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Grabbing the Mobile App Brass Ring March 30, 2013 
By the end of 2012, 60 percent of U.S. broadband households owned at least one app-enabled consumer electronic device. With connected device ownership at mainstream levels, there is a solid foundation for app development and rapid growth in app economies. Of the primary devices used to access apps, smartphones have the highest penetration rates.
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A Tale of Two VoIPs March 23, 2013 
Ever since the first Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, calls were made in 1973, packetized voice was supposed to be the nail in the coffin of enterprise PBX systems. Thirty-seven years later, while instant message, presence and conferencing have successfully penetrated the enterprise, VoIP is still lagging behind traditional voice services in the large enterprise setting.
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The Revolution Is Over, and M-Commerce Is Here to Stay March 16, 2013 
In case you missed it, 2012 -- the so-called "year of mobile" -- came and went pretty quickly. Now we simply live in a mobile world. E-commerce is moving to mobile devices more and more, and that trend is not likely to stop anytime soon. U.S. retail mobile commerce sales will grow from $13.63 billion in 2011 to $86.86 billion by 2016 -- increasing from 7 percent to 24 percent of all retail e-commerce, eMarketer predicted.
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Secrets for Speeding CRM Time to Value February 21, 2013 
We all know about the idea of total cost of ownership and the concept of return on investment. Both have their place in business evaluations of CRM. There's another measurement, however, that should be considered -- one I like to call "time to value." The T2V test is simple.
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3 Bad Habits to Unlearn for SCRM Success February 14, 2013 
For the better part of six years, we pundits have been urging businesses to get social. Social CRM even has its own Gartner Magic Quadrant, and while the entries in that document are all over the map in terms of what they do, vendors serving aspects of SCRM are well established. Gartner itself said that sales of software for SCRM topped $1 billion in 2012.
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Cross-Domain Semantics and the End of 'Solution Sales' February 08, 2013 
Do your customers think of you as one of them? Do they think you truly understand their business challenges, their opportunities and what keeps them up at night? These are questions you should very seriously consider, because in the extraordinarily demanding B2B sales climate of our post-recession world, it's the vendor who can answer "yes" who will win the business.
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5 Business Lessons to Learn From PR Flacks February 07, 2013 
As a journalist covering technology, you get bombarded with material from PR people trying to get you to write about their clients. Although there are some stellar PR people, the majority of pitches I get are not targeted at what I write about, addressed to the wrong person, or make claims that are demonstrably false or inaccurate.
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Cloud Atlas: Defining and Categorizing the Personal Cloud February 02, 2013 
The definition and makeup of the "personal cloud" are areas of intense debate. A variety of companies with a stake in cloud-based engagement have very different perspectives on what is and is not included as part of a consumer's personal cloud.
"The cloud" broadly refers to the content, services, and features that users can access remotely on the Internet or via some other network.
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Is Your Storytelling Smothering Your Customer Relationships? January 24, 2013 
"People buy your story." Hearing that said from the stage at DemandCon 2011 by Forrester's Jeff Ernst made my withered writer's heart grow two sizes (to paraphrase Dr. Seuss). Covering the technology industry has made me an unwilling witness to a range of crimes against language, ranging from tortured grammar to made-up words to an impenetrable lexicon of jargon.
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Reading the Signals: 5 CRM Lessons From Moneyball January 17, 2013 
With less than a month to go before pitchers and catchers report to baseball spring
training, I'm increasingly thinking of the national pastime -- and specifically, about Moneyball, the Michael Lewis book adapted into film two years ago.
For those unfamiliar with the story, it's the tale of how Oakland Athletics General
Manager Billy Beane used data to build a competitive team.
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Can BB10 Rescue RIM? January 17, 2013 
One of two things will happen with the upcoming launch of the brand new RIM BlackBerry 10. Either it will be a success and help RIM get back on a growth curve, or it will end up being like the Palm Pre, loved by the media and analysts yet wanting for sales. Can RIM recover with BlackBerry 10? It's possible. But the company must do two things right.
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Gamification Brings In Serious Business December 22, 2012 
More than just a marketing gimmick, gamification has the potential to inject new life into a variety of industries and broaden the appeal of many new and existing offerings. The term "gamification" describes the use of game mechanics, such as challenges, achievements and rewards, to drive certain consumer behaviors in what are traditionally non-gaming contexts, such as television services, energy or health.
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The Social, Mobile Challenge to Customer Service Consistency October 19, 2012 
It used to be that your business could provide a basic level of service and your
customers would be perfectly happy. Some form of help, delivered at the speed of
the business and within the parameters of your company's policies, was usually
OK -- and if it wasn't, you could probably get away with it. I mean, who would hear
about it, right?
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The True Measure of a Marketing Campaign's Worth October 18, 2012 
Last-click attribution favors campaigns that influence the lower-end of the funnel. In contrast, first-click attribution favors campaigns that influence earlier in the funnel. Both are simple to use and are widely supported by analytics tools, and they are the most common attribution models used, despite their shortcomings. So why do the majority of marketers still rely on last-click attribution?
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The Mysterious Workings of Wikis: Who Owns What? October 10, 2012 
Most everyone on the Internet reads Wikipedia, whether they rely on it or not, but few understand how wikis work or who owns the content. Understanding content ownership is important, because so many people freely contribute to wikis. If the wiki's owner or contributors decide to revise or move the content, that could lead to a lawsuit.
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Open Source Lives in Polyglot Programming October 09, 2012 
The prominence and pervasiveness of open source software in cloud computing is something I've researched and written about quite a bit. I've also discussed how open source software is a key component and catalyst for the devops trend that blends application development and deployment via IT operations.
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The 7 Deadly Sins of Small-Biz Sales October 08, 2012 
Is your small business guilty as sin? Many small businesses are committing sales transgressions that hinder success and threaten to condemn them to eternal mediocrity in the market. The root of all these sins lies in a failure to adhere to the "commandment of commitment." To stay on the right path, every business should commit to a sales process that is documented and measurable.
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Be Not Afraid: Calculate Your Real Risk of a Software Audit October 06, 2012 
The words "software audit" can strike fear into even the most unflappable business executive's heart. Just as the sight of a police cruiser on the freeway compels all but the most foolhardy to slow down immediately, for most organizations the mere possibility of a vendor audit prompts a flurry of anxious activity and more than a few sleepless nights.
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F-Commerce: Business Boom or Bust? September 29, 2012 
Discussions on Facebook's IPO and inability to market successfully have been a topic of discussion for months. Sure, Facebook has a reach of nearly a billion users, but until it can be successfully monetized, is investing in Facebook commerce a boom or a bust? The real discussion is whether Facebook is a good vehicle for marketing.
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The Golden Key to Project Profitability September 27, 2012 
More companies than ever are seeking to understand project accounting costs as they realize that knowledge of this data impacts their bottom line and exposes areas where costs can be cut and profits can be made. By understanding project accounting costs, companies can discover financial problems with projects early on and fix them. This can potentially save millions of dollars.
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