Now that social media is hitting the mainstream, suddenly people are finding that it’s cool to be a nerd (To be honest, I think the nerds already knew that they were cool when they started to bring “sexy” into their vernacular–that is, you know, in addition to the millions they were making off of something they built in their dad’s garage.). Dave Hendricks, executive vice president of digital marketing technology company Datran Media, opened his morning presentation at the Direct Marketing Association’s DMDays by talking about how nerds/geeks are reveling in all their tech-savvy glory. At the 140 Character Conference,  also in New York this week,  Sharon Glassman (@sharonglassman), an author, Huffington Post blogger, and speaker, performed a song she wrote about “Nerds, Dorks, & Geeks.” Geeks, she said, are passionate, dorks are charming, and nerds are brilliant. It was entertaining – you can listen to the song on her Web site, but last I checked, the link was broken…

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to attend a couple sessions at the Direct Marketing Association’s DMDays here in New York. More attendee tweets can be found at here under the hashtag #dmdays. I’ve fleshed out and added links to the original tweet stream below.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I wrote a story for destinationCRM.com about Maximizer Software’s announcement of its Mobile CRM branding. Along with the press release, the folks at Maximizer passed along a YouTube video that demonstrates the need for accessing CRM, even on-the-go.

The video is pretty funny, and as Laurie McCabe (SMB analyst with AMI-Partners) points out, it’s a good attempt at viral marketing.

The topic of smartphones brings me back to Tim Bajarin’s keynote at the dCRM conference last week. Bajarin, who rubs elbows with Steve Jobs, says:

“These devices will represent 70 percent of all phones sold in the us by 2012. That is a huge change in thinking.”

Bajarin goes on, saying that generation Y will not even consider using a regular cell phone anymore. A phone without a text keyboard? Forget about it.

Mobile CRM makes sense. CRM is not an industry that ties its employees to desks. Sales and marketing people are often traveling and doing business whenever and wherever. Recently, I had the privilege to have dinner with a several CRM vendors, one of whom sells mobile CRM solutions for BlackBerry. At one point during the evening, the man next to him turned and said, “I need you.” He shared that all through the day at the destinationCRM exhibit hall, he was meeting people, making contacts, and taking business cards. He was frantically writing down information on the back of the business cards so that when he goes back and enters the contacts into his CRM system, he will hopefully be able to put a face to the name. However, as he told the mobile CRM guy, if he would have been able to pull up the CRM database on his BlackBerry, it could have been done in seconds.

I recently purchased a smartphone, mostly because I wanted to be able to check email on the road. I won’t share which kind of phone it is, but I will tell you that it’s not an iPhone or a BlackBerry. I have found myself, even after having the phone for about six months now, discovering new features and using it in new ways. Perhaps my favorite application is the quick access to Google Maps. [It means I don't have to bring my old fold-out map with me when trekking through new areas of the city. Basically, it allows me to still look "cool" in New York, even when I am incredibly lost and confused.]

Talks of mobile CRM has seemed to have taken conferences — and headlines — by storm. In the words of my dear colleague, Jessica Tsai, “Dude, I’m so relevant.”