levels. And, to make sure that their businesses are responsive and thus, surviving or even fluourishing, they have to go with the flow. Interestingly, it takes the 14th century poet and Platonist Dante Alighieri to give the greater benefit of all this - we are reasoning beings participating in creation of something that is tied to our emotions and the more that we share it, the more will participate. Isn't this the basis for the success of social networks and communities? Or of user generated content? It is and that's why the transformation is social and affects all institutions - not just business. Its the way that people are expressing their creative "impulses" - "deep contemplation which is the earnest application of the enamoured mind to that object wherewith it is enamoured." That statement from Convito is no different than an emotional, personalized experience.

Proving once again, mankind is always continuing its own history by elevating its capabilities to greater and greater heights. All that's going on now is that we have new tools and new paradigms to meet those historic needs. Its why we think and how we act as individuals and as a species.

Even NBC figured that out.

Technorati : CRM, Christopher Walken, Dante Alighieri, NBC, Rene Descartes, Saturday Night Live

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

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

Politics Online 2008 - Tipping Point or Tippling Point

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

But The Best Was Yet To Come - And It Did

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

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

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

Social Networks - Political Campaigns

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

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

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

Making Data Actionable, Dudes

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

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

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

Who Won?

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

Throwing out Concepts - Spring Training Version

I'm working on a couple of things that have been triggered by an onset of consulting I'm doing for clients on the development of social networks/user communities and at the same time, the use of social media. Fear not, though, friends, I'm not leaving CRM to do this (actually, fear not, me - since why should you give a.... about what I'm saying in this paragraph? Hardly a fear now, is it?) - this is in fact a natural extension of CRM 2.0. One might ask, "How is this kind of consulting an extension of CRM, Paulie?" I'm glad you asked, master or mistress of your unique domain. Simple. This is a step for in developing the strategies and programs for customer engagement, and given the expectations of customers these days - and their command of the business ecosystem - it takes new and extended forms of communication, collaboration, transparency, authenticity and coolness - in addition to operational functionality to do it. This is CRM 2.0 consulting. Which leads me to my actual point for this entry. I'm wrestling with a couple of concepts that I want to throw out there to you for discussion. I'm raw with these and not all that limber yet when it comes to thinking about them (hence, the title of this entry, baseball fans). Here goes. Concept #1

The Company Must Be A Company But Also A Peer

This is the rawer of the two but I'm going to fully flesh it out very soon. I'm on to something with this one. Here's the logic: The business ecosystem has a customer controlled ecology. Part of the reason for that is that the customer is engaged with conversation and collaboration outside the business - with their peers - and this is not just a business thing, but the way that they live. This is shaped in part by the Gen Xers and Gen Yers that are now in the workforce, but also by an increasing understanding by the baby boomers that this is the contemporary version of the changes that they were so actively engaged in creating in the 60s - and that means this is a social change. And its inspiring them, too. This social change is coupled with the fact that each of us has a personal value chain that actually encompasses our interactions with all institutions - among them social, economic, business - and that the totality of the interactions and how we respond to them actually is what comprises the way that we deal with any given individual business. Businesses, in this scenario, have two problems:

1. They can't control the personal value chain of any individual. They can only intersect parts of it and then try to influence that
2. Businesses are operating in an ancient mode when it comes to how they are thinking about this. They're thinking that they are competing for the customer with other companies of like product when in fact, they are competing with the thousands of messages that the customer is getting everyday from all institutions to just get their attention AND they are competing with the expectations of the customer as shaped by the personal value chains of that individual customer - not shaped by competitive products and services.

What this leads to then is that the customer is trying to see the business in a more complex way (at least unconsciously so) than the business is actually anticipating. The customer is expecting a personal interaction that is of a quality that has been determined by all the other experiences he/she is having with all his/her institutions. That means that the company, while it still has to meet its business objectives and follow through on its plan and pay attention to its bottom and top lines, has to at the same time, provide some level of personal interaction with the customer - whether real or virtual. The customer needs to feel that the company can be trusted, is being honest a.k.a. authentic, etc. - meaning traits that are assigned to human interactions most of the time - but have to permeate all facets of the company - especially those that intersect with the personal value chain of the individual customer. Enough of this one. There is more but you can see that this is still awkward and I haven't fully formulated it yet but am working it through. Is it stupid? Smart? Wrong? Right? Very Cool? Insane? Let me know what you think. This can be important in the establishment of the new business models and the CRM 2.0 model for customer engagement. This is based on recognition of the mind of the social customer - an undeniably different mindset than five years ago. Okay. Concept #2

Members of Social Networks Should Have a Reasonable Expectation of Trust, Primarily - Not Privacy

Before you go all Chuck Norris on me, hear this one out. The relationship between members of social networks and the social networks that they are members of falls under the umbrella of Concept #1 - meaning that the member is not only interrelating with peers on the social network, but expects the social network to act like one too. The deal between the two partners - the member and the network - is a social contract - and a compact. On the one hand, the member is licensing the use of their profile to the network in return for the use of the network. The permission is to use it commercially. This is just the reality of what the purpose of the social network is to its owners. Its either to make money or extend a brand or something akin to that. It isn't a charitable thing, its a business and the social network can reasonably expect that a member who registers understands that. Only an idiot would be so dumb as to think that the social network is there for their pleasure ONLY. It is a business or related to a business typically. That said, the member has the right to expect that the social network will do the judicious thing in the use of their profile - which is publicly revealed private information. The profile - which is an asset to the social network - has to be handled in a way that the member sees as trustworthy. Privacy is somewhat limited by the very fact that this social network is a business and it is social. That word would be social - meaning actions between individuals - which since they are virtual for the most part - means that the profile is at the core of what actions are being taken - which means that the profile, at least in part, is publicly revealed. But the member has the right to control and own the profile. Again, they are licensing its use in a limited way to the social network in return for privileges in the community. That means that while privacy can't be their primary expectation - though some can be expected - trust should be their primary expectation. They trust that the social network will use their profiles according to the social contract/compact that they've both "signed" and that is implied. Some privacy is just a feature of that. Maintenance of ownership and control over the profile by the member is the core to that trust. You all saw what I wrote in last week when Facebook violated that trust. They didn't violate privacy. But they broke that social compact and destroyed trust. So this one is raw also, but if you've got some ideas on it, throw 'em at me. Curveballs are fine, two-seam fastballs, change-ups, all good. Just let me hear from you. These are new and likely to be in the 4th edition when I get to the social network chapters. Help.

Thank You

I just want to thank each and all of you for your emails, and flowers, and baskets, and calls, and Facebook messages to me and my family to support us in this difficult time following the death of my father. Its odd but the comfort that I got from the emails and the messages via Facebook was powerful beyond that layer of emotional disconnection that emails etc. are supposed to provide. It genuinely helps me and gets me through the tougher days to know that you care.

I can't tell you how much you all mean to me. You're not anonymous and you're not just "readers" and you're not even just "friends." Each one of you means something to me that is distinct, separate and wonderful.

I'm not sure what else to say and, as you know, for me, that's rare so......

Thank you each and all. You help piece me together each day and you bring me peace.

Please Read - Then Watch

I'm sorry that I haven't been active for the last week or so. My wonderful father, passed away last week and I've been with my family, dealing with that. He was 93, one of the kindest, sweetest, gentlest, people ever and a great dad to me and my brother. I'm not going to go into a long thing here about it. I just want you to understand where I've been.

I feel that I still owe you something so I'm reproducing a great slide show from Thomas Vanderwal, one of the social software, social graphic, social everything pioneers and a friend introduced to me by Chris Carfi. He is the creator of folksonomy and social tagging and simply knows his stuff and you would do well to heed it. This is a presentation he did that he posted on slideshare.net. Go through it thoroughly. Its worth it.

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Technorati : folksonomy, social tagging

The Weather Outside's Delightful: My Predictions Last Year Were Frightful

Okay, time for some truly sincere self-flagellation. I'm willing to impale myself on a stake by reviewing how utterly poorly I did on my forecast of a year ago - so here it is. I'm actually cutting and pasting it in without looking at it first so whatever I said and whatever I write about it isn't pre-scripted - so consider this I(trickling) stream of consciousness (barely) as I do it: (My new comments will be in red, though the green ratings are from last year and are my level of confidence which might be a new number this year: (Shattered)

Note that you'll see a number in color after the bullet and prior to the text. That's what I think my odds of being right are. (10) means I have total confidence that I'm going to be vindicated when this long trial is...I mean I'm going to be spot on when the year is done. (5) means, I'm right...no, I'm wrong...no, I'm right...no, I'm wrong...I'm.... (1) means I'm taking a really stupid shot here but ain't I brilliant if I turn out to be right? I'm the next Amazing Randy.

• (8) CRM 2.0 will become more than a buzzword in 2007 and the inexorable march toward the death of "traditional" a.k.a. "classic" - Coke, okay, CRM in 2008 will continue. This will be done through partnerships and alliances rather than home grown "pure" CRM products. However, there will be a marriage of the "social web" products and services with the CRM technology vendors partnering with the blog producers, wiki whackers and especially social networking softwares/services (or acquiring them) to provide a more useful collaborative experience for customers and partners/suppliers/vendors. The framework for CRM will finally change to the point that the old META definition of operational, collaborative, analytic will be put to rest once and for all. Watch for a new feature-function-business rules-technological architecture CRM 2.0 framework by 4th quarter of 2007. (OK. I was partially right about this. The social web products and services are now part of the CRM landscape but they were homegrown, not too much in the way of partners at all -as we saw with the Oracle OpenWorld and SAP announcements in December. Also, I would say that the framework, while dramatically advanced by the salesforce, Oracle, SAP, etc. platform push in 2007, is not done yet but technologically on its way. So, my head and heart were in the right place, but my feet and hands seemed to be where my hands and feet should have been. I'd call myself CLOSE ENOUGH)
  
• (5) The customer experience will be the defining characteristic of 2007 corporate strategy and the old CRM formulation of People-Process-Technology will be replaced by a focus around mapping customer interactions and providing the tools to enhance the customer's experience with the company. This is already a work in progress with companies like Disney Destinations changing their approach through changing their acronym from CRM - customer relationship management to CMR - customer managed relationships. However, this doesn't mean that PPT will be entirely replaced. It does mean it will be subsumed to new strategic formulations built around the customer experience and experience mapping and design will be a major component of contemporary corporate activity. That is presuming both the CRM world and the experience design worlds which currently co-exist, can get over their arrogant attitudes to each other. With CRM trying to stuff the experience design/mapping into a convenient CRM pothole and the experience design guys trying to poo-poo CRM entirely. Why don't both of you big babies get over it and just work together (C'mon people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now...) (My waffling was entirely justified by this because while more and more companies recognized the value of the customer experience in shaping their business success as 95% of the respondents did in a CScape 2007 survey, only 38% of them were even mapping out the customer touchpoints AND traditional CRM software continued to sell at a record pace ($7.4 billion or thereabouts in 2007 according to Gartner), AND there was no discernible change in the relationship between the traditional CRM advocates and the CEM advocates, proving once again, humans can be stubborn a-holes when they want to be, despite the glories of the species. I'd call myself EH, SORTA RIGHT, SORTA WRONG on this one)
  
• (4) The 6Cs of the new customer will become the new business model that drives the era from 2007 beyond (if it were 2008, I'd make that a (7))
• 1. Collaborative - communities
  2. Contextual - Context driven advertising
  3. Content-driven - user generated content
  4. Connected - mobile & social networking
  5. Conversational - death of the 4Ps in marketing
  6. Creative - Co-creation of value
• What this means is that user generated content, experiential marketing, experiences as commodities and business as an aggregator of experiences that include products and services - among other things - will be more than just experimental but will break into the mainstream of both mindshare and market share. The Proctor & Gambles on the big boy enterprise side and the Threadlesses on the little guy disruptive side will become much more common than they have been. Because the customer is looking for it and wants it that way. AND it makes good business sense. (I think about 2/3 right on this. It certainly has broken into the mainstream of mindshare but I think that most companies are still wrestling with how to actually do something with what they know they should be doing. The impact of social media has been profound and the subject almost beaten to death in the business publications, the political world, and on that old school network TV news. But most companies still haven't figured it out - though about half of them have begun to do blogging according to most studies. A step in the direction. I'd say for me, PRETTY DAMNED CLOSE works)
• (7) As I mentioned earlier, I don't think that open source CRM will be a disruptive element in any way or set any bars. However, I think there will be some impact on the enterprise from the free CRM programs that are entirely web-based. Companies like Zoho who put on social networking tools like ZohoWiki and CRM tools that are functionally pretty decent like ZohoCRM, or Zimbra who have a collaboration suite that can be utilized online or through the salesforce.com AppExchange, will start to make some headway into the small business market since their price is nearly free or free. The reason for their increased access will be the vacating of the SMB market that I think we'll see in 2007 by salesforce.com, NetSuite and several other CRM vendors as they move upmarket and start scaling up to the enterprise level deployments that will put them in league with SAP, Oracle and even Microsoft. I don't think this will be much more than a trickle in the coming year because they don't have the buzz yet nor do they have the functional chops that the companies vacating the space have, but they do have enough value to grab a foothold in the SMB space. (I was right in that this year was a trickle. Zoho is going to make its bones in 2008 with the release of its business edition, I suspect, but actually there are a number of on demand and even on premise CRM applications and services that are moving in the SMB space like InfusionSoft and EBSuite who provide solid CRM functionality for small businesses that began to have an impact in 2007. The one thing I didn't see coming was that SugarCRM as an open source platform got interesting with the release of their 5.0 version and promises to be more interesting when they incorporate the social media tools - a different subject, still not disruptive, but a new value for open source CRM. I'd say NEARLY PERFECTO on this one)
• (7) Companies like Rearden Commerce will begin to show up on the horizon as service oriented architectures begin to blossom more fully and become the foundation of the bulk of the enterprise IT architectures over the next three or four years. 2007 is the year that the companies that provide business/prosumer services attached to their offerings will begin to become a niche unto themselves. Rearden will continue to own the space - especially in light of their deal with American Express. Rearden Commerce itself will have a breakout year as its deal with American Express begins to generate both market share and buzz like crazy. Also, it doesn't hurt that Rearden has the first fully realized SOA on the IT side of the house. First to market is HUGE for Rearden and 2007 is their year. (Right about SOA becoming the ubiquitous technological architecture - devoutly to be desired and actively pursued as the IT department architecture of choice. But not as right about Rearden Commerce. Did fine, wasn't so huge. I'd say PRETTY STRATEGICALLY COOL; BUT TACTICALLY DORKY for me on this one)

• (9) Social networking and other forms of 2.0 driven applications and services will be integrated with CRM and enterprise applications. But not as I originally thought - through building or acquiring the companies that make the assets. Instead we'll see partnerships and OEM relationships etc. between the social networking companies and particularly, the on demand vendors to integrate the functionality of social networking and user collaboration, especially with CRM vendors. The on demand vendors like salesforce.com & NetSuite in particular are best positioned to do this but I also see SAP being savvy enough to do this kind of collaboration, though if any one company would build their own, it would be SAP. This may portend something of a revival for Lotus Notes as a collaboration platform and toolset. Though maybe not. That's going to be up to IBM - who have good people at the Lotus helm, but have been terrible about their marketing and positioning of Notes. We all might be surprised - and not unhappily. (I must have done this on about an hour of sleep since this is awfully close to being the same entry as the first one. The only difference is that I said SAP might build their own and Lotus might surprise. Right, and not right, not wrong with that. What makes this entry all the more remarkable is that I gave the top entry an 8 and this one a 9! Wow. That shows you the value of forecasting. See CLOSE ENOUGH GIVEN THAT I WAS ASLEEP with the added two adjectival comments on SAP and Lotus as my result here)

• (2) Web 2.0 will finally get another name though 2.0 will remain the buzzword/cliche that drives us all to distraction when it comes to naming new technologies, applications, platform and ANYTHING that smacks of peer to peer. How about "the Social Web?" This works, n'est ce pas? After all, they have a name for Web 3.0 already - The Semantic Web - so why not 2.0? Come ON, papi. (Sadly, this one fully justified my 2 (dot oh). I was TOTALLY WRONG as Web 2.0 the Term 2.0 Continues 2.0 to Drive 2.0 Us 2.0 to Distraction 2.0)

• (7) I said this up top, so look to there for some of the rationale, but mobile CRM will become something to be reckoned with in 2007 with the Blackberry platform leading the way - especially as RIM continues to roll out successful Pearl-looking super-stylish phones that have their already heavy-duty and secure push functionality. Already significant numbers of vendors are developing mobile CRM applications/services and almost all are doing it for at least the Blackberry and then the Treo. (Pretty much CORRECTIMUNDO on this one with the caveat that I didn't see that the coming iPhone would be looked at as a business phone. To wit, SAP produces CRM for the Blackberry and the iPhone)

• (9) CRM and social customer related blogs, podcasts, and vlogs will continue to proliferate in 2007 in all kinds of interesting and unique ways that we have yet to "aha" about. This, despite Gartner's prediction that the blogosphere will level at 100,000,000. That's kind of a funny one actually. Because, what does it really matter whether it levels at 100,000,000 or 150,000,000 or 200,000,000? You or anyone you know gonna read most of them? Its a helluva lot of blogs no matter how you cut it and it also indicates the level of influence by sheer weight (not necessarily quality or originality) that the blogs carry. Speaking of which, there is a guy named Jesus Hoyos who runs a blog called "CRM En LatinoAmerica" that has a great listing of current CRM related blogs. Check it out here. This is the best compilation of CRM related blogs I've seen. The site is in Spanish and English but this is a universal set of links. (This one was easy. I was TOTALLY RIGHT. Interestingly, since last year, I've met Jesus Hoyos and he is amazing AND through BPT Partners, we are partnered with his organization Customers Forever - a Latin American consortium of CRM related companies, institutions and individuals)

• (25) I'm not going to predict "consolidation in the industry" since that's a cliche and consolidation in all industries is going to always go on. To predict "continued consolidation" is to predict "the sun will come up - tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar, that tomorrow, there'll be sun..." So screw it. I rank THAT one 25 on a scale of 10. (What can I say? Oracle alone makes this right every year. This year look at Cognos and Business Objects. Oh, that's right, you can't. They're IBM and SAP now, I forgot. This one is ALWAYS TOTALLY RIGHT)

So, all in all, not too shabby I don't think. I did better than I thought when I began cutting and pasting. So ruminate, comment, do your thing on this. Disagree and pound me into dust. Agree and make me feel like buttered cinnamon raisin toast or....something.

Next up: Number 3 of 4: The Analysts Forecast and I Either Agree or Mock Mercilessly.

Technorati : CRM, Forecast 2008, Web 2.0, customer relationship management, social media

Note that you'll see a number in color after the bullet and prior to the text. That's what I think my odds of being right are. (10) means I have total confidence that I'm going to be vindicated when this long trial is...I mean I'm going to be spot on when the year is done. (5) means, I'm right...no, I'm wrong...no, I'm right...no, I'm wrong...I'm.... (1) means I'm taking a really stupid shot here but ain't I brilliant if I turn out to be right? I'm the next Amazing Randy.

• (8) CRM 2.0 will become more than a buzzword in 2007 and the inexorable march toward the death of "traditional" a.k.a. "classic" - Coke, okay, CRM in 2008 will continue. This will be done through partnerships and alliances rather than home grown "pure" CRM products. However, there will be a marriage of the "social web" products and services with the CRM technology vendors partnering with the blog producers, wiki whackers and especially social networking softwares/services (or acquiring them) to provide a more useful collaborative experience for customers and partners/suppliers/vendors. The framework for CRM will finally change to the point that the old META definition of operational, collaborative, analytic will be put to rest once and for all. Watch for a new feature-function-business rules-technological architecture CRM 2.0 framework by 4th quarter of 2007. (OK. I was partially right about this. The social web products and services are now part of the CRM landscape but they were homegrown, not too much in the way of partners at all -as we saw with the Oracle OpenWorld and SAP announcements in December. Also, I would say that the framework, while dramatically advanced by the salesforce, Oracle, SAP, etc. platform push in 2007, is not done yet but technologically on its way. So, my head and heart were in the right place, but my feet and hands seemed to be where my hands and feet should have been. I'd call myself CLOSE ENOUGH)
  
• (5) The customer experience will be the defining characteristic of 2007 corporate strategy and the old CRM formulation of People-Process-Technology will be replaced by a focus around mapping customer interactions and providing the tools to enhance the customer's experience with the company. This is already a work in progress with companies like Disney Destinations changing their approach through changing their acronym from CRM - customer relationship management to CMR - customer managed relationships. However, this doesn't mean that PPT will be entirely replaced. It does mean it will be subsumed to new strategic formulations built around the customer experience and experience mapping and design will be a major component of contemporary corporate activity. That is presuming both the CRM world and the experience design worlds which currently co-exist, can get over their arrogant attitudes to each other. With CRM trying to stuff the experience design/mapping into a convenient CRM pothole and the experience design guys trying to poo-poo CRM entirely. Why don't both of you big babies get over it and just work together (C'mon people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now...) (My waffling was entirely justified by this because while more and more companies recognized the value of the customer experience in shaping their business success as 95% of the respondents did in a CScape 2007 survey, only 38% of them were even mapping out the customer touchpoints AND traditional CRM software continued to sell at a record pace ($7.4 billion or thereabouts in 2007 according to Gartner), AND there was no discernible change in the relationship between the traditional CRM advocates and the CEM advocates, proving once again, humans can be stubborn a-holes when they want to be, despite the glories of the species. I'd call myself EH, SORTA RIGHT, SORTA WRONG on this one)
  
• (4) The 6Cs of the new customer will become the new business model that drives the era from 2007 beyond (if it were 2008, I'd make that a (7))
• 1. Collaborative - communities
  2. Contextual - Context driven advertising
  3. Content-driven - user generated content
  4. Connected - mobile & social networking
  5. Conversational - death of the 4Ps in marketing
  6. Creative - Co-creation of value
• What this means is that user generated content, experiential marketing, experiences as commodities and business as an aggregator of experiences that include products and services - among other things - will be more than just experimental but will break into the mainstream of both mindshare and market share. The Proctor & Gambles on the big boy enterprise side and the Threadlesses on the little guy disruptive side will become much more common than they have been. Because the customer is looking for it and wants it that way. AND it makes good business sense. (I think about 2/3 right on this. It certainly has broken into the mainstream of mindshare but I think that most companies are still wrestling with how to actually do something with what they know they should be doing. The impact of social media has been profound and the subject almost beaten to death in the business publications, the political world, and on that old school network TV news. But most companies still haven't figured it out - though about half of them have begun to do blogging according to most studies. A step in the direction. I'd say for me, PRETTY DAMNED CLOSE works)
• (7) As I mentioned earlier, I don't think that open source CRM will be a disruptive element in any way or set any bars. However, I think there will be some impact on the enterprise from the free CRM programs that are entirely web-based. Companies like Zoho who put on social networking tools like ZohoWiki and CRM tools that are functionally pretty decent like ZohoCRM, or Zimbra who have a collaboration suite that can be utilized online or through the salesforce.com AppExchange, will start to make some headway into the small business market since their price is nearly free or free. The reason for their increased access will be the vacating of the SMB market that I think we'll see in 2007 by salesforce.com, NetSuite and several other CRM vendors as they move upmarket and start scaling up to the enterprise level deployments that will put them in league with SAP, Oracle and even Microsoft. I don't think this will be much more than a trickle in the coming year because they don't have the buzz yet nor do they have the functional chops that the companies vacating the space have, but they do have enough value to grab a foothold in the SMB space. (I was right in that this year was a trickle. Zoho is going to make its bones in 2008 with the release of its business edition, I suspect, but actually there are a number of on demand and even on premise CRM applications and services that are moving in the SMB space like InfusionSoft and EBSuite who provide solid CRM functionality for small businesses that began to have an impact in 2007. The one thing I didn't see coming was that SugarCRM as an open source platform got interesting with the release of their 5.0 version and promises to be more interesting when they incorporate the social media tools - a different subject, still not disruptive, but a new value for open source CRM. I'd say NEARLY PERFECTO on this one)
• (7) Companies like Rearden Commerce will begin to show up on the horizon as service oriented architectures begin to blossom more fully and become the foundation of the bulk of the enterprise IT architectures over the next three or four years. 2007 is the year that the companies that provide business/prosumer services attached to their offerings will begin to become a niche unto themselves. Rearden will continue to own the space - especially in light of their deal with American Express. Rearden Commerce itself will have a breakout year as its deal with American Express begins to generate both market share and buzz like crazy. Also, it doesn't hurt that Rearden has the first fully realized SOA on the IT side of the house. First to market is HUGE for Rearden and 2007 is their year. (Right about SOA becoming the ubiquitous technological architecture - devoutly to be desired and actively pursued as the IT department architecture of choice. But not as right about Rearden Commerce. Did fine, wasn't so huge. I'd say PRETTY STRATEGICALLY COOL; BUT TACTICALLY DORKY for me on this one)

• (9) Social networking and other forms of 2.0 driven applications and services will be integrated with CRM and enterprise applications. But not as I originally thought - through building or acquiring the companies that make the assets. Instead we'll see partnerships and OEM relationships etc. between the social networking companies and particularly, the on demand vendors to integrate the functionality of social networking and user collaboration, especially with CRM vendors. The on demand vendors like salesforce.com & NetSuite in particular are best positioned to do this but I also see SAP being savvy enough to do this kind of collaboration, though if any one company would build their own, it would be SAP. This may portend something of a revival for Lotus Notes as a collaboration platform and toolset. Though maybe not. That's going to be up to IBM - who have good people at the Lotus helm, but have been terrible about their marketing and positioning of Notes. We all might be surprised - and not unhappily. (I must have done this on about an hour of sleep since this is awfully close to being the same entry as the first one. The only difference is that I said SAP might build their own and Lotus might surprise. Right, and not right, not wrong with that. What makes this entry all the more remarkable is that I gave the top entry an 8 and this one a 9! Wow. That shows you the value of forecasting. See CLOSE ENOUGH GIVEN THAT I WAS ASLEEP with the added two adjectival comments on SAP and Lotus as my result here)

• (2) Web 2.0 will finally get another name though 2.0 will remain the buzzword/cliche that drives us all to distraction when it comes to naming new technologies, applications, platform and ANYTHING that smacks of peer to peer. How about "the Social Web?" This works, n'est ce pas? After all, they have a name for Web 3.0 already - The Semantic Web - so why not 2.0? Come ON, papi. (Sadly, this one fully justified my 2 (dot oh). I was TOTALLY WRONG as Web 2.0 the Term 2.0 Continues 2.0 to Drive 2.0 Us 2.0 to Distraction 2.0)

• (7) I said this up top, so look to there for some of the rationale, but mobile CRM will become something to be reckoned with in 2007 with the Blackberry platform leading the way - especially as RIM continues to roll out successful Pearl-looking super-stylish phones that have their already heavy-duty and secure push functionality. Already significant numbers of vendors are developing mobile CRM applications/services and almost all are doing it for at least the Blackberry and then the Treo. (Pretty much CORRECTIMUNDO on this one with the caveat that I didn't see that the coming iPhone would be looked at as a business phone. To wit, SAP produces CRM for the Blackberry and the iPhone)

• (9) CRM and social customer related blogs, podcasts, and vlogs will continue to proliferate in 2007 in all kinds of interesting and unique ways that we have yet to "aha" about. This, despite Gartner's prediction that the blogosphere will level at 100,000,000. That's kind of a funny one actually. Because, what does it really matter whether it levels at 100,000,000 or 150,000,000 or 200,000,000? You or anyone you know gonna read most of them? Its a helluva lot of blogs no matter how you cut it and it also indicates the level of influence by sheer weight (not necessarily quality or originality) that the blogs carry. Speaking of which, there is a guy named Jesus Hoyos who runs a blog called "CRM En LatinoAmerica" that has a great listing of current CRM related blogs. Check it out here. This is the best compilation of CRM related blogs I've seen. The site is in Spanish and English but this is a universal set of links. (This one was easy. I was TOTALLY RIGHT. Interestingly, since last year, I've met Jesus Hoyos and he is amazing AND through BPT Partners, we are partnered with his organization Customers Forever - a Latin American consortium of CRM related companies, institutions and individuals)

• (25) I'm not going to predict "consolidation in the industry" since that's a cliche and consolidation in all industries is going to always go on. To predict "continued consolidation" is to predict "the sun will come up - tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar, that tomorrow, there'll be sun..." So screw it. I rank THAT one 25 on a scale of 10. (What can I say? Oracle alone makes this right every year. This year look at Cognos and Business Objects. Oh, that's right, you can't. They're IBM and SAP now, I forgot. This one is ALWAYS TOTALLY RIGHT)

So, all in all, not too shabby I don't think. I did better than I thought when I began cutting and pasting. So ruminate, comment, do your thing on this. Disagree and pound me into dust. Agree and make me feel like buttered cinnamon raisin toast or....something.

Next up: Number 3 of 4: The Analysts Forecast and I Either Agree or Mock Mercilessly.

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

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

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

Technorati : bubble, social media, web 2.0

Just A Little Thing Can Go A Long Way --- Down

I don't know Lithium very well. But I got a notice from DestinationCRM - the online home of CRM Magazine - and because its a notice from them - an ad really - I read it. And I was intrigued. The company Lithium, did business focused user communities, putting them, I suppose, in direct competition with Communispace, my current favorite when it comes to facilitated user communities - with reservations that are more conceptual than anything that has to do with Communispace or Lithium. I decided to investigate Lithium a bit and they seemed to have an impressive client list like Cingular, Creative Labs, Salesforce.com, Barnes & Noble, Car & Driver - a diverse list that goes on a good distance. They have all the right buzzwords and components - blogs, engagement communities, support communities, personas - which is the hot new way of categorizing folks - roles on a canvas with broad brush strokes so that you can gear something toward that "type" of role. They seemed to have a reasonable approach to pricing. They have a nice site that has some good educational information - such as their discussion of the types of communities and examples (which I presume, have mostly their clients but that's fine - as long as they represent what they say). The blog is a bit on the weak side - a little bit of fluff really - though not horrible. Their resource page is a bit weak also with some very standard stuff and nothing that is independently derived. But their product offering, which of course is something that matters a great deal seems to be well thought out and RightNow is their chief partner, and that is a company I have a great deal of respect for.

All in all, you'd think, that this is a company that I would want to be covering a lot. Because they are very interesting.

But there is one thing that bothered me - and it nags me and I can't get it out of my head.

There's a page about the management team and each of the management team has his name (unlike Communispace the 8 management team members are all male) and picture and then they each have a statement of one sentence that I suppose reflects their philosophy. And that page bothered me - in general because most of the statements are management truisms - "its all about perspective" or "we'll get it done" and particularly "its a great day to sell software" (which actually isn't what they are selling, I don't think) or whatever. But the one that really, really bothered me was the marketing one - "put a spin on it." I would have imagined that a company dedicated to the business of providing the networks and tools to help companies attain the types of customer relationships that new generations of consumers are demanding would realize that one of the CORE principles of the relationship is that there is an honest, authentic conversation between the company and the customer. That conversation is REQUIRED to get the type of collaboration between the two parties that creates the evangelists that Lithium even talks about in its personas section. "Put a spin on it" doesn't exactly speak to what customers want - which given what is likely the very good work that Lithium does - is disturbing and a bit "off-putting" (I still wonder if that's even a word - but it works here).

I'm not judging Lithium exactly. But this error makes a very interesting example of something that all the Web 2.0 social media, CRM 2.0 companies - especially the solutions or software purveyors - have to be VERY aware of. There needs to be consistency in the messaging and the messaging needs to be focused around conversation.

So Lithium, consider this a mulligan - at least from my standpoint - whether it matters to you or not. I suspect you do very good work and because you deal with Greg Gianforte's company, and you do something that I'm vitally interested in - and seem to do it well - I'm going to be tracking you. But what I'd do if I were you is:

1. Read these two books - The Cluetrain Manifesto and Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want
2. Fix this page. Keep the team, lose the quotes.

I can't say that it makes me warm and fuzzy to read those quotes. I'd love to have a conversation about it though.

Technorati : Cluetrain Manifesto, Lithium, RightNow, authenticity, social networks, user communities

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

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

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

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

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

1. Glory
2. Field of Dreams
   Old Yeller

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

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

Commentary on the Yankees

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

Back to CRM tomorrow.

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