Apple Siri. The Butlers are coming

Siri

Web2.0 democritised e-publishing and data creation in a friendly way for the masses and low and behold there are 182 million websites available on the net in 2011. Some of these websites have the lions share of the content (Facebook, Flickr, Google, Amazon etc) but collectively it's a grand publish of human thoughts, artefacts, wishes and desires.  What a wonder!

Creating content is one thing but leveraging insights across the content is more difficult. In truth there is still too much information for humans to effectively use and we find ourselves to be a gear in the machine rather than the driver - connecting systems together, cutting, pasting and rekeying.

I want to ask simple questions of my computers and have powerful background processing bring me the answer. Questions like "Which famous guitarists endorse products but don't use them in their live shows?" A query like this would require text analysis of the question to understand the meaning, scouring the net for famous guitarists,  checking which brands they claim to use in endorsements, checking their live 'kit' on websites, picture recognition of what guitars they are using, comparison of statements versus reality and then provide a weighted response based on the volume of data processed. Not easy and lots of key tapping.

Voice Control on the Bat Computer

It won't always be this way.

Batmans computer has been serving him for years (in the fictional world of DC Comics) controlled by his voice helping him fight crime. He simply asks the computer a question while he is driving or smashing heads of supervillans together and his Batcomputer gets back to him with the summary. Questions like  "Cross reference the known toxins that the Joker uses with chemical factories in the vicinity of Posion Ivy's locations over the past three months" are answered with ease. If a clarification is needed then it asks Batman. All achieved using natural language as the interface.

Digital buddies, assistants and advisors are here already for consumers albeit in the form mostly of recommendations engines and advertising systems. Last.fm helps reduce the millions of bands down to something I might like based on my previous listening while Amazon  advises me of books and products I might enjoy based on my previous activity.

These systems help us save time and slash the options and possibilities down to something we can handle. The volume of data falls below our eye and we can concentrate on the richer questions and answers.

For me the biggest aspect of the new iPhone 4S release was Siri - the virtual assistant. I think that as innocuous as it might appear on the surface (fixing calendars, looking up the weather, setting reminders) it is one of the first believable assistants that interact with consumers in a rich way.

Over time this service will grow to understand your accent, tone of voice and mood. It might voluntarily ask you what's wrong or question your commands if it thinks you are acting irrationally. It will potentially develop it's own personality and it will be answering more and more complex queries. Multiple Siris may even communicate and negotiate with one another to save their 'owners' from corresponding back and forth needlessly. Young children that can't type and older people may begin interacting with computers in richer ways. Siri may begin to find it's way into robots and other household devices outside of mobiles.

It's exciting and this is only the beginning. Others have tried to provide this kind of service but none have had the design and user base that Apple have in order to make it 'stick'.

I'll be watching this one carefully.

Touchpoints (manual and automated) between sCRM and CRM

Dear Readers,

I'd be grateful for insights and comments on this topic.

There seem to be two phases to harmonising sCRM and CRM domains.

1. Don't integrate using software - use people initially.

Use the CRM tools in the cloud (FB comments, Twitter, Get Satisfaction etc) where the customer/prospect is operating and backfill insights and information manually into your CRM system.

This is low risk with no internal technology investment. The cost is mostly around people/staff. It's good education all round and a reminder that a companies systems are no longer the ones sitting on their premises.

2. Automated integration of sCRM data/insights into the 'master' back end CRM and related systems.

This of course is much more difficult. Some outlines of touchpoints and suggested automation are below :

Identity : At it's most simplest you can integrate web2.0 Id's of customers into your back end CRM profile and perhaps use your Campaign Management in your CRM app to deliver/chat with the web2.0 channels. Automated campaign management tools spamming customers web2.0 spaces is clearly dangerous as the personal touch may be lost so simply using your CRM tool as a front end to web2.0 activity might retain the personal touch and allow your CSA's to remain in a single workspace.

Profiling : A unified view of web2.0 profiles with internal CRM profiles. Very useful but prone to legal restrictions. Again the CRM system can pull in public preferences/likes/dislikes for customers and use them for customer support and behavioural targetting solutions.

Analytics : merge analytics observations on your own web/IP properties with those in the cloud. This area is nascent at the present time but the integration between Salesforce and Radian6 certainly looks interesting in examining click throughs from the cloud.

Metadata, Taxonomy and KMS: This is a tough nut to crack and the sharp end of the semantic web. Ideally the taxonomy that your customers develop online should inform your southbound knowledge management and product descriptions. Behavioural Targetting ,SEO/SEM and Customer Support will be more successful if you can develop a commonality between how you describe your domain vs how it's actually being talked about in the real world.

Connect Listening with the Raising of Work/Suggestion Tickets distributed to the rest of the business : Use the listening platform data to directly feed into how you raise suggestions, complaints or issues into the business. This avoids some retype and paraphrasing but still requires staff to manage.

Run Listening Platforms Across internal channels such as Wikis and Forums : this could be automated to filter hot topics and prioritise work and many forum providers are moving into the semantic space to enable just that.

Involvement in Design : beyond providing a Wiki or a Facebook group and harvesting opinions on features via Listening Platforms how do we get customers deeply involved in the creation of the products and services we design?

The big question...
Is deep automated integration an expensiveand proprietary folly between sCRM and CRM at the present time?

Do we end raising projects titled 'Integrate with the Internet'?