It’s human nature to become a bit fanatical about the choices we make: Syrah or Pinot, PC or Mac, iPhone or Android, BMW or Mercedes. Most of the time the debates are just simple fun. When it comes to business, though, fanaticism is a dangerous thing. The goal isn’t about a “one true way” as much as it is about getting the job done.

That’s what was so refreshing about my conversation with respected Salesforce blogger Peter Coffee at Dreamforce 2011 last week, and the opportunity to pull back the covers on G2Analytics, which is our new data warehousing and analytics application. Unlike other solutions where analytical reporting across multiple data sets takes four or five different reports, our design goal was to allow analytics and reporting across multiple datasets. Peter appeared visibly impressed, and asked what platform was being supported today to solve the bandwidth problem.

Now, Peter is with salesforce.com, and Dreamforce is a salesforce.com conference. I didn’t want to appear rude to our host, but the answer is the answer, so I responded with just a touch of hem and haw: AWS and IBM.

And this is where fanaticism (or in this case, the lack) came into play. Without hesitation, Peter acknowledged what we’ve always believed at CloudTrigger – that getting the job done the right way at the right price reigns supreme over other considerations. Using a grocery store metaphor, Peter said sometimes you buy in bulk and pay bulk pricing, and sometimes you need specialty items and are willing to pay specialty prices; each has its place in this world.

Similarly, some cloud platforms have no SLAs and make no guarantees about service or your data, but they deliver inexpensive. It’s up to you, though, to plan for availability and data protection. Other platforms, meanwhile, command a premium price but offer a higher level of SLA and service.

What’s important, though, is that there is a customer choice – one based on requirements and solving problems, not on religion.

For those who missed Marc Benioff’s allusion at last week’s Dreamforce to the Arab Spring — and there seem to be quite a few — let’s take one more stab at his Enterprise Spring metaphor from a different perspective.

If in 2006, someone predicted that in five years a drubbed-down populace would suddenly coalesce around the image of a fruit seller’s self-immolation, organize, and topple the most brutal and intolerant regimes … well, you might think they were crazy.

But that’s what happened: First in Tunisia, then Egypt, now Libya, and perhaps soon Syria.

The common thread beyond disdain for dictators: Social media that turned angry mobs into organized freedom fighters capable of hurling their collective weight of the population to overcome brute force and ultimately squash brutal authority.

So, as awkward as the term Enterprise Spring sounds — and one can admit it lacks the ring of a great sound bite — don’t lose sight of the essential message.

If social media can fundamentally alter how political change happens, then it’s not a stretch to see how it could change (and already is changing) the way we do business. The Social Enterprise is coming, and coming fast. We might not know what form social media will take in the enterprise, but you can be quite sure that when it arrives, you better be ready.

Only one year after a report ranked the insurance industry just ahead of debt collectors and hair salons in social media savvy, a packed room of professionals from that same industry paid keen attention to speakers from CloudTrigger, Esri GIS, salesforce.com, IDC and others outline new ways to improve the customer experience, increase sales and drive higher renewal rates.

Insurance companies not participating in social media are missing a major opportunity, said IDC David Potterton in opening remarks at the Dreamforce 2011 session in San Francisco. New generations of cloud applications and social media being delivered today can help insurance companies walk the tightrope strung between cost containment and customer experience.

Potterton’s comments segued nicely into a demonstration of how CloudTrigger’s G2Maps geo-analytics application and Esri GIS mapping can integrate with salesforce.com elements to create a richer user experience in time of crisis by leveraging social media and multiple channels of communications.

The team used the example of how an insurance company could better prepare customers and respond more effectively to their needs in a hurricane – ironically, just as the Eastern Seaboard cleaned up from the effects of Hurricane Irene. The story illustrated the use of Esri geographic data and real-time Accuweather data integrated with salesforce.com customer data in G2Maps. An additional layer of social media data showed how tracking customers’ social media communications created opportunities for agents and service delivery teams to offer support and transparency in times of emotional distress.

Of course, not everyone in the packed house believed the story being painted. Some skeptics questioned the reality of the scenario, and others scoffed at the value of social media – complaining that 90% of Twitter data has no enterprise value. What became clear is some people are holding onto old definitions of data and how it is to be used. Insurance companies serve the needs of real people, and it is real people who feel the effects when disaster strikes. Opening new lines of communication and intercepting fears at stressful times – before, during and after a disaster – can be just the ticket when it comes to creating life-long customer loyalty.

The issue is not whether social media data is useful; it’s whether you can filter the data for the relevant information that you can use to create value.

By Jeffrey Sears

Senior Sales Director, Northeast

Here at Dreamforce in San Franciso listening to Marc Benioff giving his vision on The Social Enterprise. This last year Social Media rapidly changed the way business and customers connect. It’s about using social connections and customer data to understand how to improve your value to your customers.

Marc referenced the Arab Spring and how that changed the world and defeated dictators. Are we also in a “Business Spring?” Look at Groupon, they exploded into a $ billion company using the Social Coupon, instantly disrupting and changing the retail promotion business.

How do you create the Social Network?
Using a collaboration platform with a tool like Chatter can enhance the knowledge and value sharing amongst customers, employees, and partners creates a more powerful, innovative business and will create a competitive advantage.

New product announcement – Chatter Now & Chatter Connect. Instant messaging, desktop sharing and integration with other platforms like Sharepoint and Lotus Notes. Also can stream 3rd party data like expense report approval. Is this a replacement of email? Perhaps. But more likely another tool like Facebook that you rely on to understand your business social network, much like you check your Facebook site to know what family and friends are doing and what they like.

Chatter has file sharing and bringing in web pages and into mobile. New version of Chatter mobile for iPad, and Android too. Big thing is collaborating with customers like Facebook with their documents and special groups that are closed and secure to outsiders or unauthorized people.

New product announcement – Data.com
automatically pulls social profile data about contacts into the Sales Cloud. Very cool! Now you don’t have to spend time researching this information about a prospect. One button an it’s in front of you in your Contact profile.

Of course the biggest new product announcement Is around their new Social Listening tool – Radian6 and platform – Heroku. They demoed how Disney is using Radian6 to understand what their customers are talking about. What delights and disappoints them and change their business and marketing plans.

Biggest idea – the Social Product! Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry talked about how they’ve created a Social Enterprise to improve their brand and customer experience. Toyota “Friend” Social Enterprise integrated all their customers into their business, brand, dealers and even the vehicles themselves! The car will give you updates to your social network – sends you tire pressure, service reminders, gas level, etc. Coke has created smart vending machines that can track your purchases via mobile device and build better customer likes and dislikes. Very cool!

It’s all about The Social Enterprise! I’m looking forward to seeing how receptive CEOs, CMO’s, Sales & Mktg Execs vs CIOs will be to this new way of doing business.

With Google Business Photos (http://maps.google.com/businessphotos ), local business owners have a new way to promote their establishments, and potential customers can explore locations online and. These are pictures taken by Google-trusted photographer, who sets up an appointment to visit the business location at a convenient date and take exterior and interior shots. Included in the shots are 360-degree panoramic images, which are published to the business owners’ Place page. What’s very cool is users can view the imagery online to get a better sense of the business ambience and decide if it’s a place they’d like to visit in person.

Now think about the scale of Google Business Photos – the number of pictures that need to be taken and, as important, the number of photographers whose calendars need to be managed.

That’s where CloudTrigger and salesforce.com come into the picture. What Google needed was a simplified workflow for the mobile workforce servicing the local businesses’ requests for photos, as well as an enterprise-ready, scalable technology to track, analyze and report on in-field productivity. Working with CloudTrigger, the new solution included:

• Custom development by CloudTrigger on salesforce.com Sales Cloud allows office staff to record customer requests for photographer and schedule appointments for mobile field force photographers
• A custom Android application that allows mobile photographers to receive & update assignments from the field
• Appointment data that includes photo metadata; and
• A custom utility that integrates Picasa into the system to automate creation of the photo album.

 Says Wendy Wang, program manager for Google Business Photos:  ”We’ve enjoyed working with CloudTrigger to create a simple, easy and effective way to manage the trusted photographers who respond to local business owners’ requests to participate in our Google Business Photos program. Through the tools they’ve developed to organize requests, schedule appointments and track assignments, we’ve helped thousands of businesses reach more potential customers and share their business interiors online.”

You can view a Google video of the new program at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opB1nlkWw2c

“We’re delighted to welcome both Tom and Jeff to the CloudTrigger sales and marketing team to help the company keep pace with the rapidly growing opportunities,” said Lonnie Wills, CloudTrigger’s chief executive officer. “Both bring the insight and experience that customers expect from us as the fastest growing services company on salesforce.com.”

As senior vice president of marketing and sales, Gibbs is responsible for all product strategy and brand marketing, as well as direct and channel sales programs. Gibbs is a cloud-technology pioneer with more than 25 years experience – 15 at Intel where he led strategy and architecture in the customer solutions group. He previously was vice president of marketing, strategy and sales at DICOM Grid, a cloud-based medical-record content management provider, and was managing partner for Vx Ventures LLC, a strategic consulting and investment partnership that focused on early stage product definition, ramp and offshore software development. He began his career as an aerospace engineer with Hughes Aircraft Company, where he developed advanced decision support systems.

With more than 17 years experience of sales and business development experience with multinational accounts in the consumer packaged goods, retail and technology sectors, Sears joins as senior sales director to lead CloudTrigger’s growth in the Northeast. Before joining CloudTrigger, he led sales and marketing at G4 Analytics, a cloud-based software company that provides sales and marketing analytics and applications to the consumer goods and retail sector, growing the company to a leader in that market space. He previously was vice president of sales at Spire Systems, an Oracle systems integrator; business development manager at KPMG/BearingPoint; and senior sales executive at FutureNext. Sears started his career as a corporate lawyer doing mergers and acquisitions work in Silicon Valley. In addition to his professional work, Sears is passionate about the impact of technology on business and personal lives and publishes a blog at www.jeffreysearsblog.com.

About CloudTrigger
CloudTrigger delivers cloud-based solutions that create value from data and allow business leaders to discover powerful business insights. As a salesforce.com Cloud Alliances partner, CloudTrigger earns its 5-star rating through unparalleled expertise and a consistent track record of delivering successful implementations on major cloud computing platforms such as salesforce.com, IBM, Google, and Amazon Web Services. Recognized for its expertise in cloud-based, custom, and mobile deployments, CloudTrigger’s combined team has successfully completed over 3,000 implementations, providing robust and scalable information technology infrastructure and cost savings to small and mid-size businesses, non-profits, and Fortune 500 companies. CloudTrigger is headquartered in San Diego, CA. For more information, visit www.cloudtrigger.com.

Our newest colleague and respected cloud blogger, Jeffrey Sears, thinks this could be a seminal year for Dreamforce. He has been kind enough to permit a repost of his blog yesterday in which he calls this year’s Dreamforce “an iPad moment.”

Salesforce going big at Dreamforce with ‘The Social Enterprise’

I’m excited about attending the leader in Cloud Technology, salesforce.com’s Dreamforce 11. For any of you who follow SFDC, their big focus this year has moved to what they call ‘The Social Enterprise’. It’s the theme of DF11 and from what I’ve been told, all their sales and marketing teams have been trained in the ‘new’ way of selling, i.e. leveraging the Social ecosphere to bring value to customers, colleagues, partners and suppliers. This is what it’s all about these days. A post PC, completely networked world. We have arrived at the dream that the visionaries of the early days prognosticated – Marc Andreesson, Larry Ellison,  Bill Joy, Larry Page/Sergey Brin, and of course Marc Benioff just to name a few of the greats who have changed the way we work today.

I’ll be interested to hear Marc Benioff’s vision for the Social Enterprise. With the recent acquisition of Radian6 and Heroku I’m fairly confident that this will be the ‘iPhone’ moment for Salesforce.  They will be the only platform that can provide all the key components to seamlessly tie together all the moving parts for large and small enterprises to truly leverage the power of the ‘Cloud’.

So, keep an eye out for post from SF11 on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Chatter and all the other great Social Media tools out there.  It’s going to be an interesting show!

–Jeffrey Sears, Sr. Director of Sales