The Social Customer Manifesto: October 2007

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Cerado Haystack To Support OpenSocial API

Cerado Haystack, our white-label social networking platform for businesses and associations, will be supporting Google's Open Social efforts in a number of ways over the coming months (more on OpenSocial here). In particular, Cerado will be:

1) Enabling Haystack to be a container for Open Social apps
2) Creating applications that leverage the Open Social API that can be embedded into other applications and environments

What is Open Social? Well, remember all that buzz a couple of months ago when Facebook announced their proprietary API that allowed developers to create applications for the Facebook platform? Now, that same notion can take place for any site on the web. (By the way, Marc over at Ning sums it up well, and his analysis of the implications for FB are spot-on.)

We already have an Open API, and have been long-time supporters of efforts such as OpenID. As such, we see the release of Open Social is a very good thing for the industry and, in particular, enabling better connection with information about individuals and their activity streams and creating a standard way to integrate that information with business applications (especially customer-facing ones) is a huge step forward.

Well done, Google.

October 31, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bob Garfield: "Comcast Must Die."

As a new blog, ComcastMustDie, has been set up by veteran NPR On The Media host and AdvertisingAge writer Bob Garfield.

Garfield writes:

"Actually, I have no deathwish for Comcast or any other gigantic, blundering, greedy, arrogant corporate monstrosity, What I do have is the earnest desire for such companies to change their ways. This site offers an opportunity -- for you to vent your grievances (civilly, please) and for Comcast to pay close attention.

Congratulations. You are no longer just an angry, mistreated customer. Nor, I hope, are you just part of an e-mob. But you are a revolutionary, wresting control from the oligarchs, and claiming it for the consumer. Your power is enormous. Use it wisely." (emphasis added)

In a separate post, he hits it out of the park, and echoes the reasons for the existence of The Social Customer Manifesto itself. Garfield:

"Partly because you [Comcast] have behaved so arrogantly till now, and partly because the world has changed around you, you now must answer to a Greater Power.

Us.

And we have demands:

1) You will recruit a standing panel of customers to consult, brainstorm, complain and advise you every step of the way -- from your customer-service practices, to your billing, to your programming content. This process, within the confines of protecting proprietary information, will be transparent.

2) You will host a website soliciting customer feedback of every kind. In other words, there will be the customer-delegate panel, and a mega-panel online. Don't sweat the flaming you will take. You will also get a) countless great ideas, b) a mechanism for locating and attending to hardcore customer-service issues, c) a vast increase in customer loyalty and goodwill, and d) a vast advantage in impressing potential customers. If you're smart, you will also cultivate a social network of TV watchers of all stripes who credit you for your hospitality.

3) Most importantly of all, you must recognize that none of this is PR move you have to make through gritted teeth in extremis. It is a golden opportunity to exploit the unprecedented potential of a connected world. How ironic. You've been stringing co-ax for decades, yet you don't even realize what you've wrought. Yes, that's right, you have created the very conditions for all of us to band together against you. At the moment it must seem like Frankenstein's monster, but take our word for it:

It's Comcastic!" (emphasis, again, added)

Juicy, crunchy, wonderful stuff. Go check it out.

Hat tip: Andy Sernovitz

October 30, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Hot Dish

JM over at Good Morning Silicon Valley tells us:

Danelle Azola described the exchange [with Dish Network] in a TV interview: “I called there to let them know that our house was destroyed, to cancel all the stuff, and the first thing they asked me was if I had a chance to grab their receiver for the satellite dish. And I told them no, that was the last thing that was on my mind. So then they told me I would have to pay the $300 for the receiver. … I asked to have the bill postponed until we got reimbursed from our insurance and she said sorry, you have to pay it as soon as you get your bill in the mail like any other normal bill.”

It appears there are endemic issues for the industry, though. Cite: Paul Greenberg's DirecTV (er, "DreckTV") saga

Update: AT&T/Dish Network have reversed their position. Karl at Broadband Reports tells us "We spoke to AT&T spokesman Brad Mays, who investigated the incident. Mays says that after the couple called AT&T, they were transferred to Dish Network, and a Dish Network representative did not follow the disaster policy Dish has in place. Mays ensures us that they've contacted the couple, and they will not be charged for service cancellation or equipment fees."

October 26, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Desert Island Blogs

My desert island in the sun.
Originally uploaded by elvis_payne.

The folks over at my alma mater have created a nifty algorithm that answers the question: Which blogs should one read to be most up to date, i.e., to quickly know about important stories
that propagate over the blogosphere? The method they used was intended to answer the following: "If we can read only 100 blogs, which should I read to be most up to date if we want to be the first to know about something with many people blogging about the story after us?"

Here's a link to the paper and supporting information.

And here are the 100 desert island blogs:

October 25, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

In It For The Long Haul

Logo2 A nice writeup on myCRMcareer from the folks over at Chief Marketer. (Cerado Haystack is the social networking engine behind myCRMcareer.) Read the whole bit here.

October 24, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Rex Hammock:Viewing Presentations On Your iPhone

When I ran into Jerry last week at the Consortium summit, he showed me a cool little bit where Google Docs / Presentation functionality was specifically tuned for the iPhone. Just did a quick search, and Rex Hammock has put up a quick (90sec) video on how to do it. Check it out.

October 24, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Offtopic: CommonCraft, The Zombie Edition

Lee and Sachi give some brilliant instruction on how to survive a zombie invasion. Braaaains!

(RSS subscribers, click here for the video.)

October 24, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monkey, Sí

bounce monkey, chillin'
Originally uploaded by dogwelder.

David Cushman has started a new Facebook group called "No More Call Center Monkeys!"

He also distilled down a number of his key points thusly:

I want to talk to someone who is listening to me - not reading a script from a computer screen.
I want to talk to someone with the power to do something about my problem.
I want to talk to someone who knows how to get round the moment when 'the computer says no'
I want to talk to smeone for whom reason is allowed to mean something.
I don't want to input my account number on my phone - then have to tell three more people what it is during the same call.
I want a full response to my complaints.

We urge these companies to stop insulting the intelligence of both their customers AND their employees. Giving the poor saps on the end of the phone a script they must stick to effectively turns them into a computer. We don't want to talk to a computer.

We think it is grossly unfair on call centre staff - the very people charged with dealing direct with your customers - to leave them with no power to think or act for themselves.

October 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Open Spacing Out

One of the sessions at yesterday's Consortium summit was an Open Space. This particular conversation was on the topic "How can our company involve the customers more fully in creation and adding content to our [customer support] knowledge base? What are the risks? What are the benefits?"

I tore a page (an admittedly clumsy page, but if you don't try you can't improve...) from the Eileen Clegg school of notetaking/journaling; the results of which are included below. So. The high points, in a mostly stream-of-consciousness form...

The conversation centered around how to enable customers to contribute more fully to a collaborative workspace that is shared between a company and its stakeholders, primarily centered on the support and service functions.

- Templates were suggested as a means to make it easier to customers to contribute. That is, instead of starting with a blank page (we were primarily talking about wikis as the collaboration mechanism), templated, more structured pages may encourage participation.

- Should customers be encouraged to create entire "documents" to contribute or, perhaps at the outset, is allowing "commenting" on existing documents an easier path? Are there varying methods of collaboration - creation, editing, commenting, etc.?

- Context is key.

- Is there a "certification" process? That is, if an individual has invested the time and energy to be "certified" in a particular domain, does that individual obtain more advanced privileges in the community with respect to contribution?

- Contribution privileges may be granted with increased reputation in the community

- "Flag it" or "Fix it"...Dave Kay asked the very relevant question of whether a customer should be "flagging" content that needed further attention (e.g. how flagging is done on Craigslist) or should that customer be "fixing" things that needed attention (a la Wikipedia).

- "Extra premium" content is a lose/lose (Exhibit A: The about-face of Times Select)

- Let customers rate support content

- Watching what is actually being searched on is a great driver to highlight the most relevant information

- The best information that is most useful to customers might not live within the walled garden

The group also brainstormed a number of different ways customers and service professionals within the organization could collaborate online. These methods included:

- Comments (both visible internal to the organization as well as externally)

- Forums

- Integration across multiple support mechanisms (e.g. integrating forums and the knowledge base)

- Search

- Recognition and attribution contributing to the reputation of a customer in the system

- Differing levels of "spidering" of content could encompass internal, partner or Rest of World sources of information

- Not losing sight of the fact that the best material will likely be outside the firewall -- realize that external monitoring is ultimately critical to success

October 20, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

The Hidden Mickey

Landed in Orlando for the Consortium for Service Innovation Annual Summit. Will be talking about online identity and reputation; full schedule is here.

Thanks to Jerry for the Hidden Mickey reference.

October 19, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Goodbye NYC

Goodbye NYC
Originally uploaded by christophercarfi.

October 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Social Apple

In NYC today and tomorrow for the Social Media and CRM 2.0 certification workshop. See you there.

October 16, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thought Experiment: Second Google Life

Link: Google embeds YouTube videos into Google Earth.

The thought experiment: The satellite imagery in Google Earth is just data, information, bits. What if Google recreated Google Earth using the underlying Google Earth engine, but instead of skinning it with satellite imagery, they started it as a blank sphere (tabula rasa) and they let common, everyday folk create what a (building, block, township, county, state, continent) looked like? And then let folks create their own world by weaving together the terraformed creations? That would kinda be like SL, wouldn't it?

image: lat long blog

October 11, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Hopper To It

Keith Hopper: "The more I learn about VRM (Vendor Relationship Management), the more I hear about the importance of benefits for both the buyer and the seller.

The big question that remains then is, how is VRM good for business? As we consider and construct tools that put the customer in control of their data, how will existing businesses be convinced this is a good thing? And what opportunities are in store for new businesses that can leverage VRM models? In short, how will companies make (more) money in a VRM world?

Here are some initial thoughts."

October 9, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New Uses

New Uses
Originally uploaded by christophercarfi.

Are there ways that existing customers of your product can use it that perhaps they hadn't thought of? Think about...

Using baking soda not only for baking, but also in your fridge.
Using cotton swabs not just for cosmetic uses, but also to light a hard-to-reach candle
Using an iPod as a tip calculator when out at a restaurant.

What new ways can your product be used?

October 9, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Social Networking for Business: Measuring the Results

I've written an article entitled "Social Networking for Business: Measuring the Results" for the October edition of Communication World Bulletin, the monthly publication of the International Association of Business Communicators.

An excerpt:

"The online world is abuzz with talk about social networking. With companies such as Facebook seemingly constantly in the news, 2007 has been the year that social networking took its first adolescent steps beyond being the sole purview of, well, adolescents, and started to become a tool that is getting noticed in the business world. But with all the hype out there about online social networking, how can organizations begin to better understand the tangible business impact of their forays into this area?"

You can view the whole article here.

October 8, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

What Do You Mean You "Deleted California?"

"The Department of Technology Services (DTS) has notified us that the Federal Government inadvertently deleted the CA.GOV domain." Story here.

I hate it when that happens.

October 3, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

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Cerado Haystack To Support OpenSocial API

Bob Garfield: "Comcast Must Die."

Hot Dish

Desert Island Blogs

In It For The Long Haul

Rex Hammock:Viewing Presentations On Your iPhone

Offtopic: CommonCraft, The Zombie Edition

Monkey, Sí

Open Spacing Out

The Hidden Mickey

Goodbye NYC

Social Apple

Thought Experiment: Second Google Life

Hopper To It

New Uses

Social Networking for Business: Measuring the Results

What Do You Mean You "Deleted California?"

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