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Summing Up the Dreamforce Keynote
November 18, 2009
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I was planning to put this in my other post (see previous), but I was forced to clutter that space with live updates when I reached my Twitter limit. I’m not the only person who hit that particular wall–friend and respected blogger Esteban Kolsky got locked out as well, and I’m sure a number of others were as well. Look for Esteban’s post on why this is a bad thing, coming soon to a link near you once he posts it (and I update my blogroll–I’ve been a bit lax).
By now you’ve likely heard a fair amount about today’s biggest news, Salesforce Chatter. To sum it up nice and tight, Chatter is a new, more collaborative and intuitive interface for business applications. It’s the Collaboration Cloud. If Facebook and Twitter had a child, and that child grew up and got an MBA, it would be Salesforce Chatter. Feeds, status updates, groups, messaging–it’s all there, along with the dashboards and everything else we’ve come to expect from good CRM. Chatter can integrate social contacts from customers into the mix and provide context for it all. Even better, Chatter will be standard on all editions of Salesforce.com, Force.com, and related products. Outsiders can acquire access for $50 per user, per month.
At least, that’s what Chatter will be. It’s not due until the end of 2010, which is a long way off. Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff went out of his way to point out the portion of Salesforce.com’s safe harbor statement that says the company is not responsible for what might be vaporware. That’s out of character for Marc, who usually waves his hand in the general direction of the statement and makes a joke.
But the other thing that was out of character was the level of energy Marc brought to the event. This is not to say he’s usually laid back when presenting–far from it. Today’s level of bombast, though, was one step beyond. Either Marc Benioff is very excited about his new Collaboration Cloud (which is likely), or he wants us to believe he’s very excited about it (which is also likely, CEOs having certain responsibilities and whatnot). Chatter is a big deal, and it will change the way business gets done, once it’s released.
I asked about just how Chatter will change business processes, but Marc’s take on the situation is that business is already changing to accept this model, and Chatter is the first tool that allows companies to do so securely, in an orderly manner, and with scalability. However, as Kraig Swensrud (SVP of product marketing) said in a followup interview, Chatter is not Twitter or Facebook. Just as we use business email and personal email differently, the internal and external feeds of Chatter will have their own character. Surfing the Web was once a workplace taboo; now it’s how many of us do our jobs. Salesforce.com hopes that Chatter will be the same.
There’s plenty more to say about this Collaboration Cloud thing, but there’s also plenty more for me to learn before I go further. My next post will probably deal with Salesforce.com’s messaging, not its applications.
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Chattering about Salesforce.com
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As usual, my patented, trademarked, hermetically sealed and hypoallergenic live coverage of this morning’s event (Dreamforce 09) will be appearing in the Twitter stream to your right. Follow @Lager if you don’t already, and I will be adding my analysis afterward in this space.
If you’re wondering why I don’t just liveblog it here, the answer is simple: I like words, and the temptation to editorialize is much easier to manage at 140 characters a pop.
UPDATE 11:40 am PST: Tweetdeck just crapped out on me, with the “recipient not following you” error message. I’m over my limit.
11:44 am PST: Generally speaking, Salesforce Chatter looks a whole lot like Facebook. There’s also Twitter embedded. It’s a secure social business interface. I want a lot of demo time with this.
11:48 am PST: Marc is wrapping up now. Force.com has been modified so you can build collaboration apps. Chatter collaboration cloud is an attempt to change the way we work and make it more like … well, how we kill time at work when we should be working. Your coworkers are now your community, with the closer contact that implies. The biz apps, dashboards, and workflows are still there, but social networking is now built in instead of layered on.
11:53 am PST: For those of you who are worried about security, Chatter is as secure as Salesforce.com in general. You can pull in info and interactions from outside the enterprise, but I assume that once it’s there it is shielded from malfeasance.
11:55 am PST: Sales Cloud 2 is built on Chatter. Service Cloud 2 has been rebuilt for Chatter (that two rebuilds of Service Cloud). It’s all mobile capable.
12:01 pm PST: True to social form, content can be followed or broadcast automatically–you don’t have to go into a group and post to it. Your content, your apps, and your people are all talking to you. And, to judge by this demo, they’re all talking about how bad Sharepoint is.
12:04 pm PST: Demo is over, now announcing pricing. Available early 2010 in all editions of Salesforce.com and Force.com–standard in all editions. If you want to bring outsiders into Chatter, there’s a $50/user/month product. Very nice, and a welcome departure. We’ve got Jason Goldman, from the board of directors of Twitter. @goldman if you want to know.
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Here We Go: Before the opening address of Sage Summit
November 9, 2009
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Sage Summit has begun, even if the official welcoming keynote hasn’t yet been delivered. This is a customer event, y’see, so it’s fitting that Sage started by recognizing some of its more notable ones. In other words, it was the Sage Customer Awards Program luncheon. Here, in brief, are the winners, with a few comments by me where needed.
- MyBizCounts.com Contest Winner: INDIE PEACE, an Atlanta-based fashion design company that focuses on sustainable, eco-friendly products and manufacturing techniques. (This contest called for original video commercials and essays from people with new business ideas or young startups (two years and under), with $20,000 and a bunch of Sage software—Peachtree, ACT!, and Timeslips—as the prize. The company made a cute presentation, and has some really nice wearable designs that won’t kill the planet. Good stuff.)
- Rookie of the Year: Coilhose Pneumatics, East Brunswick, NJ, using MAS 500; Net@Work is the Sage implementation partner. (Product costing and inter-company transactions are some of the more onerous parts of a business that deals in specialized products. Guess what Coilhouse improved with MAS 500? Net@Work is known to me as a talented integrator, so kudos to that team as well.)
- Best Use of Customization: Metropolitan Regional Information Systems (MRIS), Rockville, MD, using Sage MAS 500; Blytheco LLC is the implementation partner. (MRIS got more than 32,000 customers to use the online bill-pay system it built this year, something that wouldn’t have been possible with its legacy accounting system. Automation is a good thing sometimes.)
- Community Stewardship: Teach For America, New York, NY using SalesLogix; Infinity Info Systems is the implementation partner. (I’ve met with IIS before, and its founder Yacov Wrosherinsky is one of the most-recognized Sage partners there is; I’m not surprised one of his clients took an award.)
- Best End-to-End Deployment: Curbers, Inc., Salisbury, NC, using MAS 500, FAS, and SalesLogix; Practical Software Solutions is the implementation partner. (Combining ERP and CRM throughout the enterprise makes tremendous sense for many businesses, especially those in heavy industry. Power Curbers makes, customizes, and sells machines for making sidewalks, curbs, barriers, bridges, and other concrete items—that’s about as heavy as heavy industry gets.)
- Best Innovation Award: Entertainment Lighting Services, Inc., Sun Valley, CA, using MAS 500; Information Integration Group is the implementation partner. (ELS really needed to get enterprise software in place, and the results are telling. It reduced inventory shrinkage by half, and reduced the month-end close process from four weeks to five days—their monthly close used to take a month. Think about that.)
- Lifetime Achievement Award: Amix Salvage & Sales Ltd. , Surrey, BC, using Accpac and SageCRM; Plus Computer Solutions is the implementation partner. (Too often, especially at the Oscars, lifetime achievement awards are a way of saying, “you’ve never won a real award, so here’s a pat on the back to thank you for hard work.” That’s not what this is; Amix has been a Sage customer for 17 years, and had its first software package installed under MS-DOS. Sage has seen Amix through booms and busts for longer than I’ve had a writing career. Clearly both companies are doing something right.)
Congratulations to all the winners. I’m hoping to track down Denis Pombriant, founder and managing principal of Beagle Research Group and one of the contest judges, to talk about what went into the award decisions.
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I’m Guest Blogging for Sage
November 7, 2009
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I’m about to start a guest blogging project for Sage Software, the company that brings you ACT!, Sage CRM, and SalesLogix. With their partner summit starting Monday, we figured it was a good time for me to introduce myself to the Sage user community, and here’s how I did it:
“Hi, I’m Marshall Lager, and if you read the ACT! by Sage blogs you’ll be seeing a fair bit more of that name in the coming weeks. That’s because Sage has invited me in as a guest blogger to provide my own perspective on CRM, Sage products, and customer experience. I’ll be kicking it off at Sage Summit, the annual partner conference, but I wanted to introduce myself and give you an idea of what you’ll be in for.
“You may be wondering, “Who is this guy, and why should I care?” Fair questions. I’m the founder and managing principal of Third Idea Consulting LLC, a consultancy focusing on CRM, especially social CRM and the increased power social media have given to customers. Those of you who read CRM magazine may also know me from there, where I was senior editor for four and a half excellent years. I’m the guy who wrote (and still writes) the back page column, Pint of View.
“That tells you a bit about who and what I am, but it might be just as useful to tell you who and what I am not.
- I am not a Sage implementer, employee, or partner. I am being paid formy writing, and I respect Sage’s products and am familiar enough with them to not make a fool of myself or the company. If you have specific technical questions about integration, business processes, or software capabilities, though, you’ll be better off talking to a Sage exec or ACT! Certified Consultant (ACC). I’m more of an ideas guy.
- I am not a spokesperson for anybody’s brand but my own. But maybe I can help you with yours. One of my chief contentions is that businesses don’t have the monodirectional control of their communications or their brands that they once did, and I think it’s a good thing. I’m all about customer empowerment, and how it can ultimately make businesses better. As such, I don’t really care what CRM system or techniques you use, as long as you are doing whatever it takes to keep your customers coming back with smiles on their faces, cash in their hands, and referrals in their mouths.
- I am not always serious. Writing is a pleasure for me. Thinking about CRM is also a pleasure. Combining them makes me do a little happy dance in my brain. At the same time, I realize that serious business shouldn’t always be serious, and we all need a change of perspective from time to time in order to prevent tunnel vision. Again, readers of Pint of View already know what I’m talking about. You might not always agree with me, or laugh with me, or find my comments in good taste, but they should make you think. If that’s happening, I’m doing my job.
“So, what can you expect from me? Over the next couple of months, I’ll be providing you with my perspective on the CRM industry, Sage news, and the state of customer/company dialogue in general. I’m starting with Sage Summit because it’s a big event, so you will see me all over the conference, talking to people like you about what matters to you. There will probably be some video podcasts or Q&A sessions along the way, so you can interact more directly with me.
“I’m also available for phone consultations, on-site visits, white papers, weddings, and bar mitzvahs. But you’ll have to pay me. The guest blog is entirely at your disposal. I hope you find it useful.”
There it is. If anybody’s going to be in the Atlanta area this week, look for me with notebook and Flip video in hand, trying to provide my perspective on what’s going on with Sage. I’ll be continuing the guest blog for a couple of months, and will mirror it here. I’m looking forward to the access to Sage that this will give me, as well as the chance to affect its users and partners in a (hopefully) positive way.