Latest News from CRM Developer's Journal

CRM Solved

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:08:00 EST

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is a confusing space. On the one hand, there’s been explosive growth of powerful cloud-based CRMs, especially for small businesses. That’s awesome. On the other hand, most CRMs you see are crap: they’re either overly complex, overly simple, or just plain annoying to use. Sorting the wheat from the chaff is a frustrating (and expensive!) challenge for many a small business owner – trust us, we know ;) It’s thus extremely exciting to find small business software that does CRM well. Solve360 from Norada is one of those CRMs and we’re proud to award it an A+ and our seal of approval.

Buyers Rule – Target These Three Areas to Get in Sync

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:13:13 EDT

Many providers are still relying on their company's viewpoint for their marketing. Since buyers can instantly share information in the 21st century, it is best to adjust heavily toward helping the buyer reach their goals. Buyers want information in specific ways at ideal times to accelerate and improve their decision-making. Unless providers start building their marketing from the buyer's perspective, they make everyone's job harder than it has to be. Has your company defined the best groups that would want to research what you offer? Defining characteristics may be range of size, geographies, industries and motivation. This is your low-hanging fruit. You would be surprised at the number of companies who have not done this necessary work. One of the wasteful results out of not understanding audiences is that expensive salespeople spend time with companies that will never buy.

Chhhhhanges …

Fri, 13 May 2011 09:21:00 EDT

So, your firm has made the big decision to invest and implement a customer relationship management system. Good for you. Now, it's time to make sure the transition goes as smooth as possible. Communicate and educate. First things first, leadership must communicate this decision to the rest of the firm. This means conduct an educational campaign explaining to the professional staff the reasons for the CRM system, when the rollout will start and what goals are ultimately trying to be accomplished. This process will be easier if management gets buy-in from a cross-section of the firm prior to this educational campaign, where this groups helps and is involved with the system and vendor selection process. Also consider setting up a focus group that meets regularly for continued feedback and development improvements.

Lead Generation is Not IT

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:52:00 EST

As the latest research, surveys and reports about content marketing begin surfacing, I'm wondering if B2B marketers are really embracing change or if they're stuck in the past? Time and again, I see lead generation as a top priority goal while lead nurturing comes in at the bottom of the heap - behind web traffic and brand awareness for crying out loud. Lead Generation is a hello and a handshake. Lead Nurturing is the art of building a relationship with purpose. Big difference. HUGE. To be successful, marketers need to integrate them both into a lead management process.

Citizen Journalism Continues Journey into Unchartered Space

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 13:11:00 EST

Nobody can foresee events such as natural disasters. They happen, are often tragic, and history records the event as a snapshot in time. Sometimes that history is based on well-documented photos, videos, and personal observations, and sometimes it is recorded as reality determined by persons or governments with an agenda different than presenting empirical truth.

When Is An Online Survey Not An Online Survey?

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 06:30:00 EST

Online survey management company Vovici has this week released version 6 of its eponymously named enterprise feedback management (EFM) platform. The company says that Vovici 6 now features over 25 major feature enhancements for customers who want to build a centralized customer feedback platform across all aspects of the enterprise.

Fiserv and WorkLight Partner

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 15:34:53 EST

Fiserv, Inc., a global provider of financial services technology solutions, and WorkLight, a global leader in multi-channel application technology, are teaming to help financial institutions deliver financial services applications and widgets to an expanding variety of customer touchpoints, including social network sites, desktop computers, tablets and smartphones. This cross-platform application development capability will allow banks and credit unions to extend new and existing banking and payments "apps" to multiple environments beyond their traditional online or mobile presence. Under the terms of the agreement, Fiserv will use the WorkLight Platform to build, run and manage applications, both custom and packaged, for desktop computers, tablets, smartphones, and other emerging devices. Initially, the two companies will focus on the delivery of lightweight, toolkit payment applications for gifting, alerts, and donations that will complement existing Fiserv products and services. Over time, the companies expect to enable a broad range of solutions for banking as well.

Contact Management vs. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 15:23:57 EST

There seems to be a lot of people that confuse contact management and customer relationship management, and I’m attempting to help make this a little bit more clear… Let me just say I really dont like the term: Customer Relationship Management. For one thing you manage a lot more than just customers, in your CRM system!

Making More Businesses a Smart Business in 2011

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 10:23:00 EST

In today's business environment business owners need to be on the cutting edge to be competitive. The goal in this article is to show business owners how easy it is. You don't even have to have a business to benefit from this service. SBICS is showing work at home start ups how to get a jump start on their sales in under five days. In under five minutes you will learn what I am referring to, and how effective it can be when crossed marketed. The only condition is that you have a smart phone device. A Droid or iPhone device will work.

Five FAQs Every Project Manager Needs to Read

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 12:46:05 EST

There are many advantages to using Issue Tracking software over an Excel spreadsheet. For one, issue tracking software makes collaboration easy. Users do not have to worry about having the latest information or spreadsheets- the latest information is available to all users. You can also edit information concurrently, as opposed to one user at a time for a spreadsheet. Second, if you have many issues, it might be difficult to save an audit trail to keep track of your issues. Most full-featured Issue Trackers keep audit trails automatically. This makes it nearly impossible to lose or delete data or information associated with an issue-as opposed to a simple Excel file. Third, Excel spreadsheets lack many of the useful features that Issue Trackers contain. For example, the ability to add file attachments, create advanced focused reporting, receive quick notifications when an issue is modified, and many more.

Worry Is Not a Business Plan

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 13:48:20 EST

Imagine yourself as the captain of a row-boat. You plot the right navigation course, check for the weather and plan for all that can be planned. Then you keep all your staff rowing in sync, encouraging and guiding them around every turn, always focused on reaching the target destination. You make the row boat the best that it can be. However, throughout this journey, one fact remains: You control the row boat, but you don't control the waves.

The World of Business Computing in 2011 and Beyond

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:50:59 EST

As 2010 winds down, business leaders are asked for their predictions for the coming year and beyond. The majority of these prognosticators simply project existing trends within the context of anticipated global economic conditions. However, in a recent interview, SYSPRO USA President Joey Benadretti made some creative predictions based on his recent business experience, his service on various organizational boards, and his ongoing, interactive communications with SYSPRO’s customer base of manufacturers and distributors.

Six Tips on How to Implement a Successful Channel Strategy

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 10:15:00 EST

The goal for any company is to create value for their customers. Selling through the channel can be an important sales strategy for any vendor if harnessed and prioritized correctly. While this approach can drive additional revenue and open up new sales opportunities, working in the channel can pose unique challenges as well. Creating a symbiotic relationship between the vendor and reseller is crucial. In order to put a solid channel strategy in place, there needs to be tight integration between each of the channel partners, VARs, systems integrators, distributors, and vendors. To move that forward, here are six tips that vendors should adhere to in order to develop a fruitful union.

A Brief History of CRM

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 14:26:00 EST

This is actually pretty cool: a timeline history of CRM, from Software Advice. From the early days of the PC: To our much heralded (hyped?) social web 2.0 future: It's fun to trace the history of technology and Customer Relationship Management applications: If you’ve used ACT! or GoldMine, you’d probably recognize today’s CRM suites. Why? Because customers and how we sell to them haven’t changed much in 30 years. Today, the fundamental concept of “customer” is changing. That must mean CRM will undergo even more radical change than it has in the last 10 years.

Silanis and Aberdeen Group Discuss E-Signatures in E-Contracting

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 15:46:00 EST

I had the good fortune of co-hosting a webcast with Peter Ostrow, Research Director, Sales Effectiveness at Aberdeen Group at the end of September to discuss what impact replacing one’s pen and paper contracting process with an all-electronic process has on an organization’s bottom line. (You can access the recording here.) Peter reviewed some of the impressive findings from Aberdeen’s recent research report during the webcast, including how e-signatures have enabled some companies to increase year-over-year sales cycle by 12%

Have All of Your People Talk to My People

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 10:51:34 EST

Congratulations. Everyone in your company is now in marketing, sales and service. They may not reside in any of those three departments and they may lack in specialized skills, but they can create a bridge of trust which is smart marketing. I recently wrote a white paper called The Digital Buyer. The document posits that buyers have changed in regard to their buying process over the last twenty years. This change is driven by technology and socioeconomic forces. Buyers are more sophisticated than ever and they desire the most relevant information at the exact moment it is needed. For many, time is their most precious currency. Providers have a responsibility to stop depending on the centralized control models of the past and to strategize toward a more distributed communication culture that leverages existing relationships. It’s true that some parts of an operation need to be separated from other areas and managed by specialists. However, managing relationships is a bit like managing applications that are stratified, it’s not the domain of the simple-minded. It requires a well thought out strategy reflecting the buying process and layers of trust that help the buyer progress with the appropriate provider representative.

Personal Data for Sale - In Time for the Holidays!

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 16:28:00 EDT

Come one, come all! Are you tired of using your own money for those big holiday purchases? Are you wary of entering your own personal & financial information to get that special gift? Would you rather spend a stress-free holiday season impersonating various folks? Just in time for your holiday shopping, get your very own unlocked identity profile!! Why go through the hassle of protecting your own information when you can just pretend you are someone else? For a limited time we are offering everything you need to create your own shopping character – name, address, bank/credit card info – and if you act now, we’ll include the user names and passwords for 5 social media profiles!! Call Now! Operators are standing by…

Pay-as-You-Go Services Poised to Explode

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:31:38 EDT

In the course of building custom software to manage a business process, you’ll frequently find the need for functionality another company has produced and is impractical for you to build. You would never want to recreate a credit card processing gateway, a database of satellite imagery or a language translation system, for example. Instead, you would adopt the technology and absorb it into your application. Traditionally, this has been expensive and time consuming.

How Successful Customer Acquisition Programs Can Ruin Your Brand

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 22:25:00 EDT

We recently wrapped a client project that involved us delivering a complete marketing evaluation and recommendation, covering areas such as overall marketing strategy, user experience, customer acquisition tactics and consumer messaging. The project required extensive competitor research and evaluation; we looked at everything from competitor creative execution to third-party analytics to social media trends . [...]

The Burning Platform Buyer and the Big Bang

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:15:00 EDT

At the center of each 20th century corporate sale was often the constant feeling that the buyer had to take immediate action. Their platform was burning and the buyer needed to make a decision. The provider would work hard to shove as much biased information down their throats as possible in a short period of time to secure budgets and get the Big Bang deal. The Eureka moment had been hit and a sales hero had been born. A selling practice was to always being in the buyer’s face with more information supporting that provider’s offering. Most 21st century buyers are savvy to this flawed series of events. Today’s buyers use a more patient and informed process.

A Method Wholly Prescribed to

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 10:37:33 EDT

Why episodic marketing and means big business for big brands. In the world of marketing, executives are facing greater challenges than ever before. Increased competition, media fragmentation and changes in consumer behavior and attitudes are all impacting the way marketers approach advertising. Marketers are now combining traditional advertising with new marketing methods so they can reach consumers and create a new level of consumer awareness. Episodic marketing therefore allows executives to use new exciting ways to get consumers involved with a brand. Analysts say that episodic marketing gives marketers a more focused and tighter connection to consumers and can therefore be executed in a more cohesive way.

Nassau, Bahamas Startup Announces Global T-Shirt Line

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:24:00 EDT

Got The Tee Shirt Corporation, a Nassau, Bahamas based apparel start-up and global distributor of t-shirts announced today its "Been There Done That Got The Tee Shirt" apparel brand. The company will introduce its product line to the press on November 1, 2010, and will sell branded "100% cotton pigment-dyed" and "100% organic cotton pigment-dyed" t-shirts. Got The Tee Shirt Corporation will open five test stores in January 2011 to perform price sensitivity analysis, form focus groups, and to gather valuable customer feedback before launching 1,000 plus sales points around the world in the next two years . Company test stores will be opened in: Hudson, New York, Piermont, New York Nyack, New York Montvale, New Jersey Bebek, Istanbul The company's corporate website will be available at www.GotTheTeeShirt.com and the online catalog and shopping site will be available at www.BeenThereDoneThatGotTheTeeShirt.com address. The company will also maintain a Tee Shirt Blog blot http://gottheteeshirt.ulitzer.com and a Twitter page www.twitter.com/TeeShirtTweets. Got The Tee Shirt Corporation opens pricing bids for OEMs with the following specifications: American style Short sleeve, round neck Pre shrunk, pigment-dyed, bio polish 100% cotton and 100% organic cotton 160 GSM Size: S to XXL Mixed colors Qty: Up to 10,000 pieces per month Please contact the company via email at gottheteeshirtcorporation@yahoo.com.

SugarCRM Continues Strong Channel Momentum

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:15:00 EDT

SugarCRM, a provider of open source customer relationship management (CRM) software, announced unprecedented success of its Open+ Partner Program in the first half of 2010. The company added 50 new partners across the globe during the period, and existing partners have grown their businesses to focus on SugarCRM’s flexible, intuitive and open product offerings. In addition, channel partners continue to account for approximately 70 percent of new SugarCRM billings.

Linking the Right Business Process for Effective CRM

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:32:58 EDT

For a company to capitalize on that increased market space, they need to incorporate the right supply chain management solutions with cost effective IT business processes to take the greatest share of an increased marketplace. With the retail industry looking for a quick way to grip onto an upward track and away from the poor returns that have been haunting the marketplace since the recession took hold, many leaders are asking whether a short term look going forward is needed or a long term outlook instead. The plethora of techniques being attempted does not help matters, but it seem that combining strategies has the ability of providing greater benefits especially when a long term focus is needed. The trick to providing supporting effective Customer Relationship Management is an essential part of this combination, especially when consumers are putting more than an additional 10 percent on their spending capabilities for the service. With numbers of that size, customer service could be worth more than 30% of total revenue by the end of 2010 and growing just online, according to a new Ovum survey.

Stories Make It Easy for All Employees to Be Marketers

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 11:53:15 EDT

It is the provider’s marketing leadership that is charged with helping buyers go through their steps. But the big cultural shift is when everyone in the provider’s company decides to be a marketer. Stories are as old as cave drawings it seems. It’s the opportunity to describe what has happened to someone who took the leap to know something others didn’t know and came back to share their information. That gap between what they know and what they don’t know is what keeps buyers from progressing. Stories can motivate buyers to take the leap because they pin their rationale on the benefits they want. Perhaps the greatest thing about stories is it allows the buyer’s brain to learn raw information with context. Stories are needed to make it feel relevant. Most employees will tell stories that show purpose in what they do for a living. People want others to know that they are part of something that matters, something that makes a difference. Let’s say Mary works in the accounting department of a provider. Mary doesn’t get a lot of direct buyer contact and she’s busy with her accounting job.

Use Email Services for Customized Email-To-Case

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:23:36 EDT

Force.com Email Services is a great tool. Sometimes called Email-to-Apex, it allows for the ability to create an email address within Salesforce that can kick off and process Apex code. Setting up the email service address is quite simple; an overview can be found here on how to set it up. There are a number of security and functionality options that can be handled declaratively, for example:

Is Offering Free Trial ‘Green’?

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Companies which opt for free trials do so because they are confident that their product is going to make a difference to their customers, who eventually, after the expiration of free trial phase are likely to buy the product because of the promise and value they see in it, after having tried it. Free trials help a prospect gain familiarity with the product, its features; not just in a sandbox environment, but right in the production environment. If the prospect does not like something in the promo run, prospect can voice his opinion and feedback, which can find its way back to the vendor company, who may just be able to accommodate the suggestions in the paid version.

Top 10 Lessons Learned: A CPA Firm’s CRM Implementation

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:23:43 EDT

Templeton & Company, a 50-person CPA firm headquartered in South Florida, implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM in 2002. Although the company has a subsidiary firm, Templeton Solutions, which a Microsoft Dynamics Partner, the accounting practice still dealt with its own struggles and challenges in rolling out the solution firm-wide. Tightly integrated process/people/technology. With your business processes and workflow outlined and mapped out, it will enable your firm to easily address and visualize how it should be automated in the system. Many companies who do not have this mapped out run into the pitfalls of trying to have the technology guide how they run their business. It should be the other way around, otherwise, it's just a waste of resources.

Epic Advice for the Millennial Job Seeker

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:42:54 EDT

A common sense approach to finding a job for the young person you know. Nothing is always true when it comes to people. Admittedly, the representation here of a Millennial candidate and Boomer takes a bit of a poetic license. It’s meant to help the Millennial keep their sense of humor, have some perspective and connect with what is usually a more experienced manager shaped by their generation. Recently I read an article in the New York Times called "American Dream is Elusive for a New Generation". It states that there is a 37% unemployment rate for the Millennial generation based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is for the recent graduate who is still living at home, surfing the Internet and trying to find a job. Keep your chin up and take action, we've all been there before.

This Is Why You Pay Your Marketing Leadership the Big Bucks

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 20:57:00 EDT

We live in a business world, and in particular a marketing world, that is dominated by what lots of people call “solutions”. Software solutions. Automation solutions. Content management solutions. Social media solutions. You name it, and someone, somewhere is peddling the latest solution to fill the needs of the enterprise space, the small business space, [...]

Salesforce.com Reseller Navatar Group Announces Free Cloud Computing CRM

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 20:45:00 EDT

Navatar Group is now providing free CRM for eight months, to help you prepare for the expected rebound in the worldwide financial markets. Navatar, a global salesforce.com partner and Value Added Reseller (VAR), on Wednesday announced this summer promotion for their Cloud Computing Solutions for Hedge Funds, Capital Markets, Private Equity, Mergers & Acquisitions and Placement Agents, running in salesforce.com's cloud. Financial firms can now get pre-built software-as-a-service for their business up and running within a day or two. They will also get the underlying force.com seats from salesforce.com free as part of this promotion. In addition, Navatar Group provides all implementation services, accounts/contacts migration, training, maintenance and email support for these solutions free of charge.

Future of Millennials and Their Online Sharing - Pew Research Survey

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:50:32 EDT

How Generation Y will continue in their online sharing ways. In a survey about the future impact of the Internet, a solid majority of technology experts and stakeholders said the Millennial generation will lead society into a new world of personal disclosure and information‐sharing using new media. These experts said the communications patterns “digital natives” have already embraced through their use of social networking technology and other social technology tools will carry forward even as Millennials age, form families, and move up the economic ladder. The highly engaged, diverse set of respondents to an online, opt‐in survey included 895 technology stakeholders and critics. The study was fielded by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center.

Ex-IBM Higher-Up Says Liaison Was Just Business

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 05:45:00 EDT

Fortune got to Robert Moffat, the erstwhile IBM server and chip chief now contemplating jail time for being involved with the Galleon insider trading mob, after the book told him it was doing a piece on his affair with his co-defendant Danielle Chiesi. Moffat told Fortune that the sex wasn’t sex it was “business.” His lawyers told him not to talk about the liaison but he did say this: “Everyone wants to make this about sex. Danielle had an extensive network of business people. And she added clarity about what was going on the business world…I know in my heart what this relationship was about: clarity in the business environment.”

Hannover Re Adopts Tata Managed Telepresence

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:27:00 EDT

The reinsurance business is evolving. Traditionally, reinsurance transactions are between two insurance entities: the primary insurer that sold the original insurance policies and the reinsurer. The companies in this industry are long-standing users of advanced communications technology, now including video collaboration. Tata Communications announced that it has been chosen by German reinsurance company, Hannover Re, to deploy and run its Telepresence facilities -- serving the group’s internal teams in 18 locations across 16 countries, worldwide.

International Social Media Marketing

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:00:00 EDT

One size fits all marketing does not work. In today's flat world, how do you incorporate cross-cultural awareness to adjusting your marketing to engage with different international markets? We asked Cindy King "What are key international marketing trends and predictions for 2010? What actions should marketers take in 2010?".

Cindy King is a Cross-Cultural Marketer & International Sales Specialist based in France. She uses her dual background in sales & marketing, in international business development, to help businesses improve their international sales conversion. She is also adept at content marketing, international web marketing and social media marketing.

Cindy King

Blog CindyKing Twitter CindyKing

“Businesses will improve their international marketing by observing different cultural preferences.”

Cindy King's Marketing Prediction for 2010

International web marketing is heading for new horizons.

Recent ICANN legislation enabling URLs in non-Latin alphabets will impact the web environment in these countries. This in turn will increase opportunities to engage with people in these countries in a meaningful way.
Social media continues to grow in different countries and as it does we will see more trends emerging with regards to different cultural preferences. This will help businesses to develop stronger international social media marketing tactics.

Although international web marketing has its challenges and limitations today, it will become more effective in the years to come. And social media marketing will play an important role in learning more about how to market to different cultures.

Cindy King's Marketing Action for 2010

The best way to take advantage of these new trends is to first observe the additional information as it becomes available and note the differences:

International data is becoming more granular and more relevant to international marketing
The different ways other cultures use social media and web marketing. These preferences are evolving as people learn how to adapt social media to their own culture.

The next step is to apply some cross-cultural awareness to adjusting your marketing to engage with different international markets. Social media is an ideal way to become acquainted with people from different cultures and to slowly identify the best ways to adjust your international marketing.

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Global Migration - The Move to the Global Citizen

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 14:13:00 EDT

The third driver to the current revolution in business and institutions is shifting demography and not just age, but of culture. Global migration is the least understood and least governed area of globalization. The labor pool and customer base is being shifted in ways that have far reaching implications and you should take note of it. The video from the Economist above reflects migration patterns and economic implications. Theorists sometimes call the movement of people around the world the "third wave" of globalization, after the movement of goods and the movement of money that began in the previous century. Trade and finance follow global norms and are governed by institutions: the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund. There is no equivalent group with “migration” in its name. The most personal and perilous form of movement is the most unregulated. States make and often ignore their own rules, deciding who can come, how long they stay, and what rights they enjoy.

Artificial Intelligence - It Isn't Science Fiction Anymore

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 06:41:00 EDT

Computer scientists have been pursuing artificial intelligence, using computers to simulate human thinking, for sometime and with little success. Recently, however, great progress has been made to create devices that can listen, speak, see, reason and learn. According to scientists the result is not only that artificial intelligence will transform the way humans and machines communicate and work together, but also that it will eliminate millions of jobs, create many others and change the nature of work and daily routines.

Three Tips for Finding Your Next Case Study Customer

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 12:57:00 EDT

Several times a week, an appeal for funds from a charity (or alma mater) arrives in my mailbox or inbox. The same organizations contact me over and over. It’s annoying, but if they don’t ask for contributions, they usually don’t get them. That’s just how it works. We have too much going through our heads. If you’re in [...]

Lower Operating Costs by 90%

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 06:56:00 EDT

Globalism is here but its impact has not truly been realized yet. Many companies just are not aware of the opportunity that is available to them in resourcing large portions of their costs to outsourced inexpensive freelancers. I do it and you should consider doing it to. Jeff Bulla's recent post on lowering operating costs by 90% reminded me of just how important this strategy is and I've included some of his observations from a few recent participants in outsourcing solutions here. I originally became familiar with the notion from Tim Ferriss' (shown above) Four Hour Work Week. Every business today needs to understand how accessing outside resources can help them to grow faster and create more professional results. You might want to check out Yvonne Adele the CEO of Ideas Culture and Matt Barrie the CEO of Freelancer.com.

How Catchy is Your Content?

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:19:00 EDT

Information overwhelm. We all suffer from it. Our job as B2B marketers is to create contagious content that catches—and keeps—the attention of our prospects across the entirety of a long-term complex purchase. That means your marketing content has to work even harder than you may have thought to rise above the noise. How many times have you heard that your content has to be relevant? Probably a lot. The word relevance is used so much that it's a bucket term. It's simply too bottomless to be helpful in guiding the way to ensuring that your content is worthwhile to your prospects.

Practice Management with CRM: Can You Have It All?

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:15:56 EDT

Over the last decade, "practice management" has become an industry unto itself. Beyond the hundreds of private consultants and year-round seminars, we've seen a proliferation of task-specific software. As a result, it's little wonder why many accounting firms now find themselves operating with multiple - and not always harmonious - systems. The various applications sometimes work from different platforms. Staff must be trained and retrained. And as expensive new tools are added, firms must continually reinvest in IT expertise. Does it really need to be so complicated? Even more frustrating, a cobbled network of practice management software might be adequate for basic internal functions, but it does little to build a firm's business through client development and opportunity management. In today's environment, we know that client retention and cross-selling of services are paramount. Yet in a recent survey by Harris & Associates (Accounting Today, 2/15/2010) "well over 90%" of executives complained that their firm "isn't spending enough time" cross-selling to existing clients.

Blogging and Public Thinking

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 10:57:00 EDT

I do find the possibility that I might blog an experience transforms that experience. I begin to compose the post in my head, even if I know I’m not actually going to write about it. I did this to some extent before the seventh day of creation (G-d rested, looked at what He had created, and then we started blogging complaints about i), but I now find myself shaping experience according to how I might present that experience in public: finding the words, deciding what might be interesting in the experience to someone other than me. Blogging has given the public yet more of a grip on the shape of my private experience. Blogging is not unique in this. I assume we all think about how we might tell others about something that just happened to us, imagining the anecdote told at dinner to one’s family, to one’s co-workers, or to other confidantes. If you kept a traditional diary, you might find that you are drafting your experiences with its blank pages in mind. But, for those of us who write personal blogs, the anticipated reading of your blog by people you don’t know creates drafts of experience — which ultimately become the experience — that are more written than told, more public than social, more composed than expressed.

Marketing Automation Must Support a Business Process

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 10:52:00 EDT

Manticore Technology and Bulldog Solutions have released a new white paper that addresses some misconceptions that B2B marketers may have about marketing automation. As they point out, it's terrific when an application is intuitive and easy to use, but marketing automation must be used in support of a business process if it's going to produce the desired results. Considering that Sirius Decisions predicts that 50% of B2B marketers will have marketing automation within the next 5 years, it's imperative to go about deploying it the right way, the first time. As we're hearing more and more - companies who implement marketing automation successfully can achieve stellar results.

Six Ways to Survive the Content Marketing Jungle

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:50:00 EDT

Even in good economic times, you may face tough competition. During our brutal lingering economic slowdown, it really is a jungle out there. When it comes to making your way safely through that jungle, who better to turn to than the ultimate content marketing warrior, Amazon.com? After all, they are not only brilliant e-commerce players but they are just about the best at connecting with their customers.

How to Build a Customer Reference Program

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:51:20 EDT

Technology providers without a good reference program are always running against the wind. Gartner issued a press release last month giving some direction to establishing and maintaining a good program. From the release — Providers that apply customer references across a broad range of stakeholders close business faster, build stronger brands and sustain higher employee morale, according to Gartner, Inc. “While few marketers would debate the value of customer references, they tend to limit their use to just sales opportunities,” said Richard Fouts, research director at Gartner.

In B2B Marketing the Sum is Greater than the Parts

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 10:23:00 EDT

BtoB Online published a collection of data charts revealing a variety of input from marketers around lead generation and management. When I reviewed the charts, a couple of them pointed to what I see as a conflict in goals, or perhaps understanding of dependencies. This chart shows how marketers rate the importance of a variety of goals. I find it curious that marketers assign their highest proficiency to lead management with marketing automation, yet all of the other categories impact the quality of lead management and marketers say they're less effective at each of them.

Financial Advisor’s Social Media Campaign Educates C-level Executives

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 10:03:00 EDT

“Performance shares may not be the sole preserve of the C suite set in the near future,” Charles “Chuck” Steege CFP® of the SFG Executive Compensation Forum said recently. As part of his quarterly social media campaign that he undertook with the Advisolocity social media agency, Mr. Steege emphasized recently that increasing numbers of companies are granting performance shares to middle management performers as well. “From an educational perspective,” Mr. Steege continued, “I am trying to steer a clear course to greater participation in an organization’s long-term success.”

Too Many Balls

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 08:00:00 EDT

We've all been taught to keep our eye on the ball, right? And we all are praised for juggling lots of balls at the same. A friend of mine was talking to me about her business. She's so busy she can't see straight as she's heads-down creating marketing messaging and content for a number of clients. She's working every day and she's exhausted. Her goal is to do the brain work for clients, to share her expertise and knowledge by training folks to do for themselves. But somehow the Gravity of "Focus on customer success" has grabbed her and sucked her down into the doing vs the teaching. She's doing tactical, execution work for folks who can't do it themselves, writing emails, designing campaigns. All work that is necessary but a fairly big waste of her skills and expertise. She's taking on all that tactical work because she is, indeed, keeping her eye on the ball. She is solving her clients' problems.

Top-to-Bottom is the New End-to-End

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 06:45:00 EDT

End-to-end is a popular term in marketing circles to describe some feature that acts across an entire “something.” In the case of networking solutions this generally means the feature acts from client to server. For example, end-to-end protocol optimization means the solution optimizes the protocol from the client all the way to the server, using whatever industry standard and proprietary, if applicable, techniques are available. But end-to-end is not necessarily an optimal solution – not from a performance perspective, not from a CAPEX or OPEX perspective, and certainly not from a dynamism perspective.

The better option, the more optimal, cost-efficient, and context-aware solution, is a top-to-bottom option.

WHAT’S WRONG with END-to-END?

“End-to-end optimization” is generally focused on one or two specific facets of a connection between the client and the server. WAN optimization, for example, focuses on the network connection and the data, typically reducing it in size through the use of data de-duplication technologies so that it transfers (or at least appears to transfer) faster. Web application acceleration focuses on HTTP and web application data in much the same, optimizing the protocol and trying to reduce the amount of data that must be transferred as a means to speed up page load times. Web application acceleration often employs techniques that leverage the client’s browser cache, which makes it and end-to-end solution. Similarly, end-to-end security for web-based applications is almost always implemented through the use of SSL, which encrypts the data traversing the network from the client to the server and back.

Now, the problem with this is that each of these “end-to-end” implementations is a separate solution, usually deployed as either a network device or a software solution or, more recently, as a virtual network appliance. Taking our examples from above that means this “end-to-end” optimization solution comprises three separate and distinct solutions. These are deployed individually, which means each one has to process the data and optimize the relevant protocols individually, as islands of functionality. Each of these is a “hop” in the network and incurs the expected penalty of latency due to the processing required. Each one is separately managed and, what’s worse, each one has no idea the other exists. They each execute in an isolated, non-context aware environment.

Also problematic is that you must be concerned with the order of operations when implementing such an architecture. SSL encryption should not be applied until after application acceleration has been applied, and WAN optimization (data de-duplication) should occur before compression or protocol optimization is employed. The wrong order can reduce the effectiveness of the optimization techniques and can, in some cases, render them inert.

THE TOP-to-BOTTOM OPTION

The top-to-bottom approach is still about taking in raw data from an application and spitting out optimized data. The difference is that data is optimized from top (the application layer) to the bottom (network layer) via a unified platform approach. A top-to-bottom approach respects the rules for application of security and optimization techniques based on the appropriate order of operations but the data never leaves the platform. Rather than stringing together multiple security and optimization solutions in an end-to-end chain of intermediaries, the “chain” is internal via a high-speed interconnect that both eliminates the negative performance impact of chaining proxies but also maintains context across each step.

In most end-to-end architectures only solution closest to the user has the endpoint context – information about the user, the user’s connection, and the user’s environment. It does not share that information with other solutions as the data is passed along the vertical chain of solutions. Similarly only the solution closest to the application has the application endpoint’s context – status, condition of the network, and capacity. A top-to-bottom, unified approach maintains the context across all three components - end-user endpoint, application endpoint, and the network – and allows each optimization, acceleration, and security solution to leverage that context to apply the right policy at the right time based on that information. This is particularly useful for “perimeter” deployed solutions, such as WAN optimization, that must be by design one of the last (or the last) solutions in the chain of intermediaries in order to perform data de-duplication. Such solutions rarely have visibility into the full context of a request and response, and are therefore limited in how optimization features can be applied to the data. A top-to-bottom approach mitigates this obstacle by ensuring the WAN optimization has complete visibility into the contextual metadata for the request and response and can therefore apply optimization policies in a dynamic way based on full transactional context.

Because the data never leaves a unified application delivery platform, the traditional performance penalties associated with chaining multiple solutions together – network time to transfer, TCP connection setup and teardown – are remediated. From an operational viewpoint a top-to-bottom approach leveraging a unified application delivery platform decreases operational costs associated with management of multiple solutions and controls the complexity associated with managing multiple configurations and policies across multiple solution deployments. A unified application delivery approach uses the same device, the same management mechanisms (GUI, CLI, and scripting) to configure and manage the solution. It reduces the physical components necessary, as well, as it eliminates the need for a one-to-one physical-solution relationship between solution and hardware, which eliminates complexity of architecture and removes multiple points of failure in the data path.

TOP-to-BOTTOM is END-to-END only BETTER

Both end-to-end and top-to-bottom ultimately perform the same task: securing, optimizing and accelerating the delivery of data between a client and an application. Top-to-bottom actually is an intelligent form of end-to-end; it simply consolidates and centralizes multiple components in the end-to-end “chain” and instead employs a top-to- bottom approach to performing the same tasks on a single, unified platform.

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Technorati Tags: MacVittie,F5,virtualization,application delivery,load balancing,end-to-end,top-to-bottom,unified,platform,context-aware,architecture,infrastructure 2.0

Google Places No-Nos

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 21:00:00 EDT

Google Places has guidelines and information you need to know about when using Google Places. Violating these guidelines can result in your local listing being suspended. Learn how to use Google Places properly.