For those of who aren’t familiar with the service, paper.li organizes my links shared on Twitter and Facebook into newspaper-style format.  I can simply aggregate the tweets of those I follow, aggregate the tweets on a specific hashtag or aggregate the tweets from one of my lists. I can also set the frequency for “newspaper publication” at daily, weekly or monthly.

Paper.li pulls information from the tweets I send, although most of the content comes from the people on Twitter in order to round out the “news” for the day.  Currently, there are no controls to fine-tune or otherwise tailor the content. I don’t get to choose whose content goes into the paper, nor do I get to filter it in anyway aside from the hashtag or list options I mentioned earlier.

The service uses an algorithm to identify and highlight important or newsworthy content; however, I’m clueless as to how it chooses content and the folks at paper.li are mum on the topic. It’s pretty uncanny in its ability to identify the “news” I would find of interest, so I suspect the algorithm includes some combination of the content in the tweets I share and the content I personally tweet, along with the topic generally tweeted by those I follow.

I’ve created several “papers” with paper.li and I visit each of my papers every morning and scan the tweets from the last 24-hours, much like I would scan the articles in my morning newspaper. Often I find information of interest that I might have missed the day before, so I find it useful to keep on top the news of interest to me. There are also a couple of my papers that I share via a daily tweet to my list.

The promotions of my daily papers are what raise the shackles of some on Twitter.  Apparently, they don’t see the value in my sharing of “my news” and rarely, if ever, look at my paper.  I suppose ignoring a paper built on my interests is a valid argument for most, especially since they can create their own paper at paper.li that’s tailored to their interests.  Those who follow me on Twitter likely have similar interests to me, so it’s a nice way for me to share with them the content they may also have missed—which may be different from their paper considering they’re likely to follow somewhat different people than I follow.

I must confess that I only occasionally read the newspapers of others. The papers that I do read are those that have a very narrow focus. Such papers are built from lists that someone has taken the time and made the effort compile and are made up of consistently interesting people who regularly share or talk about information that’s relevant to me. If you’ve ever tried to build a Twitter list like this you’ll understand why it’s a lot less trouble to read someone else’s paper if your interests are similar.

I’ve been fine-tuning the lists I use for my promoted papers, but the absence of a little more granularity of content control makes my papers less useful than they could be for my followers.  I’m thankful for the 100 or so new followers I’ve gained since promoting my papers, though. Most have similar interests and many have engaged me in great conversations, both online and offline.

Still, there are a few small things that paper.li could do to give me a little more control and better target my content, which would make my papers more useful to me and possibly for others. For example, paper.li might offer features to:

• Filter content by keywords and/or hashtags. I’ve found the best way to drive relevant content is by using a list. But, not everything a person on a list tweets is relevant to the topic of the paper. I don’t believe the algorithm considers the paper name, so my “Trademark Licensing” paper might also include stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with trademark licensing.  If I could filter content so that tweets were excluded if they didn’t have specific key words and/or hashtags, the paper would be more relevant and focused by topic.

• Suspend publication if there’s no relevant information in the stream based on filters. On weekends, for example, one of my papers contains little, if any information relevant to the topic of the paper—it’s driven by a list not a hashtag.  On one recent weekend day the only content within this paper was one my tweets, which included a sole picture of  the Charlie Brown Christmas tree I have in my office.

• Provide Keyword filtering would be better than hashtags. As much value as hashtags can have in selecting content, there are no hashtag standards.  People don’t always use the same hashtags for content that could be relevant to the paper.  Paper.li might also allow me to change the name of a hashtag-driven paper would be a bonus. A paper called, “#trademarklicensing Daily” isn’t going gain much of following, especially if it misses relevant information that is tagged with #trademark or #licensing, but not #trademarklicensing.

• Add a disclaimer or  establish a standard disclaimer for everyone. There are still a number of people who don’t understand the product and are surprised to be mentioned from time to time. They think it’s something I’m consciously doing and it takes a bit of explaining as to how paper.li works—including how to stop the mentions. Until I can gain better control of the content, I’d like to add a disclaimer at the top of the paper explaining that I have little control over the paper’s content. Alternatively, paper.li could add this disclaimer for every paper for every user.

Yes, I like paper.li. Or at least I like what it has the potential to become with just a few minor additions.

What about you? What would make paper.li a good fit for you?

How I would improve paper.li | Dave Harkins

I read today that more than 200,000 job cuts have been announced this month. Most announcements have been by big companies; we never hear about the smaller firms. In fact, many businesses have likely closed all together. We will not hear about those for a while.

These stories remind me of economic climate around the time of the dot-com bust. There was a lot of disruption then, too, but it led to great thinking and innovation in technology and in other sectors.

For those of us in the technology sector then, it was difficult time. Yet, those experiences changed technology. That disruption forced us out of our comfort zone and to the edges of our businesses where we discovered new opportunities to serve untapped markets. In some cases, we created markets where none had previously existed. We found things we never dreamt about or thought possible before someone “dropped the bomb,” forced us out, and made us look back on what had happened.

Without the dot-com disruption, we likely would not know about MP3 players, iPhones, social networks, blogs, or Twitter. Thanks to that disruption, technology makes it easier for us to keep in-touch, check our bank accounts from our mobile phones, and carry thousands of songs in our pocket.

I believe we need disruption in our lives, our businesses, and our worlds. We need to be forced outside of our comfort zone. We need to get to the edges, pull out the binoculars, and look at things a little differently. Like it or not, we need disruption to facilitate change and force us to the next level–whatever that may hold for us.

The good news is, we don’t have to wait for disruption from an external source.  Scary as it may be we can create it ourselves; and, we probably should in this economy. Finding and getting to the edges may well be the only way our businesses will survive.

Finding the edges | Dave Harkins

Please note that this e-book is Dave Harkins’ work created in other partnerships or organizations and the design templates have not been changed. Additionally, this content may now be dated but can still be used as an idea starter for your specific needs.

Cool Tools for Small Business: Vol 1 – 19 Indispensable Websites

E-BOOK: 19 Indispensable Websites | Dave Harkins

In my travels lately, I’ve come to notice that people will use their cell phones anywhere to talk about anything. I’ve been privy to conversations about lawsuits, financial difficulties, and marital disputes, all thrown out in the open for any wandering ear to hear. It’s not that I’m trying to listen. I try to tune out other conversations, but it’s almost as if my ears (and I’m sure those of others) automatically tune in on words or phrases like, “lawsuit”, “…divorcing him”, “caught her in bed with…” or “I’m filing for bankruptcy”. I’m not trying to be nosy, my ears just can’t help themselves.

For a while, I was embarrassed when I inadvertently tuned in, but then I figured that it wasn’t my fault. If they didn’t want me to hear, they wouldn’t be having those conversations within listening distance.

This business of cell phones was the topic of a dinner conversation recently with my friend Roger. Roger has a theory that cell phones have replaced cigarettes as a nervous habit. People pull out their cell phones, call others when they feel bored or need to kill 5 minutes or so, and didn’t plan ahead with some reading material. It’s not that they’re conversations are meaningful when they do this. Most of these conversations, according to Roger, consist of such pleasantries as, “What are you doing? I’m just standing in line, waiting…”, or “Where are you? Oh. I’m in line waiting to buy movie tickets. Really? Which line? Oh, there you are…”

Roger may be on to something with this theory. In the airport the other day, while visiting the men’s room, I heard a cell phone ring and the guy in the stall next to me answered and said, “Hello? Oh, hi. I’m at the airport…just hanging around waiting on my flight…”.

I guess he just didn’t have anything to read.

The trouble with cell phones | Dave Harkins

Please note that this presentation is Dave Harkins’ work created in other partnerships or organizations and the design templates have not been changed. Additionally, this content may now be dated but can still be used as an idea starter for your specific needs.

The Secret of Effective Data Stewardship

PRESENTATION: The Secret to Effective Data Stewardship | Dave Harkins

I read an interesting article the other day about wireless advertising. The article featured a firm called Mobliss (now PressOK Entertainment) that is fast becoming what some industry experts believe to be one of the leaders in the delivery of wireless advertising. They may very well be on to something.

Mobliss founders have developed a pretty unique business model that delivers advertising, with permission, to those looking to “save time or to kill time.” Mobliss, which views itself as a media company, has bet on the “kill time” approach to engaging the consumer. Through the use of gaming and entertainment-oriented content, Mobliss can deliver promotional messages with to wireless devices. These promotions can also be targeted, relevant and location-based. The firm has partnered with gaming and entertainment providers-Group Lotto and Tribune Media Services, among them– for branded content.

It works by offering a variety of message opportunities-from contextual advertising to mobile alerts-to those accessing the Mobliss servers. One example is their recent partnership with 1-800 Contacts where users, after playing the word-unscramble game, Jumble, are presented with an opportunity to call 1-800 Contacts to order contact lenses. In this case, the campaign is even integrated into the game, with the word “vision” as one of the jumbled words. Like other web-based marketing programs, Mobliss promotions can be tracked and are measurable in a variety of ways.

As I read this article, I couldn’t imagine anyone sitting around playing games on their cell phones while killing time. I then remembered that the day prior I was sitting in the airport waiting to pick up a friend and found myself-for the first time-playing a game on my cell phone. The difference is that my game is loaded on the phone and doesn’t cost anything to play. To take advantage of these other games or entertainment, it requires a connection to a server and that means I’m paying for the call and the data transfer. Call me cheap-make that “frugal”-but, I’d never do it as long as the wireless pricing models are as they are today. That does not mean, however, that others won’t.

I understand that there are some 12 million wireless subscribers in the United States , with somewhere around 5.6 million who use their wireless devices for things other than phone calls. But are they using the devices for entertainment in this sense? Who really knows? If they are, and I had an appropriate product for those folks, I would definitely test the Mobliss approach.
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My thanks to Brian Levin, CEO at Mobliss for providing clarification and validation of his firm’s services, for this article.

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Playing Games with Wireless Advertising | Dave Harkins

For marketers, this technology, like many others can improve value to customers by providing such services as updates on order status, access to purchase history, and current sales promotions. However, what’s different, and perhaps most intriguing about this technology its ability for dynamic interaction. Unlike most wireless content that’s pushed from a business server to a user, this technology allows content to be pulled based on a user’s request-enabling information to be provided both on demand, and with personal relevancy. Let us look at a couple of examples of how this might work.

I am on my way to the airport for a flight from New York to London. It is a particularly long flight and I’m bushed so I want to upgrade my coach seat to First Class, or at least Business Class. I want to use my frequent flyer miles for this upgrade, but I’m uncertain as to how many miles I have available. Using my web-enabled phone, I press a predefined number to send a message request to my frequent flyer account. Within a few seconds, I get a response that provides not only my available miles, but also the length, if any, of the wait list. If I so desire, I can then acquire the upgrade or be placed on the wait list-all done easily and within a few seconds time as I travel to the airport.

Another example might involve applications for a direct sales force, such as dynamic lead presentation by a specific geography (“I’m on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, and have a few hours to spare. What other prospects or customers are within walking distance of my current location?”). Another may be the ability for a salesperson to determine up-to-the-minute product inventory availability while closing a deal in a customer’s office.

Roamable’s technology platform provides an interesting opportunity for marketers to build applications and services designed to improve customer acquisition and retention in what is becoming an increasingly mobile society. The question is, can we figure out a way to leverage this technology while maintaining the privacy levels we all so desire.

Here are a few thoughts to ponder:

What are some of your ideas on how marketers can use this technology? Are their potential opportunities for building revenue streams using this technology?
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My thanks to Tom Feegle, VP, Business Development at Roamable for providing clarification and validation of the examples used here.

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Information you need, exactly when you need it | Dave Harkins

When CRM began to evolve in the mid-90′s every software vendor who had an application that had anything to do with managing customer or prospect data began pitching itself as a “CRM System”. Many of these systems were built to address one particular aspect of CRM, such as Sales Force Automation (contact management, Campaign Management, or Customer Analytics, and could not possibly deliver the value promised as “CRM System”. It was a case of “over-promise and under-deliver”.

Unfortunately, there were no end-to-end technology solutions for CRM at the time, and today, there still aren’t (although we’re getting closer). As much as vendors collaborate with one-another to provide an “integrated solution,” the results have been less than stellar. One only needs to read the Wall Street Journal or any number of business and trade
publications to learn about the failures of CRM System implementation where multi-system integration is involved. It’s no wonder that Pragmatists don’t believe that CRM Systems are worth the investment. However, this may be about to change.

While there are undoubtedly a few CRM System vendors who are trying to monopolize the market with an end-to-end solution, there is a somewhat conscious move by most CRM System vendors to segment themselves into specific vertical segments. At this writing, these vertical segments seem to be:

• Sales(Sales Force Automation, Contact Management and Telemarketing)
• Marketing(Campaign Management, Online/E-mail Interaction Management and Marketing Management)
• Data Management and Analysis( Business Intelligence, Customer Segmentation and Data Transformation)
• Customer Service(Order Management, Supply Chain Management, Call Center Management and Interactive Customer Contact

By self-segmenting into these categories, CRM System vendors will ultimately force segment standards, against which all vendors within the segment will be measured. This is the first step to vertical segment consolidation, which will force the smaller, less well-funded players into merging, or failure. In the end, there will likely be 5-7 major players in each of these segments.

So, what does this mean to marketers and how can we benefit from coming change? Here are my Top 3 predictions, with a few thoughts on how we, as marketers, will benefit:

• CRM System vendors will concentrate ondelivering value within a vertical segment using their core technology, rather than through integration of their offerings with other CRM Systems. This will lead to an increased success rate with CRM system projects, and give the Pragmatists the comfort level they need to accept CRM technologies. This will be a blessing for both the CRM System vendors and organizations that are struggling to make an internal case for their own Pragmatists.

Marketers will benefit from this segment concentration by having the flexibility to select a system that specifically addresses a specific business goal, rather than a system that tries to solve all of the organization’s CRM ills at once. For example, if the organization primarily derives revenue through direct mail or database marketing efforts select a campaign management, rather than a system that is focused more on sales-automation, but offers campaign management capability. A vertical segment system will provide the fastest ROI for the organization, and will likely allow for a more compelling business case for additional CRM technology in the future.

• CRM System vendors will encourage more firms to address “people and process issues” prior to application installation. CRM System vendors have learned the hard way that implementing technology before addressing resource skills and abilities, as well as supporting processes often negatively impacts installation success.

This helps create an opportunity for marketers to drive CRM as a business strategy, rather than the technology initiative for which it is often mistaken. Marketers should use this occasion to gain visibility for the strategies, tactics, and processes that the technology enables.

• There will be increased market consolidation between CRM front-office and back-office applications in an attempt to gain market domination in the CRM space. This consolidation will provide more seamless data integration between customer service, supply chains, and marketing, providing a wealth of data to use in improving the value offered to the customer. We are beginning to see this with acquisitions such as Vantive by PeopleSoft (www.peoplesoft.com), and Octane by E.piphany (www.epiphany.com). Of course, Siebel (www.siebel.com), Oracle (www.oracle.com) and SAP (www.sap.com) are also players in this space.
  

Increased data access will be the biggest benefit for marketers in using these enterprise-wide CRM Solutions. The wealth of data from nearly all customer interaction points can provide marketers with a more complete picture of the customer, and provide the potential to increase corporate value through improved message, product, and service delivery. As this occurs, the challenge for marketers will be how to become “information rich”, rather than “data poor”.

The evolution of CRM Systems space is clearly taking place. Vendors are beginning to focus their offerings to better differentiate themselves from competitors and there is a deliberate attempt for market domination (in both each segment, as well as those attempting an enterprise-wide solution). While these key factors are necessary for CRM System vendors to gain wider acceptance of their systems, how long this evolution ultimately takes is dependent on how firmly marketers push their needs, values and expectation, and the proven, documented success of the vendors in meeting those defined goals and objectives.

The Trouble with CRM: Tomorrow’s forecast – Sunny with some early fog. | Dave Harkins

In the last four years, billions of dollars have been spent on CRM technology that doesn’t live up to its promise. A recent Gartner study suggests that nearly 60% of managers will view their CRM initiatives as failures. Organizations are wise to be skeptical of CRM system capabilities, but they themselves are as much to blame as the system vendors. Many of the organizations that have failed with CRM because they did not conduct appropriate cost-benefit-analyses, reevaluate processes, procedures, and organizational structure, or fully-develop CRM as a business strategy. Instead, they invested only in the technology, because as one manger said to me, “This software will solve all of our problems.” It didn’t, and it won’t. At least not without addressing all of the other issues.

Not surprisingly, some of my friends in the CRM system business tell me that closing sales so far this year has been particularly slow. While undoubtedly, the cause of some of this slow-down is due to reduced Marketing and IT budgets, there is a growing realization among most organizations that CRM is a business strategy supported by technology, and not a technology in-and-of-itself. It’s likely this realization is playing a significant role in causing the current CRM system space to stumble. Perhaps stumbling so badly that the rash of closures, layoff announcements and revised earnings projections announced daily by the major CRM system vendors, may leave many to wonder if spells doom for the CRM systems space. I would disagree with the doomsayers, as I believe this fall-out is necessary for the space to evolve.

Consider this. Some years ago, Geoffrey Moore (www.thechasmgroup.com) wrote a book called, Crossing the Chasm. In it, he discussed his theories on technology adoption, and how innovators and early adopters (called “Visionaries”) drive the early market acceptance of technology, while the early majority (called “Pragmatists) help drive mainstream acceptance of the technology. The Chasm occurs when the Visionaries don’t see enough of a head-start advantage to adopt the technology and the Pragmatists don’t see any compelling reason to jump on the bandwagon. This is what I believe is happening in the CRM system space.

Over the past three years, the Visionaries have tried–some successfully–to implement CRM in their organizations because they “see” and “feel” the benefits of the strategy. However, the Pragmatists, while reasonably confident that CRM as a strategy will work, have not been able see any major success and, therefore won’t help champion the system initiative within their organization. So, organizational investment in CRM initiatives wane, the sales cycle of CRM systems slow, and everyone selling a product or service in the CRM space begins to get nervous about what’s around the corner.

Of course, those are the very folks that have the crystal ball. All they have to do to build the bridge across The Chasm is to drive the next stage of product evolution that makes CRM systems acceptable to the Pragmatists. Sounds simple, right? We shall see, but as we all know it’s always darkest before dawn.

The Trouble with CRM: It’s always darkest before the dawn | Dave Harkins

I was thinking about this other day, when I read a blurb about a company call BlueLinx (www.bluelinx.com) in Charlotte, NC. BlueLinx has developed a product called “Q-Zone”, which allows people and organizations to control environmental disruptions of cell phones, pagers, and other types of noise-making portable electronic devices. Q-Zone uses the emerging Bluetooth (www.bluetooth.com) wireless technology to create “quiet zones” within churches, concert halls, conference centers, restaurants, hospitals, movie theaters, and other public places. Essentially, the technology turns the devices “off” when entering a quiet zone and “on” upon leaving. When I finished reading about BlueLinx, it occurred to me that this same or similar technology could be used bridge the delivery gap and get the message to the customer pretty close to the “right” time.

Let’s consider how this could work. I’m in the market for new shoes, so I decide to go the local mall to shop. Once there, I turn on my web-enabled phone (PDA or other device) and let the shoe sellers in the mall know that I’m interested in buying a pair of size 12, black wing-tips. Within seconds I’m made aware of the stores that have size 12 black wing tips in stock, and the pricing. I may even be offered discounts or other freebies for the purchasing the shoes with a particular merchant. I can then visit each merchant, examine the quality and comfort of the shoe, and determine the most appropriate fit for me.

This same concept could be applied to hotel rooms, restaurants, gas stations, and a host of other merchants. Best of all, the customer retains control of the process, telling the merchants when s/he is ready to buy. Unlike most of today’s customer-focused marketing programs, there’s no intrusion by the merchant. The idea of delivering at the customers purchase decision point-or very near it-at the customer’s request is what customer-focused marketing programs (call it CRM or whatever your like) should really be about.

There are dozens of potential applications of this technology in the CRM space–I have a growing list, myself–that will help us be more efficient and less intrusive in delivering messages, content or other offers to our customers. Are we up to the challenge of thinking, “out-of-the-box” for its use?

Reaching the Right Person at the Right Time | Dave Harkins