Five (of many) Highlights of SugarCon 2012

Now that SugarCon 2012 is in the rearview mirror, it’s time for two things. First, the highlights – from a personal point of view, of course! The show has a lot of great stuff compressed into a short period of time, and that means one person can’t see everything – but I made a point of seeing a lot of things, and I was pleased by just about everything I saw. Here are my five favorite SugarCon moments. As I said, these are only my favorites – yours may be different:

1. Creative and Insightful Sessions

There were some really prepared speakers at this year’s show – not just prepared in terms of being well-rehearsed but in the sense that they had an authoritative knowledge of the information they wished to present. Chuck Schaeffer of CRM Search epitomized this, using a study he’d done of more than 100 companies to understand the lead management tendencies of businesses and identifying areas where the lead management process could be improved. The stats on “lead leakage” – or the loss of leads through inaction or process breakdowns within the company – were frightening; not only was it identified as a problem by most companies, most never so much as attempted to understand why it was happening.

I also enjoyed Michael Wu of Lithium Technologies and his discussion of the science of relationships. The descriptions of the pillars of relationships he outlined should be posted on the walls at CRM companies, and every feature should map to the way it enhances one or more of those pillars. Similarly, businesses should do the same thing and ask whether processes build those pillars or tear them down.

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff played right into my airplane nerd tendencies by using the OODA Loop concept of fighter strategy guru John Boyd to describe the way social media-enabled customer service should work. That acronym stands for Orient-Observe-Decide-Act, and was originally conceived as a description of the way a combat pilot considered facts in order to act in a dogfight. If you can get inside a competitor’s OODA Loop – in other words, if you can act faster than he can – you’ll win the fight. She was very effective in applying that to the opportunity forward-looking companies have with social CRM. (A white paper on this theme will appear shortly under the CRM Outsiders name on www.sugarcrm.com.)

And then there was Edwin Siebum of BRIX, presenting a session on the Dutch Police’s rationalization of its call center operations for its information service from 13 centers to one 3000-seat virtual center. This could have been a dry session, but Edwin kept it light. For instance, he showed a video to illustrate the Dutch Police at work; his example was a car chase clip from a 1920s slapstick comedy. When the audience stopped laughing, he continued his presentation with the audience’s rapt attention.

None of this should be a surprise – all of our presenters were authorities in their field. But the way they communicated their ideas were engrossing, thought-provoking and often quite entertaining.

2. Lunch

Last year I spoke to Thom Singer, a professional speaker and speaking coach, at an industry event. Thom’s big idea is that the benefit from a show is the people you meet; we tend to spend time outside of sessions with our heads buried in our smartphones, iPads or laptops and ignore those around us. Lunch never lets you do that – you have to interact with your tablemates. That’s a great thing at SugarCon – I sat next to keynoter Paul Gillin and a very friendly Nebraskan developer named Karl at one lunch. Both were very interesting and both added to the overall experience of the show.

As Thom says, you never know which person you talk to may be the one that changes your life – or your business, as the case may be. At the SugarCon lunches, you had a chance to speak to a random sampling of participants of the show over a good meal – people you might not meet otherwise.

3. Keynotes

This year’s speakers gave the audience a great overview of the current realities of CRM. Mike Fauscette gave a level set of the state of CRM and how companies need to think about it in the future to prepare for the next generstion of customers. Paul Greenberg gave his annual assessment of where we are with social CRM. Paul Gillen pointed out the hazards that social media poses for businesses and how to avoid them. And Guy Kawasaki had the audience in the palm of his hand for his talk about the concept of enchantment (sprinkled with references to Larry Augustin sightings in the locker room of the health club where they’re both members). Every keynote was informational and inspirational.

4. Exploratorium Party

The SugarCon main party is always a highlight, and this year’s party was no exception. The Exploratorium is a hands-on science museum, perfect for kids, but also ideal for inquisitive adults, making it a tailor-made venue for the SugarCon crowd. With good food and a slamming band, people had a great time even when not playing with the science experiments. And, thanks to the meticulous planning of the SugarCon staff, no one was left behind when the buses pulled away after the party!

5. App Throwdown

This was the event that caused the greatest amount of hand-wringing internally and which may have sparked the most pleasant surprises for the attendees. Six integrations were demo’ed – in a three-minute window for each! – before a panel of top-flight industry experts, Paul Greenberg, Brent Leary, Esteban Kolsky and Denis Pombriant. Clint Oram from SugarCRM completed the panel. Some judges expressed skepticism before the event, but the six presenters quickly dispelled that.

From a detailed and easy-to-use social media monitoring tool to an integration between SugarCRM and Asterisk to a mobile application that uses real voice to turn CRM into a voice-activated tool for mobile users, all six were stunning in their business applicability and completeness. The judges and the audience were all won over.

Those were the five that stood out for me. There were many other moments, but these were the most notable. What were your standout moments from SugarCon 2012? Email me at cbucholtz@sugarcrm.com and we’ll share them on the blog.

And now… we start preparing for SugarCon 2013! Brace yourself, New York!

--Chris Bucholtz, Editor-in-Chief, CRM Outsiders