By Mitch Lieberman, vice president, strategic solutions, SugarCRM

Monday, February 15, 2010

People are the fuel that makes “the social engine” run

“The social engine” is my own metaphor for what drives social business. My objective is not to cram the word “social” into the first paragraph as many times as possible — it just looks that way. The reality is that social is top-of-mind, and many people are simply trying to put it all together. So how about this: I have my networks and my media, I talk about CRM, and I do business with people (left that overused word out). Whether you’re talking about Collaboration, Relationships, Knowledge Flows, Engagement, Expectations…. It all comes down to people. At the core, social simply means sharing with other people. In the digital sense, that sharing is done in the open.

“People are the platform”

I wish I could take credit for that statement. Proper attribution goes to Michael Fauscette (@mfauscette on Twitter) from IDC. We both attended the #SCRMsummit last week in Washington. The statement is not some esoteric, bigger than life hyperbole. It is quite simple really. You cannot have any of these things without people. A social business employs people, just as a social customer is reliant upon people. A social business is one that recognizes the amplification effect – the amplification of value by continuously meeting (or exceeding)  the dynamic expectations of the social customer. If you do a good job, other people will hear it. As we are all well aware the converse is certainly true as well.
[Editors' Note: Mike Fauscette's #SCRMsummit blogpost can be found here.]

Co-creation takes people

Co-creation is another one of those terms which seems overly complex, people throw it around, seem to be scared by it. Paul Greenberg reminded everyone that is does not have to be complicated. Wim Rampen writes about it often. I’ll be honest: It’s a term that scares me a bit. I will give a simplistic example, surely to be corrected (but write and learn right?): Say you’re at the local pizza joint and you select a few cool toppings from the “make-your-own” section. But you also want a topping not on the list — say, pineapple. The restaurant doesn’t have pineapple, but makes note of your request. As it turns out, when talking to other patrons, pineapple is an ingredient that’s more popular than the owners had realized. Within a week, the restaurant not only adds the ingredient to the “make-your-own” selections, but adds a pineapple-topped pizza to the standard menu at a special rate.

[Continues after the jump.]

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By Prem Kumar Aparanji, principal consultant, CRM, Cognizant Technology Solutions

Monday, February 15, 2010

I was in the U.S. last week. The journey from Bangalore to Washington, D.C., in itself was quite interesting: A three-hop journey (BLR-DBX-ATL-IAD) that took away ~32 hours of my life, but since I traveled west (& I gained time) I really lost only about 21 hours.

(Yeah, I know, convoluted. This is similar to that guy Louis Wu in the Ringworld series who kept traveling west to extend his 200th-birthday celebrations!)

The reason I was in the U.S. was to “evangelize” social CRM. But before I got to tell parables of The Customer Gospels to the flock, I went for my baptism by the Pope of Social CRM — Paul Greenberg. :)

OK, enough with clichés and cryptic ranting.

I came to the U.S. to attend what became known as the #SCRMSummit and follow it up with meetings with my peers, clients & partners to discuss & get things done around social CRM.

I got more than I bargained for. Caught in Washington, D.C.’s worst blizzard in more than a century, I spent the days cooped up with other thought leaders, analysts, consultants, systems integrators, vendors & practitioners of social CRM. There were 68 of us and, if you hated social CRM, this was the place to obliterate it. (Sorry, you missed the chance — though we’ve been talking about it for weeks now.)

The story of what ended up happening continues after the jump.

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By Kathy Herrmann, partner, Pathlight Solutions

Friday, February 12, 2010

The #SCRM community recently practiced what it’s been preaching when Paul Greenberg pulled together the top thought leaders in SCRM to a summit in Washington. Many thanks to Paul for being the magnet that pulled us all together — and my personal thanks for including me in the event.

Where to start? First, much to my surprise, we had almost-full attendance despite the snow and travel challenges. I was a local and almost got scared from braving the roads, but knew I needed to be there given the number of stellar attendees. And I’m pretty darned sure that’s what motivated the other attendees to brave the travel tribulations too.

What I loved about the group was the open discussion, and sometimes debate, within the conference room and in the evenings’ various social gatherings. We don’t always agree with each other, but everyone handles the debates with professional courtesy and a willingness to evolve their thoughts. That’s how we all grow.

After the jump are the 7 takeaways that struck the loudest chord for me.

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By Brent Leary, cofounder and partner, CRM Essentials

Friday, February 12, 2010

I’m writing this while on a plane, flying back to Atlanta from Baltimore. I’m coming back home from BPT Partners’ Social CRM training event that was headed up by Paul Greenberg (aka The Frientor of CRM). The event was held in Herndon, Va., a stone’s throw from Dulles Airport, which is where I flew to attend the event. But I had to fly out of BWI in Baltimore after having two flights cancelled from Dulles because of the blizzard that hit the Northeast.

I’m writing this after suffering through a 2½-hour delay, which had me sitting a total of eight hours at the airport. I’m tired…and cranky…and hungry, because the five pretzel bits the airline gives you on the flight ain’t cutting it. But, more importantly, I’m happy that I traveled in blizzard conditions and got stranded for a couple of days, because coming to what was eventually dubbed the Social CRM Summit was worth every cancellation of flight, minute of delay, and inch of snow…and that’s truly saying something.

It goes beyond the training, which was stellar. Jeff Pedowitz did a great job going over the practicalities of tying “social” to demand generation efforts. Ryan Strynatka from Radian6 gave a nice demo of his company’s social media monitoring tools, sparking quite a discussion — not just on the tool, but on the subject overall. We performed a couple of interesting case studies that really got our minds (and our creative juices) going. And, of course, PG did his thing. (I can honestly say that he was in the rarest of form. But I knew he would be.)

This is where I stop talking about the training. If you want a blow-by-blow of developments, check out the PDF of all the #SCRMsummit tweets put together by the one and only Esteban Kolsky…who seemed to actually be there with us, even though the weather (and airlines) conspired against him making a physical appearance.

And I’m sure there are already blogs posted about the event that have covered it in ways that make it unnecessary for me to do so here (Brian Vellmure’s write-up is an example). So I’ll talk about it from another perspective. [Editors' Note: That perspective begins after the jump...] Read the rest of this entry »

By Michael Fauscette, group vice president, software business solutions, IDC

Monday, February 15, 2010

Last week, I joined a group of social CRM thought leaders — and representatives from 14 software vendors — for a two-day social CRM summit. The event, led by noted CRM author, blogger, and consultant Paul Greenberg and BPT Partners, was held in Herndon, Va. (See the pic below, taken from the Westin Dulles during the snowstorm that kept most of us there an extra day or so.)

Westin Dulles, Snowpocalypse '10 — #SCRMsummit on February 8, 2010

The event generated some great discussions and networking opportunities. One of the biggest takeaways for me is that SCRM is still in the bleeding-edge-new zone and some really smart people are defining and refining it on an almost-daily basis. I also believe that it’s on the edge of trendy — in other words, it’s starting to attract some people around the edges who are trying to jump on the bandwagon and yet are not “experts” in CRM at all.

I won’t go through my whole social business speech again, but I do want to re-emphasize that “social business” and “SCRM” are not equivalent to “social media” or “social networking.” They are not defined by consumer tools such as Twitter and Facebook either. Social Biz and SCRM are about changing corporate culture and about relationships, IMHO. I also am joining Paul in the decision to stop trying to define and debate the definition of SCRM…it’s time to do.

OK, enough of that — on with today’s point. There are some excellent write-ups already published (CRM Strategies Blog and Brent’s Social CRM Blog) on the summit so I won’t try to recount the whole event, but instead I think I’ll just hit on a few points that I think are worth repeating. [See those points after the jump.] Read the rest of this entry »

By Brian Vellmure, FreeCRMstrategies, @CRMstrategies on Twitter

February 12, 2010

One of the worst snowstorms in the history of our Nation’s capital, the most flight cancellations since 9/11 (almost 6,000), and the closure and inaccessibility of a pre-booked venue were the circumstances surrounding BPT Partners’ Social CRM Certification Training, better known to the Twittersphere as #SCRMsummit.

Despite the obstacles, a little publicized event at a brand new Westin Hotel in Herndon, VA brought together a mix of customers, vendors, and a large majority of the world’s thought leaders on the subject of Social CRM. In all, participants not only descended on the blustery white winterland from all regions of the United States, but also from Canada, Mexico, Columbia, France, The Netherlands, and India. It truly was a global event.

The #scrm Accidental Community was almost completely represented with one largely apparent omission, Esteban Kolsky, who was grounded before he could leave his hometown due to flight cancellations. Esteban made his presence felt during the event and after by assembling the tweets which you can download here to get a sense of the flow of the event. Here are the links from Day 1 and Day 2, and I have more on my take after the jump.

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I don’t know about you, but I am nowhere near completing my holiday shopping. In my defense, I aim to finish up in Kansas City so as to not travel with too many gifts. Not surprisingly, my email inbox this month has been filling up with releases about holiday shopping statistics. I’ve been waiting (procrastinating?) until something really sparked my attention to do some sort of holiday shopping post. Apparently I’m not the only person who waits until the last minute to accomplish tasks. A survey from America’s Research Group (ARG) indicates that one fourth of American consumers are planning to complete their shopping just before Christmas. The reason for procrastination? The hunt for better sales.

According to the ARG survey, 95 percent of those waiting to shop are holding out for greater discounts.  Of the shoppers waiting until right before the holiday, 33 percent want to see 70 percent marked off, 32 percent want to see 60 percent off, and 25 percent want to see 50 percent off.  Britt Beemer, the founder and chief executive officer of ARG, remarks that the expectations for discounting is higher than in previous years.

Another interesting statistic I found comes from a comScore survey about social media’s influence on holiday shopping. According to the survey, 28 percent of online shoppers say that Twitter or Facebook had some sort of influence on their purchases. Additionally, comScore reports that holiday spending hit $16 billion for the first 36 days of the November-December shopping season. That represents a 3 percent gain from the dismal time last year.

Have you used social networking to aid in your holiday shopping this year? I admit that @sephora had a bit to do with an in-store purchase the other day. The retail handle posted something about “great gifts under $20,” so I checked out their online store, and then decided some in-person browsing was necessary. After heading to the 34th Street location on my lunch break, I ended up purchasing a make-up set for my cousin. And the greatest part? When I returned to my desk after my impromptu Sephora excursion, I had an email from them, thanking me for my purchase and giving me a $15 off coupon for next time. Sephora has a pretty impressive loyalty system. I definitely will be back — and that next purchase will likely be a gift… for me.

What facet of social networks do you find most useful when it comes to online shopping? Are you apt to follow a company or become a fan if the retailer offers discounts or promotions on its Facebook or Twitter page? Or are you mostly in it for the peer reviews?

THIS JUST IN: Sephora must have some crazy intuition because I just got another email from them, reminding me of my $15 off coupon. Well played, Sephora… Well played.

• Keep your eyes peeled: you never know who might sit down next to you — a potential mentor, a potential partner, or, in the case of presenter Soren Stamer, a potential wife. Stamer, who presented Tuesday morning on “Surviving and Thriving in a Web 2.0 World” met his wife two years ago at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. The German citizen soon thereafter relocated to San Francisco and the two have, thus far, lived happily ever after in a Web 2.0 world.

• Remember the Skittles social media marketing campaign where they put any and all consumer tweets and Facebook mentions on their homepage? It came as no surprise that people started posting inappropriate messages for a short-lived giggle or claim-to-fame. Who would have guessed that something similar would go down at a conference full of professional adults?

Web 2.0 conference coordinators probably didn’t see this coming when they had the idea to broadcast a real-time Twitter stream on a huge screen on the keynote stage. The tweet stream was enjoyable, albeit slightly distracting, to follow along with. And I’ll admit, I got a little giddy every time my #w2e tweets made it on the screen. The Twitter stream lost its cool factor when some attendees turned on a presenter, making harsh remarks about Danah Boyd’s keynote delivery.

I’ll admit it–Boyd struggled to connect with the audience. She hardly looked up from the document she read straight from and went through her slides at lightening speed. It’s too bad because her concept was intriguing. Boyd’s Twittering post-presentation indicates that she heard laughter in the audience and deflated. Following Boyd’s keynote, the conference coordinators began monitoring the tweet stream, to avoid the rude comments that were previously broadcast. So thenceforth, the stream was a few minutes delayed and only a portion of tweets were streamed. I guess that’s the price that must be paid. Although we are all adults, childish impulses seize to fade.

• Thank you, Chris Brogan for flat out telling me I’m a fool for using Twitter’s Web client. TweetDeck has changed my life … and made me that much more addicted to Twitter.

• Apparently soggy wraps and brick-like sandwiches is all the Javits Center is capable of. Thank goodness for IBM’s Sweet Tweets candy stand. Seriously great idea. If anyone from IBM is reading this, big kudos to whoever hatched that plan.

• I had been missing out on a lot of hilarity occurring on Twitter thanks to The Onion Editor Baratunde Thurston. Please if you haven’t done so already, check out the handle Thurston created, The_Swine_Flu. Receiving a notification saying “The Swine Flu is now following on Twitter” seriously made my day. Thurston spoke about “There’s a hash tag for that” and said, “[Hash tags] seem to be these tiny grassroots movements… They are also a great way to mess with people.” Thurston showed hilarious tweets involving the following hash tags:

#howblackareyou, #worldthinnestbooks, #unseenprequels, #next4dobbs, #webrunchhard, #twammogram, and #greatmomentsintwitterhistory.

Web 2.0 was a lot of fun. Thanks to all the conference staff members, session leaders, and keynote speakers for making it a great show.

At today’s Social Ad Summit in New York City, Wikipedia founder co-founder Jimmy Wales gave a keynote presentation on the art of community — how to term it, time it, tame it, and trust it. Wales is in the midst of a new project called Wikia and said that its growth has followed that of Wikipedia. He described Wikia as a consumer publishing platform where millions of passionate fans come to discover, create and share a shocking abundance of information on thousands of topics. The man knows a thing or two about wikis.

Here are Wales’ five community commandments:

1. It isn’t about crowdsourcing.

Wales rejects the term made popular by Wired magazine editor Jeff Howe. The term, crowdsourcing, Wales said, misidentifies what’s going on on the Internet. The word is drawn from the term “outsourcing” which generally involves cheap labor. This, Wales stated, associates the community with forced labor. People don’t participate in online communities if they don’t want to. It’s more like a bowling alley, Wales suggested. People come to the community to do what they want to do — there’s nothing forced about it.

2. Growth takes time.

On average, Wikipedia entries, grow at a rate of 6-8 percent every month. It’s not like Facebook because Facebook isn’t a community, Wales said. Facebook is a tool that connects already connected communities. Communities, which are building blocks of social networks, take much longer.

The term “wiki,” however, is flourishing. Wales said that “wiki” has surpassed “blog” in search terms.

3. The world is becoming more information dense.

And, Wales stated, culture is getting smarter. Just look at the evolution of popular television shows. I Love Lucy –> Mary Tyler Moore –> Seinfeld. Storylines have become more complex. Take the show Lost, for example, fans gather in Lostpedia to learn more and try to understand the intricate details of the plot and characters. “Shows are now too complicated to watch,” Wales said. Viewers must look to superfans (like the participants in the Lostpedia network) to help them understand what’s happening.

Products are smarter, too — Just look at televisions and recording systems today.

4. Openness is not the enemy of quality.

Wales referenced a study a few years back that showed that, on average, there are four errors in a Wikipedia post. However, the same study found that there are, on average, three errors in each Encyclopedia Britannica post. The speaker said he doubts as many errors are live today; however, he admits that its not perfect. To address misuse and tampering of entries, the Wikipedia team will temporarily protect posts. “But we don’t like it,” Wales said.

Openness is of utmost important with online communities. He then mentioned Canon’s Hacker site in which the company allows a wiki site to educate consumers on how to hack into their Canon cameras and change the hardware. For the most part, though, Wales said, “We haven’t reached the point where companies are embracing this idea.”

5. The world is global.

Wikipedia is converted into more than 175 languages and Wikia is headed down the same path. Wales used superstore Wal-Mart as a comparison. Wal-Mart although dually criticized for this strategy, tapped into the power of business in small towns. The retail giant went into towns deemed too small for most other chains, and found great success.