CRM Research

Customer Research Management-(1) Microsoft Dynamic: Gain in-depth customer knowledge and simplify cross-team collaboration to enhance customer service and citizen satisfaction. Get access to relevant, intuitive tools to improve productivity and achieve goals. Take advantage of a single, flexible solution that meets the venture application requirements of numerous departments, targeted specific to your industry for ease of use. When you join Microsoft Dynamic community, you can connect with peers and industry experts to get even more value and tips. Better able to manage the system with limited finances by choices of joining a community, blogs, or by seeking the tips section. Using within Microsoft Office Outlook enables support and training for better productivity. A full use client access license is $930 for two years. It is approximately $5,185 for a professional server. The product focuses mainly on sales, marketing and service. This is a multi-lingual product with 4 versions within the 4.0 edition (5.0 is coming out soon): workgroup, professional, enterprise, and service. All versions can be customized according to need except the online version (due to security). There was a conference in March 2010 to bring experts together with Dynamic users to share ideas for short term and long term money saving ideas.

 

LAB FOUR-WIKIS & WAVES

The three wikis that I researched were Springnote, Luminotes, and Wetpaint. There were three conditions that were required for the group to complete the CEO Report. The wiki must be hosted, it must have a page history, and it must be a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). Also, as a group project it needed to be free of charge to use. The group chose PBWorks-it is user friendly, free to use and also contained the required criterion necessary that were previously mentioned.

I looked at Springnote and it supports image, video, text, file attachments, keyboard shortcuts, wiki markups, etc. Springnote audiences consist of business, education and individuals needing a wiki that has unlimited text storage with no restrictions. You do not need your own domain and best of all-ads are not allowed. Springnote does have page history with unlimited page revisions and a page index. There are two interface languages-English and Korean with e-mail notification. WYSIWYG is included with RSS feed and calendar, image galleries, forums and blogs.

Luminotes is Closed down; former users were encouraged to download the Windows Stand-Alone version. The hosted service of Luminotes closed down on March 1, 2010. Luminotes users no longer can view or edit any notes hosted at Luminotes.com, and no further releases nor support for any Luminotes products are available. "They do have a Windows Stand-Alone Application-Luminotes Desktop- is out in the wild. In case the website totally shuts down after the time (March 1) and you missed to save yourself a copy of the exe file, the former host has a backup copy: Luminotes.exe. Readme file is available upon install."

Wetpaint is a wiki site for those individuals looking for a user friendly wiki service that is free to use and a good social site to connect with those who have the same likes and dislikes or life story as you. Wetpaint is geared at those people who are more non-technical and uses a three-step setup. Wetpaint provides an ad free environment for education with a premium fee. However, it is for all users and has unlimited storage with no restrictions. You have your own domain with no ads and the host provides blocking with page history and unlimited page revisions. Email notification is provided and also WYSIWYG editing with RSS Feed output.

Any of these systems could be used for personal or business, however it seems to me that the Wetpaint site is more catered to the individual. They have blogs for your favorite television shows, movies, and music. Personally, I liked the way the Wetpaint looked and the content was something that would be entertaining more so than Springnote.

Each person in our group set up their Wave account and invited each other to their site. We also invited you, Dr. Moser. I have since also set up a meeting as a group to work on the initial steps of our CEO Report and to go over any questions that we each have. This is scheduled for Thursday May 27 @8:00pm. I am waiting for a response from my team members as to their convenience of this date. Once this is set, I will enter it into my Tungle account and Evernote to post to my notebook.

LAB 3 COLLABORATION TOOLS:

Evernote is a system that allows you to save ideas from multiple sources and collaborate it into a notebook that can be accessed from anywhere you can log on to a computer and an online source. I set up two notebooks; one for recipes, and one for Innovative management. Eventually I will set a notebook for travel sites that I would like to visit, and one for pictures, one for job searches with networking connections from those sites. Evernote is beneficial to anyone that needs information on anything of interest without carrying the load of paperwork. It allows you to save sites and pictures to use for research or for permanent use. My recipe notebook is created using recipes that were my grandmother's. They were handwritten on paper and I didn't want to loose them, this way I can save them forever. There is also going to be newspaper clippings that came from newspapers from the mid to late 1900s that she had clipped as tidbits of info and little jokes. It is not so much the recipes though I will use some of them, but this is family history. Food that she prepared any time the family was all together, and as she has passed now, it is important to me to stay connected to who she was. I will add notebooks as I go through other classes for my MBA. Each notebook will have tabs pertaining to sites researched and assignments.

Google Wave is another collaboration system that allows you to interact with a group on projects. My group is consisted of four individuals from my Innovative Management class-Bryan Baker is an employee for Mars Pet Care, Bryan Kalhor is a civilian employee for Tinker Air Force Base, and Jennifer Pettijohn is an employee for an accounting firm. We each have our own Google Wave account but we are using lbkalhor@gmail for our group project. Our group project is based upon wikis and how they are useful. We chose PBWorks as the most useful. I will delve deeper into this subject in the next blog for Lab 4. I will also list a tab in my Evernote for this project with all of the interaction within the group.

Really Simple Sydication (RSS) also call a web feed which includes full or summarized text, is from your favorite sites such as news from CNN, the NY Times, listing articles that include the publishing dates and author name. Also included on a RSS are blog entries, audio, and video—in a standardized format.
"Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content." Readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place use RSS feeds which can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed reader", or "aggregator". RSS can be web-based, desktop-based, or mobile-device-based, using a standardized XML file format that allows the information to be published once and viewed by many different programs. The user subscribes to a feed by entering into the reader the feed's URI or by clicking an RSS icon in a web browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds. The RSS feed are based from many different readers some of which are Google, Outlook, Newzcrawler, and Netvibe Account. Some charge a fee and some are free. I chose Newzcrawler which was free and also user friendly.

Lab Two: Communication Tools

ONLINE PHONE SYSTEMS-

Online phone systems enable the user to make "phone" calls to anyone online for free or for a minimal fee. Skype enables its user to make calls for free when both parties are registered Skype users. It also allows a Skype user to call for a fee when calling other lines. Skype provides video conferencing between users.

Jabber allows you to talk to anyone anywhere in the world free of charge if they are also a registered user. Jabber is an IM open-source client that uses an Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP). It is designed for limited text. If you try to use lengthy texting you would probably be charged a fee for excessive use.

Google Talk is another downloadable application by Google that allows the user to IM, send files, chat with contacts on Gmail, or conference call anywhere to anyone that is also registered with Google Talk for free.

I personally prefer Skype. It is the only one that I have used. I usually use what my technically savvy children suggest. I downloaded it so I could talk to my youngest daughter who is in Seattle, Washington. I can video conference her on my computer and see how she is doing. Being able to see the person you are talking to enables you to see facial expressions. The conversation has a lot more interaction between the callers.

BLOGS-

Blogger is a free blog site hosted by Google, and is one of most commonly used blogs; it is user-friendly and linking to others is easy. You can also delete comments, which can help to prevent ads.

Word Press is the number one blog spot. There are no ads allowed so you can design your page just to your liking.

Vox is a blog site that allows you to share pictures, video and text with friends and family.

I chose Blogger. It is user friendly and is connected to my version of 2007 Word so I can post directly from Word to my blog. I want to create a blog that I can use after this class is over to connect with people on a professional basis to stay connected with what is current in the market and learn from those whose experiences can help me succeed in my world.

PODCASTS-

http://www.accenture.com/Global/High_Performance_Business/High_Performance_Business_Podcast_Series/default.htm?c=ad_t08usglbpsgs_0508&n=g_Generic_-_HPB_Podcast/a_0_k/New_business_podcasts&s_kwcid=TC|7188|business%20podcasts||S|b|3171735737 This is a website for Accenture and provides business podcasts that relate to global strategy, organizational structure, and competitive advantage just to mention a few examples. I have downloaded this to my yahoo site and intend to download some of these to my I-Pod. I only wish I would have know about these last semester. I would have definitely listened to them.

http://www.openculture.com/2007/02/business_school.html This is a website that provides podcasts for business from the various MBA programs at different universities; also for iTunes.

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24057159 This is the MSNBC site that provides podcasts on current affairs. All three of these sites are free to download.

 

 

Social Networking-Lab One

Facebook is a social network site that allows individuals to connect with friends, family, and old schoolmates. Facebook can also be used to promote businesses. I just developed my Facebook site http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?id=100000991916434&v=info&ref=profile, approximately one month ago and it seems that it has already gotten out of control. It is like a giant spider that weaves its web, and I being the fly am hooked on the excitement of the daily chat of knowing what everyone is thinking and doing. I began playing the games, and to accomplish any levels you must be on it constantly. I began to ignore other necessary day to day activities and before I knew it my day was half over because I spent all my time catching up on conversations and queries from family and friends. It's not like we don't call each other, but this has become the next level of contact. It is much more exciting, you get to see all the latest pictures of everyone. Having conversations with more than just one person can keep the entertainment going for all day.

I have since class begun "cleaning up" my site to present a more professional version of myself. I always had the presence of mind to keep it clean, but I did not think that playing the games would present the wrong image to others about me, and could inhibit my chances of getting a great job. I then created a LinkedIn account http://www.linkedin.com/home?trk=hb_tab_home, it still needs some work done before it is complete; most of my information is on a jump drive at home. I am hoping LinkedIn will provide the networking connections that I need to obtain job placement. This was all beyond my scope of experience and I believe that all college students (not just graduate) should be required to have all of these sites active and in place and working when they graduate. This is the experience that is needed to hit the ground running when interviewing. Networking experience is necessary to communicate in the business world today, having those individuals in place to make that transition from graduate student to professional a smooth one.

There are many sites; XING-for business professionals is another site that is available to join. XING is a networking site for the business professional to post resumes for jobs, or as an employer to search for employees. These are sites that provide networking possibilities for students to make connections for potential jobs when they begin looking for employment.

Guest Speaker

Evan Jarrett, the graduate assistant to Dr. Moser attended class today at 10:00am as a guest speaker. The topic was over Facebook and the various wikis available; he discussed PBWORKS. Evan mentioned how important it is to present a clean image when it comes to your Facebook page. When it comes to public network sites you wouldn't want anything present that jeopardizes the impression that you present to anyone visiting your page. It never occurred to me that playing games on Facebook could present the wrong image of yourself. My Facebook page is only a month or two old, and I had not realized how long it would take to clean it up until I actually started deleted items on my wall. I thought I was doing well when it came to being connected with technology; I didn't have a clue. Mr. Jarrett mentioned business pages on Facebook and showed us one for Oklahoma high school sports and one for a heavy duty truck that is used to pull trailers (sort of like a smaller version of a semi). He also talked about presenting interesting items on your page that keeps people coming back and connects you with networking possibilities, not just posting how your day is going or how you enjoyed supper.