CRM Insider has published their top 20 CRM blogs of 2008 and Mercury Rising (this blog) was ranked #12.

According to InsideCRM:

Who knows if the product MercuryGrove is creating will take the world by storm or if it will even be more than a blip on the CRM radar. Does it even matter? This blog charts the ups and downs of the development of this new system (currently called “Dex” but in the wake of a legal technicality — oh, the drama! — now with a name being “crowdsourced” through a poll on the blog) in a way that presages how organizations will open themselves up to their customers in the years ahead.

Hopefully we’ll make the top 10 next year when dex changes many people’s perception of CRM!

In a recent interview with Robert Scoble on Fast Company TV, Tim O’Reilly mentions the need for a “personal CRM” and goes on to describe all of the features in our dex product.

Tim rightly points out the need to have the collaborative aspects of social networking (allowing people to update THEIR information in MY address book) with the power of CRM (when we met, when we last spoke, how important this person is in my “network”).

Thanks for the great plug Tim!

(credit: video was an excerpt from Fast Company’s video)

A big thanks to everyone who recommended new names for dex - there are some real gems, and your supportive comments have helped us define a path forward.

One great result of this experience has been the opportunity to think A LOT more about naming strategies, which has led us to thinking more about the product category, rather than a more generic (albeit cool) product name.

Several product “first”s have come to define the product category itself.  Think of Q-tip or Kleenex.  Kleenex is a brand of “facial tissue”, but few call them “facial tissues”, they’re called “Kleenex”.  Similarly, for a long time Xerox was both a name and a verb (”Can you xerox that document for me?”).

I think there’s an opportunity to do the same with dex-as-a-new-name.

In today’s software landscape there are several tools that are similar to dex: there are address books (”contact management“); CRM (”customer relationship management“); Social Networking.  I have described dex as “Network Relationship Management” and “Professional Relationship Management” (each a mouthful), but having gone through this naming exercise, I’m not sure this is exactly right.

dex does have similar functionality to other CRM and contact management systems, but what makes dex unique is its ability to monitor and help you nurture professional relationships.

Steph Seguin, a friend of Mercury Grove, recommended “cultivate” as a name.  I think this embodies the concept, but I can’t imagine using it as a verb (”hey Mike, have you “cultivated” that guy we met at the conference yet?”).

I think we need to spend some more time at the whiteboard thinking of something much different than dex, getting our heads wrapped around this category, and finding a name that really embodies a very new approach to how we “manage” relationships in business.  (More ideas very encouraged).

In the meantime, we’ve decided to go ahead with the beta rollout, and advised DEX MEDIA of such.

This is an open appeal for your help.

As you probably know, we are just about to launch a new website that will completely change how professionals and companies manage their professional network.  It’s like a really smart, connected address book that tells you who you should call and when.  We think its a revolutionary service and a major improvement over the way most companies currently manage their “customer database”.

As part of the product development process, we had to name our new “baby” and after several months of debate, we finally settled on the name DEX.

Last week we received a “Cease and Desist” letter from a law firm representing “Dex Media“, the company that delivers yellow pages online and to your door, telling us that it was illegal to use a name that was similar to theirs.  After seeking a lot of advice and soul searching (crushing), we have decided that we cannot afford to fight this allegation, even though we believe it is false.

This kind of reaction by established businesses needs to change.  While we have openly blogged about our process and as we try to develop our product collaboratively, they pay a team of lawyers to “monitor the internet” and guard them against other people.  I think that lawyers and businesses need to update their “cease and desist” letters from aggressive and threatening warnings to “inform and engage” letters that seek to educate and engage their “potential competition” and their customers, and that they need to get involved in the ongoing dialog that is taking place - whether they are listening or not.

Well, while they’re trying to protect what they have, we’re going to use this opportunity to open up and collaborate even more by “crowdsourcing” a new name for our product.  In case you’re not familiar with the term, crowdsourcing is when you use a network of people to accomplish a task that is often performed by an employee or agent (then called “outsourcing”).  Over the last five months we have received some fantastic ideas and inspiration from all of you who have been following our development process and I think this is the perfect way to engage you to complete the story.

In our business - much like other businesses - a catchy product name is paramount to success.  So, please take a minute to visit the crowdsourcing product page and recommend a smart product name or vote for one of the names that have already been submitted.  It would help us in a really big way, you’d be showing “big business” that cooperation is a viable alternative to protectionism, and you’d be doing your not-so-small part in helping the little guys prevail.

Thanks.

So the song goes “I don’t like Mondays”® (credit: Bob Geldof)….

After a weekend of development and code improvements, we were unable to get Dex through our internal tests to release it into beta - as planned for this week.  We ran into several roadblocks, and we held a long team meeting to discuss the opportunity vs. risk of launching the product to our beta users without some of the key, mind-blowing features.  In the end, we agreed that it was more important to get it done right than to get it done fast (this is me eating my words!).  This means disappointing all of the people who signed up for our beta program (our most interested audience).  And it also means a very disappointed and disheartened development team.  When everyone’s pulling all-nighters and working through weekends to hit a date, and you realize that the product just isn’t where it needs to be, its a real blow to morale and enthusiasm.

So Monday morning and the decision is made to push back the launch of our Beta program (emails to everyone who signed up to follow shortly).

But Monday gets worse…

Later in the evening I receive an email from a lawyer representing Dex Media (not to be confused with MediaDex) - who run Dex Knows, an online yellow pages site.  They believe that our use of the name dex “is likely to cause confusion and is an infringement of the DEX® mark”, and that we should change our product name immediately “before further and substantial damage results from [our] continued infringement of the DEX® mark”.

Apparently Dex Media feels that our relationship management product resembles their online yellow pages website and magazine publishing business enough that we risk causing confusion and could benefit from the goodwill they have accumulated with their customers.

Dex insurance: ok.
Dex skateboard: ok.
Dex software (software?): ok.
Dex supply chain logistics (software again?!?): ok.
Dex multimedia (media?): yup.
Medical equipment, clothing line, Imaging, Concrete work…

OK, so maybe we’re not so original, but I think its pretty unreasonable to say our product is anything like a yellow pages company.

So now we have a choice to make.  Do we try to make our case ($$$) or do we throw away all of our goodwill and time invested in an unoriginal but strong brand position?

At the very least, at least Monday’s over.

We ordered our first limited run of t-shirts today in preparation for the upcoming web2.0 conference in San Francisco. If you’re going, let me know and we’ll hook up.

Thanks to everyone for some awesome suggestions. Special thanks to Oli and Brett for these great slogans. I still think there are more gems in the list, hopefully we’ll be able to pull more of them out for our launch!

I’ll be in touch shortly to get mailing addresses for shirts (through DEX!).

Here is a short video demo of Dex highlighting the contact management and some of the networking functions.

Ok, Dex isn’t launched yet but Scott A. gave it a sneak peak to VCs at last week’s Ottawa Venture and Technology Summit. Here is a short video of the presentation. Enjoy!

We’re getting close to launch, and for people who have been following this blog, you know that we are trying to introduce a more “human” and modern approach to CRM and online professional networking.  We also want to raise local awareness about dex.  And we all wear t-shirts.

So… we decided to solicit ideas from you for evocative, funny, appropriate captions for wearable t-shirts.

Here are some ideas to help ignite your creative flame:

“Dex.  It’s like a dating site for co-workers”

“Dex could have saved your marriage”

“Let’s talk about Dex baby,
Let’s talk about you and me…”

Send us your idea (in the comments below) and we’ll send you a t-shirt with the “winning” caption.

At a recent technology venture presentation, I introduced Dex by outlining the shortcomings of popular online networking tool LinkedIn and CRM software salesforce.com.

I really like Linkedin.  I have been a member for a couple of years and have twice as many professional contacts on Linkedin than I have “friends” on facebook.  I like that when people change jobs, I am notified, so I can keep track of their careers over time.

But the problem with Linkedin is that it just shows me a list of my professional contacts.  There’s no context to the list - it doesn’t show me how well I know them, when I spoke to them last, how their career path could intersect with mine, how they could help me - it doesn’t show me how “important” they are to me professionally.  In short, it doesn’t help me “work my network”.

I like salesforce.com and other CRM systems much less.  To me, CRM systems today are similar to excel spreadsheets with web forms attached that allow you and other people in your company to fill out information about people and interactions with those people.  Salesforce.com is simply a “central repository” that takes all the information you already know about people, and regurgitate it in nice charts and graphs.

What Dex provides - and what everyone should expect from their CRM system in a “networked world” - is a system that knows more than we know about our contacts.  Dex enhances the information we already know with the information our contacts say about themselves on the social web, like Linkedin and Facebook, with the information that trusted news sources say about them.  Dex takes all of that information, digests it, and then presents it back to us in a context that helps us make decisions to improve our business opportunities and professional careers.

Dex is going to revolutionize professional networking and contact relationship management for individuals and SMBs.

And we’re almost ready to launch…