Series of Tubes

For Harold Lager

I've discovered that Fathers Day is a very difficult holiday for me now. Two years ago, my father, Harold S. Lager, died on Fathers Day weekend. It was also right before his and Mom's 43rd (I think) wedding anniversary. For the most part, I've gotten past the period when thinking about Dad brings tears to my eyes, but all bets are off on this holiday. Since I can only celebrate him in absentia now, I think it's time to get a tribute to the man out into the world.

Like most men his age (born April 6, 1938), Dad served in the armed forces; his branch of choice was the Air Force. He was lucky enough to serve between the wars—too late for Korea, too early for Vietnam—but it was still the height of the Cold War, and the USAF was the first point of contact for attack or defense. Dad wasn't a pilot, but rather a crew chief for aircraft maintenance, mostly working on the F-100 Super Sabre.

He was good. Really good. Good enough to be requested as the crew chief for more than one base commander, despite the anti-Jewish attitude that was prevalent in the U.S. military at the time. Good enough assigned to the Thunderbirds aerial demonstration squadron. You won't find him on their roster, though; orders deploying him to a fast-response interceptor squadron in (I think) Guam had been cut prior to that assignment, and they didn't catch up to him until the day he arrived at Nellis AFB. He could have complained. He could have fought it. But he packed his gear back up, got on the next MAC flight, and went where he was needed. That's how my dad operated—he went where he was needed, and did what was required, usually very well.

I wanted to get that information up front, because it was the source of a lot of great stories. Outside of the stories, and what they say about him, Dad wasn't a military man. When he mustered out, he was pretty much done with that part of his life except for a job with Republic Aviation. He had also become a pretty good baseball player, to the point of being scouted by a major league team (there's some argument between my brother and me about whether it was the Cincinnati Reds or the Boston Red Sox) and offered a uniform, but he turned it down. Baseball wasn't quite the money sport it is today, and it wasn't a great life for somebody who wanted to be a family man someday.

Dad made his mark in the film business. Again, not the flashy part. He was a booker, and a very good one. He climbed the ranks in more than one, winning awards and respect along the way. He also met my mom, which is a win outstripping all others. Eventually, he stopped working for the distributors and became a film buyer, acting as the agent for theater owners. At its height, Mini Theatres (the partnership he had with Marty Goldman) served close to 300 screens in New  England and upstate New York. There was more to the business, but it's not who he was either.

Dad was a good guy.

He was more than a good guy. He was an everyday hero, the sort who never did anything selfish or petty, and always thought of others first. Lots of people will say this about their parents, especially when they're gone, but in this case it was true. Dad made friends and garnered respect wherever he went. While not what you'd identify as an intellectual, he was philosophical, witty, and always curious. Later in life, he took special interest in the framers of the U.S. constitution, in the mafia, and in opera, among other things. He gave often to charity (I recall the Southern Poverty Law Center especially), and donated money and time to our local synagogue.

A lot of people took advantage of my dad in his life (including another partner who cleaned out a company and left him holding the bag when it collapsed), but he wasn't vengeful or even particularly interested in getting back what was his. That wasn't the case if somebody screwed with his family, though. Hurt one of us, and you would make an enemy for life.

I can go on like this forever. I can talk about his compassion, or his comic timing, or his passion for puns, or the tremendous love he had for us. Already I'm reaching the point where I'm not completing all the thoughts I need to in order to make you understand what a mensch this was, so I may as well stop. I think, though, that if I had to sum Dad up in one word, it would be reliable. This is a man you could always count on, regardless of time, weather, or health. I aspire to be the same, but I'm not half what he was in that regard. But I'll keep trying. It's what he would want.

Happy Fathers Day, Dad. I miss you.

Adventures In TV Buying

Or (referencing their horrible radio spots) "You don't go to B&H; you go through B&H."

Meaghan and I decided to gracefully retire my 19" CRT TV in favor of the latest and greatest, and today was the day to go get it. We are the proud new owners of a 32" Samsung Series 5 (LN32A550, see specs here ), but that's not the main focus. The focus is the store we used to acquire this lovely little gem.

New Yorkers, and in fact most A/V enthusiasts on the East Coast, are familiar with B&H. Originally a camera store, B&H has expanded its footprint to include TV and other home electronics. They often have the best prices, and (at least with cameras) highly knowledgeable staff. They are also possessed of some truly bad advertising, but that's another story. I'd never been to B&H, despite working a block away from it, so today was my first experience.

You know the famous scene in Chaplin's Modern Times, with the machines and the conveyor belts? Lucy's (Lucille Ball) experiences as a pastry factory worker? How about the recent commercials where everybody in a given commerce situation moves in perfect sync, paying with a tap of their credit card? If those three memes had a menage a trois and produced a child from that union, it would look a lot like the inside of B&H. Packed from the entrance to the (thankfully) separate exit, every movement except for consulting with the sales staff is orchestrated. There are queues that lead you to other queues, and New Yorkers aren't famous for their tolerance of line-standing. There are conveyor belts passing items overhead, and elevators bringing larger items up from the basement for handoff to patrons.

It was efficient, it was quick, but I don't think it was even remotely enjoyable. Granted, I was coughing up close to $1,000 for a TV, but that's to be expected, and I don't think that was the source of the unpleasantness. I felt like a cog in a wheel. My impression was that I was there to give money to B&H, with a lovely parting gift when it was over. Maybe if I'd needed more consultation with the salesperson it would have felt different; as it was, I walked in and selected my toy, then got processed out. The all-touchpoints customer experience, shall we say, was lacking.

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Mind you, we're happy with the new set. We calibrated it as well as we could, given that I had an old DVD copy of Avia Guide to Home Theater to work with, poor room lighting, and no way to properly analyze color balance, not had I done any serious HDTV work in close to a decade. The thing that's slowing us down is adjusting for the lag between the TV and the game consoles. (Now you know the real reason we got the new TV.)

Our current passion is Rock Band, a game that requires good timing. It's tough to achieve when there's a delay somewhere amongst the audio, the video, and what the Xbox360 thinks is correct. Just a few milliseconds makes a huge difference, and the calibration tool built in to the game is leaving us flustered. Meaghan just got done playing "Paranoid" (as made famous by Black Sabbath) multiple times, adjusting the lag slightly each time, until she found a setting we could work with.

We tried the Intertubez, and there was no helpful info. Samsung wouldn't have it, either, so we didn't even try them. Plus, it's the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend, and nobody's  likely to be answering stupid questions today. We could have asked Microsoft for info, but that would be a similar situation -- compounded by the usual Microsoft consumer support "it's not a problem with our product" answer. The publisher's official site wasn't any more helpful, since its calibration tool is perfect. Yes, I know everybody's got a different TV and other peripherals to account for, but some acknowledgment of the issue beyond some unhelpful forum posts would have made me feel much less incompetent.

OK, I'm done bitching. Now it's time to play. Actually, it's time to eat, and then play. Happy Memorial Day y'all. Try to spare a thought for the dead and wounded of so many wars, whose sacrifices helped shape a world where it's possible for me to bitch about trivial matters. Or, as I put it this morning: "Remember the fallen, because they can't get up." ;-)

His Five-Year Mission

Just a quick note to all you who watch the people who watch CRM on your behalf -- this month marks five years of insight and advice from Brent Leary, author, radio host, and friend. The commemorative post and ensuing love-fest by big names in the business, can be found on his blog. [Edit -- this isn't actually his blog; it's Small Business Trends. I really should check my work. Brent's blog is here. ] Poke around while you're there, and you will see why this industry needs more guys like Brent.

Remember me? I used to blog ...

As usual, I'm apologizing for not being more regular about keeping you folks engaged, so this is a thank-you to all 5 of my fans for not giving up on me. Remember that post I did in March about Microsoft Convergence? Well, I came back from that with flu and bronchitis, so I was pretty much out of action for a month, with my typically limited Internet access. After that, it was a matter of playing catchup to real life, so just getting through that ate up any time I might have devoted to writing for myself (again, with limited Internet).

All those problems are now fixed. I'm healthy (at least, as healthy as I'm likely to get until I get up off my butt and do some exercise), I'm mostly caught up to work and whatnot, and I have ditched my comically bad ISP for a new one. I could give you my impressions on everything that's happened in CRM world for the past 2 months, but that would be an unreasonable chunk of my time and yours. So I'm starting fresh, with recent events and thoughts, such as they are.

Sage's annual partner conference was this past week, and I was there along with the rest of the Gang of Four (or Fantastic Four, as Paul seems to prefer). Sage has had its ups and downs in the past couple of years, but it's really starting to get more right than wrong now.

• The Sage 2010 initiative includes a healthy dose of social media /Web 2.0 that doesn't feel bolted on. Check out their vendor-side blogs, for one, and  then know that they're paying attention to the customer-facing part as well.
• The company is slowly unifying its market presence, making sense out of the chaos caused by three CRM product lines (well , two and a  jumped-up contact manager that still does most of what most companies want CRM to do) and Mitra knows how many accounting and ERP lines -- and that's just in the U.S.
• The new CEO, Sue Swenson, seems to really want to reach the customer through the partners, not just reach the partners. This is important enough that it takes precedence over her lack of experience in the industry, being a former telecom big.

Sue was in something of a no-win situation with this conference. As a CEO who's only been there for 6 weeks, she couldn't sit this one out, but she couldn't have anything weighty to add to the discussion yet, either. She scored some points by being up-front about her lack of time on the job, lack of industry expertise, and by mentioning that she'd mostly been touring Sage sites and getting input from workers at all levels about what could be done better. She also lost some (with me, at least) by not venturing beyond those talking points and maybe energizing the crowd a bit. Again, there was no perfect solution and I think she handled it well.

Let me also say that sometimes I come off as overly critical of Sage, at least when Joe Bergera's in the same room with me. Joe is EVP and global GM of Sage CRM solutions, and a good guy. Very knowledgeable, as open as somebody with his title can be, and I can't seem to avoid putting my foot in my mouth when interviewing him. Thanks for indulging my shoe-leather addiction, Joe.

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On a related note, Salesforce.com is apparently buying up all the  Google AdWords that point to ACT!, Sage's contact manager-cum-CRM application. There's nice fat sponsored link to Salesforce.com with the headline "Grow Beyond ACT." Ouch, on one hand. On the other, SFDC shouldn't be going after ACT so much as it should SageCRM.com and/or SalesLogix. ACT users should already know they have other Sage products at hand when they want to migrate upwards in functionality, so it just feels to me like a cheap shot. Of course, this is why I'm not in advertising -- for all I know, this is a brilliant move.

The word from Microsoft Convergence

The good news: I got 30 minutes to interview Steve Ballmer about Microsoft's CRM strategy. The bad news: I can't talk about it here. I promised Kim Stocks (MSFT PR handler and all-around skilled woman) that the discussion would be used for an upcoming feature in CRM magazine, and I'm not the sort to break a promise if I can help it. I will say that I'm grateful for the opportunity, and that it's gratifying to know that the guy who runs things in Redmond is so interested in my little corner of the software world. The same is true regarding Brad Wilson, general manager of Dynamics CRM and a terrific guy to spend an hour with. He is the right man for the job, if knowledge and passion mean anything.

There were a lot of other good reasons to come here, almost all of them two-legged. I was able to renew my connections with a number of great people in the press and analyst community, to finally meet others I'd never shaken hands with before despite numerous calls and emails over the years, and to find some new faces. This goes for the Microsoft people and their Waggener-Edstrom PR buddies too, as well as some MSFT partners. There are good people in this business, and they care about what they're doing while still putting it in the proper perspective (which is that few outsiders know or care about what's happening here).

It's hard to overemphasize the value of personal relationships -- imagine that, coming from a guy who writes about CRM -- but that's a major part of what makes conventions and trade shows worthwhile. Without familiar faces and shared insights, the endless cycle of travel, hotels, briefings, and product demos would be unbearable. I don't even like to look at the booth babes (yes, we still have those), pleasing though they may be to the eye. Granted, there are a lot of men in the IT profession, the sort who only regularly see or touch the type of racks that hold servers. But CRM is not an IT issue; executives in sales, marketing, customer service, and the like come in all shapes, sizes, genders, and orientations. It's a little insulting that the exhibitors at Microsoft Convergence thought they needed such ... exhibitions to get our attention. (Save that stuff for the party after the show floor closes!)

There wasn't a whole lot of breaking news at Convergence, though several partners and their booth babes would say otherwise. (Thanks for the peek at your lovely cleavage, my dear, but I don't "do the CRMs," as you put it.) Even Microsoft's big announcement was an expansion of a partnership that's been in place for 20 years. Granted, the deal with EDS is big, and will probably go a long way toward establishing Microsoft as a serious CRM and business apps player, but it's not the sort of thing you hang a conference on. I guess Redmond and its supporters need to reconnect from time to time as well.

My personal reaction, though, is that while Microsoft is trying very hard to get to a place where one can say, "Those folks are CRM," the company isn't there yet. The software itself probably is -- its innate flexibility and depth of integration, combined with what the ISVs can add, make for a worthy entry on the short list of vendors to consider. But the general opinion among the pen-and-notebook set was that the passion for CRM isn't part of Microsoft culture yet. They're still coming at it as an adjunct to ERP (an idea expressed by Denis Pombriant better than I can, and I'd link you if he'd posted anything yet). The Microsoft user's customer seems like an afterthought, something outside the corporate consciousness that must be managed and handled, studied and recorded, but not let "inside." There's very little sense of connection to the customer, very little social connectivity, very little of that elusive 2.0 stuff.

Having said that, I want to make it clear that I'm not completely knocking Microsoft. The executives seem to get CRM, and the ones who don't quite get it at least want to. The tools are there for MSFT's customers, and the company has the resources to keep innovating. Dynamics is on the cusp of something big, and I genuinely want to see it make the turn.

Whatchamacallit

Permit me to indulge in a potential conflict of interest. I found this post the other day talking about how CRM is dying or dead as a buzzword. On the one hand, it probably hurts me to give the post any more publicity than it's already getting since CRM pays my bills—literally, due to my job at the magazine of the same name. On the other hand, the author (Geoffrey James) makes some valid points that I'd like to discuss, and it would be rude not to give credit where it's due. Hence the conflict.

To begin with, I contest Mr. James' statement that CRM is merely the new name for SFA. The former contains the latter, along with a lot more. I admit that the magazine I work for was born under the name Sales & Field Force Automation, but even then (to the best of my recollection) it included field service as well as sales.

Mr. James also writes "Today, about half the websites selling some kind of sales technology already avoid the 'CRM' moniker. Instead, they sport a variety of terms like 'Sales 2.0' or 'Sales Enhancement Technology' or 'Sales Productivity Improvement Tools.' That's because they''re sales tools, not CRM. If it's not tied into marketing, customer service, and probably some back-office disciplines as well, it's not doing all of CRM's job.

Beyond those two disagreements, though, I have to say that the spirit of the article is spot-on. There's a discussion on the CRM 2.0 Wiki about whether the new technologies and approaches being used merit dropping the term CRM (or CEM—customer experience management) in favor of something newer and possibly more descriptive.

Mr. James writes "Many CRM systems are implemented simply to supply management with data; very few systems actually help sales pros in the day-to-day task of selling. Many sales pros feel as if they’re being asked to be data entry clerks — and give away their contacts, simply to help their managers make fancy reports." This has been and continues to be a huge problem. We have a term for what he describes: failed CRM implementation. Improved reporting is an important part of any CRM project, yes. But if that's the only purpose, the money that went for the software would probably have been better spent on resume paper for all the employees, 'coz the company is in trouble. CRM contains tools to make users more effective at their jobs, and better able to focus on the customer; the more advanced your CRM, the more you are able to support real two-way conversations with them in the manner they prefer. The reporting should be a product of that work, not an added task for salespeople.

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On a related topic, I found this gem by Seth Godin (yeah, him) about the absurdity of motivating your skilled individuals by way of a department called Human Resources. (Thanks to Chris Carfi for reposting the link, or I'd never have seen it. I owe you a call, man.) The first thing I thought of, naturally, was one of my favorite Dilbert cartoons. I'd link to it, but either they've got that site locked down tighter than Joan Rivers' facial skin, or it's not in the archives. You can find it on p. 103 of Casual Day Has Gone Too Far, dated 9/22/1995. I won't describe it—few things are more lame than trying to explain a comic strip—but believe me when I say it's stuck with me all these years for a reason.

Taken together, these two discussions show the good and the bad of changing the name of something you already know. I'd also like to add that, at some level, this is missing the forest for the trees. The name of a thing should describe it accurately, but it's so much more important that it actually does what it's supposed to.

True story (seriously, not the "true story" you say when setting up a joke): One day in 3rd grade, one of my classmates kicked another in the groin. The substitute teacher we had that day didn't see it happen, so I informed her: "Alex just kick Mike in the balls!" Her reaction was to get that flustered, distracted, don't-know-what-to-do look on her face and say, "I really don't think you should say that," while taking a couple of baby steps toward the incident, probably 30 feet away, where the victim (who probably deserved it) was howling and writhing in pain. Precocious little shit that I was, I replied, "Fine. Alex's foot just impacted Michael's testicles. Are you going to do something?" The specific words are secondary to the information conveyed. If you can't cope, sooner or later there's a boot coming for your squishy bits.

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I'll end with another slight conflict of interest. I try to keep my day job as separate from my blog as possible, given that both tend to hit the same topics. However, my co-workers at Speech Technology have just started a blog for that publication, and it's pretty good so far. I'm adding it to the blogroll, and hoping they keep us amused. Lauren, Ryan, Len—I'm watching you.

The power of honesty, and a contest

This is an attempt to rewrite a long and insightful post from a week ago that was eaten by the Internet and my own stupidity. Chances are that it will be shorter and less insightful, but that's because I'm still kicking myself for losing the original post. I'm hoping it will be worth your time and mine. Special thanks this time to the people who maintain Wikipedia, without whom I'd have to do real research.

I spend a fair amount of time talking about the importance of honesty, transparency, and willingness to admit error as keys to maintaining a relationship with customers. The book "Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts" illustrates the mechanisms behind why those good qualities aren't more common in life and in business. The reason is self-justification. In brief, our brains edit our memories whether we want them to or not, in an effort to reduce cognitive dissonance between our self-image and the fact that we screwed up.

Self-justification is like the Dark Side of the Force: once you start down that path, forever will it dominate your destiny. It can be identified and controlled, but it's always something to watch out for. I've done it, you've done it, the person you admire most in the world has done it. It's like that old joke about masturbation -- "We know that 90% of men masturbate, and 60-75% of women do it...and the rest lie about it."

It's possible to get off the slippery slope (of self-justification, not masturbation ... that's a nasty image right there), but it takes courage. Again in brief, a great example of this is the incident involving Oprah Winfrey's endorsement of James Frey's fabricated autobiography "A Million Little Pieces." Yes, I know it's old news. It's still a fine illustration, and the authors of "Mistakes Were Made" use it.

When The Smoking Gun announced it had investigated Frey's story and found it to be crammed with falsehoods, Oprah initially backed Frey with strong statements about the emotional truth of the story and its value. As the truth became clear, Oprah could have done what most people would do, and stuck with her initial statements, justifying them as true as far as she knew when the book was presented to her, and the literal truth of it isn't an issue because it's such a strong story from which we can derive great lessons anyway. It would have ruined her reputation and destroyed her as a brand (yes, Oprah is a brand). Instead, she apologized, honestly and publicly, for her part in misleading the world and perpetuating a lie. It was a ballsy move, and it cemented her place of respect in American culture.

She brought Frey onto her show as part of her own apology, and took him to task for representing fiction as real life; even then, he weaseled around any admission of wrongdoing. Heard much from James Frey lately?

The last U.S. President to truly own up to the responsibility for a mistake was John F. Kennedy, regarding the Bay of Pigs invasion. When he admitted he screwed up, his approval ratings shot through the roof. Since then, we've had everything from "I am not a crook" to "it is best to defeat them there so we don't have to face them here"; from "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" to all the backtalk surrounding Iran-Contra. Is there any wonder why we don't trust government anymore?

Whether it's in business, politics, or personal life, please please PLEASE realize that if you might be wrong, it's better to admit it up front than to be found out, and have it dragged out of you later. Fight the urge to self-justify. Don't give in to the Dark Side.

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Now it's time for a contest. No matter how funny I find "Series of Tubes" to be as a title for a blog, I realize it doesn't really describe my subject matter. I'm opening it up to you, my handful of loyal readers: what should I call this thing, fer realz? The best suggestion (the sole criteria being my capricious nature and my twisted sense of humor) will get the job, as well as an outpouring of gratitude. Please note that I'm also incredibly lazy, so a sufficiently impassioned defense of the current title has as good a shot as something new.

IT Expo: At least the steak was good ...

People have referred jokingly to Florida as God's Waiting Room. I was just there, and I'm not convinced that the office visit we're waiting on is upstairs.

Miami was a humid, foggy swamp for my day's sojourn at IT Expo, but it's not the weather that had me down. It was my hotel room. It wasn't even the hotel room itself; it was the fact it was provided to me by another hotel, one that doesn't care what I think of it.

I had booked a room for one night at the Newport Beachside Hotel and Resort, a lovely little spot with parakeets and very nice ceiling fans in the lobby. Quite lovely, really; I felt as though I was in luxury's palm from the moment I arrived. Of course, it wasn't to last. They told me, upon my arrival, that "unforeseen difficulties" meant I couldn't have the room I booked, or indeed any room at the place whatsoever. The concierge was nice enough to provide a letter of introduction (and $10 car fare) to the Ramada Marco Polo, further down the road. I was already rather far from the Miami Beach Convention Center and the new hotel would be even farther, but I saw no point in arguing. After all, the guy said they had no room, and the Ramada was "very nice, just like this place" in his words.

Note to travelers: "very nice" means in hotel-speak just what it means in dating, dining, or any other human endeavor where you don't know what you're getting ahead of time. It means "I am lying to you; the (person, place, thing) sucks, but once you're gone it's no longer my problem."

The Ramada was to  Miami Beach resort hotels what boy bands are to modern music. While it qualified as such a place—it was in Miami Beach, within a reasonable distance of the ocean, and had rooms to stay in—it felt more like a retirement home. I always thought the elderly who lived in Miami owned homes there, but it seems I've been wrong all these years; they hang out in crappy hotels and play bridge. Yes, there was a bridge tournament being played in the basement when I arrived. The elevators had old-person smell.

(Please note that I have nothing against the elderly, and in fact I managed a few nice conversations while I was confined to this little corner of purgatory. It's just creepy when I go on a business trip and see, in great profusion, what time and gravity have in store for me.)

The hallways smelled less like old people, but only because they smelled more like an old dog that had been left outside in the rain. The room was clean, technically, but it felt old, used, second-hand. Kind of like me, actually. The air conditioner was largely non-functional (in Florida, yet) and thrummed like a farm tractor on idle. There was not enough light. There wasn't even a desk. The wireless Internet barely had enough signal to get me connected—and I couldn't without calling tech support. That was complicated by the fact that my phone couldn't call outside the building until I had it fixed. No room service. A view of the pool. Plumbing fixtures that were only minimally attached.

Now, everybody's had bad hotel experiences, myself included, so this wasn't actually the low point of my life or anything. And I know that not all accommodations are created equal (Ramada Inns being somewhat lower down in the rankings), so I can't say I resented what they provided me per se; if I'd booked the Ramada, I'd have expected less than the best. But I booked the Newport, and they smiled and apologized and sent me to the ass end of hotelry. I will not be angry with Ramada; I will save my ire for the Newport, because their backup option absolutely sucked and I have no way to set things right except by writing them this poison pen blog post.

That said, the food at the Ramada was surprisingly good, though I admit I only had one meal there. The menu was fairly limited, and the restaurant was more like a tremendous Elk Lodge with tables, but I had a perfectly-cooked 12-oz. sirloin strip, juicy, tender, lightly seasoned with cumin (possibly chili powder with an excess of cumin) and very well trimmed. It was better than some I've had at honest-to-goodness steak houses. The vegetable (broccoli, since they'd run out of mixed veg) was steamed perfectly and very tasty. That dinner surprised me so much that I regretted not being able to get my free breakfast the next morning. Alas.

IT Expo, or what I saw of it
My reason for being in Florida was to moderate a panel discussion at the aforementioned conference. I can't say for sure why I was chosen, since my topic—"Leveraging VoIP in the Contact Center"—is not one with which I have a lot of experience. Fortunately, I didn't have to have much beyond my normal level of business technology competence, as my panel was a gifted bunch. We had never laid eyes on one another until 10 minutes before the session (which was at 8 a.m., incidentally, further proof that the coordinators didn't know who they were dealing with), but the discussion went off smoothly. Thanks to panelists Brian Spraetz of NICE Systems, Rachel Wentink of Interactive Intelligence, and especially to Srinivas Mantripragada of RedShift Networks, whose slide deck got things off on the right foot and also ate up a good 15 minutes.

The big question seemed to be data security. While voice conversations have never been truly secure, what with the old-school Phone Phreaks and anybody who can get hold of a technician's butt set, they're even worse now that voice is just another kind of data. In the end, the consensus seemed to be that the war between hackers and security vendors will remain more or less at parity, and the most important places to tighten up gaps are in business processes and social exploits. Most security breaches are inside jobs, or are perpetrated by people who know how to take advantage of another person's natural inclination to be helpful.

I think I'm done venting for the moment, and I thank you for humoring me. My next post will probably back to the usual CRM goodness; I'm trying to work out a message on that topic that fits my outlook and isn't just repeating what other, smarter people have said before me, and you fine folks will be the first witnesses. My previous post was the start of that; now that this gripe-fest is out of the way, perhaps I can get back on track.

Doing a 180 on the 360-degree view

One of the pillars of CRM thought is that businesses want to have a 360-degree view of the customer. Every vendor says so, and so do most (if not all) analysts. Clearly, we're not a very creative bunch. The idea is that, by knowing your customer's demographics, purchasing history, interests, and preferences, you can better engage and delight your customers, anticipate their needs, and all that rot.

I don't deny the value of the old way, but it's not enough. The 360-degree view of the customer is good to have, but it’s not what you need. Think about the nature of relationships if you doubt me -- could you be really comfy in a relationship with somebody if they knew a lot more about you than you did about them? There's a reason most folks don't go out of their way to hug FBI agents, security camera watchers, and known voyeurs.

Today, the customer must have a 360-degree view of you, whether you’re comfy with that or not. You don’t own them; they own you. Is this me going all turnabout-is-fair-play, affirmative-action for customers? Not really. It's more about equalizing the relationship. Businesses already have all the customer info they need, and often more than they can use. If they can't hold up their end with all that, screw 'em. Customers, on the other hand, get most of their corporate information from news reports and from other customers' rumors.

I don't know about you, but I don't somebody basing their dealings with me on rumors and hearsay over which I have no control. Hell no -- I want them based on rumors and hearsay I started. (I'm not advocating companies lie to their prospects, unless it's tongue-in-cheek Joe Isuzu stuff. (Wiki link for the young or forgetful.)

Customers want to be faithful to a company, despite all the research that says they aren't. We choose brands and stick with them because it reduces the complications of everyday life, especially purchasing decisions. Nobody really wants to carefully evaluate every choice, and brands are a shorthand way to associate certain qualities. (One of the clever folks I spoke to recently said as much, and I'd cite or link it if I could remember who it was. My mad search skillz are totally failing me.)

Businesses can earn loyalty with honesty and openness. Would you rather find out about a product recall through an investigative news report, from a federal agency that orders the recall, or from the company that is recalling its products voluntarily "just in case"? Stupid question -- you'd rather hear about it immediately, from any source -- but the company should know first, be able to tell you first, and you'll feel a lot better about that company than if the nasty truth had to be forced out.

There's more to building trust and loyalty than  merely owning up to mistakes, of course. But trumpeting your virtues to anybody who listens is a great way to turn them off. This is as true in business as it is in high school. If you can get people to want to know how awesome you are, however, that's gold. A business that creates a portal (or has a supportive customer create a fan site) where it can post everything -- the good and the bad -- is well on the way to having a real relationship with its customers. A relationship where they can grow old together.

More on this topic soonish.

It's not my fault -- blame Warner Bros.

It's starting to seem like I spend all my time apologizing to you for not posting more often. This time, it had more to do with persistent lack of home Internet service than anything else. It was out for about 4.5 days recently, and I wasn't about to break into my office building over the New Year respite in order to add content. I like you folks, but c'mon.

It's because of my ongoing connectivity woes (and the fact I'm currently able to get online) that I dedicate this post to Time Warner Cable of New York or, as I think of them, the Goniffs. For those of you not in the know, goniff is Yiddish for thief. I'd prefer shyster (one who deals unethically or unscrupulously), but that term is so associated with lawyers that I might confuse people.

I've had three, possibly four, service appointments with Time Warner since signing up for RoadRunner and cable TV, and all of them have been Internet-related. This doesn't even count the tech-support calls that were handled by phone. Each time I was told a different story about what wasn't working. First, the cable was too long and the signal was degrading over the extra distance. Then it was a splitter that was installed for no reason outside the apartment -- with nothing connected to it, so I can't even say somebody was stealing my cable. Next, my modem was bad.

This last time, I got two different stories on the same call. When I'd had enough of no Internet, I called and explained my situation. I was told, despite massive evidence to the contrary, that my router was conflicting with RoadRunner, causing some sort of mystical IP loop that left me unable to connect. I was worn down at this point, and agreed to let them bring me their own hardware which I would rent the same way I do the cable box. That was before they got to the apartment. This time, they told me (actually, they told Meaghan's sister Emily, who arrived today from North Carolina and was immediately put to work waiting for the repair truck) that I had a weak signal and I'd have to move my book cases before they could fix it.

Weak signal. AFTER cutting out 10m of extra cable. AFTER removing a pointless splitter. AFTER telling me their hardware and whatnot wasn't compatible with my Linksys router -- probably the most popular brand in the United States if not the world. AFTER walking into the apartment and discovering that the connection was, in fact, working. (It came back to life shortly after I called for service. Convenient, no?)

Can you feel the waves of heat and hate radiating off my head right now? I'm convinced Time Warner Cable trains its technicians and CSRs as completely as Friendly's restaurants train their wait staff, which is to say not at all. Except perhaps they get a course in toying with customers. Oh, they're good at that. It feels like RoadRunner is operated by Wile E. Coyote, and I'm sick of them. They get one more chance, and then it's off to DSL land. I'm not even going to play my "I'm a CRM journalist, appease me or I will crucify you in print" trump card. I will just walk away. And then crucify them in print.