Michael Fauscette

Loyalty and mobility, getting and keeping customers engaged

The airline industry has offered, and struggled with, loyalty programs for years. The concept is pretty straight forward, reward your best customers for being the best by giving them more privileges and free stuff. The execution though has not always engendered loyalty. I can't help but believe that some of that struggling is company culture and attitude but I'm sure some of it is also the back end systems used to manage the programs. There are all sorts of horror stories about poor program decisions that have had the reverse effect on customers, at least in the US (those stories I know, but I doubt they're unique to the US). Here's a good post from my friend and fellow analyst Paul Greenberg that demonstrates the point. I have a few stories of my own, especially with United Airlines, where I have an ongoing "relationship" (if you fly out of SFO you pretty much have to deal with United). Anyway, that's another story and someday I'll be motivated to share my experiences at the hands of what is in my opinion the worst customer service in the airline industry (have to leave out wireless companies at least, they certainly are in the running for worst customer experience ever).

Enough of the airlines though, I'm happy to say that I'm starting to see customer loyalty programs done "right". First let's talk about what I think "right" for loyalty means. I think there are a few traits of loyalty programs that combine best practices with some new tools to provide an excellent customer experience and drive mutually beneficial behavior. First, loyalty needs to be based on detailed understanding and analysis of customer behavior. CRM analytics provides the basis for an effective loyalty program and with the added potential to apply social analytics to the existing CRM data provides an opportunity to take loyalty programs to an even higher level of performance. A few thoughts on good loyalty programs:

• Reward the behavior that you desire but don't design program guidelines that dis-incent that same behavior.
• Real-time rewards that go beyond the normal program fundamentals have an incrementally higher impact on loyalty. Made in a public way they can even influence non-program members.
• Offering additional incentives to customers for additional behavior that benefits the company, if balanced, is a win - win.
• Ask the question: "How would a reasonable person react to this program change" BEFORE making the change. It's what the legal profession calls the "reasonable man" test.
• Incentives that have virtually no cost to the company can actually be some of the most valuable to the customers (that on the spot upgrade for example)
• Mobile
• Green (e Rewards, e Tickets, e Statements, e Cards...please stop sending those over stuffed envelopes of useless information...OK, personal bias showing here)

At Oracle OpenWorld this year I had the opportunity to interview Claes Lindholt, Director of Customer Programs and Customer Analysis with Swedish Rail. Swedish Rail is an Oracle Siebel CRM customer and implemented a loyalty program as a part of the Siebel implementation. A government owned rail system, Swedish Rail is completely self sufficient and serves approximately 2.5 million passengers a year or 115,000 / day to 220 destinations. Facing deregulation next year, they realized in 2005 that they didn't know their customers and that they would be a serious risk if they didn't take some drastic actions. Their business consisted of large % of rev from small % of people, but they didn't know who they were so as competition arrived it could copy their products and prices. They realized that the relationship could be the differentiator. Through an extensive selection process they decided to implement Siebel CRM. Swedish Rail started with marketing, analytics and loyalty, then lately added call center / service modules. They launched sales in june with a BtoB loyalty program. Swedish Rail also acknowledged the importance of the initiative, seen as company transformation because of the deregulation and organizationally committed to the project by placing Claes' position at the same level as the CIO. The project had 65 integrations and was targeted with the foundation focus of developing actionable customer data. Data analysis and loyalty program management are under the same leadership.

The results? According to the survey that is conducted every day aboard the trains, of all the customers surveyed, 47% of customers say they travel more by train because of the loyalty program. The program is very active and even pushes offers to the employee handhelds on the train so that employees can use data to act directly with the customers (on the spot upgrades, for example). The analytics capabilities are advanced and Swedish Rail uses the intersection of customer data with financial data to load balance trains by incenting loyal customers to shift into less busy trains when practical. They take the fixed cost of operating a schedule and overlay customer behavior to increase profitability while giving loyal customers discounts and preferential treatment. They use the data for strategic, tactical, and operational decisions including real time data use aboard the trains in a tactical way. Claes has several enhancements on the radar including upgrading customer experience through more effective cross channel use, mobile with an iPhone app which has full account functionality including reservations and even replaces the loyalty card with an e Card, and getting involved in social networks. From a data perspective Swedish Rail plans better segmentation, more actionable data and developing greater insight depth for product development, marketing, communication and expanding to new target groups like youth and seniors.

My conversation was very enlightening and it is a pleasure to see what a well run program can accomplish. I had a few other customer conversations around the successful use of loyalty programs, which is a very hot topic especially among retailers. I'll save those for another post.

It's not about recovery, it's about reinvention!

Ever since Lehman Bros collapsed and we went into this accelerated financial tumble I have routinely been asked by vendors, end users, the financial investment community, and well, by most everybody I talk to, when I think the recovery will start and how long it will take. And of course the analyst in me keeps trying to answer but honestly, more and more, I'm convinced that it's not the right question. I don't believe we can or maybe even should recover if that means going back to the "good old days". I am starting to believe that in a very many ways things will be fundamentally different (maybe are already fundamentally different). We've been moving toward different for a while. The promise of the web, which clearly was something different than what we thought in 1999, has started to play out. The tech industry itself has been in a different industry cycle since the "recovery" from our implosion in 2001-02. That was a surprise too, that tech is behaving much like other industries although our cycles are more compressed (but then our whole history is more compressed than other industries).

Anyway, so what do I mean? I believe that tech, especially software is taking on a different look but that's not really where I am going with this post. We're in a business change cycle that is widespread and far reaching IMHO. The social web is changing personal behavior, personal expectations that spill over into our business lives (well, maybe I should say the line between personal and business is getting very blurry, but that's a subject for a different post). Our expectations of technology and how we interact with it has changed. Face it, in general enterprise systems are just not a great experience and businesses don't generally operate in a transparent, open, social model where everyone has a voice. The old industrial age hierarchical model is suboptimal for the information worker. In the old (or is that current) model information is power so it's hoarded. In the new world information is powerful when it is set free, the exact opposite of the current status quo.

We're poised on the edge of a business reinvention. The power of the social web can and is being applied to business and will drive a substantial business change over the next few years. The software industry will exhibit some of those social changes and will also emerge with a re-focused business and refined business models. Some outward signs of the reinvention:

Software companies:

• Tech mega-vendors (which I written about here) will accelerate consolidation around their ecosystems
• Hybrid licensing models will prevail over pureplays balancing efficiency and profitability with customer choice (SaaS, open source and on premise)
• Partners will also emerge in a hybrid model that blurs the lines between system integrator, independent solution vendor and value added reseller
• Significant consolidation will continue in the partner ecosystem for the next few years
• Open source software will continue to grow in acceptance and will increase it's share of the application budgets
• Software companies will increase their social software offerings significantly as customer demand steadily increases. Offerings will include stand-a-lone social applications, social platforms and embedded social functionality in traditional software categories
• The demand for mobile and real-time solutions will drive innovation in software products
• Silo'ed products will give way to fully integrated process-based apps (the impact of SOA)
• UI level integration / mashup capabilities will be embedded and commonplace in the enterprise as end users require the ability to individualize the way they interact with business systems

Social Business movement:

• People become the core of the business focus (people as the platform)
• Business transparency becomes the cornerstone of compliance
• Shared control versus centralized control
• Ongoing incremental problem solving becomes essential (versus crisis problem solving that results from centralized problem solving) as shared control starts to involve a broader range of individuals
• Crowd sourced ideas (internal and external) drive innovation in products and services
• Customer, employee, supplier and partner interaction becomes a conversation
• Service delivered "when, where and how" customers choose
• Managing becomes coaching
• Information silos are broken down
• Prediction is a viable tool based on the analysis of social data (applies to employees, customers and partners)

I'm sure there are many reinvention attributes I've missed but hopefully you get the idea. What should we add?

Pragmatic Enterprise 2.0

I'm a believer and supporter of the social business transformation that is starting, that should come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog. There are a wealth of concepts that could be applied to business that were learned (or at least started) by web 2.0 and the social web. Also, the nature of web 2.0 lends itself to grass roots and viral expansion so many businesses have found themselves "doing" social business without ever having made a decision to implement a change. While I applaud these heroics, I have for some time had an uncomfortable feeling about the scaleability or even the advisability of this occurrence (not that I think these efforts could or should be stopped). The point is that if a business wants to effect a true transformation to a social business there must be a broad culture shift in the organization in addition to making tools and processes that enable the change available. I spent a good deal of my early software career managing the implementation of large software projects and I can say with some authority that without a methodology, a risk mitigation approach, the correct skills and change management a project is doomed. Businesses need enterprise class, scaleable social tools, social processes and knowledgeable assistance to pull off this level of business transformation.

Earlier this week some colleagues announced a partnership that is both good news for businesses that want to do social transformation projects but also an indication that social business is growing up. The Pragmatic Enterprise 2.0 is a venture / partnership between Dion Hinchcliffe (Hinchcliffe & Co.), Michael Krigsman (Asuret) and Ross Mayfield (SocialText). If you want to read the details and some analysis of the announcement check out Sameer Patel's blog, and also Paul Greenberg's ZDNet blog, they both had done a great job providing the details of the announcement. The partnership is important for several reasons:

1. This is a "grown up" approach to implementing e2.0 / social business initiatives, one of the few I've seen so far. If the social business transformation is to happen it needs this kind of robust and complete approach.

2. The partnership brings together: a. proven expertise and a methodology, b. an established and proven risk management methodology and risk management software application and c. a robust, enterprise class social platform on which to build and deploy the necessary tools.

3. The potential for accelerated evolution of methods, processes and practices as their framework, in it's new, more complete form is applied to real world problems and the learning that happens there captured and rolled back in to the approach.

4. This approach has a much greater chance of creating success and frankly, the more successful social businesses we help create the more we can make other businesses realize the power of this transformation.

Here's a graphic representation of the Pragmatic e2.0 framework:

Congratulations to the partners, we'll be looking for some compelling success stories in the near future!

Cloudy days

Oracle OpenWorld's done for this year and I'm now spending the weekend trying to catch up from a week at the conference and get the post-conference write up and analysis started. As I think back on the week one of the most entertaining events was listening to Larry Ellison at the Financial Analysts briefing rant about cloud computing (for the 2nd year in a row). Its a well known fact that Larry is not fond of the term (frankly it took me over a year to get comfortable using it myself so I can empathize here). Last year's rant (again at the Financial Analysts briefing at OOW) yielded one of my favorite Ellison cloud quotes: "the technology industry is the only industry that's more fashion conscious than women's fashion, I'm telling my marketing people to put cloud on everything"...a classic. This year the much quoted sound bite is "cloud computing is the future, it's also the present and the past". As I was thinking back on these quotes and giggling (which I suppose could cause a scene as I'm sitting in my local coffee shop, Phil'z, really awesome BTW, you should check it out if your in San Francisco...and no I didn't get sponsored to say that) it occurred to me that there's an important point lodged somewhere inside these funny lines, have we clouded (sorry couldn't resist) the SaaS message to much with all of the hype and jargon and are we obscuring the goodness in to much marketing? Do customers understand what we mean by cloud (actually do we all understand too)? And what about the other "technical" marketing things we keep seeing like multi-tenant / single tenant (sorry to bring this up again, but it's key to my point, here's my take on that subject), do they help prospects understand and adopt SaaS or are they in the way?

SaaS applications are growing ahead of the rest of the software industry, that much we can clearly see. But why? Personally I see lot's of benefit to consuming software in the accepted SaaS model and I think that the customers that are buying it do as well. I'm starting to think though that this may be in spite of our marketing instead of because of it. OK, maybe that's not completely fair, the important messages are also there, things like pay for what you consume, easier to implement (my post on that), faster time to value, lower TCO (although that one's up for debate), don't need to maintain your own infrastructure, simpler upgrades, easier to access from mobile / multiple devices, etc. But I do think our fascination with clouds and technical jargon is doing some damage to our overall messaging. What are SaaS or cloud applications anyway? In my definition cloud apps are SW applications that are sold on a subscription basis (so the software is leased rather than purchased), maintained by the vendor (patches and upgrades are installed by the vendor or the vendor's partner) and the app is available over the internet. The SW can be located at the SW vendor's data center, a partner's data center or even the clients datacenter by the way, but the customer pays 1 fee (not 1 to the vendor and 1 to the hosting partner). As far as I'm concerned that's it, nothing else is required.

Do customers want multi-tenant over single tenant? I don't think so, although some recent IDC survey data came up contrary to that point. On drilling into that more though, I think that survey helps prove my point, we've marketed multi-tenancy so much customers have started to think it's important to them, but can they tell us why...I doubt it. Multi-tenancy is only good for the vendor unless the vendor passes the cost savings on to the end customer...do you think that's happening? Oracle's Anthony Lye has very openly stated that Oracle prices multi-tenant and single tenant deployment the same for on demand apps (and the new Oracle Fusion Apps are architected so that they can be deployed in either model, customer choice is a good thing). Given the same pricing structure which do you think a customer would choose, a shared database with other customers (and yes, I know that it's very secure) or their own database? With their own database they get more flexibility. Alright, enough on that line of thought, you can read what I've already said about that if you want. My real point is that we need to look at the messaging again and focus on the value, on the benefit to the customer, not on technical jargon that doesn't really matter to the customer. I suppose that's a good marketing lesson no matter what your product for that matter. It's very important right now to SaaS or cloud vendors though, because I believe we've over marketed things that are not important to the customer and the real message is getting lost. Let's start spending more time telling customers that consuming apps in the cloud model has all sorts of goodness that comes along with it and no more time on cloudy messages about architecture (OK, you can save those slides for the IT organization briefing part of the sales process).

Oracle OpenWorld update #3, Fusion Apps

After several years of anticipation the curtain has finally been lifted on Oracle Fusion Apps yesterday during Larry Ellison's keynote. During the keynote the announcement was very upstaged by a lengthly (and repetitive) look at Exadata v2 and the IBM performance challenge but at least the embargo is lifted and I can now talk about what I've learned about the apps during several detailed reviews of the software over the last 6 months. Frankly I think the apps should have gotten higher billing during the keynote based on what I've seen of them, as they are quite good but I guess that's left up to the analysts that have been a part of the pre-launch reviews. The apps are code complete and in testing with an expected general release next year.

The underlying design principal was to use the best of breed processes from all of the brands but to keep backward compatibility for ease of upgrade by rationalizing the data model from EBS, JDE, PeopleSoft and Siebel. That decision was critical as it prevents having to change the data structure of any of the Apps Unlimited customers as they upgrade to Fusion Apps. In general Fusion has:

• Modern user interface based on Web 2.0ish design concepts
• Embedded analytics
• Native SOA built in Java completely on Fusion Middleware
• Event driven architecture for automating decision making where practical
• Role based use

Here's an example of the UI:

Fusion Apps are architected to be deployed in three models, on premise, single tenant SaaS and multi-tenant SaaS to allow customers to choose their licensing and deployment approach. At release Fusion will have all modules available as SaaS. For current CRM On Demand customers Oracle will initially offer customer choice but gradually migrate all customers to Fusion.

So what's in the suite? The release includes 43 modules across 7 product families (including 6000 database tables, 6,500 objects, 20,000 views, and 10,000 task flows). The Pillars are:

1. Fusion Customer Relationship Management
2. Fusion Governance Risk and Compliance
3. Fusion Enterprise Project and Portfolio Management
4. Fusion Financial Management
5. Fusion Human Capital Management
6. Fusion Supply Chain Management
7. Fusion Procurement

In the initial release there is no support for manufacturing (discreet or process) and public sector.

Here are a few screen shots from the release:

CRM:

EPPM:

HCM:

SCM:

When available next year, Oracle believes that customers will consume the apps in 3 models:

1. Add 1 or several biz processes to their current deployment of EBS, PeopleSoft, JDE and/or Siebel (or SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, etc.)
2. PIllar level upgrade, replacing an entire module like HCM or CRM
3. Single instance migration to the complete suite

The Fusion Apps also add quite a bit of embedded social software functionality throughout many of the modules. This is the start of what I believe will be a rapidly growing trend to make social concepts scaleable for the enterprise by providing tools inside the enterprise software solutions.

Overall from what I've seen, the Fusion Apps are very well designed, extremely usable, modern and offer significant value for customers throughout the different modules. They also support Oracle's strategy (articulated clearly for the last 3 years) by offering interoperability with existing brands and the chance for customers to choose what and when they want to move to Fusion while continuing to get value out of previous purchases with Oracle still investing in existing brands for the foreseeable future.

Oracle OpenWorld Update #2 - Oracle's use of social media

It's a sign of the times I guess, I mean social media is everywhere these days and OpenWorld isn't an exception. I had the pleasure of doing an interview today on Oracle OpenWorld Live, just one of the many ways Oracle is utilizing social media to enrich the overall conference experience. As you probably know I have been live-tweeting the event along with many other analysts (here's a search of the hashtag) and attendees. Twitter is very prominent throughout with flat screens in many rooms running Tweetdeck searches of the conference stream. Many Oracle handles are actively carrying on conversations (that's how I got invited to do the interview for the live-stream) and interacting with attendees.

Oracle Mix is of course still going strong 1 year after it's launch at OOW 2008. This year they added a OOW wiki that includes pages for things like suggestions, photos, discussions and even a social media cheat sheet. There's an OpenWorld On Demand site that let's you stream keynotes and sessions with synchronized slides for things you missed.The Oracle OpenWorld Blog is being regularly updated and has posts on topics as wide ranging as keynote summaries to breaking conference news. The OOW presence extends throughout the social web to facebook , LinkedIn, and of course a YouTube Channel that has keynotes, customer and partner videos, and other interesting video content. The conversation is definitely active and relevant.

Later I'll take a look at what Oracle is doing in the social software space, there are several new offerings that should be of great interest to customers and prospects, especially on the social CRM side.

Oracle OpenWorld 2009 update #1

Officially day 2 of Oracle OpenWorld but for me day 3 since I started on Sunday with the Oracle PartnerNetwork day. I'll write up more detail later of course but I wanted to take a few minutes and share some of the highlights so far.

Starting with the OPN day on Sunday the most exciting news was the announcement of a new platform called Enablement 2.0 which is the new OPN platform to deliver services to all partners and the new program around partner specialization called Oracle Partner Specialized. With all of the products in the Oracle portfolio (and soon to grow even bigger with the addition of Sun) it has become very difficult for a partner to be knowledgeable on the entire portfolio. To encourage partners to focus on a few products and to assist customers in locating the best and correct assistance the partners will have specializations. Specialization is technical competency and business acumen - offered around all Oracle products. The Remarketer program, which was started last year is officially a partner tier (the lowest) and Silver level partners are not eligible for Specialization. Gold and Platinum partners are eligible for Specializations and eligible to sell Apps. According to Oracle President Safra Catz, "Specialization in Oracle product lines is what makes you better, customer don't want a rookie."

A highlight of Sunday was having the opportunity to listen to Andrew McAfee talk about enterprise 2.0 and the transformation to a social business. See my Twitter stream below for a few highlights of that presentation.

The messaging for the overall conference is focusing on the same 3 prong strategy that Oracle has used for the last 3 years, open, complete and integrated. This year though the focus is on integrated. Part of this message is AIA of course but it also stretches to the idea that Oracle, as a multi-brand company offers a wide variety of App choices. Customer can choose the best fit apps and stitch them together into a virtual, integrated suite. Oracle Presidents Safra Catz and Charles Phillips opened OOW yesterday with a keynote that started to tell this story but things really came together today in Thomas Kurian's Keynote. Thomas told a great story that stretched from UI mashups to the database and really demonstrated the power of complete, open and integrated.

Below is copied my live-tweeting of the OOW event so far:

12seconds - Marc Benioff at #oow09 http://tiny12.tv/S48CP41 minutes ago from 12seconds

Karen Tillman -execs using Twitter helps focus the messge #oow09about 1 hour ago from Tweetie

Listening to Karen Tillman's interview on Oracle's use of social media #oow09about 1 hour ago from Tweetie

Waiting to do an interview with the Oracle social medial team #oow09about 1 hour ago from Tweetie

Norm frm Qualcomm "Financial integrity is in our DNA." #oow09about 4 hours ago from TweetDeck

Steve Miranda takes the stage with Qualcomm to demo GRC apps #oow09about 4 hours ago from TweetDeck

Thomas Kurian - well done keynote with mix of demos, presentation, customers, & videos - "tell the story" #oow09about 4 hours ago from TweetDeck

Thomas Kurian - integrated process & BI - going from insight to action #oow09about 4 hours ago from TweetDeck

Thomas Kurian - Ingersoll Rand strategy - implement new features about every 100 days #oow09about 4 hours ago from TweetDeck

@megbear I wish I could get to the blogger meetup but I have 3 prior commitments tonightabout 4 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to megbear

Thomas Kurian - now looking at package BI across multiple apps with customer Ingersoll Rand joining on stage #oow09about 4 hours ago from TweetDeck

Thomas Kurian - demo Siebel + EBS + Fusion middleware, integrated order capture thru fullfillment #oow09about 4 hours ago from TweetDeck

Thomas Kurian - commerce to all the channels that a customer uses rather than just "eCommerce" #oow09about 4 hours ago from TweetDeck

Thomas Kurian demo custom Fusion UI storefront on Siebel CRM, EBS & Fusion Middleware with embedded social SW tools "integration" #oow09about 4 hours ago from TweetDeck

Thomas Kurian looking at how Oracle's unique combo of tech platform and best of breed apps solves biz problems #oow09about 5 hours ago from TweetDeck

Thomas Kurian this yr dev shipped over 3000 products including 190 new products #oow09about 5 hours ago from TweetDeck

OOW day #2 Thomas Kurian EVP, Product Development, keynote, reviewing all of the product releases this yr #oow09about 5 hours ago from TweetDeck

@megbear I have to leave for a dinner but there might be some others still thereabout 20 hours ago from Tweetie in reply to megbear

Heading to the Tweetup at #oow09 Marriott Lobby at 5:45 near starbucks. - @fscavo @rwang0 @mkrigsman @ekolsky @dealarchitectabout 20 hours ago from Tweetie

Talking social CRM & retail with Oracle VP Mark Woollen #oow09about 21 hours ago from Tweetie

Discussing apps strategy with Oracle GVP Chris Leone #oow09about 22 hours ago from Tweetie

meeting with Oracle EMEA EVP Loic le Guisquet #oow09about 23 hours ago from TweetDeck

great discussion with Claes Lindholtz, Dir of Cust programs at Swedish Rail on their Siebel CRM loyalty programs #oow09about 24 hours ago from TweetDeck

had an excellent meeting with the Oracle Primavera team discussing enterprise PPM & all of the integrations #oow0912:22 PM Oct 12th from web

RT @merv: #oow09 Yr after yr, vendor execs give keynotes that are giant commercials & audiences leave. They never learn. HP is no exception9:53 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

RT @mkrigsman: Ann Livermore: 70% of IT budgets spent on operations; 30% spent on innovation #oow099:46 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Application modernization programs 1 of the top CIO issues #oow099:43 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

HP presentation: how HP & Oracle can help companies create biz value in uncertain economic times #oow099:37 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Anthony Lye: integrated solution of Demantra & CRM allow companies to create & optimize plans based on fact #oow099:26 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Anthony Lye: customers wanted Oracle to integrate Siebel CRM to Demantra demand planning for trade promotions #oow099:25 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Anthony Lye on stage to demo Oracle's trade promotions solution #oow099:24 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Safra Catz: the pieces matter but the integration is the key #oow099:23 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Oracle integrated fashion planning solutions designed to run a fast fashion biz #oow099:16 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Fashion: old way 2 seasons = 2 turns a yr - now fast fashion 8-10 turns a yr = higher margins but greater complexity #oow099:13 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Safra Catz introducing Oracle Retail integrated solution #oow099:12 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

interesting that the 1st mainstage solution this year is project & portfolio mgt. project based solutions are hot #oow09 #pbs9:05 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Joel Koppleman: since the acquisition of Primavera they have focused on integrating PPM with ERP #oow09 #pbs9:01 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Joel Koppleman: 25% of the world's GDP is project based #oow09 #pbs9:00 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Joel Koppleman: companies want enterprise portfolio management connected to the rest of their ERP systems. integration is the key #oow098:59 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Joel Koppelman (who joined Oracle from the Primavera acquisition) on stage discussing Oracle's project based solutions #oow09 #pbs8:58 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Charles Phillips: have more SAP / Oracle joint customers integrating SAP to SAP with Oracle technology than use Netweaver #oow098:54 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Charles Phillips: Oracle spends around $3B a year in R&D and have >20K developers #oow098:49 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Safra Catz: buying enterprise SW today is like buying a car that is delivered in random parts that you have to assemble yourself #oow098:47 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Safra Catz: the vendor now has to take the responsibility for providing an integrated, fully functional solution #oow098:46 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

Oracle co-presidents Safra Catz and Charles Phillips on stage for the opening keynotes #oow098:45 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

RT @rwang0: Tweetup at #oow09 meet at the Marriott Lobby at 5:45 near starbucks. @fscavo @mfauscette @mkrigsman @ekolsky @dealarchitect6:39 AM Oct 12th from TweetDeck

12seconds - Opening reception #oow09 http://tiny12.tv/N5V8W8:48 PM Oct 11th from 12seconds

Watching the Oracle Titan Partner awards. IDC (me included) did a lot of the judging for these #oow097:40 PM Oct 11th from Tweetie

Scott McNealy "I think Larry's going to enjoy his new toy" #oow096:52 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Larry Ellison - drops a $10M challenge to IBM #oow096:51 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Larry Ellison - build a smarter planet - IBM? build a smarter computer - Sun / Oracle #oow096:50 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Larry Ellison - TPC benchmark - IBM 6x more power consumed, 8X more floor space used, Oracle / Sun fault tolerant, IBM not. #oow096:48 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Larry Ellison - answering the IBM challenge - Oracle / Sun gear TPC benchmark-25% more throughput, 16X faster response #oow096:45 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Larry Ellison - Sun / Oracle can compete successfully against the "giant" #oow096:39 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Larry Ellison - engineer the hwd components as you engineer the SW is a better way. look at Apple #oow096:38 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Larry Ellison - MySQL does not compete with Oracle, ORacle will increase investment in MySQL. fantastic product. #oow096:36 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Larry Ellison - Solaris is the number 1 operating system period #oow096:35 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Larry Ellison - IBM tells Sun customers that Oracle is a SW company & won't do Hwd - Oracle "intends to invest in SPARC" #oow096:34 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Scott McNealy - introducing the "Oracle of Redwood City" Larry Ellison #oow096:31 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Scott McNealy - John Fowler, head of Sun systems business - Sun is fastest platform for Java and for Oracle #oow096:22 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Scott McNealy - "they won't be a software company after we get done with them" #oow096:16 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Scott McNealy - most people use Java everyday and don't even know it #oow096:15 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

RT @shawnrog: Wow the Oracle World hash tag is like a fire hose. I need a better filter. #oow096:12 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Scott McNealy - will Oracle be good for Java - fastest growing Oracle products are big bags of Java code - Oracle a big contributor #oow096:11 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Scott McNealy - what's going to happen with Sun innovations - Java - Larry says "Java stands for itself" #oow096:08 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Scott McNealy - what's going to happen with Sun innovations - Open Source - no issue here, Oracle will continue to support #oow096:07 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Scott McNealy - what's going to happen with Sun innovations - Solaris - Oracle will spend more $ on Solaris than Sun does today #oow096:05 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Scott McNealy - what's going to happen with Sun innovations - SPARC - Oracle will spend more $ on SPARC than Sun does today #oow096:05 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Scott McNealy Sun: #1 contributor to the open source community on the planet #oow096:00 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

watching a great funny video of Scott McNealyisms #oow095:51 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Judson Call to action for partners: learn about OPN Specialized - invest in enablement 2.0 to become specialized - keep selling #oow095:32 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Andrew McAfee: sitting this one out is a bad idea #oow095:27 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Andrew McAfee: Tools - email, hated, here to stay for now - stop trying to replace inbox - concentrate on things that email can't do #oow095:20 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

RT @rwang0: Influencers in the house for @amcafee @ekolsky @mfauscette @mkrigsman albert Pang, Rick Whiting #oow09 #oracle5:18 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Andrew McAfee: Intelligence - crowds can be very wise - enable peer review - experiment with collective intelligence #oow095:18 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Andrew McAfee: Innovation - Expertise is emergent - question credentialism - build communities that people want to join #oow095:10 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Andrew McAfee: Innovation - if you come at a problem from enough different angles you will solve the problem #oow095:07 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Andrew McAfee: Q - is it easier to search your co intranet over the open Internet? A - no, Google found Internet is deeply structured #oow095:06 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Andrew McAfee: beware of 1 best way, ask how much workflow is necessary. use tools that let structure appear #oow095:03 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Andrew McAfee: standardizing on a process has stuck with us for a long time, one best way to do something is now in question #oow095:02 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Andrew McAfee: People Want to help: stop obsessing about the risks, lower the barriers to altruism #oow094:58 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Andrew McAfee: telling story of BBC using wisdom of crowds internally to solve problems, people want to help, #altruism #oow094:57 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Andrew McAfee: used Twitter to get emergency help to solve a car problem #powerofocialmedia #oow094:55 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

RT @FltAdvisor: SFO Ground Delays for flights due to WEATHER / LOW CEILINGS, delays of 44 minutes. #sfo #travel #flight4:52 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Andrew McAfee: e2.0 is the use of emergent social software platforms by organizations in pursuit of their goals #oow094:52 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

taking the stage MIT principal research scientists Andrew McAfee, Enterprise 2.0, what we've learned so far #oow094:51 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

RT @rwang0: Charles Phillips - we're still working on what we'll need to do to incorporate our Sun partners and to learn from them #oow094:49 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Charles Phillips: Oracle sales has already done this, generalists can't win, you need specialists to compete #oow094:47 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Charles Phillips: we have so many products and with Sun will add more, as a partner specialization is the key. #oow094:46 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Charles Phillips: we want to do the iPod for the enterprise, highly integrated and you know it just works, from apps to disk #oow094:45 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Charles Phillips: story's still the same for Oracle, "complete, open and integrated", Sun acquisition doesn't change that strategy #oow094:44 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Charles Phillips: Ecosystems will more and more be the source of differentiation for large tech vendors #oow094:43 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

More partners at OOW this year than last year, unusual in this environment #oow094:41 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Back at the 2nd general OPN session, Judson Althoff welcoming Oracle Prez Charles Phillips to the stage #oow094:41 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

RT @pgreenbe: This is a good solid piece on social CRM. Social CRM. Ready for action? - http://shar.es/1JDaG #scrm2:31 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

I love this: Why Apple & Google Win - and Your Company Doesn't frm @ScottMonty http://tinyurl.com/ylk8ea62:18 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

signs of the times: sitting in the Oracle analyst workroom watching techs hook up live video feed & live Twitter stream monitors #oow092:16 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

If you can't make it to Oracle OpenWorld in person you can watch the keynotes live here: http://tinyurl.com/yzxjgd5 #oow091:56 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Join Judson Althoff for the 1st ever Oracle Partner 5K run Monday morning, 7am, 5th and Howard #oow091:31 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Safra Catz: Specialization in Oracle product lines is what makes you better, customer don't want a rookie. #oow091:27 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Oracle Pres Safra Catz on stage with Judson Althoff discussing the financial impact of the OPN #oow091:24 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Oracle Partners can now embed YouTube videos as a part of their solutions catalog offering, that's partner 2.0 #oow091:18 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Nick Kritikos walking the OPN attendees through the process of becoming a "Specialized" partner in the new program #oow091:11 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Oracle Platinum Partners are the Elite level for Specialized Partners in the new program #oow091:06 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Gold partners 1st level of Oracle partner eligible for specialization & eligible to sell apps (Remarketer & Sliver not eligible) #oow091:06 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Specialization is technical competency and business acumen - offered around all Oracle products #oow091:02 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

new program announcement - Oracle Partner Specialized - encouraging partners to deeper specialization #oow091:00 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

Enablement 2.0 is the platform to deliver new services for all OPN partners #oow0912:59 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

listening to Judson Althoff's opening for the OPN Forum, talking about the Sun deal #oow0912:50 PM Oct 11th from TweetDeck

at Oracle OpenWorld waiting for the PartnerNetwork Alliances and Channels General session to start #oow09

Could Twitter change customer service?

Alright, if you have caught me ranting lately about how Twitter isn't a new customer service tool, but only an enabler (or I guess a channel if you must) then this post may surprise you because I guess I've been proven wrong (now I know that part won't surprise most of you). So I will continue to contend that as previously applied to customer service, Twitter doesn't really prove a scaleable solution. Let's take a couple of the most popular cases, Comcast and JetBlue. In both cases the companies use of Twitter originated as a single customer service agent's attempts to use Twitter to help customers when, where and how the customer wanted aid. Over time the companies accepted this grass roots effort and started to add agents to create "scale". Now certainly Comcast's Frank Eliason and his efforts to change a very soiled Comcast image through his use of Twitter @ComcastCares is a very well known story and I would never say that his team's efforts haven't made a difference. The problem though, for me, with this type of heroics is that the only way to scale is to add more agents. Each agent can only handle a reasonable range of customers at any one time and the interaction happens outside of the companies customer service system. There's no issue tracking to resolution, no easy way to get answers from Twitter into the company knowledge base, no connection to the customer record to access customer information, history and record issues / resolutions, no issue cueing and routing...well, you get the point. The workflow isn't manageable and the only way to scale is by adding agents, not really a reasonable enterprise solution. Interfacing a customer service system to Twitter (and other networks like Facebook) could offer a better enterprise solution (like salesforce.com's service cloud solution, for example). The combination of the real-time conversation of Twitter with the more traditional customer service solution, allowing the customer service agent to move the conversation into an environment that is comfortable to the customer (that when, where and how concept again) while managing the interaction in the enterprise system is a powerful and reasonable enterprise approach.

That's what I believed before this week, then I read about Best Buys' new approach to Twitter and I had one of my "ah ha" moments. Best Buys, who have branded themselves in the past as the discount electronics store that offers more knowledgeable employees in their retail stores over other discount electronics retailers and even offered speciality help with it's GeekSquad has launched a service that uses Twitter to answer questions. The program, which is called Twelpforce, is a pretty simple idea, employees sign up on a website with their Twitter ID and when they Tweet using the hash-tag #tweplforce the Tweet is moved to the @twelpforce handle with attribution back to the employee (via @employee handle). The Tweet also shows up on the web site www.bbyconnect.appspot.com (Best Buy Connect), where all Best Buy Twelpforce Tweets are aggregated for search and review. All the employee instructions are also posted in a most transparent way right on the public web site (bravo!). This approach is about as web 2.0ish as you can get, transparent, spreading input across a wide / broad base, shared control and allowing employees to self select what and when they answer questions while using wisdom of crowds to provide a set of answers and comments for customers to review. The concept could work because it's not replacing traditional customer service but instead augmenting it in a new way, it brings the experience of asking the expert in the store to an online searchable real-time conversation. I suppose this process only works for certain types of businesses where there is a broad set of very knowledgeable employees outside of customer service that could address customer questions. It will be interesting to watch as this service, which is only a week or so old, catches on with customers and employees.   

BrightIdea and Planview, moving closer to an integrated social product development process

I had the opportunity to sit down this week with BrightIdea CEO Matt Greeley and discuss the recently announced partnership with Planview. My IDC colleague Sanjeev Pal wrote this Link on the announcement a well, if you are looking for more background from the project and portfolio management (PPM) perspective. My discussion with Matt focused more on the innovation management and facilitation topic as well as tying this discussion back to my post earlier this week on social PLM. BrightIdea offers 3 modules; 1 for ideasourcing, the 2nd for taking the ideas and managing them through a process of prioritization and 3rd a module to manage the ideas through to an actual product. The 3rd module is light weight and in the partnership is replaced by the more robust Planview enterprise PPM solution for use in larger and more complex organizations with multiple product lines. The partnership creates a much more robust and complete enterprise Innovation Management solution. While there are several platforms available for the actual deployment of a customer community, capture of community ideas and prioritization (voting) of the those ideas, the BrightIdea / Planview offering is the first to start to build out a complete process around the use of the captured ideas and has already been deployed at several large manufacturers.

The solution today then, would look something like this diagram:

In the future, if we logically extend the idea of an integrated process the solution could look like this:

Hopefully my crude and somewhat high level drawings start to give you some idea of the potential. If the entire process was to be integrated so that information flows in a continuous loop then the manual handoffs (notoriously bad for causing breakdowns in the process itself) could be eliminated. So let me walk through the process (this assumes that you already have a functioning customer community):

1. Ideas are generated from the customer community and the best ideas rise to the top based on the collective intelligence of the community.

2. The prioritized ideas are vetted by an internal organization (managed in a innovation platform) and the "best" (could be the most innovative, the ideas with the broadest appeal, the ideas that would generate the highest revenue or profit, etc.) and turned into product specifications. The specifications are then passed into two systems, the PPM system and the PLM system.

3. a. PPM: The specifications are turned into new product development and introduction projects (NPDI) and managed as a part of the project portfolio(s) through development / engineering, manufacturing and distribution/introduction.

b. PLM: The specifications become a part of the meta-data embedded in whatever concept and design MCAD tools the company chooses and stay a part of the product record for the life of the product. Industrial designers and engineers can then use the information to ensure that they stay on spec to fulfill the original intent for the product.

4. The rest is the normal integrated product lifecycle process that many PLM / ERP systems are capable of executing today.

5. The additional feedback loop is established from the product introduction back into the community where the product is evalueated, rated and over time improved by additional ideas from the community.

This is by far oversimplified and there are certainly many other collaboration and social tools that could be used at various points in the information flow but I'll save most of those for anther post (or several other posts most probably). For example there might be a need for a collaborative design tool for use among distributed design teams or maybe the company is using the concept of open source design to build a community of design engineers to work on the designs or even perhaps the company is using a wiki tool to allow the customer community to contribute to and expand the product documentation. I could go on and on...which I guess is part of the problem, I see so many opportunities to apply these social concepts across the enterprise that it's hard to ficus sometimes. Well, thankfully BrightIdea and Planview have helped by focusing on a real opportunity to stitch together the first part of a complete innovation management process / solution. As always, I'm excited to see where this goes next!