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Is Oracle “Web 2.0-Washing”?

For those who follow the enterprise software space, there is some news this week regarding Oracle’s latest release of their CRM product.  However, there are really two stories here:  what Oracle is doing with the CRM product, and how they are engaging with the market.

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Touted as being filled with "Web 2.0" goodness, the new release seems to allow consumption of a number of external services via RSS feeds, as well as allowing sales reps to customize their personal start pages within the app or include CRM gadgets in iGoogle or a presumably a Yahoo start page.

While an interesting technical step forward, the fundamental embrace of true, big-R customer Relationships is still missing.  The product, the presentation, the glossy online video demo — it’s not about the Customer — it’s all about how the two fictional sales reps are closing the next deal.  I was also quite amused that the crowning glory in the video — "closing
the deal" and the subsequent high-five — was only able to be accomplished by offering an increased
discount to the prospect.  Sales VPs everywhere cringe at the thought.

What disappointed in this first look at the Web 2.0-ified version of the software is it’s still about the bloody transaction. It’s not about the relationship.  What’s the difference, you ask?  Doc Searls lays out the story in this article from Linux Journal last year.  Doc:

"Transaction rules the Industrialized world. Here prices are set by
those who control the manufacturing, distribution and retail systems.
Customers do have an influence on prices, but only in the form of
aggregate demand. The rates at which they buy or don’t buy something
determines what price the ‘market’ will bear — in a system where ‘market’ means aggregated demand, manifested in prices paid and
quantities sold. Here the whole economic system is viewed mostly
through the prism of price, which is seen as the outcome of tug between
supply and demand.

Price still matters in the developing world, Sayo said, but
relationship matters more. It’s a higher context with a higher set of
values, many of which are trivialized or made invisible when viewed
through the prism of price. Relationship is not reducible to price,
even though it may influence price."

The presentation of this app is all about consumption.  It’s about consuming external services, and even the "social networking" features that are included are about consuming interpersonal capital — there’s not the concept of actually connecting a customer and a sales rep via social networking as far as I can tell (someone please correct me if this is not the case).  Instead, the social networking feature is yet another take on the "how can I exploit the social graph to wangle an introduction to a prospect?"  (Click the picture to see it expanded.)

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There’s a second story here that is of note.   In bringing this product to market, Oracle reached out to a number of bloggers (myself included) prior to the formal release date, in the same way that organizations typically pre-brief analysts and traditional journalists.  I would wager that this plan was a part of a strategy that was designed to "push the limits of communication mediums" and "leverage the blogosphere" in order to "gain visibility and control [the] message."  So, I give Oracle points for bringing another constituency to the table but, at the same time, am still not entirely sure if this is a step on a path of increasing openness and engagement, or was simply a new tactic added to the traditional "push"-oriented marketing arsenal.

Time will tell if this new release is "Web 2.0-washing," a la "greenwashing" where traditional companies try to spin something that they are doing as green or eco-friendly, or if Oracle starting to move on a path to greater clueship.  What do you think?

More coverage here:
Paul Greenberg: I Shall BE Re-leee-sed – as Has the Siebel CRM on Demand Release 15 Embargo
Denis Pombriant: Little Deuce Coupe
Erika Morphy: Oracle Ventures Into Web 2.0 Universe and CRM Bloggers are People Too
Phil Wainewright: Oracle Skins CRM with Social Networking
Chris Buchholz: Oracle Gets All 2.0 With Release15
Brent Leary: Blogger Relationship Management – Oracle Steps Up

Note: In this post, I’m not trying to take a shot from afar…I’d actually
prefer to ask these questions on Oracle exec Anthony Lye’s blog or the
blog of their PR contact Aaron Wessels, but 10 minutes of Technorati
searching and searching on the Oracle site itself turned up nothing of
the sort on either count.  So, although the message is buzzword-compliant, I’m still not 100% convinced that the embodiment is actually there.  I’ve an email into Aaron to see if I missed
blogs that they may be doing and will post an update here if I find
anything out.

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Off Topic: Help Bring The Monkeys To San Jose!

This piece, Homouroboros, is one of the largest, most ambitious zoetropes ever
created, and public exhibition of the piece will establish a new level
of interactivity for public art.  This piece has a chance to live in an engaging public space in San Jose.  Learn more about the piece and how you can help here.

Having seen it firsthand in the desert last year, it is, hands down, one of the coolest things, ever.  During the day it appears like a series of frozen statues or, moving back a little further, a mushroom cloud.  However, at night, perfectly-timed strobe lights illuminate the sculpture as it turns, creating the illusion of the monkeys swinging from branch to branch and taking a sharp right turn on the Garden of Eden story.

Here’s a link to the piece in action on YouTube; the zoetropic effect kicks in at the 30 second mark.  Really, really brilliant engineering.

If you can help, please do so.

Monkey_dusk_resized

A big shout out to Melissa Alexander at the Black Rock Arts Foundation and Exploratorium veteran who is making this happen through sheer force of will.

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How Much Does Price Matter?

Joe Andrieu: "Only in the simplest commodity markets is pricing ever the sole factor.
Whether you focus on relationships and conversations or the 20th
century model of brand-driven differentiation, there are lots of
factors that influence a transaction at least as much, if not more,
than price."

You can find the whole conversation here.  Worth a read.

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SXSW Unofficial Pocket Guide

Just in time for SXSW, I am really pleased to announce that Cerado has launched a handy "Unofficial Pocket Guide" that is based on the beta of Cerado Ventana. It’s a mobile-friendly SXSW widget that gives you quick access to:

– People
– Agenda
– Books that authors will be signing in the book lounge
– FAQ

It looks killer on the iPhone, and Koan reports that it works similarly sexily on the Nokia N95.

For the People tab, we’ve built a self-reporting directory (instead of scraping the registration database for everybody’s information).  Adding yourself is like adding a blog comment: enter info, click submit, see it immediately.  No email addresses; just your name, photo, and URL.

If you fancy yourself an Early Adopter, feel free to add yourself to the People listing.  Go to the People tab, and simply click "+" — that’s it.  (We recommend using your Twitter stream or Blog URL as your primary link, but you can also link to your Facebook or LinkedIn or other profile as well — how ever you want people who see you at SXSW to keep tabs on you.)

The homepage is here:  http://sxsw.cerado.com/

And you can jump directly to the "Add Yourself" form as well.

Takes two minutes.  Tops.

Here’s what it looks like (click the images to expand).

SXSW Unofficial Pocket Guide - People   

SXSW Unofficial Pocket Guide - Agenda   

SXSW Unofficial Pocket Guide - Shop

However, when building this, we also realized that the whole world isn’t mobile. (Yet.)  So, it’s also available as a widget that you can put on your blog.

The blog widget looks like this:

(RSS readers, you can view or get the blog widget here.)

Major kudos to Sarah Dopp on her mad project management skillz in helping to make this happen.

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A Great^H^H^H^H^H Post By David Hornik

David Hornik writes a post that sums up something that I’ve been thinking about lately, having reviewed a number of pitches and proposals that fall into this trap.  David:

"Adjectives are not convincing. Facts are convincing. I may not agree
with the conclusions a company draws from those facts. But I will at
least be in a position to appropriately assess those conclusions.
Whereas adjectives are all about conclusions without the underlying
facts. As an entrepreneur, you are far better off having me determine
that your market is "massive," your founders are "brilliant," and your
product is "elegant," than to tell me that your company has "an elegant
solution serving a massive market designed by brilliant founders." So
reread your pitch and remove all of the adjectives. It will go
massively, monumentally, gargantuanly. colossally better that way."

This one is getting taped to the monitor, just a short reach away from the copy of Strunk and White.

(hat tip to andrew anker for the ^H idea. heh.)

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Sell This Man A Car!

David Cushman is doing a little experiment in being a connected, active customer.  Here’s the skinny.  David:

Images
“There’s a prize at stake, of sorts. The winner gets to sell me a car.

I
want to buy a Toyota Yaris – and I’m going to blog about this fact (and
twitter a bit) to see if this simple piece of disaggregated content
gets picked up by someone savvy enough to sell me one.

It’s also a
test of word of mouth because it’s possible that the dealer (owner?)
with the car I want isn’t clued up… but he might know a friend, or a
friend-of-a-friend who is.

So let’s begin.

I’m in the UK.

I am looking for Deals on a new Toyota and I
want a low mileage Toyota Yaris in either T3 or TR spec, registered
late 2006 onwards (new shape one). Must have aircon of some form.
Ideally 1.3 petrol but will consider 1.0. Probably go for the five
door. My wife prefers silver (and it will be her car). Ex-demo would be
ideal.”

Now, again, there are some basic channels through with customers and vendors typically interact.  From the customer’s perspective they are:

  • Search – Research and look for a solution
  • Shop – Engage in commerce
  • Help – Fix something you already have

Here’s the vendor view of these three items:

  • Market (as a verb, the converse of Search)
  • Sell (the converse of Shop)
  • Support (the converse of Help)

Key point: I feel the friction in this process is a result of the transactional mindset that most vendors are in today.  For if vendors were truly engaging in “customer relationship management,” David would already be connected to them.  Instead, we’re trying to mesh the customer and vendor gears, each of which is spinning at a different speed, and rotating in a slightly different plane.

So, going back to the model…David has already nailed the “Search” part of his process, and is moving into Shop.  So, is there a vendor out there who is either (a) actively listening or (b) is connected through a reasonable number of hops to someone who is?  Let’s find out…

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VRM Moves Ahead

Great summary of last week’s VRM meeting in London, with commentary by Ian Delaney.  An excerpt:

"One of the latest solutions to the problem of marketing without wasting
loads of money is CRM. Companies collect loads of data about their
customers and potential customers and then target their marketing
efforts at segments of those groups. CRM is ‘lame and bad’, though,
because it isn’t about relationships at all…"

Here’s a link to the whole thing.