I have been doing a lot of work and research in the area of Social CRM in the past year and while a lot of what I have done has been work I can not publish on this blog I do want to start sharing some of my resources and help bring you up to speed on what is undoubtedly the area of social media with the biggest potential for enterprise businesses.

A bit of a background…

While social media has gotten a lot of play in the B2C space from a marketing and communications standpoint, enterprise size businesses need a customer relationship management system that is suited to their business and robust enough to scale across multiple offices in multiple countries. So while businesses are figuring out how and where they will ultimately decide to play in social media, customers are making the choice to use whatever social network suits them. Social CRM ultimately allows customer relationship management systems to interface in varying ways with the social networks customers are already on.

It is a big subject and one that will hopefully allow businesses to connect to consumers in ways on emerging channels (of the customer’s choice) while still maintaining the ability to capture those interactions in an enterprise CRM system.

With that introduction I will start with my first recommendation which is to follow Jeremiah Owyang and Ray Wang both on Twitter and on their blogs, but also start with this report which will give you a good base from which to begin your own exploration of Social CRM.

Check back here often as I will hope to post on Social CRM frequently.

America’s entertainment software industry creates a wide array of computer and video games to meet the demands and tastes of audiences as diverse as the nation’s population. Today’s gamers include millions of Americans of all ages and backgrounds.  In fact, more than two-thirds of all American households play games. This vast audience is fueling the growth of this multi-billion dollar industry and continuing to make the video game industry one of the most lucrative entertainment genres. Below is a list of 10 entertainment software industry 2009 facts:

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If you’re a tech nerd like I am you can’t help but take note of the incredible hype building for the yet unannounced Apple Tablet. The speculation over whether Apple was working on such a device started really heating up months ago in the lead up to the last Apple event in which the iPhone 3GS was announced. Since that time the rumour mill has been churning at an astounding rate with coverage of everything from Apple’s patents that might be used in such a device to the recently held collective thought (hey if the NY Times says it’s so I think it’s safe to call it the collective belief) that yes this device is being built so we should now move to speculating on what it will be called. The ability of Apple to sit on the sidelines and not say a word yet have this much speculation and hype building says a ton about the passion people have for their products (more on that in this post) but it’s not just the normal hype and speculation around Apple products that we typically see – it is more than just articles on TUAW and mocked up images floating around the Internet, rather there is almost a cry for the product coming from both consumers and very interestingly from the publishing world. It’s this last point (the desire from the publishing world) that I find really fascinating and want to explore a little further in this post. Continue Reading…

As someone with an entrepreneurial mind I often have business ideas, marketing sparks or even just insights that I think might prove valuable for a future article, book or speaking engagement. Sometimes I am able to work through the idea on my own, either pursuing it further or deciding it was best as a passing thought – but often I want to get some real world opinions or reactions and I certainly am not about to pay a real focus group. Problem? Absolutely not…

If you’re looking for a variety of opinions or a sounding board for ideas, sometimes your best bet is to turn your thoughts inward to your own life and to your real life group of friends and other contacts. Something I have recently been able to do with different groups of people in my life. Continue Reading…