Timmy's back, bitches

Dear Delightful Hockey Boys,

What a fun pair of Sunday evening games that I didn’t get to watch at all – I was at work, of course.  But that’s okay, you make work fun to the tune of multiple Snoopy dances (why hello there, security camera, forgot about you).  Unfortunately, my euphoria balloon was popped by an OH MOTHEREFFING EFF moment involving a broken key, and my easy, early-out night ended up being a late one of backtracking my papertrail, rootling around in our giant recycling bin, trying to unlock a drawer on the strength of willpower and a stern look, and freaking out about how much my boss would freak out this morning.  So that’s why I didn’t unload my happy happy joy joy thoughts last night.

I can’t believe that on one night THREE of my teams’ guys put up three points.  It’s so fun that I don’t even mind that one of them was P. Kane, of whom I am not terribly fond.  Lunchpail-y John Madden, whom I do like, got two goals, and feisty TK and lovely Butts both got 2 assists.  Finally, Jochen Hecht gives us a goal worthy of several replays as he tries to rebound before he realizes he actually scored.

Lalime had another solid game with a few nice saves – is Buffalo finally ready to put an end to the “Bring Back Marty” talk?  I love Marty (though honestly, is there anyone that doesn’t love Marty Biron?), but if he was going to come back, the organization would have made it happen over the summer.  Now Lalime is making me feel more and more confident with every game, and the boys have been playing better in front of him too.  I hope Lindy feels the same way.  I think we’re getting to the point where we can stop worrying about the backup and concentrate on Enroth’s development in Portland.

Dear Henrik Tallinder,

Vancouver, baby!  Congratulations!!!!!!

Dear Secret Unofficial Vice Captain Clutch Mike Grier,

That last goal, where you beat the two Blues to the puck, wheeled around, and sent it to Timmyho all easy-peasy was just…

You know how sometimes a player is said to not need a letter on his chest to be a leader?  Of course you do.  Please never leave us again.

p.s.  I don’t like Jerry Sullivan because he’s a killjoy, but I did like the article he wrote about you last week.  I’d no idea your family has such a great athletic tradition, nor did I realize that you were the first African-American to make the NHL.  You mom sounds like she was quite a woman.

Dear Chris Butler,

I am so happy that you were able to return in time to play in your hometown and make a good showing as well.  Your two assists were nice, of course, but you also got past losing the puck to Steen and went on to have a good game.  Your maturity and poise give me a lot of confidence in the future of the Sabres’ defense with a core of you, Myers, and Sekera.

Dear Patrick Kaleta,

Please stop getting injured so damn much.  I’m really liking your play this year.  I know the concussion wasn’t your fault, as the Senators simply can’t resist clobbering our players, but I’m afraid last night is on you.  Oy.

p.s. What the heck was that about with you & Crombeen & Rivet?  Totally confused.

Dear Craig Rivet,

I admit I soured on you for a little while, but I was wrong.  Sometimes I forget that you were never supposed to be our top defenseman and I blame you when the boys play like little pukes; inevitably this ends with you stepping up and reminding me why you’re here.  My apologies.  Thanks for keeping Patty K from re-concussing himself.

Dear Tim Connolly,

First you took over what Pominville started Saturday and put a little more air back in the Sabres powerplay tires.  A bit later, as I was spiraling into a full-blown freakout over OH MY GOD TYLER PLEASE GET BACK UP ARE YOU BROKEN – oh, hello, Timmyho puts one in shorthanded.  Commence my hopping up and down for several moments (um, hey there again, Loss Prevention Specialist) and trying to call a coworker/fellow fan out on the sales floor, because I was so excited I had to tell someone.  (As it turned out, his usual phone was broken, which was probably for the best as he is extremely mild-mannered and I’d have probably alarmed him.)  Oh Timmy, you made me so happy.  When I got home I watched the replay about twenty times.  Props to Myers too for making the play while falling over/sprawled out on the ice (PLEASE TELL ME YOU’RE OKAY) and to Mike for that nice pass.

And by the way – maybe I’m only saying this because I was not actually visually subjected to it – but you go ahead and take off your shirt whenever you want.  You’ve earned it.  (Go another month between goals, though, and your shirtless privileges are revoked.)

Dear Paul Gaustad,

Since I didn’t watch the game I’m not sure what to think – are the Blues just really good at faceoffs or are you broken?  How were you a -2?  I realize that I have unrealistically high expectations for you, but I’m worried.

Dear Drew Stafford,

WTF is wrong with you??  Hopefully the benching shakes things up, but I don’t know.  Blah.

Dear David Clarkson,

I’ve been listening to the Devils game as I’ve been writing and I’m pleased to hear that you’re back with a vengeance.  Also back?  Zach, baby.

Dear Capitals,

Rough night without the captain?  It’s not that I hate you; it’s just that I don’t like you.

I’m not that upset about the Sabres game since I went into it anticipating a loss.  If anything, I’m glad they at least managed a point.  It was almost funny seeing how long it took for their first shot on goal.  The Sabres simply cannot play a good game against the Senators, and that’s that.  Not really anything else to say.

Derek Roy hasn’t done much of anything this year, but I still hope his injury isn’t too serious.  Although it does open up a spot in the lineup if Patty K really is ready to come back.

This team would be so frighteningly bad without Ryan Miller.

The worst part about last night is that my jersey is now 0-1 and got pulled halfway through the second period.  Although taking it off looked like it might pay off for a while; right after the Sabres scored their two goals.

We need someone who can score in the shootout.

We need a reliable scorer.

The Caps, on the other hand, won a huge statement game against the Devils.  This is the second game in a row they put up four or five goals on an elite goaltender and they didn’t even choke like they usually do when they’re playing New Jersey.  Alex had another three-point night so now he’s only four back of the lead league for points.  He’s ridiculous.  Lars Nicklas had himself a three point night as well, giving him his 200th point and 202 points in 202 games.  That’s…crazy.  I don’t understand why he hasn’t been re-signed yet and Semin has.

What a nice segway for me to use into Semin’s contract.  Um, what?!?  One year?  $6 million?  I don’t get it.  GMGM says it’s what the player preferred and gave him more flexibility.  I still don’t get it.  Players like him don’t sign one year deals.  Moreover, how can he sign a deal for $6 million?  Can they afford that?  Where’s the room to keep Nicki?  If there’s one player who needs to stay it’s him.  He’s just as important to this team as Alex.  Sasha is a great player when he wants to be, but I never saw him as indispensable.  Is George just trying to get him a contract so that he can trade him after the season and not have to worry about that?  They could get a pretty decent return for him, especially if he’s already got a contract.  I’m sure there are plenty of teams who would want him.  I’m just perplexed by the whole situation.  And a little bit angry.  Neuvirth has been really solid the past few games so I’m sure they could trade Theo if they wanted, which would open up more cap room, but there’s still another contract to be signed.  And isn’t it contract year for Flash as well?

Hmm.  It’s just all a little odd.  We shall have to wait and see how it all plays out.

Tonight the Sabres are playing the team of Sir Christopher’s hometown, and hopefully he’ll be able to play.  I’m not sure who Lindy benches to make room for him.  I know he’s the captain, but I’d almost say Rivet after the way he played the past few days…but he is the captain.

Team Sweden announced their roster.  I hope Henrik Zetterberg is back in time to play for them.  They always put together a good team and this looks like another one.  I am a little surprised Henrik Tallinder made the team, but I guess now that his rape case is all cleared up he’s a valuable asset.

I only have one more day of school to get through before I’m free.  Yes, vacation will be considerably less awesome now that I have TWO major tests the first two days back, but I’m going to try to enjoy the first few days of it without thinking about the hideous amounts of work I have to do.

(An aside:  For reals, who assigns a major test the first two days back and who reschedules one a week and a half later after a week straight of no school?  Ridiculous.  I don’t like it.)

I was unable to watch the Sabres game last night, as I was hiding the body cramming for the test we were lead to believe was today.  From what I’ve read, it sounds like the Sabres played a fairly crappy game, Ryan Miller was outrageous, Derek Roy won it all for them in overtime.  The crap and Ryan Miller parts sound about right.

Um, did Tyler get hurt last night?!?! Not cool, Tyler.  I don’t like when you’re hurt.  Fix that discomfort and heal up.

It’s nice to hear Sir Christopher was skating again.  I miss him ever so much and hope he returns soon.  Poor dear, he hasn’t been able to help any old ladies cross the street in ages!

Just in case you had all forgotten, THE SABRES PLAY THE CAPITALS AGAIN TOMORROW!!  WEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!  So exciting.  Not much to report on the Caps front other than they took four of six points on their road trip, Varly won’t be playing tomorrow night, and Alex has gotten even FATTER.  Dude, for the love of all that is holy, lay off the nachos.  Fat does not sit well on you.  I know you want to work Lars’s babyfat look, but trust me, the abs were bad.

And that’s all I have to say for now.

Haven’t been on here since the Washington loss. So I have a few things to cover.  I’m very very happy with the way the Sabres have responded after their 4th straight loss..  4 wins in a row. We’ll do a quick recap for the last 4 games.

Philly 4-2.  After their last minute frezny in the1st period, I’ll admit it. I thought, “here we go again.”  It was a very fun and eventful game to watch. It was like they finally woke up and played physical for a change. I love those kinds of Philly games.  This is also the game where Kaleta got suspsended for 2 games following his borderline hit on Ross. I wasn’t a huge fan of the suspension because Ross saw him then turned a second before Kaleta made contact.  There was also that Ovechkin lack of suspension because he’s a star player from the previous game I wasn’t thrilled about.

Carolina 5-1.  Easily could have been a shut out for Miller had Myers not turned the puck over, resulting on a break away for Matt Cullen. After the Tropical Storms were still leading 1-0 after the 2nd period. I was like oh my god, if they lose to the worst team in hockey I’m going to break something. Then they scored 5 unanswered goals in the 3rd. Thanks for waking up again. The Sabres were without Goose and Rivet, who had both been hurt in the Flyers game, and Kaleta serving his 1st game for the suspension.

Toronto 3-0. Miller got his 3rd shutout this season. Kennedy, Tallinder, and Hecht scored. It was Tallinder’s first goal in 76 games. (Yeah, I had no idea it had been that long either.)  Miller certainly gave the Team USA coach quite the show, and Wilson even said “I hope he plays like this in February.”

Before the game it was announced that Lalime was sent down to Portland for a 2 game conditioning assignment. The Sabres, like every other team in the NHL have a treacherous schedule this month, usually playing every other night. They know they can’t play Miller every game, so this is to get Patty ready.  Enroth was brought up to back up Miller.

Montreal 6-2. This was a fun one to watch if you were a Sabres fan. Not so much if you liked Montreal. The Sabres stormed out to a 4-0 lead before Montreal finally put one up on the board on a 2-on-1.For most of the game Montreal looked like they completely forgot what they were doing, and often looked lost. Halak was giving up some juicy rebounds, and the Sabres capitalized on them. Kennedy had another goal, which is nice to see because he works so hard out there. Vanek had 3 assists. It was Rivet and Kaleta’s first game back. Paul Mara obviously can’t give up his grudge against Patty and those two went at it in the 3rd period. Butler left the game with an ankle sprain. No word on how long he’ll be out.  The shots after 2 periods went in the Sabres favor 29-8. Yes, EIGHT. Perhaps their minds were on the Centennial celebration happening the following night. Either way, it was embarrassing. I almost felt bad for them.  Almost. I still don’t like it when Gomez gets anywhere near Miller.

Rangers tonight at 7. Can’t wait. Hopefully they get the streak to 5.

Also before I forget.  Ovechkin.  KAAARRRRMMMAAAAA. Hahahaahaha.

A little while ago I wrote a blog Corporate Resistance to Social Media and this morning I happened on a great set of survey results from Mack Collier (@mackcollier) who shows that whilst a lot of companies recognise that there are huge benefits to be had by using social media for marketing that they are pretty unsure how to go about it. I have included a graphic below which illustrates this point very well:

I think this links up well with my above mentioned article because I think it goes further than that.  SMEs are beginning to ‘get it’ but there are a huge number of SMEs and the take up will vary.  Huge corporates can probably hurl funds at it but how many 20 year served corporate marketeers truly understand what really is (and I HATE the term) a paradigm shift.  In the middle, there are many many businesses who don’t have time, money, comprehension or whatever.  Across all of this is the huge view, and I see it every day in my working life, that Social Networks are a BAD THING and when you are working, you shouldn’t be chattering.  Many, many businesses in the UK and I suspect the case is the same globally, simply ban anything that looks like a social network.  Now there are good reasons for businesses to retain a degree of control. Simple stories such as this one showing how careless use of  Twitter can actually cost you business  show that careless use of social media can be bad for business.  The trick is making sure that you have a strategy for the use of social media that tessellates with your existing marketing and sales strategies and is both open and controlled.

Now I know that sounds like an oxymoron; how can something be open and controlled?  If you have people you can trust working within reasonable parameters and following an agreed strategy, then you can allow them the professional freedom to add value to your business.  After all, that is why you hired them.

The trick to this is ensuring that your people have the tools and motivation to use the social web for targetted activity and not just for chattering about what they are doing and how many croissants they had for breakfast (two, in case you were wondering).

Rather than endless ‘buy my stuff’ push marketing, the real trick is to find ways of letting the business come to you.  Google search and SEO might help but they do rely on people finding specifically what you do and bothering to contact you.  Sitting there aggressively waiting for the phone to ring is not a marketing strategy; whether backed up by adwords, SEO or anything else.  These are tactical solutions as part of a whole.

The business of selling involves you finding people who have a need which fits what you sell.  The social web is full of people asking for things.  All the time.  Just think, as an example, in 27m Tweets per day (or whatever the number is) how many of those are from people asking for something?  Just have a look at any of the big #tags (try #crm as an example) and you will see people asking for products other people recommend.  How does your traditional marketing strategy capture those?  Straightforward.  It can’t.  If you rule out using social media as part of your overall marketing strategy it certainly doesn’t mean you will fail but I would pose the question: if people are out there begging you to sell to them, can you afford to ignore that?  If you do, there are a lot of people out there who will take that business.

I won’t advertise in this post but have a look at some of my others to see how we believe we are right at the forefront of solving this for our members

I have just read a blog written by Brian Vellmure called The 5 Stages of Customer Acquisition for the Social Business (Part I)

As I read I found that I really had to comment.  I understand everything Brian is saying and I looked at his graphic (below)with interest.

AIPEE Pyramid Created by Brian Vellmure

Whilst Iagree with a lot of what Brian says, I am not sure that there is a real need for a graphic to show how we can get more value by communicating with more people to ultimately sell more stuff.  I truly believe that it is very easy to confuse and also to reduce degrees of freedom in exchange of information and communication by reducing that interraction to a process graphic.  I get that people understand pictures and that simple repeatable processes often work  BUT we are in a new era of complex and instantaneous activity.  I may be going out on a limb here, but it almost appears that the process is designed to shoe-horn CRM into ’social’ rather than to be very open about everything and use CRM for what it is.  A tool.  Now I may have got this very wrong and apologies to Brian if I have.

The part I really like about the graphic is the bit which says ‘Customer’s Response – Social Amplifier’.  To me, that is the crux of whatever comes out of social business networking and Social CRM.  If you have a great experience in your interaction with me, you will tell people.  And if you don’t you’ll shout about it using every social mechanism available.

There is nothing new in selling in reality.  But what there is is a whole host of mechanisms to make those sales steps that used to involve just face-to-face, the phone or fax.  The web makes life very, very easy.  So don’t let the process cloud what you do.  Don’t get overly hooked up on process and don’t let it get in the way.

Be open, communicate, give and don’t be afraid to ask for business if someone expresses a need.

And there we really have the crux of it.  What I have been building up to.  The web and all its tools mean that we have a massive opportunity to trawl for people who are asking for the stuff we sell.  All the time and through many different mechanisms and networks.

Facebook, Twitter, Alibaba and the like all have people asking for ’stuff’.  The neat bit is finding ways to get at it without having to trawl endlessly looking for the gems.

When we set up WeCanDo.BIZ we gave our members the ability to ask for the things they need and that proved a wonderful success.  Having followed this up with our next ‘finding opportunities’ mechanism, our Twitter Sales Leads tool I can honestly say that finding people who want the things you sell has NEVER been easier.  This won’t be the last line we introduce and the aim is to make it as easy as possible to put buyers and sellers together.

So, to come back to the point I made at the beginning.  Do we need a graphic to help people to sell through social media and Social CRM…well possibly and if we do then maybe it it one like this…

A set of conversations happened this morning that prompted me to ask this question.  I was online participating in Nick Tadd’s (@nicktadd) Twitter show, #thentshow. A great format where people pop in and undertake a Q&A session with a variety of social media people.  this morning it was Steven Healey (@stevenhealey) answering the questions.

A question arose asking broadly whether Twitter is a ‘personal’ or a ‘business’ tool. The responses varied but the overriding theme seemed to be that Twitter was about personal engagement…a conversation with people which ‘might’ lead to business engagement.

I was pretty clear in my answer that Twitter per se is what you make of it. I don’t use it for personal engagement and very much do use it as a business tool. I put out blogs, re-tweet comments relating to both my company (WeCanDo.BIZ) and related topics that pertain to social media and Social CRM. That said I am very cautious about the use of Twitter (or any other social medium) for push marketing as I have recently mentioned in an earlier blog . Spam is spam however it is couched. I receive a zillion ‘make money from Twitter/YouTube/Insert Other’ messages everyday via TweetDeck feeds which I simply ignore. As I guess most people do.

After the event I was speaking with Ash Masshadi (@inspirationguy) of Design Inspiration who had also commented on the subject in question, he said,

“Anyone who’s been in business for any time knows that commerce is all about making connections with your potential buyers. The social media mantra is “People buy from people” but this has always been the truth for business. Social media is just another way to do this. I use twitter to connect with existing clients and also to develop relationships with new contacts that have gone on to produce new business for us.  Twitter’s quick-fire nature is particularly apt for business because it forces you to be focused and direct with your communication. A lot of business writing is ineffective because the message is obscured by inefficient padding and stylistic flab. That’s not to say that you can go around shouting “Eat at Joe’s” as that will just come across as spam. Of course, it’s okay for other people to shout “Eat at Joe’s” so long as they’re not Joe.”

Twitter is however a great tool if you use it in the right way. At WeCanDo.BIZ, we have been working on a way to get real sales leads directly from Twitter and into our free Social CRM system WeCanDo.CRM. The beta is live, as I have mentioned in an earlier post and seems to be getting rave reviews. The real point of this post however, is not to advertise our services but to suggest that Twitter has commercial value WAY beyond simply searching, posting and retweeting. There are people out there who have real business needs who are using it to ask for stuff they want. This is not exclusive to Twitter (and we are working on ways of incorporating needs from other sources) but Twitter has become so pervasive that it seems such an obvious place to start.

The Tunehouse Studio

Just as an example, I posted a Biz Need on WeCanDo.BIZ a week or so ago and via our Twitter feed, I received a phone call within five minutes from Gerry Diver (@gerrydiver) at The Tunehouse Studio who answered my need so well that the deal was done there and then. Think about that. A sales need goes out on Twitter and within five minutes, the transaction happened. That is about as real-time as it gets.

So is Twitter social and personal or social and business. Well I think the real answer is that it is whatever you want it to be. It is just a tool. Those people who use it as a social communication medium will get just what they want from it and those who use it for business will too. Ours will not be the last tool that exploits the information put out there to help people do more business quickly but what we do do is to help you sift the chaff and get straight to the point: finding people you can interact with who need exactly what it is that you provide.

Service helps businesses grow online and offline relationships

London, UK – 24 November 2009: WeCanDo.BIZ Limited, the online sales leads and business referrals network, has launched a Social CRM addition to its established website to assist small business owners to turn their social networking contacts into customers.  Called WeCanDoCRM, the service is free to all businesses at www.wecando.biz.

Social CRM is the merging of social networks with Customer Relationship Management to help businesses manage and build customer relationships using the information that customers freely share through their online profiles.  Social CRM also includes using social networking resources to help improve customer dialogue.

Focused towards small business owner/managers looking to use social media to help grow their businesses, the new features announced with WeCanDoCRM enable:

-          Consolidation of contacts from website enquiry forms, Microsoft Outlook, Google Mail, Yahoo Mail, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ecademy and existing customer databases to one location, making contacts and customers easier to manage and communicate with

-          Improved data currency and accuracy through linking CRM records with public social networking profiles

-          Access to further rich data collected from public social networking profiles to supplement customer information already held

-          Advanced Customer Relationship Management features such as lead & sales management workflow, HTML email & mobile SMS (Short Message Service) campaign marketing, customer surveys and rich reporting as an upgrade option

-          Integration to online accounts systems, such as Kashflow, providing full sales workflow from leads through to invoicing.

These new Social CRM features are in addition to the many business networking features of WeCanDo.BIZ, including Biz Need business sales leads; and an endorsement system to share customer endorsements on your social networking profile, blog or website.  The WeCanDo.BIZ website has over 12,500 registered users.

“As I build contacts online WeCanDoCRM captures customer data straight into the system  – that’s fantastic, as I can be straight onto potential opportunities with fundamentally no delay or need for administration,” says Will Hawkins of Healthy Business Ltd., a WeCanDo.BIZ user and early adopter of WeCanDoCRM.  “I have access to information about my customers that many large businesses can only dream about!”

“A lot of business owners are scratching their heads, trying to work out what social networks can do for them, how they build their contacts and then how they convert them into customers,” says Ian Hendry, founder and Chief Executive of WeCanDo.BIZ.  “The fact is, there are opportunities being presented all the time through social network connections, but unless you record them they’re quickly lost amongst the noise.  WeCanDoCRM assists in building rich customer profiles of your online and offline contacts; then provides tools to help advance the relationship to the point where business gets done — quickly and easily.”

WeCanDoCRM Social CRM is powered by the InTouch CRM platform and is available immediately, free to all businesses from www.wecando.biz.  WeCanDo.BIZ Pro Networker membership is an optional upgrade enabling small businesses to use social media to grow even faster from £19.95 + VAT per month with no contract.

About WeCanDo.BIZ

WeCanDo.BIZ is an online new business network for sales leads and referrals. Using social networking methods to broker valuable new business relationships, it provides simple tools to members which help generate sales leads, leverage customer referrals and win new business.  The web-based service is available to all businesses at www.wecando.biz.

Media contact:
Ian Hendry
WeCanDo.BIZ
@wecandobiz
+44 (0)7767 657977

Images:

WeCanDoCRM email campaign reporting (click to enlarge)

WeCanDoCRM sales leads (click to enlarge)

Tweets showing in WeCanDoCRM (click to enlarge)

Import your Twitter contacts to WeCanDoCRM (click to enlarge)

Raising a KashFlow invoice from with WeCanDoCRM (click to enlarge)

I don’t often get this excited but it has been a very exciting day so far!

Today we launched the live public BETA of our Twitter Sales Leads tool set within WeCanDo.Biz.  The buzz that this seems to have created had far exceeded our expectations which is fantastic.

What has really excited me though are the sheer number of people using the tool in its BETA form and writing some wonderful things about it:

“Just checked it out and i have to say its brilliant, you simply add keywords and it lists all twitter posts that are related to or contain your chosen keywords” (G. Lasagne, UK Business Forums)

“Software that does this for me will be a huge from me” (Adventurelife, UK Business Forums)

I could go cite many more but what these guys are saying totally vindicates the work we have been doing.  Thank you

The reason we have done this is to add to the core purpose of WeCanDo.BIZ, the ability to find real sales leads via people’s published Biz Needs and take them straight  into WeCanDoCRM Social CRM

We think this is pretty cool and we hope you do too.  We would very much appreciate your help in testing our new tool and hope you take a look . New users to WeCanDo.BIZ are able to sign straight in using their Twitter identity through Twitter OAuth so there is not even the often messy and time-consuming registration process that many sites still use.

————————————————————————————————-

We have made the  Twitter Sales Leads tool available to our Business and Pro Networker members to enable them to see how the final version will work.  We are due to release that final version next week.

BETA means it is still in test and not all features are yet there: missing is the ability to create a sales leads in WeCanDoCRM Social CRM to track the progress of the Twitter sales leads you find.

As it stands though, the BETA version is locating prospective customers for your products and services on Twitter by searching on your company keywords (as entered when you added your Business profile).

>> TRY IT OUT FREE HERE! <<
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

I have just been reading @scorpfromhell’s blog ‘Is Social CRM about automated relationship building?’ with great interest.

The whole article reflects the authors horror that marketing departments are looking at ways of mining the social web to find better ways of targetting push marketing. Sending coupons to people who say they don’t like stuff and thanking people who say they do for example.

The author rightly claims that there are dangers of Social CRM becoming a set of tools for stalking. Checking out people’s needs and then just bombarding them with offers. I certainly agree with @scorpfromhell’s views.   This is a very old fashioned mix of methods which are guaranteed to annoy the hell out of pretty much everybody. I have included the clip below from the article as it illustrates some points I will make.

PeopleBrowsr's Campaign Builder for Twitter.

If I happen to post on the web that I am not overly keen on Product X, the last thing I want is a bunch of money off vouchers for even more Product X. I might be prepared to accept a single request for a reason why I don’t like the product of course. But that would depend on my reason for not being happy. This strikes me as similar in some ways to the attempts by outsourced service providers offering service credits for service failure. My question has always been, ‘Why on earth would I want even more of what doesn’t do the job for me?’ Now let’s follow my example using the example I have lifted shamelessly from @scorpfromhell’s article. Suppose I receive my tweet from the product company offering me vouchers. I then tweet again that I really would rather not get any vouchers as I REALLY HATE PRODUCT X, well unless there is some clever monitoring, the key words ‘HATE’ and ‘PRODUCT X’ pop up again against me and I get another message offering me…more vouchers. So, because I am getting a little annoyed I post again with a little more venom…I think you see the chain before I reach biblical levels of wrath and righteous fury. This technology certainly has its place but I guess we need more information before it becomes truly useful. Automating this stuff is riddled with pitfalls.

Social CRM is, as a set of technologies, pretty new to the world. As I have said in previous blogs though, there is nothing really new about the concepts. Solid listening, understanding, maintaining currency and being interactive are all as valid as they ever were.

What we do have now, however is the ability to mine social media for the reason people buy stuff. The need, the compelling event, call it what you will.

Perhaps we need to turn a little of what is being said by those marketers who hunt and push into greater analysis of who is actually asking for things that you can provide; need based selling and Social CRM are built for each other.  Automating relationship building is a tricky step.  Automating the process of knowing who your contacts are, knowing your data is up-to-date because people maintain their own profiles and using the social web to populate real sales leads in your Social CRM capability are all here today.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

So, imagine you are a sales manager. You walk into your office and you find all of your team ‘messing about’ with social networking sites. What would your reaction be? I have managed sales teams and managed sales managers and I guess that my historic reaction would have been pretty much unprintable.

I know why too. Social networking has very much been seen as, well, social. Not very business-like. A bit matey.

The world is changing and changing rapidly but are opinions at the coal-face of the business world also changing? Whether in the board room, or often and more importantly in the IT Department, resistance to networking is huge. In my ‘other life’ I do a huge amount of work with organisations in the UK public sector whose IT teams routinely block access to social networks as quickly as they find them. They are after all potential sources of security leaks. And in the public sector, if un-policed, I 100% agree with that premise. I know from a lot of talking and research that this is pretty much the case with large corporates too. There is a perception that social networking is not work and is potentially damaging.

Is Social CRM an answer? I am not going to attempt to define it here because there are so many conflicting and overlapping views about what it is but it seems pretty clear that most people are happy that it is the addition of social elements to CRM or indeed the application of CRM toolsets and practices to large social networks.

The burgeoning world of Business Networking and Social CRM can be seen to be part of what Andrew Mcafee of MIT calls Enterprise 2.0.   Andrew writes in his blog “Enterprise 2.0 is a Crock: Discuss”,

‘… E2.0 is not an unstoppable force. All a company has to do is wipe ESSPs off its servers and block them at the firewall, and no Enterprise 2.0 will take place. And will that shortsightedness drive the company out of business in six months or a year? Almost certainly not.’

So should this worry those of us who espouse the openess of networking and the clear and present value of the huge amount of information and, wait for it, SALES LEADS? Well there is an argument that it should however, it will become pretty clear, pretty quickly that whilst businesses don’t go out of business within six months that those people within the corporate brick walls (as opposed to firewalls) that things are changing and so must they. The very clever ones will, I hope, start to look right now at the advantages they can get by using social networking to truly drive business.

Now there’s an interesting slant on networking. What if, instead of surfing around hoping that your sales team come across something interesting, that those leads come straight to them, through the very tools that scare the suits and the geeks! That might just be the compelling event that turns the tide against social networking in corporate environments and opens up the doors to the true potential of the social web.

If Andrew Mcafee can coin the term Enterprise 2.0 then perhaps I should enumerate my ideas as SOMETHING 2.0 but the reality is, nothing here is new, sales professionals have always used the tools available to them to do their job. It doesn’t really matter what you use, selling is selling. Your must have a need and must have a budget. As a sales professional the task is to find those with needs and to provide a value proposition.

I truly believe that there are some times in business which are era defining. Those defining times are most often technology driven and whilst technology won’t get a sales guy to ask for business, business cannot run without people buying and selling and social networking and Social CRM will only help that.

At WeCanDo.BIZ we have some fascinating launches coming over the next week or two which we know will make the garnering of sales leads so much easier. Taking real needs directly from the social web straight into our Social CRM system, WeCanDoCRM and creating real leads at the click of your mouse.

I hope you join us in what could be a very, very exciting journey.
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

So is social networking a numbers game? I suppose it depends entirely on what you want to achieve. I have never been one for measuring success by how many people hang on my every word. In fact, I would be a little worried if the rest of humanity had little better to do than listen to me. So why do I ‘do’ social networking? I will make no pretence about the fact that I do it to raise awareness and interest in WeCanDo.BIZ. There, you have it. Call it corporate ego if you will but certainly not personal ego, I learned long ago that that is something which turns people off in droves.

My interest in collecting followers and friends is two-fold. To hope that we have something which people will find useful (more about that later) and hopefully to learn some things from others.

Thomas Power of Ecademy posted an interesting blog a while back on the subject of what he refers to as ‘connectedness’. You can read it here http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=137541 the title was ‘When you have a giant network things happen by accident faster’. Well I guess you have to accept that as a truism. The more people you are actively connected with, the more chance there is of ’something’ happening in the same way that, the more lottery tickets you buy, the greater the chances of winning are. I would suggest though, that the simplistics of just ‘connecting’ are not enough. You need to do some stuff. Get involved. Speak to people, interact and share. I know that from reading Thomas’s articles and speaking with him that he would not disagree.

Below you will see today’s Twitter Top 5

What interests me the most is that this list (and most of the rest of the top 200) comprises celebrities, news shows and entertainment. And very many of the ‘most followed’ are not great followers. There is an argument of course that these people are tweeting because they have a huge fan base or readership who want instant snippets of news or celebrity gossip. That is perfectly reasonable but for those of in the business world, it means little to us and it is unlikely we will benefit from knowing too much about what Ashton or Britney are doing today.

Facebook yields pretty similar results in terms of ‘most friends’ but I would argue that it is much lower down this tree of connectivity that most of us operate and where most benefit can be derived.

Having long lists of people you connect to is only the very start. If you are in any form of sales, marketing or business you already know that the most important thing is not how many people’s names you have but what and how often you do something with them. It may seem like I repeat themes in my postings but I retain the firm belief that networking in and of itself is not an end-point. As with anything else you do in your business life, ask yourself ’so what?’ And by that I mean,as an example, ‘I have a lot of friends on xxxxxxx, so what?’ Now this could be read as a very negative way of thinking however, if you accept that the ’so what’ is simply a challenge to your own intention, then my point may become clearer. The question may just as easily be read, ‘So what am I going to do with them?’ Or in the world of social media, perhaps, ‘What am I going to do for them?’

Be very clear that people can switch off from your lists as quickly as they switch on and with the emerging world of Social CRM and truly permissive marketing, you need to do your utmost to retain interest and currency with those for whom you connect and interact.

Think in terms of valuable advice, maybe some relevant humour (remember, the web persists and so do your comments) and interesting messages. Equally don’t be afraid to get your sales messages out there. I say this guardedly however because no-one appreciates mass ‘get rich quick’ Twitter campaigns or email blasts. It is an absolute fact that you are likely to be received better when offering something if you routinely ask for the things you need to buy via your networks. People love having the opportunity to say, ‘I sell what you need, can we talk?’ and what better way to build real connections and to have the opportunity to talk about what it is that you do. Ask for endorsements and be happy to give them.

So go out and network, but as you do, be very aware that you will get what you give. Ivan Misner’s famous BNI tenet of ‘Givers Gain’ is never so true as with social and business networking.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

I was out to dinner and consequently missed the first period.  I hear it was wonderful.  It certainly sounds as though it was.  They finally scored on the power play?  Wooooo!!  The second period was fast, but I was not at all pleased with the lack of shots and the plethora of penalties taken by the Sabres.  Then Sir Christopher had to stand up for Ryan, as he’s a chivalrous soul and protecting his goaltender is one of his money duties.  Then the Flames tried to beat up Clarkey, then Goosie beat up Phaneuf.  I liked the last one a lot.  I don’t like Phaneuf, and I do like Goose, so I enjoy seeing the latter punch the first.  Serves you right, Dion.

It was really great getting to see Jarome Iginla.  He’s an incredibly talented player and we don’t ever get to see him because he’s aaaaallll the way on the west coast.

The Sabres took sixteen too many penalties tonight.  Good heavens, they looked like last year’s box-loving Caps.

I thought RJ was going to stroke out in the last thirty second of overtime.  Rick, you are not as young as you used to be.  Don’t overexert yourself.

The game ended up in the shootout, and, miracle of miracles, the Sabres pulled out the win.  Oooh!! Aaah!!  Weee!!  Good job, Sabres.  You ended up with a grand total of six shots on goal (going from the two periods I saw), but you managed the win.  Excellent, excellent.  I know this is asking far too much of you, but a win tomorrow night would be superb.  Philly is a scary, intimidating team, but I have complete faith in you.  Put your mind to it, boys, and you can do it.  All in all, though, tonight you played a highly entertaining game.  Much better than Wednesday night.  Thank you.

There’s no way Lala starts tomorrow night.

The Caps played the Wild.  Perrault continued to be badass.  Mike Knuble broke his finger and is out 3-4 weeks and I am very sad.  I love Mike Knuble.  Mike Knuble is a good leader and he’s good at killing penalties and he liked my sign.  Poor Mike Knuble.  Varly is slowly working his way back into my good graces.  The Caps have issues to work out, but they’ve looked pretty darn good over the past few games (aside from giving up 3 quick ones to the Islanders and then borderline choking in the final minute against them and taking eleven rounds of the shootout to beat them).  I like it.

The Hurricanes lost their 14th straight game.  It used to be really funny when everyone was wondering if they’d make it to ten.  Now it’s just sad.  Should we send in aid?  Is there something we can do to put them out of their misery?

The Thrashers beat the Kings 7-0.  This is totes awesome.  Thrashers, you rock.  I love you.  Ilya, Evander, AND Zachity Zach all scored.  That’s what we call an awesome game.  I should have watched it.  I’ve never tried watching three games at once before.  I mis try this some time.  Atlanta is certainly worthy.

I got tapped last minute for  babysitting gig tomorrow night.  I’ll be able to watch the Sabres after the kiddies go to bed and they get CBC, but I will be unable to see the Capitals.  This pretty much guarantees that Alex will come back and score a hat trick.  Awesome.

Um, Adam Mair got traded.  That came out of nowhere.  Darcy, are you up to something?  Are there plots being plotted?  I sincerely hope so, because I always sort of liked Adam and just waiving him for the sake of waiving him makes me sad.  I realize that now that Danny is gone and he didn’t have to babysit him anymore there really wasn’t any point in keeping him around, but still.  Best of luck in the world, Adam.  I hope you find a loving home somewhere.

In other news:

• The Catwalk for Charity was last night.  I’ve already seen lots of pictures, and it looked like a lot of fun.  Christopher never fails to make me love him.  Tyler looked adorable with the puppy.  Paul looked kind of drunk.  Maybe he is human after all!
• Butthead that he is, Alex thought he’d be all funny and freak me out and say he’d be 4-5 weeks.  So not funny, Alex. And it only reinforced my belief that your sense of humor is lame.
• Everyone I know who was at the games over the weekend said they were even worse in person.  That scares me.  Sabres, let’s fix things for Wednesday night.  Remember when you scored ten goals against the Oilers last year?  That was tons of fun.
• Totally unrelated, but that was the same night Chara tried to kill Alex.  There’s a freak-out in the post I linked above.

I know that this was exactly how Buffalo started out last year and I know it’ll all start going downhill soon enough (probably around the time Ryan gets completely exhausted at the Olympics), but for now, I’m completely enjoying the Sabres’ success.  They’re winning, and they’re beating good teams.  This is fun.

Marty Brodeur has not looked good this season.  At all.  I’m ecstatic that Timmy got his first NHL goal (AAAHHH!!!  TIMMY!!!  I LOOOOOOOOVE YOU!!), but Marty did not look good at all.

Ryan Miller will soon hurt himself/get too cranky to play well/get exhausted by the Olympics as I mentioned above, but for now, I’m thoroughly enjoying his awesomeness.  Ryan, you’re not so bad when you’re playing well.

We ended up getting the Devils feed for the game which was annoying in that I couldn’t hear Rick and Harry, but was cool in that I could hear what other announcers (namely, Doc) think about the Sabres.  I agree, boys.  Chris Butler was a wonderful find.

I can’t believe Clarke MacArthur already has five goals.  This is redonk.  He’s got to stop scoring at some point.  It’s not like he could get thirty.

I’m pretty sure Pommer got his third of the season in February last year.

Mike Grier and Timmy K playing together continues to amaze me.  I love the two of them.  They’re so good together.  Their chemistry is spectacular.

Lots of NHLers have been struck with swine (or at least are coming clean about when they had it) today.  I hope none of the Sabres catch it.  And I hope Quintin Laing doesn’t get any of my beloveds in Washington sick.

Tonight was Tyler Myers’s ninth game, but there wasn’t seriously any drama surrounding it, was there?  There’s no way they can send him back to juniors.  No.  Way.  I will jump off a bridge or something drastic and (only slightly) unnecessary like that.

Tomorrow night the Caps play the Ilya-less Thrashers.  It will be in HD, which makes me happy.  I’m sad Ilya got hurt, and in a contract year, no less, but his absence makes the Caps’ job a bit easier.  I would love for them to continue this sick-nasty winning streak they’ve got going.

Speaking of contract years, I’ve been feeling rather warm and fuzzy towards one Jose Theodore as of late.  It’s not secret around here that he and I never really got along very well (scroll down to the earlier ones), so this fondness is a new territory for me.  I don’t think he’s the same goalie that won a Hart trophy a few years back, but he’s been the better goalie for the Capitals to this point in the season.  I just hope that IF the Caps re-sign him, he doesn’t start sucking again.  I really hate  when players only play well in contract years.

If/when Buffalo loses to Toronto, I will cry.  I’m just letting you all know.

Once again, we’re in the midst of a relatively long stretch without Sabres hockey. Thanks to Saturday night’s game I’m in a very pro-Sabres mood and this is bothering me. Alas, I will have to rely on the Capitals tonight to distract me from studying. (If they lose to Philly again I am jumping off a bridge.)

I guess the big story tomorrow night in New Jersey is it being Tyler Myers’s ninth game, but I really don’t see how he could be sent back to juniors after the way he’s played here.

I can’t believe Mike Richards wasn’t suspended.

It’s my beloved Christopher (Butler)’s birthday today. Happy birthday! (Totally just found that out over at Sabretooth’s House. Thanks, Anne!)

I had a weird dream involving Ryan Miller teaching me math the other night. It was…odd. Very odd.

I took the Dan Paille trade very hard.  I know he spent almost the entire start of the season here in the press box and I know that Lindy seemed to dislike him or dislike playing him or something like.  But I still loved him and I was still devastated when he got traded.

Enter Chris Butler’s interview from last night.

What a wonderful distraction from Danny.  In addition to being a great player, Christopher is an attractive, well -spoken, articulate guy.  We already knew that; I was blown away by his first game here.  He was amazing during it and his postgame interview was 74 different kinds of cute.  He was supposed to be an emergency call-up but he went and blew us all away and now he’s permanent.  I’ve always had a thing for him, but last night I decided to go and make it official.  Christopher Butler, we’re going to try a little experiment in which you’re my new favorite Sabre.  Congratulations.  Best of luck to you.

(An aside:  I checked Wikipedia and while it has his parents’ names and his siblings names and ages, it doesn’t have his middle name.  1.)  Gosh darn it.  2.)  Why am I so fixated on middle names?  It kind of creeps me out.)

(Another aside:  Of course I still like you, Ryan!  We’ll aways have something special, especially since I have a bobblehead of you.  But for now, I’m trying things with Christopher.  He seems more my type.  And he’s quite a bit closer to my age.)

Last night’s first period was one of the best I’ve ever seen the Sabres play.  I was flabbergasted.  It was awesome.  They just came out and started scoring and didn’t stop for twenty minutes.  They weren’t nearly as good in the second and third period, but the first period was so B.A. that I’m willing to forgive them just this once.

I love Matt Ellis.

I love Tyler Myers.

I love the save Ryan Miller made.

I love the chemistry Timmy K and Mike Grier have.

Seriously, who pulls their goalie a minute into a game?  And just for the record, I don’t really think the goalie change jump-started the rest of the players the way they had hoped.

I’m going to miss the first period of the Caps game tonight but after that I’ll be able to watch.  I’m really excited.  We all know how much I love when the Capitals play the Thrashers.

The family I’m selling my soul to babysitting for six hours Saturday night doesn’t have cable.  I won’t be able to watch any hockey.  At all.  It’s going to be awful.  Especially since while I won’t be watching hockey I’ll be having an allergy attack.  I am allergic to cats, and putting the cat in your bedroom while I watch your children does not change that fact.  I’m sorry.