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VRM Volleys

"Good ideas should stand in their own proven pudding." – Doc Searls

ProjectVRM100
ProjectVRM is one of those Good Ideas.  At its most fundamental, VRM is about "providing customers with tools that make them both independent of vendors and better able to engage with vendors."

From my point of view, there are basic underpinnings such as:

  • I should be able to decide which vendors with which I want to develop relationships
  • I should be able to revoke / change how I grant vendor access to my personal information
  • I should be able to "relate" in a panoply of ways – everything from the mundane ("I want to buy that toaster" or "Hey, I listened to that!") to the sublime ("If I tell you a story once a week, every week, for the next year, can you embroider a shirt for me that illustrates that story?") to the ridiculous ("Please let me know every time you feature a product that has anything even remotely to do with bacon")
  • I should be able to even just put information "out there," and see how creative vendors want to relate with *me*, based on that information
  • I should be able to do all those things anonymously, if I so choose
  • &c, &c, &c.

(By the way, the fundaments of a "You know it's VRM…" document exist here, if you would like to contribute.  I encourage you to please do so.)

There are more that will evolve over time, I'm sure.  This whole VRM thing is a (very early) work in (very early) progress.

So, when someone goes salting the soil before anything has been planted, it definitely gets my hackles up a little bit. (Please read both the original "Fallacies" piece from Graham Hill as well as its counterpoint by Doc.)

We're in the definition and building stages of this thing.  Instead of saying it should be bulldozed, how about helping define its architecture instead?

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Enterprise 2.0 Predictions for 2009

Dion-1
Dion Hinchcliffe from ZDNet put his prognostication prowess to the test with eight predictions for 2009.  Here they are.

1. Tight budgets will drive the adoption of low-cost Web 2.0 and cloud/SaaS solutions.
"This seems like an obvious prediction but how it plays out will be very
interesting…"

2. Online community and 2.0 technologies become a priority for most organizations. "The early data from our IT and Business Outlook Survey for 2009 shows these two areas as a top priority this year for respondents…"

3. Cloud computing will remain one of the biggest new Internet developments.
"The cloud computing story, as compelling as it is today for many
situations, will only get larger in 2009…"

4. Internal use of 2.0 will continue growth in large enterprises while the struggle continues with market-facing 2.0 products.
"We saw widespread internal penetration of social networking and
Enterprise 2.0 in organizations globally in 2008, but the weak story
continues to be the successful creation of online 2.0 products for the
broader marketplace…"

5. The economic climate will at long last drive major advances towards aligning IT with business.
"With little room for error this year, many organizations will finally
close ranks over the IT/business divide to reorganize, respond to new
business conditions, create new revenue streams, and solve
long-standing business challenges…"

6. Mobile platforms and devices will become highly strategic in 2009. "[Mobile] will drive business applications that continue to untether the
workforce, enable virtual organization while connecting workers
together using new collaboration and communication technologies, many
of which will be using 2.0 approaches. If the desktop didn’t completely
die in 2008, it will become almost completely outmoded in 2009…" [ed. – right on. ;-)]

7. SOA goes on a diet, picks up some new tricks, and survives.
"I’ve long been bullish on the ideas of SOA, but very concerned that the
focus is on complicated technology, hard to master skills, and too much
the purview of technologists and not business people…"

8. The massive changes in the business landscape create new 2.0 business opportunities. "While the financial sector has been hit hard, many aspects of it were already online, if in a very 1.0 way…"

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Another “Who Do Customers Trust?” Data Point

Tripadvisor2dcompete2dperceptionssm

An interesting post regarding TripAdvisor, a wildly popular travel reviews site.  The source is here. Key quote: "One thing is certain – consumers would trust other consumers over hotel / company marketing departments any day."

I think the premise of the article is flawed…just because one could create an Eliza-esque (much better, actually, but you get the point) "automatic" review generator, there is still the tie-in to reputation and identity that is required to make those reviews more relevant and worthwhile.

The reason I pulled this out was that the two data points on the left of the graph are quite interesting:

  • 82% of the respondents preferred customer reviews over the hotel’s description
  • 70% of the respondents preferred customer reviews over those of "professional reviewers"

N.B. I strongly dislike the "Will A.I. replace the TripAdvisor model" headline on the original article.  Gah.

Graph Source: Compete Inc. “Consumer Generated Content in Travel” 2007, via the referenced article.

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Tea Leaves

Tealeaves2
Some thoughts on CRM in 2009:

"In terms of CRM product functionality, look for last year’s trend
toward "social CRM" — marked by collaboration tools like wikis and
blogs within the CRM experience — to morph into "cloud CRM," wherein
CRM applications connect to external social-networking sites like
Facebook or LinkedIn, as well as other Web sources, according to 451
Group analyst China Martens."

From here.  (Image from here.)