What is John talking about this time?  Truth be told, the combination of a pounding headache and a stimulating conversation with Michael Wu, the Principal Scientist of Analytics at Lithium Technologies Inc., led me to this title.  You’ll have to let me know if it works or not.

I was chatting with Michael as part of a video series with Lithium where Michael and I discuss community analytics, the videos will come out soon and, as we share them, I’ll add more of my thoughts with you.  However, one of my personal takeaways is that our own certainties, our beliefs, can only be fully understand when we take the time to dig into the alternate viewpoints, the uncertainties, that we have on any given topic.

Still reading?  I am impressed, thought I might lose you with that last paragraph.   Why is this important?

For the longest time we have all put our stake in the ground around Paul Greenberg’s final definition of Social CRM.  You should read it as it is a real gem with many layers of knowledge wrapped around it.  He offers us this simple definition which I have hesitated to disagree with:

I read a post today that stated that Social CRM is Dead, Long Live Social Media Flavored CRM, reminding me of a post I wrote last September titled Social CRM is dead, long live Social Business Strategy.  In both cases the driver for the post is a dissatisfaction with the nomenclature, not an issue with the definition of Social CRM.

I probably would have read that post, responded, and simply moved on if it had not been for a tweet I saw today that stated “Those who struggle with the term Social CRM believe it is about technology, it is about people and culture, first”. 

What’s right about this message?

Technology, as many of us have noted countless times, is definitely the least important piece of the CRM puzzle.  CRM, Social or otherwise, is a strategy put in place to help your business or agency improve your relationship with your customer to maximize your profits.  Yes, some will disagree with that last point, stating that it is about enhancing relationships, but the relationships are only important to the degree that they drive profits.

Martha Coakley continues to look for ways to innovate, to find better ways of achieving the goals associated with her role as Attorney General of Massachusetts.  I was fortunate enough to get her insights on a number of questions, I hope you learn as much as I have. 

Q. What are your thoughts on government 2.0, the open government directive/initiative?
A. Government leaders and agencies that are open to adapting new practices will see benefit from doing so. The opportunities new technologies afford government and the people we serve are important.

The Government Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, came out with a report, discussed on Informationweek, which finds several faults with the USASpending.gov web site.  The GAO nails the site in terms of both data quality and quantity.

While the report is dead on in terms of those issues, lets take a minute and focus on the real value being provided by collaborative and social technologies.  First, that this data, incomplete and imperfect as it is, is publicly available demonstrates a focused effort by the government to become more transparent.  If you have never reviewed this site, take a minute and check out the dashboard.

What lessons can your business/agency take away from this?

This is a common question for those new to Twitter, I even saw it posted today on Govloop  While I gave a short response there I wanted to also give a longer one on my blog, I hope it helps.

First off…..  There is no “right” answer.  I tweet 50+ times a day, others tweet once every day or two.  There is no magically correct number.  Your “right number” depends entirely upon your personal, business, or agency goals.   Here are some rough guidelines that I have come up over the course of my 20K+ tweets:

What time to Tweet?

The majority of my Twitter community is US and Western European based.  While I am working hard to find and engage with people in other areas of the world, the reality is that these people are awake when I am and I can maximize my waking hour interactions with people in these areas.

I refuse to use automated twitter tools like twitterfeed.  I did play with this tool, which takes RSS feeds and tweets them out on a schedule, but found that I could not control the quality of the information I was tweeting.  If you are going to tweet you should make sure you are comfortable with the information you are putting forth.  If it is completely automated you cannot guarantee that it is in-line with your beliefs.  Is your reputation worth the risk?

We generally have a disconnect between the person, business, or agency that we want to be and the reality of who or what we are today.  This disconnect is a great thing, an opportunity for growth an opportunity for improvement.  However, when not understood, it is also a major pain point, something that leads your customers, your citizens, to lack faith in your words and actions.

As you begin to make use of collaborative solutions, like social media, it is critical that you recognize the importance of being genuine.  This is hard, especially for businesses and agencies that enable multiple people to take part in conversations on your behalf.  So, as you review the strategies and tactics you have in place, take some time to clearly define:

Social geo data is cluttering the air waves.  People are constantly publishing their current location using services like foursquare, Gowalla, and Twitter.  Are you leveraging this information to improve your marketing, sales, and customer service efforts?  Eh?  Yes, I am talking to you, don’t look behind you.  I saw you check-in at Starbucks and, while you’re drinking that extra large cup of coffee, staring at your iPhone, let’s chat.

My friends at Sysomos sent me a link to their simple Fourwhere application.  At the same time, my friends at Lithium shared with me a widget they are baking into their  software.  In both cases the solutions are extremely basic, for now.  In both cases the companies look poised to iterate quickly to begin turning these solutions into powerful solutions that will provide data to feed your CRM, to improve your business, and to provide real value for your customers. 

Here is a short list of items I want to see from both companies as well as thoughts on how I would like to see B2C and B2B companies leverage the information:

I live in a small town in Massachusetts (Winthrop), a town like many others across the country, one that is struggling through a rough economy like all others.  Yet, in this small town, the teachers have gone without a contract for two years while the Superintendent receives a huge pay raise, the football team has their uniforms dry-cleaned while the girls basketball team does not have enough shorts.

Okay, you get the point, right?  Things are clearly a bit upside down.  Leaders, instead of focusing on a culture of Me first, lets all step back and remember the importance of our teams (the teachers above) and our customers (the kids on the basketball team).

• Without a solid team no leader can ever be successful.  Before taking that large pay raise and claiming there is no money to go around, think of the people who are making you successful.
• Too many times, especially with regards to teachers, I hear administration, our leaders, blaming the workers for the failures.  In any organization you may have one or two people who do not understand, one or two people who fail.  When an entire company, agency, school system, fails, the fault begins at the top.  Leaders must remember to take ownership for the good and bad within their organizations.  Failure to do so is a failure in leadership.  Enough said.

John

One of the most interesting aspects of collaborative strategies and tools is the promise of co-creating solutions with customers, partners, citizens and anyone else that your business or government agency interacts with.  The promise, of course, can only be achieved when goals have been clearly defined and articulated to all involved.  Success is not guaranteed, hard work and careful planning is required.  For those who have their act together the benefits will be seen.

You might be asking yourself, what is John talking about when he says, “Ideation”.  Simply put, ideation is a strategy, leveraging appropriate tactics and tools, whereby the company/agency collaborates with its customers/citizens to decide what products, features, services, are needed and the relative priority of those needs.  Ideation can be accomplished on a small scale through customer advisory groups or on a large scale as the US Federal Government is doing with it’s Federal Agency dashboard (http://www.opengovtracker.com/).
 
While there is no one-size-fits-all solution the high-level approach will look something like:

I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.  If I did I would really love to be a Perry Mason type of lawyer, the man was gifted…    Oh well, we’ll discuss my acting desires another day, for now, just a couple of quick thoughts on the legal side of your social media efforts.

The lawyers are working through the legal issues and a lot of it is still up in the air.  As you might remember, I asked a semi-random group of lawyers for their opinions and they shared their thoughts on who really owns your social media account.  While attending a Government 2.0 Unconference this past weekend I learned about the Massachusetts Legal Guidance toolkit, check it out.  Note: