First, thanks for the nice words and taking the time to write such a well-thought out reply.

There is so much more to cover on communities, most of my 2010 will be talking about them. We have not even scratched the surface on this… think about this: you may not know it, but your “gut” is influenced by your communities as well.

Here is another example of sharp-eye reading. Analytics is not even being discussed for what it is. Social analytics change the game entirely – why? because the same data you use to make your decisions is available to your competitors. Can you imagine how your strategy will change if not only you can access that data? the key to all this, mashing up the data with the existing corporate data, is what is going to make a difference… and you cannot do that without analytics. period.

you managed to summarize my research philosophy in two paragraphs far better than i could’ve done. thanks a lot for that… may just use that as a preamble to my research agenda.

thanks for the read, sorry for late reply — travel is not kind to the blogger.

communities and segments are different since the segmentation happens with internal, existing data and communities could be — well, just about anything (at the baseball game? got a comm for that, member of the PTA? got a comm for that, etc.).

Sorry, did not mean to hurt you – but as i dig deeper into communities (as soon as time permits, right) we will have deeper, more interesting conversations that should be easy to follow along.

Thanks for the read.

First, you start off with one of the best two-paragraph summaries of CRM and SCRM I’ve seen.

As with the previously published parts of this roadmap, I appreciate your addressing of “the real-world”. Whereas in 2.1 you discussed the need for organizational change and flexiblity, here you talk about the need to use current technologies to get something done(a v1.0, if you will) to build support. In today’s economy, especially, relatively unproven/immature approaches and technologies(eg SCRM) are going to have to be implemented incrementally, with smaller wins along the way. The availablity and proliferation of no/low-cost social media and open-source platforms makes this approach quite workable.

Your points about the need for companies to think about communities are right on. As Mike alluded to(I think) above, I think there is room for refinement/granularity here as some segments(eg product categories) are more/less influenced by “the community” than others, IMO. This would, in turn, guide marketing strategy to more/less heavily weight community vs individual factors in an integrated marketing strategy. For example, there are numerous products where I jump straight to an online community(for reviews/discussion) and, sometimes, make my buying decision based solely on this sort of research(across a few such groups). Conversely, there are times where I did just the opposite: buying solely on “gut”, emotional attraction, because it was on sale, impulse, etc. I certainly don’t imagine I’m alone in any of this.

Of course, you mention that we’ve only started the communities discussion so I’m sure we’ll touch upon this all in more detail soon

The need to filter through the increased noise of social media, as well as the proportionate increase in “signal” is a definite. So, we capture, analyze and, we hope, put it all together to make some sort of informed, actionable insights towards iterative improvement(or a flat-out re-engineering). Sounds like a no-brainer but it is really what brings it all home…what closes the loop. We all know of cases where we have wonderful data gathering and analysis(analytics) tools in place churning out stacks of metrics and gorgeous dashboards but, for whatever reasons, it all really ends up a black hole from which nothing actionable escapes. AND even when we have the systems in place to do this plus the culture to adapt to resulting insights, we ultimately need a bunch of experienced, smart and, often, courageous *people* behind the scenes to make the right decisions out of all of this information. There are many potential weak links in this chain. Though, because your competition will encounter the very same, these weak links are one in the same your opportunities for differentiation and success.

Am definitely looking forward to the communities piece and how it ties into the whole roadmap.

Thanks!
Russ
Seattle, WA
http://www.twitter.com/russhatfield

I can see where a business today should begin thinking in terms of communities. I’m just wondering how different this is from the segmentation we’ve always given our customers. Marketers have always attacked the communication problem from various angles.

What percentage of businesses are going to be classified with “social potential?” Will middle market B2B companies with brands that have finite reach really be involved? If so, how? How much will they invest to capture such a small social community(s), if they can even identify them (beyond their support forums).

Aaargghhh! You’re making my head explode with all this thinking! The worst part is I’m probably thinking from the wrong direction.
.-= Mike Boysen´s last blog ..CRM Sales Professional Needed =-.