The biggest names in software have been touting sales force automation (SFA) applications for years, and one of the fastest rising software companies of the last five years even named itself after this class of application. But is there any evidence that SFA is a differentiator to a business? Has it helped a company escape the downturn? Anticipate the downturn? Profit from the downturn? Or is it just the great equalizer, the low-bar to stay at parity with the competition? And if so, what is the fuss all about? And what is, then, a better determinant of business success?

We have been writing for 12 years that SFA is one of many dimensions of a customer strategy. We have written and presented over a thousand times that good understanding of customer intentions, personalized (or ‘persona-tized’) marketing messages and excellent customer service were equally important.

Just about every client realizes that it is the ‘before’ and ‘during’ and ‘after’ of the customer interaction that counts – not one in isolation. What the customer expects largely determines how they will ‘consume’ an experience. And you either shape these expectations or they get shaped for you by blogs, forums, and the buzz in the market.

And then there is the element of new media – Twitter and Facebook and SMS and web communities that operate entirely beyond corporate control, where no sales force can easily go.

We as organizations are so poorly designed to approach the challenge comprehensively (multi-channel, multi-department, and ‘outside-in’) that only a radical rethinking of the problem will shake senior management into making the required changes in how we go to market.

Any good examples of large enterprises who have done this are welcome, and in future blogs I will share some as well!

It was a beautiful moment. There was a young goateed man with a blandly cosmopolitan look flipping through his iPhone, waiting for whomever to arrive. He seemed sufficiently bored and unhurried, so I asked him if he would mind if I made a quick local call on his phone.

MURDER! I’M BEING ROBBED! HELP ME!

No, he didn’t say any of those things, but his eyes froze in a mixture of fear and loathing that someone would want to touch his personal device. It is not that he saw me as one enormous H1N1 virus shrouded in a clever disguise. He just could not grasp that anyone, likely anyone except someone very, very intimate with him, would be allowed to touch, to hold, to manipulate his personal device.

Something I’ve been observing around the world came into focus for me. Many will say, “duh.” But I can be slow about a lot of things modern. I hear folks speak of there personal digital assistant by name. I see them cradle the device while they walk, and talk. They lay it aside there plate as they eat, or rest it gently on their lap and gaze at the lambent throb of the display. 

It isn’t a phone; it is an extension of personality. It is customized with skins and apps and aggrated content and feeds. It is a massive investment of time and focus. It is an extension of the path from TiVo and Xbox and WII and Lego. It is Solipsism wrapped in a veneer of social. And it is fascinating.

Let’s communicate…. but don’t touch my device. It will be interesting to unravel the business implications.

As I read through the summaries of his works I wondered what he would have made of the Facebook and Twitter revolution (and they are revolutions, no?).  In the 1962 work, The Savage Mind, Lévi-Strauss looked at those who are spontaneous (the Bricoleur) and those who look at the entire process and engineer it (the Engineer).  Maybe this is what we are seeing in microblogging – today it is a raw (another Lévi-Strauss concept) medium driven by emotions and reflex. It is a lot about tinkering with Tweets to see where they will lead. Businesses are wary, because they are uneasy with sociology and ethnography and spontenous. They want – and need – to engineer processes and work to create business value.

As time passes and our facility with Twitter and other instant posts increases, the business will gain more reassurance about the gains in customer insight, customer experience, and customer convenience. We are still very much centered on the Bricoleur, with the Engineer standing in the wing, watching and learning.

I’ve been saying that an element of social networking is the working out of the logic of Marshall McLuhan’s “Medium is the Message” – we cannot help but interact with media. It isn’t the content. Content is the accelerant. We must look at email, SMS, Feeds, Tweets, Facebook, Salon, The Huffington Post. Resistance is futile.

I’m looking forward to a rigorous study that compares the amount of dead ending rat hole social threads, group-think, least common denominator and plain drivel on the one side with the true measurable value of the resulting ‘insight’ on the other.  Or is it going to take another million posts to discover people want to plug the hole in their coffee cups? Now there’s value.

Can anyone suggest who the best companies are at really extracting the value of networks? We have over 200 examples collected today, but they are still a small sample. And do you know of good software that helps analyze massive amounts of posts about a company that helps to detect emerging business patterns? Let me know!

Instead of the birds and bees it was the wolves and the sociopaths, and future university recruiters and corporations reviewing their resumes. The basic discussion was: “What’s better, a picture of a garden hose in your mouth with beer pouring down a funnel, or you tending a garden in Guatemala in an impoverished village with a sweet comment about how you are tutoring for free during the mosquito-infested summer?”

“But dad, I’ve never been to Guatemala!”

“So what? Are you going to put it on your college application or resume? No. But it creates a great impression!”

And so they embarked on viewing their profiles as ways of shaping how they would want an anonymous lurker (employer, recruiter…) to perceive them.

OK, I’m exaggerating, but not by much. It is pretty basic that we are fools to think that the musings, personal data paths, postings, transactions and connections that we perform as a part of any activity passing through a social network will be captured, aggragated, and shared with people and organizations we don’t want to share with. And as business owners and government officials and university officers, we’d better think about this.

And yet there are so many Pollyannas who don’t believe data is shared without our permission. Welcome to the world of the HTTP referrer header, ladies and gentleman. And just wait until your customers and non-customers ask for your internet Bill of Rights (First discussed, I think – but correct me please - in 2007 by Joseph Smarr, Marc Canter, Robert Scoble, and Michael Arrington). What might be in it?
 We, the customer, control the elements in our profile, and no one else. • We get to delete any and all of our social and personal data. • We decide if you can track our movements. • We get to decide who has access to them.

That’s just the beginning. Until then, we’d all better get to thinking about where we expect the issue of surreptitious data gathering to go. Your customers are watching.

They also said that if I made that the headliine of a blog, the majority of Tweets that would mention what I am writing now would be from people who did not take the time to read the blog, but instead would just tear apart the 24 letters, period, and four spaces. Because they are losers. After the shock on my part, and the looks of ‘get real’ from the others, I asked more questions and got some better answers. They were of completly different minds when it came to using Twitter during the elections in Iran. They saw this ability to rapidly disseminate the reality of a situation as amazing. But then one of those asked came back with, “I didn’t see any surge in Tweets from Darfur.” And another said, “Yeah, but in Iran some of the Tweets were faked.” They thought it skewed attention away from other, equally compelling stories, such as China and Africa where the population may not have access to expensive internet services.

In one group of 12 people that I spoke with in Stony Creek, Connecticut, they saw the positive side of Twitter for breaking news and for closer contact with associates, but also saw it as distracting, unsecure, and subject to manipulation because of its uneven spread. These 12 were mostly business owners (3) and professors (6).

So who said it was for losers? University students and recent college Grads. They said there was something very ‘post 9/11′ about needing to hunker down and vicariously feel a part of the glitter of the stars, even if from your coccoon you would never be in their constellation.

Finally, I was surprised that of about 36 people I talked to, not one of them was actively on Twitter. The education levels were university students, to BA, MA, PhD, DDS, MD – and almost all called the East Coast of the US their home, though many were born elsewhere in the world. Maybe I need to vacation further afield, and soon.

So, it is eye opening, and I would love more insight on the statistics of who is on Twitter – the psychographic and demographic models of the most active participants, and the breakdown between business users versus open ended social interaction / discourse. If anyone knows credible sources of data, let me know, please.

Here is the 411 on bloggers: we take the time to share our quotidian experiences at work with kindred souls who may have had similar encounters. Bloggers aren’t special except to the extent that everyone is special, and we take the risk of ridicule when we stray too far from the common denominator. If we do, Twitter, or the wonderful world of widgets (www) like Friendster, Facebook, Myspace, Xanga and hundreds of others will carry this flotsam along for pillory.

Why risk it, then? Not to be heard by the many – most of us write on small, small topics that would bore the digits off of 99.999% of readers. We do it to share whatever meager insights might provoke thinking. When we fail, which is what we generally do, the reader doesn’t come back. If we succeed, most of us will develop a very tiny sliver of return readers.

So far I have been pleased to read your emails back – the criticism and the praise both. We (Gartner analysts) spend a high percentage of our time working directly with end-user clients, helping them solve nettlesome IT and business process problems. If you occassionally read something and say: OH, THAT IS CRAZY TALK, it could be that it is hard for any of us to look in the mirror. Or it could be that it is all Quatsch, and I’ll be sure to hear about it!!!

Keep on writing back when you find my insights off target. It will keep me on target!

Full disclosure: I didn’t even know the machine had a water filter. Pure water arrived magically, until I noticed one day an LED that said “0″ next to level, which led me to read the words aside the ‘0′ level, and it said ‘water filter level, replace when below 10%.’ Smart refrigerator. Off I went to the manufacturer/retailer website (I didn’t know if the Brand Name meant the retailer manufactured the equipment, or sold some other manufacturer’s product under their name.

There it was: the search engine. I was hopeful and typed in the words X (brand name, make and model) refrigerator water filter replacement. The search took me to the section of the site for appliances and asked me what type of filter did I want? Lawn mower? Vacuum cleaner? Washing machine? Swimming pool? Air conditioner? Refrigerator? Hmmmmmm, let me see, when I typed in X (brand name, make and model) refrigerator water filter replacement, wasn’t that giving them some indication of my intentions?

So, I found the ‘part’ eventually. But as an analyst, I had to go out to Google before buying online from the retailer. Wouldn’t you know it? When I dropped in “X (brand name, make and model) refrigerator water filter replacement” I was given a page on Amazon.com immediately where I could get two filters at a 16% discount, plus free shipping, with one click shopping. Who loves me? Who knows me? Who understands my intentions immediately? Is it the company who sold me the machine, delivered and installed it, and with whom I have the warranty? Or is it the ‘anonymous’ online retailer who through almost alchemy divines my exact intentions and rewards me for participating in a social network with genetic learning algorithms?

Social networks, blogs, communities, reviews: this retailer has them all. But the basics of what I want, and how to expedite that search and purchase are missing.

How many countries with the standard of living in the US could claim to have the complexity of forms and procedures for health issues? I just tried to execute a simple change of address. I couldn’t even proceed on my insurer’s website until I logged in, even though the question I had was simple: how do I change my address in the system? I used the search engine and the knowledge base, but received three utterly irrelevant choices. In frustration I called the customer service folks. After flailing around in an IVR for six minutes, I punched out to a ‘live agent’ who told me that only my employer could change an address. No worries. I asked if there were some way she could make a note to the people who do Q/A or FAQ on the website. Her answer, “No sir, because we don’t handle address changes: your employer does.” OkeyDokey.

One of my daughters had her wisdom teeth extracted in two sessions. In the first, the procedure was covered. In the second it was denied. Huh? After four phone calls it turned out that one wisdom tooth (or maxillary and mandibular third molars for you purists) which was impacted was assessed by the outsourced medical technician to no longer fall under the category of “dental’ insurance” but ‘medical’ insurance. They denied the claim. No, they did not know of the other extractions at the time of assessment that were accepted as ‘dental.’ Did it all work out? Sure: after denial of claim, clarification of problem, resubmission of new claim to medical, and, of course, calls to my company’s HR and my physician.

Has anyone ever tried to add up the billions and billions of dollars that are wasted in lost time, duplicate forms, and extra personnel?

So there I was, listening to the President and imagining him completing another medical form, waiting on hold, and discussing North Korea’s missile threat. There’s got to be a better system.

What really struck me during the move was the gap between what happens to a customer and what the average CEO thinks happens with and to a customer. I advise businesses on social networks and media, on CRM and customer experience, and the technologies and processes required to improve customer relations. Then I interact with these same businesses as a customer and marvel at the disconnect between board-level talking points and the real world.

Alright, you ask, can I give you one example? I’ll use everyone’s favorite: the Cable Guy. Nothing could be simpler than to install cable TV, internet, and IP telephones – the lines were already running into the house. Ah! Those lines (snip, snip, tuck, hide) – Cable Guy needs new ones. Can you feed the cable through an empty wall space? “No, sir, we only drill new holes and run everything along external walls and internal walls.” I ask: “but can’t you take off this electrical cover? It’s where the old cable came into the room.” Cable Guy answers: I can’t unscrew a cover.

After a break, and talking to his supervisor on the phone, he comes to hook up the internet. I mention that he skipped a television. Cable Guy says, “I can’t hook it up, it’s in a box.” I ask him why he didn’t just say that rather than skipping it. Cable Guy says, “We don’t do that.” Then I notice he’s hooked the cable up between the cable box and the TV, even though there is a DVR in between. I ask Cable Guy if he could hook it up the way it will actually be used. “We don’t do that. We just check for signal.”

Then the internet: Cable Guy sets up the model, and I connect it to the phone, and he asks me to sign the paperwork so he can leave. I ask him, “Don’t we need to make sure the internet is working?” Cable Guy says, “No. You just fire up the browser, and if it asks you for an order number, just put in this number.”

Now Cable Guy was moving fast. Out the door and gone. I tried to “fire up” my browser. Nope. Reboot. Nope. I called customer service, but ‘unusually high call volumes’ kept me on hold eight minutes, and then the line went dead. I call again. Nine minutes, and the line goes dead. Then I get through. Customer service puts me onto Technical Support. She sees nothing wrong. Technical Support transfers me to Billing. Billing has no idea who I am or what I want. This is a system that would challenge anyone except the Buddha. Billing gives up and says I need Technical Support. He has no idea I’ve spoken to Technical Support.  At this point I am the peanut vendor Sebastion Dinwiddle talking to St. Louis Wolves manager Dexter Broadhurt in the Abbott and Costello comedy skit, “Who’s on First.”

(Guess how you can resolve this issue? Go onto the cable company’s technical website and use the technician’s ID to log on from the order form you signed. Then enter order number, MTA MAC ID from the box, and work description and “Enter here to complete technician work order.” Whatdya know? The technician probably hadn’t yet processed your order. I’m thinking lunch takes precedence. But don’t do it – it’s likely not kosher.)

The moral of this banal tale (which is played out in many guises by customers in multiple industries, every minute of every day): you can Twitter, and you can post, and blog, and poll, and vote – and so can your management. But it is hard to soar like an eagle when you flock with domesticated turkeys. We need our feedback systems in order, and to tramp along with the customer, and listen, listen, listen to the communities, both formal and informal.

Get out of the office a bit more and live the customer’s life.