She will be discussing the Idea2 application and cloud services.

Listen to her interview here.

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It’s difficult to deny that today we thought the sky was falling.  Even it it turns out that the market fell off a cliff because of a TYPO, did we tell ourselves “I knew it was too good to be true” or did we truly believe that “of course it was a systems error.”

The extent to which fear is driving life is unacceptable.

The broad trends surrounding software as a service (Saas) are demanding changes across the entire value chain that spans from service provider to user.  This weekend, we attended the regional SMB Nation event in East Brunswick, NJ.  There were about 350 IT professionals, small business focused, who were there to hear ways they might grow their business.  Many IT professional got their start supporting premise-based servers that sit in small businesses that manage email, centralized storage, and secure the network.  The trend away from capital spending and the proliferation of new cloud-based services is leading IT professionals to understand how other cloud services might enhance the solution set that they can now offer their customers.

The role of these IT professionals is in flux.  For those who are eager to continue to add value to their customers (as were the attendees this weekend) there is significant opportunity for these folks to evolve into a trusted advisor role, vetting applications and services in order to bring the right set together for each business.  That is a bit scary for some, however, because the revenue models are different and in some cases, not fully evolved.

For the businesses they serve, the challenge is similar.  Are there ways to leverage the trends around cloud computing to offer customer more value?  In most cases, the answer to that is YES.  Never before have companies been able to assemble unique services – including their own – to create a complete solution for their customers.  Knowing customers is the key – and that starts with tools like Idea2.

I guess it used to be a ‘most features for the money’ game.  That was when there were distinct users and managers for every system that a company relied on.  Now, since more data is readily shared, the focus needs to shift.  The tool needs to be ubiquitous – something everyone can use – with the differences constrained to WHAT data appeared for the user to behold.  Instead of having one or two experts on each system, data needs to be easy to access and organized around the customers and the views that support peoples’ ability to do their jobs.

Idea2 will not win a feature war.  Companies won’t win paying for features they don’t need just because they are included.  The true test is how well an application works for the company and the customers.

The bottom line is that most people don’t like change.  Implementing a new tool – even though it HELPS – requires each individual in the organization to adapt to change.  The successful CRM implementation is supported – and many times mandated – at the highest level.  This is necessary because a CRM is only as useful as the data that people put IN.

So rolling out a new CRM is like a 28 day program – it’s something that people have to do every day.  It requires discipline.  It requires some adjustment in the speed with which we mentally ‘close’ certain tasks.  It requires persistent utilization so that the benefits can blossom.  It requires learning new habits to replace old ones.  How do you help this along?

I find that in many companies, there are a few people who are waiting in the WEEDS hoping to become more organized.  They are the people in your group who are really good at spreadsheets and have already constructed ad-hoc tools to help semi-automate business function.  One idea is to deputize these team members to run the Idea2 project.   They can be the on-site experts, they can help identify the biggest productivity gains, and they can drive adoption.  They should be rewarded for their efforts and alleviated of some of their daily chores.  Their success is your success, and your results are exponential to their efforts.

Pat Ryan, of Idea2, ran a design firm in Denver, Colorado.  He CAN remember it.

“I remember having to DRAW designs by hand, take them to a service joint that made BLUEPRINTS, then I would have them couriered over to the client.  I would MAIL the contract documents and wait for a check to show back up in the MAIL… before computers.  On Monday, I would CALL  a contractor’s office, leave a message for his secretary to call me back, wait a day for him to get the message and call my answering machine and leave a message.  Then I would get his message and call his secretary back and by the end of the week, I would reach him and ask him the question I posed on Monday.  I am amazed anything could get done.  Really.”

The CLOUD is the term that is being applied to describe an assortment of technologies, services, applications and ideas that are so varied and disparate that the word actually makes sense.  For businesses – the thing to focus on is where they belong in the value chain of the cloud.  Common roles can be:

• Consumer
• Distributor
• Aggregator
• Supplier

For most companies of any size, one or more of these roles can help them become better, grow, or adapt to changing business climates.  Almost all businesses can consume cloud services.  The easiest business cases to make are using services like:

• Hosted Exchange
• Hosted CRM (shameless plug for Idea2)
• Online back-up and recovery

It rarely makes sense for small business to own servers for these applications.  For the most part, the services that are available online provide consistently good, routinely upgraded, fully backed up solutions that cost far less than having these systems in-house.

Sometimes when we sign up for services and have payments directly taken out of our bank accounts, mistakes happen.  Erroneous charges can appear, and be collected, without our knowledge.  It is our responsibility to monitor the bills to make sure this doesn’t happen – or that it’s corrected quickly if it does.

Still, sometimes we travel and we don’t monitor as closely as we should.  After all, that’s why we set up automated payments – so that WE PAY ON TIME.  This is where you learn that NOW, companies are refusing to apply credits for these types of mistakes.  They are charging you whatever they contractually CAN charge you – not what they SHOULD, whether or not they ever rendered a service.  This feels like stealing to me.

At the risk of exposing my stupidity – let’s take DirectTV as an example.  I signed up for service in Denver, CO some five years ago.  At the time, I signed up for what I thought was basic cable and some premium channels.  I organized my payments electronically because I travel a lot.  Occasionally, I would open a bill to make sure everything was OK.  I had lost a debit card along the way, and wanted to make sure none of my automated payments had been affected.  Imagine my surprise one January when I noticed the NFL Sunday Ticket was billed to my account!  Worse yet (my fault, I know) – I had been paying for it for five years.

I contacted DirectTV.  The representative informed me that they were entitled to charge me.  He insisted that I stay on the phone to HEAR WHY they were entitled to charge me.  I hung up on him.  I will go out of my way to disparage DirectTV – not because they were contractually WRONG – but because they were morally wrong to charge me for a service I didn’t order – or use.  They were entitled because their “we’ll bill you until you tell us to stop” trick WORKED.

This is an unfortunate way for companies to balance their budgets – and leaves lasting memories that cause people like me to gleefully abandon a service in favor of a fresh start with a new provider.