Merging Social Streams Into Multimedia Conversations
I found myself intrigued by the launch of Echo E2 during Social Media Week in San Francisco earlier this month. The new Echo service is a StreamServer and App Store that allows a company to bring together social media activity…
‘Free’ Marketing & the power of Evangelism
If you haven’t already seen it, you need to read this post from Union Square Ventures founder Fred Wilson, and his thoughts on startup Marketing. I believe that marketing is what you do when your product or service sucks or when you make so much profit on every marginal customer that it would be crazy [...]
Apple and Supplier Audits — How Far Does the Apple Fall From the Green/CSR Tree (Part 2)?
In the first post in this series, I analyzed trends in Apple’s supplier auditing programs and shared a bit of input on how both physical and virtual audits may allow the tech giant to extend its supplier management reach even furt…
Friday Rant: Alibaba — When Forty Thieves Fall in the Forest, Does Anyone Care?
Early this week, Alibaba announced that two of its executives resigned after admitting to participating in the “systemic breakdown” that enabled the company and suppliers to defraud Western buying organizations and individuals. Ac…
Winds of Change and CRM
The upheaval in the Middle East is roiling the energy markets and that will affect CRM. Year over year, the price of a gallon of regular is up over half a buck nationally and the average price for said gallon is $3.18. As gas goes so does jet fuel. The confluence of rising prices, political [...]
Meet the new guard, same as the old guard
It is fitting that a new age CEO, Zach Nelson of NetSuite will kick off this evening’s event at the Churchill Club where Scott McNealy and Ed Zander are featured. Scott and Ed will undoubtedly talk about how Sun and Motorola are being redefined – Sun as part of Oracle and Motorola in the new [...]
Focusing on Adoption (exclusively) is a Dead-End
For an early adopter market, adoption in this space always seems to get a bad rap. Why is that? Because adoption is not the end-game. It’s the beginning. In the Council, the members are focused on changing hearts and minds and promoting the use of social tools in order to drive acceptance for a new [...]
What’s Your Customer Score?
I’ve been writing about Klout and the broader topic of social scoring for a while now, but after last week’s piece in the Boston Globe, the level of consumer awareness of the site has stepped up dramatically. What is Klout? In short, it’s an algorithm that assigns anyone (or anything) owning a Twitter handle with [...]
Apple: Visualizing Its Display Supply and Commodity Management Strategy to Block the Competition
Like many of you out there, I’m a frequent purchaser of Apple products, including a recently ordered Verizon iPhone (AT&T will never see a penny our business again, I can promise you that). Because of the consumer and increasingly…
In the Cloud, Governance Trumps Ownership
In more than a decade of talking about cloud computing, I have found the principle of ownership has been a recurring theme. People feel comfortable owning their computing. They know where they stand. Since cloud computing means giving up ownership, it makes people uncomfortable, uncertain of their ground.
