Marshall Lager is the founder and managing principal of Third Idea Consulting, LLC.  We've hired Marshall to provide his perspective on the CRM industry, Sage news, and the state of customer/company dialogue in general.

 

Here’s a quick update for you, about … you! Yes, this relates directly to the ACT! and SalesLogix communities, so listen up.


I’ve been involved in writing a chapter for an upcoming book to be published by Information Today, my former employer. The subtitle is How Digital Natives Are Transforming the Way Business Is Done Today—they don’t wish to release the actual name of the book until January to prevent anybody else from snapping it up, or I’d tell you. (Really, I don’t even know what it is. Talk about secrecy!) My chapter relates heavily to social CRM and social media in general, and the business example I use to finish it out is Sage North America’s highly successful efforts with social media—which you’re involved with if you’re reading this.

 

Though I’ve known about it since the ACT! by Sage Community project launched nearly two years ago, I didn’t come up with the case study on my own. In fact, it was provided to me by Forrester Research’s own Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, who wrote the case study to go along with her Best Practices paper on social media in customer service. I quoted heavily from both and discussed them with Dr. Nat, and we like what you’ve all done. I hope my writing does you folks justice.

 

Seriously, I’m not trying to be patronizing here. Lots of us so-called experts have been watching Sage’s transformation over the years, and one thing we can agree upon is the vibrancy and openness of the partner-developer-user community surrounding the CRM products. It always comes up in our conversations about Sage, and you have only yourselves to thank. Special kudos to all my usual contacts at Sage: Joe Bergera, Kim Josephs, Alexandra Kouznetsova, Tawny Mergel, Larry Ritter, and Ryan Zuk, among others. Thanks for the chance to be part of it.

 

Marshall