Scott A. and I have had long discussions about how software companies can better service their clients. One thing that we both agree on is that software companies need to be a lot more human and approachable. I was inspired earlier this week when I received a hand written note in the mail from Adam Behringer, the developer behind Bee Doc’s Timeline software. Bee Doc’s is likely a one man show with Adam doing everything. However even being so busy as he must be, he has the time to send me a postcard thanking for buying his software. I don’t care who you are that means something. This is essentially what Scott and I are talking about. In this dis-attached world we need to still be able connect. Here is what Adam had to say about the hand written thank yous on his blog:

First and foremost, I want Bee Documents to be about people. The people who use the products, the people that make the products, students, teachers, artists, film makers, professionals, parents, writers… The list goes on and on. Sending out hand written thank you notes is an example of an effort to make a human connection to customers. The new website will feature customers and their work as much as our product. We’ll continue to seek out ways of bringing humanity, human relationships, and human contact to the center of our brand.

Since the new MG apps (new name not yet released) are changing the game for CRM as it evolves to (personal or business) Network Relationship Management, it will be nice to see what personal touches also come into play. I think that the time has come to change a lot of things about how software companies work. Essentially we need to introduce people and relationships back into the equation at many levels. Unfortunately things have gotten so sterile in the software industry that we are surprised when someone actually reaches out. As far as I’m concerned what Adam did was important and I know that MG will follow along that path as well.

On the app front, Andrew tells me that designs are very nearly finished and that we should be posting screencaps before you know it. That will be great because I have been dying to start talking about them.

I have spent the last several days in Kentucky working out the last few weeks of development for our applications and I am extremely excited about where we are and what the next few weeks will bring.  I think its going to blow your minds!

We (I) haven’t been able to write too much about the developments over the last few weeks - a similar story for Creighton, Andrew, and Mike - but not because we haven’t been accomplishing a lot of really exciting things.

We are just finishing a patent application, the timeline for the last 4-6 weeks of product development and some potential important partnerships - I expect to be able to publish a lot of great content over the next couple of weeks!

As if our project was not enough, Andrew (and his talented team) have launched an amazing website for young outdoor explorers called AndyCamper.  Congratulations to his team for this awesome accomplishment.

Late last week Andrew sent around some amazing designs for the new MG app. (I’m not sure if I can tell you what the official name is yet). In any case, the designs were fantastic and will really push the envelope when it comes to functionality and UI design. Above is a little snapshot of one very tiny part of the UI. I thought it would be fun to have people guess what the individual icons might be. In case, you’re not sure what we are trying to do, read Scott A’s post below.

Click on the image above to see it in a bigger size.

We’ve been working on a “mightier” way to manage customer information and interaction, but we’ve been struggling trying to figure out how we can build a system that does more than just feed back information that you “already know” about your customers.

We’ve come to two conclusions:

1. We need to build a system that is “smart” to help you improve your relationships, not just “track” them
2. The term CRM is too narrow in scope and delivery and carries too much negative baggage

And so, we have been working for the last few weeks on a better term to describe what we’re building and have come up with:  Network Relationship Management (NRM)

NRM is a new business discipline that describes the processes used to measure the influence and contact points of a person’s or company’s professional network.

To put it in context:

• CRM (Customer Relationship Management) focuses on the processes and tools that a company uses to manage customer information.
• NRM recognizes the influence of a company’s professional network and helps leverage strong connections, improve weaker connections, and actively manage the overall health of the network.

A healthy network delivers increased customer loyalty, higher quality leads, and a better reputation — a major success factor, given today’s popularity of “word of mouth” marketing.

As we look at the popularity of online social and professional networking tools, they have been linking people together -  but soon the internet will connect us all!  It’s actually pretty obvious - it’s not who you know that matters, it’s the quality and relevance of the connections that matter.

Here’s an example.

I have exchanged emails (twice) with Seth Godin, author of several good pop-marketing books.  He responded quickly both times, and is listed in my “network” and my apple contacts.  But I don’t “know” Seth Godin, anymore than I “know” Wayne Gretzky (although I have an autographed hockey card).  The same goes for the 10 people I met once at a conference that are now in my LinkedIn network.

Network Relationship Management allows you to recognize the quality of relationships, and their relevance to business.

Which is why we need a powerful Network Relationship Management tool.

We are witnessing an increasingly blurry line between private and professional networks (doesn’t everyone check facebook profiles before hiring now?) and smart companies are beginning to recognize the much more complex business relationships between contract employees, consultants, suppliers, customers, media, and company “friends”.  If companies can strengthen their relationships by analyzing their total network, they can increase sales with existing customers, improve relationships with new leads, and improve overall word of mouth marketing - which all contribute to the bottom line.

In this new “networked world”, CRM starts to look like a dinosaur.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be talking about how our products are going to fundamentally change how companies - and people - will be able to manage their networks.

Stay tuned.

This week MG started eating their own dogfood even more than before. If you take a look at the screen cap above you’ll see an email form and below that a blog sign up screen for the MG beta. This is important because the beta sign up form is now being generated from the MG application and the people who sign up are being directly entered into the app as email responders.

This little bit of functionality is great for email marketers or anyone who solicits participation via the web. You can essentially create forms then have the email addresses that they collect be put straight into the MG “CRM”. In addition to this, you’ll also be able to send out email marketing campaigns and have response entered in the system as a respondent to a specific email campaign. Its all powerful stuff especially when coupled with the rest of the MG feature set.

Scott A. hasn’t blogged about this yet so I wont let the cat out of the bag (too much).  Jeff Meldrum, Scott A. and I met a the Chelsea Pub a couple of nights ago to start trying to figure out a naming convention for the MG Apps.  Naming something is interesting because to name it correctly you have to try to accurately define what this thing does and determine where it fits within the context of other similar things.

I think we were all surprised and please at where this exercise led us.  The first thing that became apparent to me was the we’re not trying to name a CRM system.  Just looking at how the feature set of this application has evolved, CRM doesn’t really apply anymore, we have pushed beyond that moniker.  This was a lightbulb moment.

Once we figured out that this project no longer fits within CRM paradigm and extends beyond it, naming became a lot more interesting.  I’m sure we’ll do a post soon where we’ll bounce a few names of our readers but in the mean time, I can’t wait for Scott A. to do his post about the evolution of the MG apps and how it relates to the new paradigm of whats to come.  Stay tuned…

Mike Marker got busted.

I was talking to him on his cellphone at lunch yesterday and we were having an animated conversation about the project when he cut me off mid-sentence.  Turns out he was pulled over by the Kentucky police.  Here is the transcript of what I heard:

“Just a second, Scott”.

Some background noise.

Kentucky Policeman: “Hello sir, can I see your id?”.

[shuffle, shuffle]

Kentucky Policeman: “Well Mike, do you realize that you drove through a stop sign back there?”

Cool hand Mike: “Umm, No I didn’t.”

Kentucky Policeman: “I’ll be right back, I’m going to write you a citation.”

Mike (back on phone): “hello… stop laughing Scott… it’s not funny … seriously….”

Click.

Let’s admit it. CRM can be a bit dry. Part of what’s cool about how MG is approaching CRM is that they are incorporating tools that more closely emulate a personal relationship. That’s what the “R” stands for. Now that things are in full production, its interesting to see a lot of these ideas come alive in the product. Since we are all fans of Twitter, Scott and the team thought it would be a great idea to include something similar in the product. If you check out the screen-cap, you’ll see what I mean. On the right side is a place where you essentially can post tweets or really short messages. If you look above the text box you’ll see that messages are being filtered for “Mike Sullivan” which show messages to Mike.

The ability to send short messages around in a team environment is a great idea because it emulates real life. That is how most office conversations take place so why not build a real world purpose into your CRM.

More on this later, but there are some really amazing features in the pipe that will really change the way relationships are valued. This is just one of them.

PS: The screenshot has no look and feel yet. I will Andrew wow you with that once its ready.

I recently watched a great keynote speech given by Malcom Gladwell at the New Yorker annual conference where he talked about “mismatches” in hiring people.

The core concept is that organizations determine specific skills that are important for a role, isolate those skills, and then evaluate candidates based on their ability for each skill.  It all sounds so logical and obvious.

The problem, according to Gladwell, is that it doesn’t work.

He uses several examples spanning professional sports, lawyers, and teachers, and in every instance demonstrates that the candidates’ ability in isolated skills - vertical jump in basketball, mental acuity in football, college entrance scores for lawyers, level of scholastic achievement in teaching - are all poor predictors for determining if people will perform well in their job!

There is a fundamental problem with converting “people” into stats and using these stats to make decisions.  It is logical but not always worthwhile.

Now think about how most companies use CRM analytics to determine “customer profiles” and predict future sales.  Current CRM dashboards have detailed pie charts and graphs that isolate key information.  But is it a reliable source for decision-making?  Is it RIGHT?

I don’t think so (gasp!).

I think that CRM dashboards are misleading and setup sales people for failure, or worse, encourage them to “cheat the system”, making most CRM analytics nearly worthless.

There’s a need for CRM dashboards to provide real value to salespeople by helping them process a lot of data that helps them to manage the human side of business.

I think we have the solution.

Thanks to Jay Godse for sending me this video clip.
Graph from Graph Jam.

We need a name. Four names really. Okay, maybe five.

So far we’re stumped.

Every decision, every action has been the product of collaboration and passionate discussion, yet this elephant in the room seems to receive sporadic attention, or inattention. It’s the blank screen problem on a billboard scale.

Its seems that this one area of the project has been relegated to our quiet contemplative moments – almost as an afterthought.

This needs to change.

We need a rambunctious, semi-professional stream of consciousness type discussion that can put 50 to 100 names on the table in short order.

No filter. No judgments. Just ideas.