November 5, 2007
SaaS CRM, Web 2.0 and Hammer Time
I attended a sales call last week that transitioned from discussing CRM and ERP software during a number of meetings to integrating SaaS CRM with social media technologies over a late night dinner and drinks discussion. The late night conversations were particularly insightful in part because of the forward thinking ideas presented and in part because the discussions were with an entrepreneurial founder of a hyper growth company and his colleague, Hammer (formerly known as M.C. Hammer).
I admit I was a bit surprised to hear a dance musician casually and quite comfortably use words like 'SaaS', 'CRM' and 'web 2.0' and apply these terms with his own creative ideas. Shame on me for assuming that these new technology waves are limited for conversation among industry insiders and self proclaimed pundits. In reality, Hammer has lived most of his life near silicon valley, has a highly syndicated blog, is a director for several tech companies and is near launching his own social media company.
The point of my post is that this experience is indicative of the merging of business applications and social media. Two originally mutually exclusive concepts that must come together for the benefit of consumers and those companies who strive to satisfy them. CRM strategies and supporting information systems have a never ending quest to better understand, anticipate and respond to customer needs and requirements. Social media provides an ideal opportunity to engage customers and transition from a one way company to customer pitch to a two way mutual dialogue. Social media also lessens the importance of historically sophisticated business systems technology in favor of easy to comprehend social networking concepts and applications, thereby, opening up participation to a much larger community of customers and interested parties. Deeper dialogue and greater participation result in a continuous process of improved learning and improved customer relationships for those organizations who take advantage.
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Posted by Chuck Schaeffer on November 5, 2007 in CRM Strategy, Web 2.0
Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (1)
Who's the company?
Kinda cool post. I'm interested to know what kind of company Hammer is involved in. Was the company you were visiting a web 2.0 company?
Posted by Julia on November 7, 2007
Name withheld to protect the innocent
While the company is very innovative, it is not a Web 2.0 company. As the company is actually the largest customer of one of our primary competitors I'm going to refrain from giving the name.
Posted by Chuck Schaeffer on November 7, 2007
Where's the link from Hammer to Web 2.0?
I'm curious as to how a hip hop artist makes his way to Web 2.0. Is there some connection?
Posted by Ben Myers on November 7, 2007
Like many things, necessity is the motherhood of invention
I asked Hammer if there was a single event that lead him to his fascination with the technology industry. He indicated that in 1994 he asked why his dance videos couldn't be played on the Internet. He received a standard response including techno terms of variable compression, streaming media and limited bandwidth. Rather then just brush off the answer, he drove to apple to inquire further. He was introduced to an R&D project that would ultimately become Quick Time. He seemed to take an instant interest and began a technology learning curve that hasn't stopped.
Posted by Chuck Schaeffer on November 7, 2007
Anything else?
Cool meeting Chuck. You guys talk about anything else?
Posted by Rich Shifley on November 8, 2007
Some topics withheld to protect the innocent
Yea, quite a bit actually. While the majority of our discussion was CRM software and Web 2.0 related, we also discussed his entertainment career, celebrities, his blog, race relations, hip hop, his business interests, the war and a few other things.
Posted by Chuck Schaeffer on November 8, 2007
Feelings on the war
If you don't mind my asking, what was the discussion tone or theme about the war?
Posted by anonymous on November 8, 2007
Military not political
I avoid certain personal topics in business discussions, however, this conversation was largely neutral from a political perspective and focused mostly on the military standpoint. Hammer's opinion is that several military technologies did not work as intended during the Iraq invasion and that the US military is benefiting from a continued war effort in terms of field testing new technologies. He code names several of the more attention getting technologies as "oopa oopa" and believes that Iraq provides the location to perfect these weapons which may ultimately be used against Iran with more predictable and effective results. Hammer and I are both military veterans so from that context I found his views to have much merit.
Posted by Chuck Schaeffer on November 8, 2007
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