What have I been up to at the start of 2011. Lots of swimming and working on WordCampNZ 2011. This mention map looks to be interactive and probably updates in real time.

Hover over the map to explore connections. Enter your twitter id to view your own map.

Helping clients plan to get the best out of their WordPress sites is something that I really enjoy.

Having a theme library loaded and switching between them for instant changes to “the look and feel” is a fun moment in the discovery planning process.

For non – WordPress users a Theme is effectively a website design “skin” that overlays the content. It works by providing a filtered view of the text (XML) content.

For more technical users we are talking about combination of stylesheet (CSS) and some core function code (pages, posts, comments) which is written in PHP.

At the visual level this is fairly easy. For example if the client has an existing site structure we would look to match the colours, and general look and feel with a similar theme that has 1 , 2 or 3 columns. We may be also looking for menu layouts, header functions, plus sidebar and footer configurations.

Part of this is to understand the branding context and also if there is an existing format whether that should be kept if if there is a more optimal layout.

What we would then do is match fonts, include branded headers and other brand ID assets on a theme that was as close as possible but sometimes it can be quicker to build a new theme that to find one that matches up.

Way back in ’97 there was programme called Net Objects which did something similar in packaging various components together with a set of styles and saved all of the information into an object called a NOD probably some kind of early XML file.

The great thing about that programme was the user interface for applying “styles” really simplified the menu and navigation processes by including all the image icons and button type files along with it.  I used that for many years for fast prototyping of sites and to replace PowerPoint for presentations as it was faster and easier.

Fast forward 9 years to 2006 – WordPress was coming of age with newer more visual releases although from memory I think that Joomla had a bigger range of theme like styles at the time.

But by late 2006 when I started this blog there were some great themes around for WordPress and having used lots of content management systems before I was ready to try something a bit more open ended.

Where to Search for WordPress Themes?

The best place to start is WordPress.org theme library. This is because the 800+ themes there have been sorted into some kind of taxonomy and at least partly vetted by WordPress developers and enthusiasts. This is important for two reasons.

1. Some themes have hidden code in them which might be advertising or worse. See the theme authors guidelines which aims to prevent  “hidden, paid or sponsored links in the theme. Links back to the author’s site are fine.”
2. More importantly this library provides a structure for searching where you can filter searches by types such as fixed or variable width, number of columns, main colour, features and subject which are called theme tags.

This generally provides a  range of visual templates and ideas for a wider search in other theme libraries.

In the past the searches haven’t been very precise possibly because some of these tag and taxonomy rules haven’t been fully applied and because some theme authors game the system by loading up on the equivalent of all possible keywords.

Frameworks and Coding Considerations

Having worked with dozens of themes now it is clear that under the skin many of them can be traced back to earlier building block models or frameworks.

Every install of WordPress comes with a default theme sometimes called Kubrick and that one along with K2 and others. More recent core themes are Carrington, Thematic and Sandbox.

Thematic  describes its Theme as

“a free, open-source, highly extensible, search-engine optimized WordPress Theme Framework featuring 13 widget-ready areas, grid-based layout samples, styling for popular plugins, and a whole community behind it.”

Another excellent theme  is Thesis. One of the first serious themes that I learned from was Chris Peasons Cutline series.

As Chris puts it- here are 5 more reasons to look deeper into the code and overall framework of each theme to save hassle later on.

“As a serial site developer and blogger, I’ve found that the most valuable tool one can have is a refined template system that solves fundamental development, design, and publishing problems, including:

1. SEO and careful attention to in-site link equity
2. an “em” -based approach to element sizing (pixels are nice, but “ems” are by far the most accessible – and therefore the best – choice)
3. polished typography with finely-tuned geometrics for maximum legibility
4. an aesthetically pleasing layout that favors usability and clarity over extravagant presentation
5. forward-compatibility (I like to call it futureproofing)”

Put more simply – picking a great theme now which has “good bones”and optimal features can save a lot of time later on. Some themes come paired with a series of plugins for say featured content and a number of themes come as a kind of half-way house with extensive theme options for those not so comfortable with stylesheets.

Theme options allow user to make changes to a style at a higher level by ticking an options or using other present menu re-combinations to make changes without needing to ever see the CSS code.

An example of this approach would be something like the Atahualpa which come with something like 300 “theme options” and personally a style sheet looks easy after that.

It is described as follows and the links below are tags that can be used for searching.

“Version 3.4 – Atahualpa is a WordPress/PHP/CSS Framework that lets you build your own unique, professional and browser-safe WordPress theme: 1-5 columns, fluid or fixed width, rotating header images and over 200 theme options. Tutorials, downloads and support at the BFA WP Forum

Tags: threaded-comments, theme-options, custom-header, custom-colors, flexible-width, white, sticky-post, translation-ready ”

StudioPress Themes offer another approach where a set of plugins have been pre bundled with a theme and page templates are somewhere closer to a magazine style format.

Magazine syle themes generally have a larger number of columns like a newspaper and would tend to have a category menu as well as featured content sections and even special video or audio panels.

In summary most clients start out looking for a particular look and feel but there are other more practical considerations which could benefit them by saving time and money if the selection criteria is deepened.

As a WordPress practitioner I would steer clients towards some of the other functional considerations like “does it play nice with key plugins ?” and is the structure fully transparent and robust for scaling up and working with other applications which will be the next frontier.

There are other considerations but perhaps you can write in with your comments and questions on what you think are most important when choosing a great WordPress Theme.

I was on Twitter a couple of years ago and terminated my account after a few days as there was no one the network. I should have kept my account but who could have foreseen what has happened.

Twitter has had a huge rise in popularity in the past 6 months as celebrities and wannabes flock to jump on the bandwagon.

Despite the usual reservations that go with engaging in another layer of communications it is worthwhile setting up a twitter account to keep an eye on some of the players in your patch.

In a business context having access to a partially qualified SMS style list of “followers” which are like subscribers certainly has some attractions.

I’m told by some Vodafone customers that twittering via their phones is possible / I thought that was an SMS function but might be a different way.

I use Twitterrific which is a mini application on an iTouch and that keeps it all away from the desktop.

From my experiences the real time aspect works best when there is instant feedback on an idea or a question. There is always crossover between business and personal and many of the best tweeters can mix both.

Especially after work hours it becomes more of a social water cooler and can be an instant alert if for example something is on teev that is amusing or there are some good guests on Jon Stewart for example.

Updates or “tweets” that I hate the most are ones which are “something interesting here go to the link. ” Yeah right you’re off my list buddy.

Originally there was a reciprocity concept – if someone follows you you follow them back but now there are so many time wasters on the system that it is better not to “follow” them.

Note: If you don’t follow someone you won’t see their updates.

Because of the 140 character limit it is mostly impossible to know what that link is and also it it way better if the tweet offers some instant information such as “a status” which is what it was designed for.

One person who has written two very useful summaries on the topic is Lance Wiggs so here they are:

How NOT to Twitter if you are a corporation
(VodafoneNZ account got hijacked by an idiot for a project)
and
How to twitter if you are a corporation
Lance is on the money with both posts but check the comments also as this is a fast moving river.

How to take advantage of Twitter

The real power of Twitter is the 1-1 interactions, and yet there are only so many people that sit in corporate relations units. Moreover their job should not be to look after every tech nerd’s customer complaint, nor to understand every bizarre happening on the internet”

Some NZ related tweets you may want to check out are

@lawgeeknz / Rick Shera

@TeamXero / Team Xero

@VodafoneNZ Vodafone – could be safe again if Paul Brislen has that account back but see How not to link first.

@lancewiggs / Lance Wiggs

@bernardchickey Finance – Interest rates

@gnat / Nat Torkington – conference maestro

@dialogCRM Jason Kemp which is me by way of comparison. As a media watcher my tweets are fairly random and wide ranging whereas most of the others on this list are more business focussed.

Many people operate corporate and private twitter accounts. Best to read the Lance Wiggs posts and comments to find out if that works.

Thanks for comments by Piero – check his stream out below.

@piero_ / Piero – strategic planner http://www.thewhispershop.co.nz/

A few weeks back I noticed a review on Techcrunch about OpenTable. That company IPO’d last week raising $70m to fund their growth.

“On OpenTable you can search for immediate openings in a given neighborhood. Most online reservations sites have an hour cut off because the systems have to sync together. But OpenTable is the restaurant’s system.

It’s the first time I’ve seen OpenTable actually do something for me as a diner that I couldn’t have done any other way, and the new location-aware iPhone app makes that functionality all the more powerful.”

The idea of being able to have commercial messaging to customers passing nearby has always had huge business appeal.   If my memory is correct it was part of the sizzle around WAP phones in the rush to buy frequencies that never really amounted to much back in 2000.

Not for the first time – technologists had over promised. Still much to the surprise of Telcos SMS messaging really took off since the costs were low enough to encourage all kinds of new uses and since data and voice charges were still too high for most of us.

There is a very good idea that businesses which are set-up to solve a problem often do much better than ones that work around the edges.

I’ve heard this described as the “better to have a pain killer than a bottle of vitamins” approach. (Hat tip to John O’Hara)

Point being the product need/result is instantly understood by a far greater market  size and that makes converting marketing activity to sales results a dream.

So a very good place to start with understanding or creating a new business is to examine the business model. Does it solve an easily identified need or need problem and who would the natural customers be? leading on to how do we get to those people and all the usual marketing and operation delivery challenges.

Open Table offers a service that is not readily available outside US, Canada, Mexico or UK at present but see here for a list which shows a small number in other countries and both China and France are listed so they have licensees but no live sites yet.

So what are the benefits?

• Save time with automated reservations
• Improve service with a powerful guest database
• Maximize efficiency with table management tool
• Attract repeat business with email marketing
• Join the network that seats 2 million diners monthly
• Gain exposure from more than 75 partners

Most of these benefits come from joining a network and the amplification and network benefits of timely information flow on that circuit.

Even though New Zealand is not one of the international territories using OpenTable restaurant booking software it is is only a matter of time before some one here wakes up and sees the opportunity.

I’d guess that there a a large number of restaurants in New Zealand who don’t have any real software based booking system. This is a compelling reason to get one very quickly.

In essence pushing bookings data from other systems out to the web should be that difficult and many restaurant application vendors should be able to do this but the real genius is to push to mobile phones

If you have an iPhone or iTouch you can at least download the free application onto your device and have a look at how it all works.

I did this myself a few days ago and checked out some tables in Anchorage Alaska. I was very impressed until I got to the menu section and realised I couldn’t “pop” that  page out to my Safari browser on the iTouch.

The reason for viewing in a web browser is to view in landscape mode and enlarge text so it can be read. Twitterific does this kind of thing very well.

On the other hand – if I knew the restaurants and was really a local I would be less interested in the menu than can I get a booking which is the primary service being offered.

Net result  - the Open Table business model is transparent and easy to  buy the story so $70m of funding at a time when there is a lot of doom and gloom in the business community.

I also couldn’t help thinking about Open Source versions of this kind of software and I know that could be done.

Being in New Zealand and Australia I wondered what  other kind of project might be around of this kind. There is a list over at secret sauce* and Taggle looks very interesting in this regard

“A Taggle is a very low-cost tag that enables consumers, enterprises and governments to use the internet to track the location and status on almost any asset.

Taggle Systems (formerly Widentifi) was founded by some of Australia’s leading wireless technology entrepreneurs and is funded by two venture capital firms and private investors.

Secret Sauce has provided a CEO that has led the company through product definition, design and development of a complex hardware and silicon chip solution, business planning and multiple funding rounds.”

I remember reading about bicycle security in Amsterdam many years ago and how there were small GPS devices that could be installed ina  bike and used to trace them when stolen.

Last time I was in Sydney I had my worst ever taxi ride.  I needed to go 3 km to a venue and the driver got lost numerous times.  The car had GPS but only for security reasons.  Can I suggest the most important asset for a tax driver especially in Sydney is GPS for navigation!! After 90 mins I finally got to the location but that trip ruined the day  totally.

An excellent example of going for the vitamin rather than the pain killer.

*Secret Sauce is also a brilliant looking company. On their website they describe themselves as:

“Secret Sauce is an entrepreneurial partner for the commercialisation of intellectual property.

We find intellectual property that has commercial value, determine the best path to market then generate revenue through licensing deals, IP sales and the creation of new ventures.”

I have also been very impressed to reacquaint myself with the people at EveredgeIP who are based in Auckland.

Please we need more Open Tables  in ANZAC land – lets get some more useful applications into the Appstore.

Update: A version of this is also over at Idealog Magazine Blog

Most of my work is online and so once a new activity is in train the follow on step is to find ways to speed up the process so that I can scale up my work.

Sometimes this is because I can offer a new service if I can reinvent a process in a smart way but more often than not it is just to fit everything in.

Here are 4 ways that I get to work a bit smarter and faster during the day. It would be great to hear what works for you.

1. One trick I use is to have two computers going most of the time. I use a PC and a Mac as I often have to test online content in different ways but really some things just work better on a particular combination.
2. For web browsers on the PC I have Internet Explorer8 which I only use for testing as it chews all of the system resources and I used to prefer Firefox as it was better and then it too got a memory leak. I also tried Safari and Chrome on the PC but most of the time I use Opera which is little known but doesn’t seem bloated and is faster most of the time.  I use Safari, Opera and Firefox on the Mac – mostly Safari.
3. Use iTouch (or iPhone) applications on wireless for LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter* and Joost plus numerous other device tuned applications. This is much faster and keeps ram and other system resource on your computer available for other applications.
4. Use iTouch for email on IMAP so I can delete (from server) and fast respond to emails on the fly when I wandering around or taking a break from the desk.

I was very late to get an Ipod mainly because I’ve had a good stereo for ever and I can never get comfortable with any earplugs.  I even use SKYPE with the inbuilt mic and speakers on the Mac because I don’t like normal headphones either.

* So many twitter applications. The impression is that most twitter innovations come from people like twitteriffic and others on mobile platforms. I’m using the Version 2 in premium edition which has no ads but the free versions seems fine as well.

However the second generation iTouch has speakers and a very nice screen for video podcasts from TED or Joost. I use wireless broadband rather than a phone data connection because I get 25GB allowance every month and its just smarter to use that first when I can.

From time to time I still login using a web browser for Facebook or other social media type applications but much of the value comes from a frequent and high level view of events rather which is faster and easier on a mobile device.

BTW I’m most impressed with videos from the Joost platform. There is an iPhone / iTouch application for Joost which is very impressive for video streaming. Much better than YouTube which is all clogged up.

Joost tends to get overlooked  with much of the buzz coming from Hulu (although we can’t view that outside the U.S) but I’m picking it has some clever back end systems which make it smarter and less traffic helps as well.

So, would any of these approaches work for you? or do you have some online productivity tricks to share?

This past weekend I was very pleased to be at the first second* Wordcamp in Australia. There were about 60 people present over a 2 day period to share WordPress related ideas and project experiences in the local area.

Among other delights, I was very pleased to hear that WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg was an arts major in college and could even remember a bit of TS Eliot.

There is a line (bottom right footer) on the WordPress.org site which says “code is poetry” .  Now I understand where some of that influence comes from and why the photo essays work so well.

For the Wordcamp Australia photo essay from Matt check out this collection loaded up a few hours ago.

As some of you know – I’m very enthusiastic about using WordPress as a web framework and platform which includes blogging but goes further as well.

For me – intentions are very important and it was great to feel part of a group who have generally managed to combine altruistic intentions with some very practical and savvy online skills.

New Zealander Dan Milward of Instinct was a keynote presenter and sponsor for the event. Pics of Dan Wp-Ecommerce is huge ( 60,000+ sites) and is a product extension that I am actively working with on a number of sites. It was also real privilege for me to share a few ideas from the NZ side of the Tasman.

There is even a bit of a plan to organise a WordPress NZ event so please use the contact form to let me know if you are in/near NZ and would be interested in that idea.

Matt has managed to combine a huge amount of experience and street smarts in his 24 years on this planet.

He is a genuinely nice guy and  deserves all the kudos he gets. Matt also mentioned that the wordcamp idea of having small grassroots style meet-ups to help link local WordPress users and practitioners was a deliberate intention. This is another reason why I Iove WordPress. Think global – act local.

Alignment or needs, directions and intentions are all much more sustainable and better for us. I have tried to articulate some of these ideas in an Ethos page.

I was particularly interested in presentations by Karel Segers and David Wolf on film & video related projects. At times the conference veered between technical topics and back towards the blogging side including journalism considerations.

The sessions took place in a performance venue called The Red Box and co-organiser Sam Bauers managed to arrange a acrobatic performance from some of the regular Red Box users just after lunch.

Anthony Cole and Sam Bauers did an excellent job in organising the conference and on also making it all very accessible as well.

I have already been using WordPress version 2.7 for some weeks (along with 30,000 other beta testers.) We found out a bit more about the 2.7 version which looks like it may come out before Christmas. It is a major user interface upgrade and presenter Jane Wells gave us some insights in to the development process.

Jane also mentioned her involvement at the WordPress in Education camps which is a special interest of mine. I’m especially interested in the best ways to enable ‘Private’ blogging so students and teachers, get to practice and experiment online in a safe space (such as a group blog password protected with access to the class.)

Earlier this year we used WordPress as the core system to promote the LittledayOut which was a community fund-raising for a local school. Since then we have been working on a  number of back room projects to find the best ways to enable schools and other education facilities using some of those ideas and the WordPress MU framework. See also the full MU site.

I was particularly interested in the BuddyPress project which is something like what you might imagine facebook or myspace would look like if those systems had some taste*. It makes huge sense to leverage social networking on a more “clean look” basic for the more than 12m or so websites based on WordPress.

(* Sidenote – Myspace and Facebook work well enough its just that they look very messy as the temptation to overload the pages with widgets and moving objects is too great for many of the site-owners.  So love that anyone can have a go – I just prefer the less is more approach.)

I remember using gravatars (portable icons) in the early days when they crashed all the time due to huge growth. Now as part of the Automattic / WordPress family add personality to millions of sites. BuddyPress will add an extra dimension like a super gravatar.

There are still many ideas to keep processing. Thanks again to the wordcamp team.

Other Wordcamp Info / Its early days but expect there will be a fair number of posts from other attendees. here is a selection of the first few I found.

(*Update: Looks like there was an earlier Wordcamp in Melbourne in 2007.)

Dan Milward from Instinct was a key presenter and wrote many notes as well.

• Jason from Finding Simple was there
• Alan Harris was also at Wordcamp
• Neerav Bhatt was at Wordcamp Australia
• Kristarella at wordcamp
• Run a wordcamp?

Related

• Automattic people
• Matt Mullenweg on Wikipedia
• 25 Most Influential on the web list – Matt is listed next to Rupert Murdoch!
• 50 most Important people online also features Matt.

There is a major meltdown of customer service expectations taking place over the way the launch of the new 3G capable iPhones are being mis-managed in New Zealand this week.

Go over to iPhone data plan aggregation to read some of the debate (around 50+ comments so far on a site that management might actually read.)

There is also a firestorm over at various other tech and media sites which I don’t read myself but maybe you do.

The background issue is that mobile data is still too expensive for most people to use and even worse it still only runs at close to dial up speed according to the Check your coverage link – in my area here are the results (If it is very slow why does anyone actually care about data on a mobile phone?)

2G/2.5G coverage in your area – Best (Green graph)

“This location has a very strong signal, so you will definitely experience excellent quality for all services. Your mobile data connection will be as fast as a dial-up connection.”

The TV interview being referred to is  TV 3 Campbell Live here If you didn’t see it already you should.

While Mark may not have seen the exact plans referred to by John Campbell it is sophistry to imply that the management and marketing teams didn’t research all of the pricing models available and he was well aware that pricing comparisons would be made.

Vodafone then made a judgement call on pricing models and it has backfired in a big way.

A few weeks back much was made of new data plans also at Rods site see 1-a-day/ and apparently these plans simply don’t apply to the iPhone. Plan choices are very restricted and quite inflexible.

To quote Bruce Hoult (Comment by Bruce Hoult at 9:40 am on 9 July 2008)

“Also that “$1 a day” casual data rate Paul Brislen was so happy about a few weeks ago, where everyone in the thread was talking about “that will go well with the iPhone”? It seems the iPhone is the ONLY phone you can’t use those with. Vodafone’s iPhone FAQ clearly says that if you don’t buy a data plan then you can’t use the internet AT ALL, and that the $1 a day is not available. Wtf???”

My conclusion is that if you get an IPhone at present the only reasonable way to use it without major data expense is on the WiFi networks like CafeNet or Tomizone* if they are available in your area.

*Been trying to locate hotspots at Tomizone there is a google map like interface but it’s very clumsy and slow and really hard to use on an almost dead connection anyway.

It would be much easier if I could navigate to a city or even suburb and do my searching at that level.

Speaking of data speeds I have a more fundamental local problem. My existing broadband connection is almost dead.

The obvious culprit is school holidays and the fact that yootoob is way more interesting that most NZ television.

In fact my internet connection has slowed so much that I can even complete the recommended speed test. Try it yourself although that site may have crashed out (won’t work anymore on IE 7)but Firefox 3 is OK.

Have a look at this screen-shot. It is quite typical and this test eventually got timed out.

I won’t say at this point who my ISP is but let’s just say I’m making plans to get service from a different company. It has simply been too hard to upgrade to ADSL2.

I can still get speeds of up to 1mb during the day at up to 3mb at midnight but that is not terribly useful when most of my work involves accessing web based software applications.

If you look closely the test immediately before this one got to a download speed of 1.7mb downstream which is sad but usable.

On a brighter note: If you are one of the 5000 or more people in NZ who already have an iPhone (or an iTouch) for that matter can you please tell me how this blog site looks on your screen.

I’m running a series of filters that are meant to detect iPhone / iTouch and display accordingly.

Hopefully it works and normal internet speeds will be restored soon but switching suppliers is not an easy thing. It seems like a huge opportunity for customer service people to excel and I hope they do.

(TBC in a later instalment.) Hope and trust your day is going better.

Update 6pm: Telecom announces a new 3G broadband device which looks promising on many levels. Maybe number portability could work in teh opposite direction and telecom will get lots of new customers from this.

“Telecom’s 3G mobile broadband network was upgraded with rev a technology last year which means Telecom’s cell sites now have the ability to deliver average download speeds of 800Kbps and 300Kbps upload, resulting in an experience much closer to DSL broadband on customers’ mobile devices.”

Now higher data speeds and capped rates with SMS warnings and a 30 day money back consumer protection all sounds like a breath of fresh air. I never thought I be pleasantly surporsed by a new Telecom product but I am.

There is a great deal of hype around software as a service (or SAAS) at present. If you need help with sorting the hype from the useful content and want to know how we might be able to help keep reading.

If you have already got it all sussed click here to reward yourself with a free tshirt and check back soon for the next post.

Products
In most businesses a combination of software product + applied services + sustainable sales and marketing disciplines are needed in order to succeed.

Software
We have used and experienced a very wide range of CRM & ERP related products and vendors over the past decade and can help you assess the strengths and weaknesses of the products you may be considering.

For most projects there is no single right answer as you often have to leverage existing investments in other systems which is one way we can help with independent review and analysis of the options and combinations.

Increasingly it is the interface and interplay between front of house systems like CRM, websites, email marketing, RSS and blogging platforms where we see huge potential for a holistic best practice customer relationship focus.

Knowing a wide range of software products very well will help us ask the right questions on your behalf, if you would like help with product selection or ongoing project implementation. There are also some newer products becoming available that we can also introduce should the opportunity be suitable.

Services as a Product or SAAS*
It seems everywhere you look now there is a new “*software as a service” product. Essentially these are services developed as self service style products with pricing and self drive options for the savvy and lots of new complexity for the software consumer.

Ultimately for smaller and medium sized businesses SAAS offers the potential to outsource some IT needs and avoid most of the back room technical issues.

For CRM or marketing activities there maybe strategic implications. In the early days many of us were nervous about customer records being held at a remote data centre but ironically they are often more secure there that in the “back room” at most businesses.

What has now happened with SAAS is that there now more choices of service based products but the actual project complexities don’t go away. There is a still a great need for configuration, customisation and alignment of business processes and software frameworks.

The temptation by vendors has been to downplay the technical side and oversell the pricing model of x services for y$ per user per month or some variation of that formula.

The flipside is that many SAAS vendors are still working on their business models and the reality is that extra expert services still need to be budgeted for if you are to have a successful project.

Some vendors have also confused online distribution for online marketing and sales. For example just because you offer an online application or service doesn’t mean you don’t have to invest and pay sales and marketing staff.

Somewhere in the pricing equation there has to be a budget to pay for the real and hidden costs of not doing the job properly. This also applies even and especially if you decide to use open source software.

At DialogCRM we specialise in practical ways to best use and fully utilise those products and/or services that help with developing the best customer facing results.

We can work alongside your current team or partners to provide independent product review and analysis and or implementation services as well if there is a need to fill the product / skills gap.

For many business projects selection of a product or supplier is seen as the end when it is really only the beginning. Every system lives or dies on how well your staff and culture articulate and maintain sustainable relationship strategies and desciplines.

We also have the capability and methodologies to discover and enhance the thinking that best serves your business and turn those ideas into action. To read more about crm strategy…

A few weeks back Microsoft paid a large sum for a very small slice of Facebook. There has been a lot of commentary but this post makes the most sense and includes some very good underlying reasons for that deal.

For some earlier discussion see Microsoft & Facebook on Rods blog. And over here on the valuation implications More on the MS/Facebook deal which quoted Nicholas Carr.

My comment at the time was: (It seems like the deal is much more about the advertising rights than anything else. This paragraph below is a direct quote from one of the news.com reports.)

“In a conference call on Wednesday afternoon with press and analysts, Van Natta and Kevin Johnson, Microsoft’s president of platform and services, emphasized that this deal is all about the existing advertising partnership between the two companies, which has been going on for over a year now. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, it should be noted, was not present on the call.”

However Marc Lehmann* has absolutely nailed it in his excellent post on the topic -Facetime with Facebook Bought Cheap. You should read his whole post – it is so good I wish that I wrote it.

(Marc is Founder of Saasu.com – and previously a Debt/Equity Trader at Deutsche Bank.)

Marc notes about 10 of benefits this deal achieves for Microsoft.

• Buys probably the equivalent of 10′s or possibly close to 100 million dollars worth of PR. Online, paper and TV. Screen real estate for 3 months as people speculate. So their Facebook spend isn’t 260mio already it’s a lot less.
• Wash Facebook brand onto Microsoft’s brand.
• Makes it easier for Microsoft to buy a blocking stake later. They already have a start now.

These are just the first 4 -read the rest of his list. And even better -this paragraph near the end.

And the best M&A trick of all is…
Microsoft pays up for the first chunk, then the seller/victim re-benchmarks price in their mind and any suitors that come along look cheap and nasty.

As a result new suitors say no to Facebooks attempts to get some price tension. The new suitors don’t even try. Then all of a sudden Facebook is left with their initial investor who has only bought a small percentage.

Time passes, more time passes and Facebooks business model of low cash and high cost is starting to show particularly as the US economic slowdown hits. What do you know Microsoft does not want to pay the same price any more.

There is a much bigger story on the Microsoft / FaceBook deal as Marc highlights extremely well.

Blog Note: If you spotted that my post frequency has been down lately – here is what happened. WordPress completed not 1 but 2 version upgrades (now at 2.3.1) recently and I thought my upgrade processes were at fault. Consequently have rebuilt the entire blog not once but 3 times!

After hours of testing on mirror sites and the live version finally concluded that at least one of my plugins was at fault. Today I found out which one that is – have now fixed the problem and there will be some catch-up posts including one on WP plugins and how you can maybe save some time if you have WordPress and run into similar issues.

Highrise Contact Manager will be one to watch out for because its a 37signals product.

37signals are proud of the fact that their products “do less than that of the competition”. They are most famous for Basecamp (Project management and collaboration) and Ruby on Rails which is an open source development framework.

The 37signals product philosophy is to “focus on executing the basics beautifully”.

To quote:

“Yesterday 37signals founder Jason Fried posted about the team’s upcoming contact management app called Highrise. The goal of the app is to help you manage contact information in a better way than relying on post-its or your current software-based customer relationship management (CRM) tool. Think of it like a Rolodex but with collaboration and more space to write things down. Many people can have access to the same records at once, and from the announcement, 37signals thinks they can do better than your current CRM. In many ways Highrise is a solution for a problem with Web communication technology: we have these great contact management tools with services like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Plaxo to bring them all together, but no way to share them, and add notes or related items. There are a few Web based CRMs out there, like Funclient and absoluteBUSY, but none that have the potential to tie into a suite of highly successful Web apps (see Basecamp and Writeboard). I can also see a big use for this for keeping track of friends or colleagues as they move all over the place, more so than relying on LinkedIn or social networks like MySpace and Facebook. Fried made no mention of pricing or a release date in the Highrise announcement, but noted that the 37signals team is “very happy with it.” We’ll post a hands on as soon as we get our mitts on it.”

From Original Signal (Webware)

And in a direct post from Fried on the product.

Highrise is a shared contact manager that helps you keep track of who you talk to, what was said, and what to do next. Like Basecamp helps you collaborate on projects, Highrise helps you collaborate on people. You can use it alone or with your co-workers. You can think of it as a company-wide, web-based, shared address book with a few twists.

For some clues on what the point of difference is Fried also comments later in the post:

Chris: Highrise won’t have pipeline reports or any numbers. It’s not a CRM tool in the traditional sense. It’s a lot closer to an address book than something like Salesforce.com.

Just as Basecamp doesn’t have traditional project management staples such as Gantt charts, Highrise doesn’t have traditional CRM tools like sales pipeline reports or charts.

Highrise is about people, communications, conversations, and tasks. It’s not about numbers.

Traditionally CRM has been very focussed around salesforce automation and more recently with marketing automation and services delivery systems. The usual defining split between a contact manager and CRM has been that CRM is more about process and workflow.

It is a very crowded application space although some niches are still available – like business on the mac. This product may suit those who are also looking at Daylite for example.  The product is separate from Basecamp and the other 37signals applications although potentially some linking between them would be desirable.

However – in my view any disconnected application “island” needs to be very, very good to justify the need for a new product.

I’m looking forward to fresh thinking in the area. Also wondering how this will compare to Daylite which seems to be a mid ground system that allows easy linking with mac. CRM is a collaboration strategy designed to be shared space. The “right” software always helps but is only part of the equation.

So far 37signals have shown they know how to deliver products which are simple, clean and easy to use which means that Highrise is one to watch…