I’m using this deck as a discussion point with customers and I hope its provides you with some insight to next year as well.

(please note: all graphics and statistics are credited to the source on the specific slide – just let me know if you’d like links to the individual reports.)

Speaker notes with additional statistics are available by clicking the cog below.

What trends in this deck are most striking to you?  What opportunities do you see these trends creating in your business?  I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

To me it seems clear that the key to driving adoption of Chatter is Executive engagement.  If the Execs of a company use Chatter consistently then other members of your team will follow.  If they do not, then employees feel it is not core to their job and they remain on email leaving your corporate dialogue in their inboxes.

Here are three tips I’ve heard to help drive Chatter adoption in your business.

Reverse mentors

This was mentioned in the Partner Keynote on Tuesday.  The idea is to take a handful of your social-savvy employees that understand what a hashtag is and what types of content to post, and to have them mentor a specific exec.

Remember that it doesn’t matter how senior you are, no-one likes to feel that they don’t know how something works, and reverse mentors can help bridge that gap for Execs, giving them the confidence to embrace Chatter even if they haven’t been regular tweeters.

Use Chatter consistently – “Chatter Me”

This tip I picked up in a Chatter session at Dreamforce last year.  The CIO of a large company said that he just stopped answering emails and only responded to Chatter.  Within days employees realised that if they wanted a response, they should Chatter him.  Your team members will communicate with Execs on the channels they use, so if you can encourage your Execs to be consistent and to ask team members to “Chatter Me” the company will follow.

Use Chatter on objects

For me this is the most powerful thing about Chatter.  A social network where you can talk about your day or ask for help is great, but asking for information about a specific opportunity, or following the story of a recent case – that is really cool.  Execs need to use Chatter on objects to ask about the status of an opportunity, or congratulate someone on servicing a customer.  This pulls in the rest of the team to Chatter and actually drives up adoption of the whole Salesforce platform giving you a better return on your investment.

Those are my three quick tips I’ve picked up.  I’d love to hear any other ways that you have been driving Chatter adoption in your business!

But I have a problem.  My head can’t cope.

On each of my networks I have different groups of friends, so if I want to discuss the Olympic Opening Ceremony for example, I need to decide which network to post it on.  If I post it on multiple sites, I now need to follow conversations on each site.

Imagine holding a party with your work friends, your family, your personal friends and some people you met on a work trip.  But instead of taking them to a bar, you invite them to your house and put each group in their own room.  You now spend the rest of your evening going to each room in turn asking a question, or telling a funny story.  As you move from room to room you start to forget which story you told in which room, which room gave you the answer to which question, and which of your friends knows each other.

The stress of it actually makes my forehead warm up!

You could say the aggregators like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite are the answer – but their value really lies in pushing messages out to multiple channels, not listening to all your conversations in a single view (yes they are on a single screen, but it isn’t one conversation).

Social online is like social offline – listen 10 times more than you speak.  So, having an aggregator to push out your messages is great, but my problem is about listening to 5 different conversations at once.

And so ultimately I have to make a decision to pick one room to stay in, at least for a day, or a week.

Most evenings, it is Twitter – I love the constant stream of tech news, inspiring quotes and TV commentary.

Some days it is Facebook – this worked a treat on the Opening Ceremony as my wife was out, but many personal friends were online.

LinkedIn’s new stream is an improvement, but its not something that I would spend more than a few minutes on yet.

Google+ I love, and I really hope more people start using it actively.

Are Social Networks doomed like IM was?

My problem is, that as more social networks arrive, the time spent on each decreases, and potentially the value of the network reduces.  IM ultimately failed to dominate because it wasn’t federated, and the same is happening again with social networks.

I don’t know what the answer is, I just know it is a problem.

What do you think?  Does your head hurt trying to stay on top of so many social networks?  Do you get drawn back to one, just because that is where your friends are?  Could an aggregator like Tweetdeck ever make it seem like one single conversation?

I’d love to know what you think!

One app that I keep hearing about at the grass roots of businesses I visit is Echosign, the online contract signing app.  Other apps exist in the same space – Docusign being another leader, but it’s Echosign that I keep hearing in my network.

In my sales career I’ve wasted a huge amount of time creating contracts, emailing them as PDF’s to customers, requiring them to print them, sign them, fax all the pages back, for me to print them, get them counter-signed, scan them and file them in the right place.

The friction in this process is immense, and the amount of effort required from your customer can slow a deal down by days or weeks – especially if you just receive back a selection of the contract’s pages and you have to ask for them to re-send.  Not a great atmosphere!

Echosign links into your CRM system enabling easy creation of your contracts and then allows your customer to click to the right sections and type in their signature.  A link to the signed contract is then forwarded to any counter-signatories before the finalised contract is emailed to all parties with the lovely message telling you your agreement is “Signed and Filed!”

The average time to signature across Echosign is 42 minutes – which is a dramatic shift from the days or weeks in paper-world.

As a sales person, once you have Echosigned (or Docusigned) then you would never send a contract another way.

This has to be the goal for any tech vendor – to get your app to a point where the actual users become addicted to using it after a single touch, and that no-one needs to mandate the use of the app, it’s use is driven from the grass roots of the business.

What other apps have you used that have the Echosign Effect?  Do you focus on user adoption as a key measure of implementation success?

I hope you have found this post useful.  If so, please share with your network and subscribe in the sidebar!

In the Winter’12 release Salesforce introduced Chatter Customer Groups – a feature that enables you to invite third parties to specific Chatter groups in your org.  Your customers (who could be prospects or partners!) can only see the groups you have invited them to so there is no risk of secure data finding it’s way into their hands.

Now the downside – in order to maintain this security, your customers will receive invites and logins to your Salesforce org.  Their login might look like firstname.lastname@guest.yourcompany.com.  If they are not already Salesforce users then this might not be a problem, but if they are, you are putting the responsibility on your customer to maintain two Salesforce logins.  If your objective is to collaborate with your customer or partner then you might be missing a trick.

Before you set up a Chatter Customer Group ask your Customer/Prospect/Partner if they already use Salesforce.  If they do then ask them to set up a Chatter Customer Group in their own org and invite you and your colleagues in as ‘the Customers’.

This way your customer/partner doesn’t need to do anything differently.  Any users in their org can search and join the group and your posts will be visible in the feed they already use – a much easier way to drive adoption.

Now you have the job of managing multiple orgs instead of your customer – but it’s simple if you use Chatter Desktop.

Firstly, open Chatter Desktop, click on the cog at the bottom and select Settings.  Here you are able to add in a new connection to your customer’s org.  Remember that your login will be the new one and not your usual login and password.

Once set up, its simple to flip between your orgs by selecting “Switch Connection”.  I tend to use Chatter Desktop for customer and partner orgs and web access to Salesforce for our own org.

I hope this idea proves useful for you.  I’d love to know if you have any innovative ways of using Chatter Customer Groups.

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Imagine the new iPad being sent out to you.

As you can imagine, my wife absolutely loves all of my cloud conversations!

This morning over breakfast I mentioned that the new iPad (iPad 3) was now for sale.

My wife said, “so everyone that has an iPad 2 now has to go any buy a new version?  That’s ridiculous!”

I replied that that was the result of innovation moving so fast.  I moved on to say that in a cloud world everyone gets the upgrades without having to pay any more.

“Imagine Apple shipping everyone that has an iPad the new version when it comes out for no charge.  That is the power of the cloud!”

But there was no response, my wife had wandered into another room for some peace and quiet.

Are you putting out of date technology on the shelf?

I remember being at school 25 years ago and seeing the Encyclopedia Britannica on the library shelf, but today by the time the ink is dry many of the articles will already be out of date.

We’re seeing this transition across the technology industry as well. The world is moving so fast as we develop our social networks, use our mobiles as a primary computing device, and our need for constant new features.

The concept of buying a piece of software that has a date in it like 2010 or 2007, or perhaps just hidden behind a version number like 8.4.01 is so out dated. It is no different to buying an Encyclopedia Britannica and popping it on the school library shelf and hoping your users don’t notice that up to date information is sat there waiting to be used just by opening up a browser.

It’s also important to beware of Hosted Services which are sold as Cloud. This is no different to you going to a library to read the Encylopedia Brittanica. You don’t have to buy it, you’re not responsible for storing it or buying the next version. But…it’s still out of date!

Next time you look at buying some technology think about the demise of Encyclopedia Britannica. Think about why you personally use Wikipedia and online news over an outdated print edition, and then ask whether buying a piece of technology that was written 4 years ago is appropriate for today and your business over the coming years.

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I'm an early adopter

When it comes to social networks I would guess I am not an innovator, but an early adopter according to the Innovation Adoption Lifecycle. I tend to sign up once I start getting invitations from the innovators in my network – I’m on Google+ but not on Pinterest yet!

For me this is because social networks subscribe to Metcalfe’s Law which states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of users. Imagine a telephone system where you have the only phone – not a very useful system.

Two telephones can make only one connection, five can make 10 connections, and twelve can make 66 connections.

So with Social Networks the more users you have, the higher number of contributing users you will have, and the greater value that your users will receive.

Facebook is the clear leader with approaching one billion users on the service, uploading a massive amount of content each day, and providing huge value to its users. An unassailable lead perhaps.

Google+ launched in the Summer of 2011 with much fanfare, and comment from critics that “it’s just full of techies” and that “there isn’t much going on there”. However I think this misses the crucial point. Take Metcalfe’s Law into account, and actually look at the technology on offer and you see that Google+ is indeed a potential Facebook killer.

It’s integrated (or in the process of integrating with) many of the services that users already use every day.

• Search
• YouTube
• Gmail
• Voice and Video Chat (Google Hangouts are just awesome!)
• Docs

Suddenly Google+ is the ‘platform’ that Facebook has always talked about – becoming the single entry point into the web off which users embark on their browsing journey. Google+ provides the social layer across everything you use.

Google+ is not just a social network, it is an entire communications infrastructure and that is something that Facebook have consistently tried to deliver. Only recently Facebook talked of a whole new way of messaging – but I’m yet to see that take effect.

In the few months I’ve been on Google+ since it was made available to Google Apps users I’ve seen a fantastic community growing and there is real passion in those that use it that it is just at the start of it’s journey.

It’s my belief that Facebook see the future of Google+ and have decided that now might be an opportune time to cash in, before the power of Metcalfe’s Law takes effect and people start seeing more value from their Google+ timeline than they do from their Facebook timeline.

But those are just my thoughts! Are you on Google+ yet? How are you finding it? If you are then look for me and Circle me!

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I ask people to imagine buying a new car.  Four week’s later you see a billboard poster for the latest model that’s just about to be launched.  But it’s OK, when you get home there is a letter from the car dealer telling you when you can go and pick up the new model.  Imagine doing that hundreds of times a year for no extra cost.  Cloud rocks.

The Cloud Vendor’s Dilemma

Feature or new Product?

But this gives cloud vendors a dilemma.  As they constantly innovate and drive their business forward into new technologies and new markets – when is a new bit of code a feature enhancement, and when is it an entirely new product that should be charged separately.

This week there have been some lively discussions around two new Salesforce products.  Analytics Edition is being released with Spring’12 in February, and is a more robust Business Intelligence service than the current Reports and Dashboards offering.  Salesforce have taken the decision to offer this as a separate chargeable licence on the basis that it is replacing other systems that a customer might be paying for, and that only a proportion of their customers would require this type of in-depth analysis.

Desk.com was also released yesterday, a re-brand of Assistly which Salesforce acquired in 2011.  Desk.com provides a social and mobile help desk solution, really targetted at SMB’s who might otherwise have felt Service Cloud was a bit over-engineered for their needs.  Again, Desk.com is chargeable as a separate product that customers will need to pay for on top of any Salesforce licences.

Is Salesforce changing the cloud model?

I don’t think so.  They have a history of delivering huge enhancements as part of the licence fee.  The Spring’12 release notes contain 179 pages of new features – many requested by users, and delivered at no extra cost.  Chatter was released in 2010, for no extra cost.  Do.com was released in 2011 at no cost to users.

I think it is fair that where a new development requires significant investment to create, and is likely to be used by a smaller percentage of the customer base then it can be treated as a separate product.

However, where Salesforce need to be careful is in not making their offering overly complex.  Marc Benioff has always said “Why can’t enterprise software be as easy as Amazon?”  The risk of moving away from a relatively simple set of Editions with a monthly price, to a base edition plus a host of bolt ons is that customers get confused, Account Executives find it hard to keep up, and the simplicity of the cloud is disrupted.

Cloud vendors should do all they can to get their new code into their base platform, delivering increased value to their entire user base.  New products can confuse customers, and leave them feeling un-valued as the ideas they’ve put forward end up in separate chargeable products.

UPDATE:

Since posting this earlier today Salesforce have announced they have changed their position and Analytics Edition will be free for Enterprise and Unlimited Edition users.  This is due to the overwhelming feedback from their 100,000 customers (and probably not due to my blog post!).  Fantastic to see a business listening to their community and acting swiftly.

What do yo think about the new editions?  Are you happier that those that want them pay for them, or should the price for the base edition go up for everyone?

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Evernote

I’d seen people talking about Evernote on Twitter for a while but had never used it until just before Christmas. Hmm, a note taking app, keep everything organised – well I am constantly coming up with ideas for work, ideas for home, ideas for a blog post, or something that I want to come back to. If I don’t write them down then and there then I’ll forget them, only to remember that “I had a great idea this morning – what the heck was it?!”

Previously I had just been using the Notes app on my iPhone to remember things when they occur to me but this is a simple text app, it leaves my notes on one device, doesn’t enable me to share thoughts with others, and leaves me exposed if my iPhone was stolen or lost.

So I hit the Evernote website and within seconds had Evernote for Mac installed and a free account set up. I then installed the Chrome extension which is handy if I’m using Chrome on other machines. And then on my iPhone and iPad I installed Evernote from the Appstore and connected them to my account. Simple!

I’ve set up a few notebooks, ranging from blog ideas, product ideas for our company, and a shopping list for the weekends. Whatever device I am on it is easy for me set up a new note and type away. My notes get synced across all of my Evernote devices.

As well as text I can clip websites, I can add images, I can set a location, as well as tagging notes to make it easier to find them as my library expands.

As an example – I’m typing this blog post on the train on Evernote for Mac. I know when I connect again the blog post will be available on my Mac at home for me to copy into WordPress. As I have lots of blog ideas, or half written blog posts this works really well for me.

I’ve now upgraded to a Premium account for $5 a month, as this enables me to allow others to modify my notes – I can start to collaborate with others much as I do using Google Docs, but with my notebooks.

Do.com

My second must have app is Do.com, a free app from Salesforce that emerged from their acquisition of Manymoon last year. As with Evernote, there is a web-based version and an iPhone app. It’s easy to set up an account and sync them up.

Do.com lets you set up projects (build a house), create sections within that project (gain finance) and then create tasks (present plans to bank) that can be allocated to yourself, or others.

I’m using Do.com to manage all my NewVoiceMedia tasks – from driving our Channel strategy, to building our Social Media presence, as well as admin tasks like doing my expenses.

It is really simple for me to add tasks into my iPhone when I think of them, add them to a section, or project, and I know that every morning I can look at what needs doing and work on the most important tasks.

I haven’t yet started adding others to my projects, but I’m sure I will shortly.

My brain in the Cloud

The combination of these two apps is making me far more productive. Whether I think of something in the shower, or in a traffic jam, I’m able to add it in and ensure I don’t drop it.

Are you using Evernote or Do.com? What do you think? What other apps are helping you succeed?

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