Seriously, I don’t know how Joe and Jane Blogger do it.
I’m only about three weeks into this blogging thing, and already about 13 blogposts behind (I’ve started a list of posts I mean to write, and it’s rapidly exceeding the list of posts I’ve written — which is just what I needed: another ever-growing list of things of things I’m not getting done).
But here’s the beginning of something I’ve been meaning to discuss — the notion of viewing customer interactions from a contrarian point of view.
I don’t just mean being different for the sake of difference — in order to flamboyantly stand out from the competition, or to be seen, for marketing purposes, as (pardon the word) a maverick.
I mean taking an ingrained view — some nugget of conventional wisdom — and turning it on its head, forcing your company, your colleagues, your customers, your industry to see things in a whole new light.
Here’s a recent political poster — ignore for the moment what campaign it’s for; I happened upon it in an artist’s portfolio, removed from its intended political context.
How many gallons of gas per hour are you working for?
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d never thought of my wages in terms of how many of [X] each hour of pay allowed me to purchase, and I’d certainly never put the rise in gas prices in such stark economic terms before. (I live in Manhattan — for those of you who don’t, that phrase translates as “I don’t own a car.”)
That one image forced me to stop and consider all kinds of preexisting notions: my views on the economy, on wages, on the fuel crisis; my own pay and the earnings of those around me, and how those wages are divvied up as a consumer; what my displeasure as a customer — my potential inability to continue purchasing something of value — might mean to me. More on thinking differently, after the break.
It’s the middle of the night as I write this, and while I’m surprised to be posting a blogpost*, that’s not the biggest surprise of the week — I **thought** that was going to be the offer for Epicor, or maybe the VP debates (please don’t get me started; if you read my Twitterstream, you’ll know my opinion) — but while I was head-down all week trying to get our November Special Issue wrapped up, midmarket CRM vendor Entellium seemed to be coming apart at the seams, and CEO Paul Johnston is history—or, worse, deleted from history. [Details after the break...]
[*NOTE: There used to be a rambling opening line here, but I've removed it.]
Epicor Software is one of those companies that, in hindsight, we probably haven’t covered often enough—we certainly don’t play favorites around here, but it’s not always clear why some firms make it onto the radar screen more often than others do.
Yesterday, though, Epicor publicly—and, to be honest, a little coldly—confirmed receipt of a $9.50-per-share offer from Elliott Associates, a roughly 20 percent premium over its previous closing price. So I’m reminded that there’s a massive, healthy, robust CRM industry out there, and we have to be vigilant in keeping tabs on it.
Irvine, Calif.–based Epicor has certainly paid its dues—founded in 1984, it’s been around longer than the CRM industry itself. (Click here to download the PDF of Epicor’s Fact Sheet from the company Web site.) According to the company’s press materials, Epicor was named one of Fortune magazine’s 100 Fastest-Growing Companies in 2006, and serves over 20,000 customers in more than 140 countries—but it isn’t simply a CRM provider; in fact, Epicor boasts of its “integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM) and professional service automation (PSA) software solutions,” and there’s no immediate sign of what share of its customer base is utilizing CRM.
But where has it been hiding? Eight years ago, for example, our longtime friend Chris Selland (who was at Yankee Group at the time) was quoted in our magazine [before my time; I'm just accessing archives] as saying that Epicor was one of the best-kept secrets in the CRM industry: “If it can get its marketing act together, the company has a great integrated front/back office offering for the mid-market and could finally present a real challenge to Pivotal and Onyx.” [More after the break.]
[I tried posting the iMeem player here, but I failed. Instead, you get the clickable link.] [UPDATE, 10/1/08, 10a: Now you've got the clickable link and the iMeem player. Yes, the phrase "live and learn" comes to mind.]
So not only did a week of Oracle OpenWorld pretty much max me out, but now we’re heading into production week on CRM’s November print issue. Another cycle goes by, and another opportunity to improve our offerings slides away with it. So I’m left to console myself with the knowledge that
(a) there’s always next month (these cycles are called cycles for a reason);
(2) we’re making strides (we’re better now than we were, and as long as that continues to be the case, I’ll count myself lucky if not satisfied); and
(iii) we’re working to offer the CRM community the very best content we can, delivered in the best and most sophisticated context possible.
And then I’m reminded that others often are there ahead of us. To get at what I’m getting at, check after the break…
I’m loading this for your reading pleasure, but it needs cleaning up, textwise — which I’ll be doing while it’s live. I’ve now done.
(Someone can correct me if this is inappropriate blogger etiquette. I’m also stripping out my accumulated “drinking game” of the number of times Ellison used the phrase, “Next slide, please.” For the completists out there — or the merely curious — he hit 25.)
Remember the Twitter-feed mantra: reverse chronological order. The entire thing — and I warn you, it’s lengthy — is after the break.
Meanwhile, our earlier Oracle OpenWorld coverage can be found here:
[UPDATE: 9/24, 4.30p PT - The curtain has lifted on "X" - and the answer is, Oracle's now in the hardware business, along with HP and Intel. See the Twitter-feed here, and Lauren's drafting her news story on it as we speak.]
Another new kind of blogpost for us, with a h/t to @ccarfi for inspiring its format: a Twitter-feed repost, but with the occasional annotation that 140-character tweets made tough to include.
#oow08 #X I’m eager to find out if this “X” announcement (4.15pPT, following #Ellison closing keynote) can possibly match the hype.
#oow08 #X The “Extreme Performance” banner at the east side of closed-down Howard St. might be a major clue;that’s a major ad spot for ORCL. [Its counterpart, at the western end of the Moscone Center’s Howard St—a street, btw, that Oracle takes control of each OpenWorld, much to the anger and dismay of local San Franciscans—is a massive series of LED (?) screens arranged in a manner reminiscent of NYC’s Bento-box-like New Museum. I’ll try to find images of each. UPDATE 9/25, 5.30p PT: Here they are:
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, NYC (photo courtesy of www.bdonline.co.uk)
Oracle OpenWorld 2008 sign, at Howard St. & 4th St., SF (Photo by Lauren McKay)
#oow08 #X re: “Extreme Performance”: RT @mgareth RT @chiheacho Andy Mendelsohn drops a tiny hint on mystery news “X” http://snurl.com/Xhint
#oow08 #X In clip,Mendelsohn says, “We’re calling it ‘X’ for ‘extreme performance.’ ” Can it play into cloud computing+collaboration themes? [Those have been the two recurring memes here at OOW’08; the other words that Oracle has pushed—complete, open, secure, integrated—all play in, I suppose, but those two have gotten the heat.]
#oow08 #X RT @mgareth Anticipation builds around the X announcement. read about it @alexgorbachev’s blog: http://snurl.com/Xpythian [I have to admit the folks there are clearly more well-versed than I am when it comes to database matters. (Anyone who knows me can tell you that's a very low threshold to surpass.) Someday I'll submit to a remedial course in the underpinnings of the data world—unless this X announcement is a sign that I may not ever have to? (What's that saying about "if wishes had wings..."?) At any rate, the point here is that these guys, who really know databases, and who have made clear that they expect Ellison will veer from his typical "One FusionApp to rule them all" style of closing keynote, have amassed a lot of anecdotal evidence to support the notion that it's a data-use performance announcement.]
#oow08 #X And Ellison told analysts in June of “a major database innovation that we will announce in September.”
#oow08 #X Thx 2 @alexgorbachev, we have a pulled-but-cached blogpost by Oracle’s Kevin Closson: http://snurl.com/xclosson
#oow08 #X & given the musings of Forrester’s Jim Kobielus http://snurl.com/Xjk I’m ready2believe the news is “storage and data in the cloud”
#oow08 #X #Ellison is coming on after HP’s Mark Hurd, so it’s valid to expect some kind of connection there.
#oow08 #X P.S. I also think Hurd experience at Teradata lets him add more background to intro Ellison’s announcement.
So I guess we’ll have to wait and see; check back after 3.30pPT to see what’s happened, or follow my Twitter feed during The Larry Show to get up-to-the-minute snippets as they happen.
This is an interesting development, in terms of branding.
Let’s leave aside for the moment my perpetually exploding aneurysm about Oracle’s use (and misuse) of the Siebel brand around CRM. (We covered some of that here. And here. And here.)
It’s possible no one cares about this but me — wouldn’t be the first time I got caught tilting at windmills, and almost certainly not the last — but I really do believe there’s a value in consistent marketing messages, and I’m not sure Oracle has really wrapped its head around this when it comes to the “Siebel” name. The most recent policy, as I understand it, is that “Siebel” is the on-premises CRM brand, and “Oracle CRM On Demand” is, well, the on-demand side.
So why were some demos here at OOW occasionally showing “Siebel CRM On Demand”? Beats me. Like I said, let’s leave that aside for now.
There are several folks at Oracle who seem to really get the value of social networking — I tweeted all about Anthony Lye’s wonderful perspective, and I’ll try a blogpost or news story about it before I blow town. But the introduction of a feedback function on Oracle’s Web site — it’s being called Participate now — is a sure sign the company is really making an effort to engage. But part of being transparent means letting customers and the world see the sausage get made, even when you’re not sure what to call the sausage yet.
That current Participate URL looks like this: http://www.oracle.com/participate.html
But it can also be found here: http://www.oracle.com/learnmore.html
And it’s not clear whether there’s a difference, or whether submissions at the two locations end up in the same hands.
Worse still, the concept was actually introduced earlier this month, according to this Oracle blogpost, and at the time is was branded as “Oracle Listens.” The company prebriefed a few analysts, including Charlene Li (who was one of our Influential Leaders this year), and the name seemed to take root — perhaps because, as that Oracle blogpost noted, the Oracle Marketing team has been taking the reins over the wonderful Oracle Mix social community.
So how did we get from Oracle Listens to Oracle Participate? I’m not sure, but I’m hoping someone from Oracle will comment below to let us know.
[UPDATE, 9/24, 9.24a PT (love the synchronicity there!) -- a reply tweet from Oracle's Justin Kestelyn:
@oracletechnet @kitson Same thing; "Participate" is the official name (more descriptive). ]
Whatever the answer, it’s a wonderful change — in fact, in a podcast I just did with Paul Greenberg (that is, a podcast he recorded for his site; we’re multimedia-challenged here, for the time being), I pontificated for a bit about how the shift from “listening” (passive, noncommital, an uncertain outcome) to “participation” (active, engaged, forward-moving) is an excellent metaphor for the transition being made in CRM overall, and I think it’s a sign that the people at Oracle are aware of the difference and that at least the marketing folks know the difference between a mere product name and a true branding opportunity.
Now….who wants to be definitive about this “Oracle/Siebel CRM” thing? Anyone?
Yeah, fine—a cheeky title for a blogpost, but appropriate: I started drafting it at 35,000 feet, aboard my first-ever Virgin America flight, en route to San Francisco for the weeklong marathon known as Oracle OpenWorld. (And, yes, it’s been sitting here in the drafts folder ever since. Have I mentioned I’m still grappling with the immediacy of blogging?)
The other staffers on this blog have a very different kind of fodder for their posts—dispatches from the road, backstories to their daily news pieces, interesting asides they come across while researching their pieces for the print magazine. But I tend to edit more than write these days—every word you read in CRM magazine each month or on destinationCRM.com every day passes under my bleary eyes, to the tune of about 50,000 words monthly. (Yes, we really are that prolific here.)
So my posts may touch on their writing from time to time, but I think I’m more likely to expound on subjects a bit more far afield—while hopefully maintaining a CRM-specific bent. I have the multitasking tendencies of an ADD-afflicted juggler, an insatiable appetite for information both relevant and random, and the blessing/curse of insomnia. (Depending on whom you ask, that combo’s either a creative cornucopia or a recipe for disaster. And, yes, it can be both.)
As it turns out, I’ve been on the road quite a bit more than usual lately, first at Shop.org in Las Vegas last week—my coverage is here, and here—and now OpenWorld. People tend to fall into one of two camps on this topic, and I happen to be among those (the minority?) who love tradeshows and conferences—I think they’re great opportunities to test theories and gauge the pulse of the industry. If my schedule permitted it, I’d hit a show at least every couple of weeks. (On the other hand, about 60 seconds after I register for a show, I begin getting pummeled by PR pitches from well-intentioned folks who’ve glommed my name off the event’s press list. *That* I could do without—not least because I have a serious email addiction coupled with an inability to do email quickly. Do the math.)
All of which brings me back to my current deflowering on Virgin America. And we’ll finally get to the point, after the break…Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s a new format already: A little midday roundup — not to be confused with a wrap-up, mind you — of things happening here at the conference. I may add a few things here as the day rolls on — and perhaps someone with more 1337 skillz than I will take pity on me and send a little mobile-blogging advice my way. (Twitter is the extent of my skills there.)
Neither Lauren nor I made the opening address last night (Sunday), the James Carville, Mary matalin roadshow we’ve all come to know and love over the last 16 years.
I’m loving the fact that Australian and Kiwi bloggers get to date their posts 9/23 already: http://snurl.com/3stza
And of course, our much-adored Paul Greenberg: http://snurl.com/pgreenbe [That's his first post -- of 6! -- from the morning's opening keynote. He's already up to #7, last time I looked.]
And, as a kind of Venn diagram subset of that list, here are some of the wonderful Twitterers I’ve been tracking (and I don’t know all of them personally, so this isn’t a shameless plug): @eddieawad, @pgreenbe (of course), @ccarfi (whom I’m thrilled to have finally met in person), @oracleopenworld, @Mrgareth, @psalinger, @NishantK, @sfranklin1717, @oemperor, and @mfauscette (who seems to be getting one-on-one access to several top Oracle execs, including Anthony Lye and Juergen Rottler). [That's not a complete list, btw - not by a long shot.]
Oracle Mix (Oracle’s social networking platform), where there’s often breaking news: https://mix.oracle.com/
Speaking of breaking news, the “story of the day” mantle goes to the folks who used Twitter to get rescued after they found themselves trapped in a hotel elevator: http://oracleappslab.com/2008/09/21/mix-to-the-rescue/
Also of interest -
Oracle Participate, a user-friendly feedback spot for constructive criticism: http://www.oracle.com/participate.html & http://www.oracle.com/learnmore.html
The new My Oracle Support offering: http://snurl.com/3sv4r “integrates Oracle’s award winning support portal, Oracle MetaLink…”
At the risk of repeating the microblogging I just did over on Twitter — you can find the reverse chronology here (http://twitter.com/kitson) — I wanted to reiterate the experience of the Opening Keynote here at Oracle OpenWorld ‘08.
In particular, let’s talk about the celebrity endorsement and future motivational speaker potential for Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps, who was trotted out like a show pony not once but twice this morning. (And utterly without the 8-medal bling you’d expect him to take everywhere.)
I don’t know the guy, of course, and I couldn’t possibly take anything away from his massive accomplishments, but he’s not suited for this kind of work. From this distance, he seems like a really fine human being who is truly grateful for his success, and capable of real personality when left to his own devices.
But in a one-on-one with Oracle President Charles Phillips, he could barely muster an outline of his daily schedule. (See Lauren’s take, here.) That was a pleasure compared to what followed: More than an hour later, he’d been left to dangle on a hook as bait to entice keynote attendees to sit through not only the end of Phillips’ address but a second (and overly technical) presentation by Todd Georgens, the president and COO of NetApp. (NetApp’s a sponsor of the conference and (more notably) the Wednesday night event with a massively cool lineup of musical acts, including Elvis Costello and Seal. In some kind of sleight of hand that even Ricky Jay couldn’t pull off, two of the few surviving keynote attendees were suddenly tapped from the audience to win backstage passes for Wednesday’s event, and were whisked onstage for a photo op with Phelps.
I don’t think Michael Phelps said a word.
(It’s worth mentioning that the “winners” were so randomly selected that the first person tapped was an Oracle employee, and had to be passed over for the next two. Hope that unlucky soul gets a makeup date with Phelps — that might be the winningest option of all.)
But I digress. The marketing angle here — celebrity endorsement, or in this case (considering Michael Phelps is hardly “endorsing” Oracle software) merely the window dressing of an appearance, is a questionable gimmick, even at best. When it lands somewhere short of that, it runs the risk of tarnishing the entire effort of thousands of employees and staffers to produce a product, service, or (in this case) and event.
We need a Latin translation for “Endorser Beware.” Anyone? Caveat Indorsare?
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