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About
Notes and views on CRM, open business models, and what the Web means for customer relationships. [more]
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Speaking at:
IIR's Mobile CRM, Bupadest, Dec 2008
Telecoms CRM, CEM and User Experience 2008
Linkblog
Photos
links for 2008-10-20
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Software projects have lived in the future more than in the present for as long as I remember. I'll argue that it pays to be ready for what comes next - when you know what comes next. Alas, more often it's about "what if we need this and that". No, you won't need most of it.
Quote of the day
John Jantsch of the Duct Tape Marketing fame asks, What is Main Street Anyway?
So, in my view, Main Street is not a place so much, and sadly, it is almost never a small town street anymore, it is, I think, a state or mind. And that state of mind exists in the hearts, sweat, passion, frustration, ingenuity and creativity of small business owners in every corner of America.
Yes, and the Main Street did not lose any of its value this week, unlike the stocks.
links for 2008-10-10
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Needs will shift not disappear, yes, but the pie will get smaller no matter how you look at it.
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No, you cannot please everyone. As a company, however, you should make sure that your business rules and processes make sense even in non-standard situations. That *isn't* hard to do given the modeling / simulation toolkit we have at our disposal.
links for 2008-10-07
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Turns out customers are not always right. Obviously, only listening to whatever your customers say isn't a sound strategy; that's abdicating your role as the your firm's "driver". I say it's good that we've tried both extremes: not listening at all, and being led by the customer's whim. Not it's time for synthesis.
links for 2008-10-06
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A useful reminder why waterfall development poses undue burden on everyone involved, and my a small-a agile approach makes a lot of sense (not the CAPITAL A one since that’s a religion).
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Danny O’Brien shares his concerns about Google’s Android. For me, the one big win is that the operators won’t be able to screw this up - only Google can.
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Yes! First, don’t use PowerPoint at all. Second, interact instead of just talk.
links for 2008-10-04
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No free lunch? Really? I suppose we the web folks will need to re-learn Econ 101 sometime soon.
Quote of the Day
Ron Shevlin takes on social media douchebags:
You don’t need a social media strategy. I absolutely hate hearing from the social media dou… er, experts…that firms need to have a social media strategy. Firms need a customer engagement strategy — how should they, and how can they — interact (or engage) with customers in a more meaningful way that creates and deepens the relationship. I will keep saying this over and over until the social media proponents begin to understand: Blogs and wikis and Facebook are not the only ways to engage customers. Face to face works. The phone can work. Direct mail can work. Any touchpoint can work. If you’re a bank or credit union, it doesn’t matter one single iota that 100 million people are on Facebook — unless they want to interact with banks and credit unions there. And that’s far from a proven fact.
Customer engagement strategy - absolutely!
From what I remember about Credit Unions when I was in the States, they get a lot more personal than banks. Hence the role of face-to-face, phone, etc.
I suppose that social media experts, as well as yours truly, are arguing for the use of “2.0″ toolkit because firms either
- don’t employ them at all, or worse yet
- employ then in a mistaken belief that the Web is just another channel
A company that is conversational, ie. treats its customers as partners rather than a prey to be hunted, such a company will eventually reach out also using “2.0″ means, if and when its customers are ready for it. It can lead the way and pull its customers there, or wait until it gets pulled there by them; both is all good and well.
What doesn’t work is marching into Facebook with the same old rusty weapons, looking for another “segment” to bombard with “messages”, with a “social media strategy” paper at hand.
I hope that once the credit crisis blows over, many more companies will be doing the former, if not for any other reason that because they won’t have marketing budgets for the latter. Hyped up or not, the social web is here to stay, and sooner or later the companies will learn to live with it.
links for 2008-10-03
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Carriers still miss those days when they have a near-absolute control over the whole delivery chain. I'd hope that T-Mobile would wisen up quickly.
links for 2008-09-30
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Berlin is close, I might be going.
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I hope! Assuming it can attract as many developers as the iPhone, and assuming it doesn't have to be a "sex object" to be successful, how quickly can it get "mainstream" customers without going on a carrier offensive as iPhone did with 3G? Bets are still open.
links for 2008-09-29
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A couple of hints about what the revenue model of Android apps might be. Will it come down to ads, and more ads? Given Google's obvious interests, it might - but then, what works on the internet does not translate well on the mobile side.
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