An Epic Event / Themes of Social CRM
I attended Radian 6 and Chris Brogan’s the Rockstars of Social CRM event last night. The panel had some of the heavy hitters of Social Media and CRM. Marcel LeBrun, CEO of Radian 6, Frank Eliason who you know better as @comcastcares, Paul Greenberg, Author of CRM at the Speed of Light, President of The 56 Group, LLC, Brent Leary, Co-author of Barack 2.0 and Co-founder of CRM Essentials and Michael Thomas, National President, CRM Association. The key themes really resonated with me and I agreed with them.
- Social CRM gets back to basics
- a return to Helpful 1.0 not Sales 2.0
- Good relationships = good sales
- You must earn your right to sell.

The Land Grab
Then something weird happened. The panel made a comment about Social Media ownership. They poked fun at PR and Marketing trying to get their clutches on Social Media and suggested that the only real home for Social Media is with Sales, specifically Customer Service. Suddenly, all of the IT people in the room fainted because they were left out of the land grab! Marketers wept openly. PR folk made some calls.
This is what I tell people when they ask me my name. Still, about a third of them decide that they like Mike better and start off with a “nice to meet you Mike.” This fills me with temporary wookie-style rage. Fortunately, I rule at suppressing my inner Chewie.
My mother named me Michael Schneider. If it were up to my father, my name would be Wolfgang. He thought that it would be cool to call me Wolf or Wolfy. This is probably the only thing my father and Eddie Van Halen, who DID name his son Wolfgang, have in common. Schneider is a name of German origin. It means tailor. So you can imagine that Michael Schneider is a fairly common name. There are some pretty interesting Michael and Mike Schneiders out there too.
Mike Schneider is a TV personality for ABC. I can remember watching him in the late 80s and early 90s anchoring the early morning news program: ABC World News This Morning. He also had a soft political career and now is with Bloomberg TV. I actually majored in mass communications for a semester. I wanted to be a radio jock. My dad convinced me that business was a better major. I should have majored in Computer Science, but MIS and Accountancy have served me well.

