Henrik's Blog

Why a sabbatical is great

2010-08-30T10:30:00.000+02:00

I decided a while ago, that I need a change. In country and industry. It has proven to be a great idea. Escaping the routine and environment of the last years is a blessing, there is so much waste you are pulling around in your life.

It's not that you aren't doing anything anyway. You need to move your stuff, figure out where to work in the future, and most importantly, what to do with your time. After five years in one place there is always something you need to do or would usually do - it's gone now.

I have met old friends, re-discovered a big city I really like and know, and enjoyed the change around me. Surprisingly also the job issue was resolved almost instantly when I was contacted for an interesting position.

Will I go where I thought I would? No. But I'm looking forward. For now, there's still some interesting side projects and time to rest. Five months well used, and a fresh mindset.

How do you manage your time on social networks?

2010-02-19T19:56:00.000+01:00

This is a serious question, and as questions have it, answers would be great. So do me a favor, and let me know.

A recurring topic in books, blog posts, newspaper articles, TV shows is that social networks take time. There is obviously no stopping social media at this point, they still grow like wildfire. Just today Facebook took on Yahoo in terms of visitors in the U.S. and that's a tall order.

Now, as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, XING and Google Buzz enter our lives, many of us follow our natural instincts. We want many. Many friends, followers, contacts, or readers. It's just so convenient, the world in our living room. As time goes on and we cross the mark of hundreds on these platforms, we realize that we are swamped. As it's not polite, and as discussed above, for many not opportune to remove these connections we run into a problem. Overflow.

Change is fast these days, and the networks have reacted. With groups, lists, favourites, hide buttons and the like. Still, you always have this feeling you might miss something and before you know it you spend hours on the web, trying to crawl through unbelievable masses of information, status updates, and links.

Even worse, if you have a business, and try to leverage social media for your benefit. If you have read e.g. Gary Vaynerchuk's excellent book Crush It! Why NOW is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion, you know that presence, and I mean serious presence is required to build your brand. You post, you cross-post, and track every possible response. As I am in the area of Customer Relationship Management, I know one thing: don't promise to your customers, if you can't deliver.

So this is it. A dilemma which grows, with every new service you add to your portfolio. How much time do you need every day to update your Foursquare or Gowalla status?

As I said in the beginning, I find this very intriguing, and I'd be happy to hear what you think. Thanks.

It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be

2010-01-30T11:45:00.000+01:00

This book will rock your world. Make it your companion and there's no time for arrogance or despair. Every page a treasure. Let's leave it with that, just buy it and be inspired.

Scared of social networks?

2010-01-26T13:28:00.001+01:00

Social networks still spread like wildfire. People who treated computers as work machines until last week join networks without even knowing what they are for. I recently read in a big German newspaper that the number of Twitter followers is becoming a hiring criteria for some jobs. Professionally I use them to market, personally I try what's new and am probably less concerned than others, however this post is about privacy concerns many user have. A great article is "The Eternal Value of Privacy" (Nice video on the issue from Commoncraft)

When I got my first mobile about 12 or 13 years ago people were smiling at me. Many looked at me like I’d be working a radio on a naval cruiser. Of course they came on board eventually, most rich countries in the world have more SIM cards than inhabitants now. However, it took them a few years to hesitantly buy their first phone.

The reason why the jump from early adopters to the mass market has been so fast and universal for social networks is definitely connected to the lack of barriers. You don’t sign any contracts to enter the world of ubiquitous broadcasting. Still, nothing comes for free. Google needs to crawl your behaviour to target ads, social networks are no different here. Additionally, people start to realise that the internet forgets nothing. They wonder about the missing delete button for their profile on many social hubs. The internet outlet of their favourite newspaper mentions that any HR person checking their CV will check their online persona routinely. For some (unverifiable) insight in what Facebook tracks, here an interesting blog post on The Rumpus.

Therefore it’s hardly surprising that there is an increasing demand for anonymity. I observe to strong movements in this direction even with people who joined the hype rater late:
How can I disappear from one or all social networks? How do I completely wipe out anything I ever had there? Posts are all over the place. Wired helps you to “Un-MySpace Yourself”, The “Suicide Machine” gives a very sarcastic outlook on how to kill your online persona with style (I recommend the video). I’m not sure whether the latter still works (or again), still interesting. Update 29 Januar 2010: An interesting Video on a fake service called "Google Existence", that lives your social life for you.

How do I hide from my provider, my government, my employer? New browser versions include privacy options, proxies enter the mainstream, and guides on how to disguise yourself online are getting more and more popular. Not only for journalists who frequent sites like “Surveillance Self-Defense” and the Tor-Network is growing fast. Anonymity has long become a meme on the internet.

Somehow we all manage how much we want to give, always wondering how much we can (or should) protect. Every time we try a tool like foursquare or Gowalla we are wondering if it’s ok that one of our friends added our home as a spot and the whole community knows where we live and work.

Additional challenges arise when you start using these tools in your company. Suddenly a legal entity gets a face, behind which tens or even hundreds of employees are hiding and acting. But that’s for another time.

You Dropped Food on the Floor. Do You Eat It?

2010-01-21T12:05:00.001+01:00

Practical advise on the pressing questins of life is always welcome. Thanks are in order, to the San Francisco Food Blog and to Mateja of course, for letting me know.

Ich wäre gerne mal abends so müde wie morgens....

2010-01-20T23:40:00.001+01:00

Endlich mal 'ne Facebook Gruppe, die ich voll unterstützen kann. Ich wäre gerne mal abends so müde wie morgens....

Wenn man dann aber mal wieder nicht pennen kann, ist folgendes sehr angeraten:

Zu beziehen bei Stonesthrow. Gute Nacht.

Social media use for enterprises - Kodak

2010-01-20T16:58:00.004+01:00

If you read this in 2012:
a) I'm curious about how things are now
b) Probably time has rendered this post utterly irrelevant (that's a good thing)

If you are working in Marketing or the Management of a company, chances are that someone recently approached you using the word social media. Probably this month, maybe this week or today. If you look for Marketing advice for 2010 - guess what, there's no escape.

One company that has its social media strategy down pat, is Kodak. I'm not saying they are the best, the most innovative etc., but they have a good plan and they implement it. They know what they are doing, why they are doing it and they stick to their plan. Check the latest Tweets of their CMO (@JeffreyHayzlett).

As they understand the value of sharing on the web today, they publish what they do (Read Kodak's Social Media Tips), which seems counter-intuitive at first. However, as they already state in the introduction to the paper I linked above "Kodak receives 11.000 mentions in other authors' blogs every month...". Sharing is the name of the game, and the Social Media Tips document is really useful. A simple and well-developed framework any company can adopt.

Another great post I can recommend is from Dave Fleet on the "2010 Social Media ecosystem". Good stuff.

Book review: Here comes everybody: the power of organizing without organizations

2010-01-07T21:22:00.005+01:00

All things social and 2.0, digital and so on are all the hype. I do need to understand this as a Marketer and had a look at the book, so I figured I can say a few things for you to decide if you should read it or not.

Is the book for me?
If you want to understand what Facebook or Twitter are, and how to upload stuff to Flickr, no. This book bridges the gap between cute little stories how the “New Internet” changes the lives of people and serious academic theories of networks, organizations, motivational dilemmas of participants in these networks and many other things. It shows how you can make money as an amateur photographer or get information in ways noone dreamed about not so long ago, and how the new tools available might affect your life just about tomorrow, professionally or privately. If you don’t feel an urge to understand this, because you constantly feel like you don’t know something you should, it’s one of the books you could read, otherwise you might just wait if you are affected by some of the changes proposed in the book and adapt later. I’d say you can sleep calm.

Some things I found interesting though:
How the process of forming networks has been shortened to the max. Whether you need attendees of a parade who uploaded pictures or engineers in your field around the world who can help you solve problems. And how these networks extend to the physical world and can solve complex problems with little resources in not time.

Changing media paradigms: The ideas of broadcasting, which dominated the past, and conversation which takes over. The chance to publish globally in seconds at almost not cost. The role of professionals in a world spammed by “user-generated content” (e.g. journalists, photographers).

The problem of unmanaged division of labor. Who gives how much? Who takes too much? What’s the incentive if there’s no salary?And why does Open Source work after all (in some contexts)?

Network theory in a nutshell. Things like strong and weak ties, social capital, structural holes, bridges, nodes and many more I studied for months for my final thesis at the University are easily integrated in the text. Just for this reason the book is worth reading.

Wirtschaftswoche 52, 21.12.2009, Thema “So wird 2010”

2010-01-04T22:10:00.000+01:00

Spät, aber besser als nie...

Der von der Wiwo identifizierte Supertrend ist Nachhaltigkeit. Chefredakteur Roland Tichy kommentiert im “Einblick”: Wer dies als Worthülse abtut, wird unter dem Druck von drei Seiten zerbrechen - Druck vonseiten der Gesetzgebung, mehr noch von Konsumenten und besonders schmerzhaft: von den Kapitalgebern...”.

Der unbestritten kompetente C.K. Prahalad spricht dann auf Seite 97 auch von einem “Neue(n) Gesellschaftsvertrag”.Wenig Revolutionäres hier, was das Gewissen eines Unternehmens und dessen Management angeht. Interessant denoch, wenn man es in Bezug zu einem Interview mit der Ratsvorsitzenden der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschand, Margot Käßmann, setzt (Handelsblatt vom 23.12.2009). Anscheinend setzt sich in zunehmender Breite die Erkenntnis durch, dass Unternehmen nachhaltig wirtschaften müssen, Gewinne aber trotzdem nichts zum schämen sind. Schön.

Bei den Trends für 2010 erfindet man sich mal wieder neu. Unter dem Übergriff “Innovation” wird Open Innovation beziehungsweise Crowdsourcing besprochen, als Wunderwaffe für Unternehmen. Billig, direkt, notwendig. “Gut die Hälfte aller europäischen Unternehmen ... lassen Kundenideen in ihre neuen Produkte einfließen”. Da Kundennutzen und Kundenzufriedenheit dem Marketing ja generell zugrunde liegen, wollen wir das mal hoffen. Ob dies allerdings auf so direktem Wege geschieht, wie bei dem im Artikel prominent erwähnten Starbucks, darf bezweifelt werden. Ein noch einleuchtenderes Beispiel wäre Threadless gewesen, die den Erfolg Ihrer Produkte praktischerweise a priori durch Nutzerabstimmung mehr oder weniger sicherstellen.

Die üblichen Rekordmeldungen was die Nutzer von Google, Facebook und Konsorten angeht, findet man auf den Seiten 86 und 87. wie immer “verblüffend”, außer man hat die letzten Jahre nicht geschlafen. Der Vergleich des Erfolges von Videospielen im Vergleich zu Kinofilmen ist mittlerweile eigentlich auch nur noch insofern interessant, als man kaum verstehen kann, wie die Rechteinhaber von Harry Potter und Konsorten es nicht schaffen Spiele dieser Qualität rechtzeitig zum Filmstart herauszubringen. Das wäre mal das Heben von Potentialen.

Der “Ehrbare Kaufmann” auch wieder auf Seite 74 zum Thema “Wir brauchen mehr Fairness”, in einem Interview mit dem Präsidenten der European Business School. Ethik ist auch wieder ein Thema, insofern rundet sich das Ganze ab.

Handelsblatt-Bilanz 2009, Mittwoch 23.12.2009

2009-12-29T10:31:00.001+01:00

Gleich am Beginn das Spiel des Jahres: ein zynisches Monopoly, das als Ende des Spiels den Staatsbankrott festmacht. Motto: “Rette sich wer kann.“ Danach ein sehr spannender Artikel, der vieles davon aufgreift, “Komplexitätskrise und Etatismus” von Bernd Ziesemer. Einige Zitate:
“...die neuen Stichwörter zur geistigen Situation unserer Zeit. Sie lauten: mehr Staat, mehr Regeln, mehr Aufsicht, mehr Kontrolle.”
“Ausgerechnet aus den Mutterländern des modernen Kapitalismus ertönen heute die radikalsten Forderungen zur Bändigung der Finanzwirtschaft. Wer hätte sich je träumen lassen, dass sich ein amerikanischer Präsident über die “Bonzen an der Wall Street” erregt und ein britischer Premierminister eine konfiskatorische Strafsteuer auf die Boni in der Londoner City erhebt?”
“Mit bloßer Alltagsvernunft lassen sich komplexe Systeme kaum noch stabilisieren. Hier entwickelt sich ein geradezu fundamentales demokratietheoretisches Problem: Parlamentarier sollen über die Regulierung von Finanzsystemen entscheiden, die selbst Fachleute kaum noch begreifen.”
Mögen die ersten beiden Zitate noch Stimmungen aufzeigen, zeigt das dritte dann doch ein generelles Problem auf. Bei der Regulierung von Komunikation und Internet hilft am Ende das Bundesverfassungsgericht, am Finanzmarkt blutet der Steuerzahler.

Auf Seite 17 lesen wir, dass von den fünf größten Banken weltweit nach Marktkapitalisierung jetzt drei aus China stammen. Wenn wir HSBC mitzählen, sind es vier. JP Morgan Chase verpasse Bronze knapp.

Norbert Walter zeichnet auf Seiten 36 und 37 ein düsteres Bild für unsere Marktwirtschaft. “Wenn die Hilfen wegfallen und die Entzugserscheinungen beginnen, wird es einen ernsthaften Test geben. Ich befürchte, dass der gesellschaftliche Widerstand gegen Marktlösungen die Politik auf sehr harte Proben stellen wird.”

Vielleicht als Abschluss noch das Ende 2009 vielzitierte Leitbild des ehrbaren Kaufmanns. Hier auf Seite 10 und 11 dargelegt, zum Nachlesen nochmal bei www.veek-hamburg.de.

From technology to business

2009-11-26T10:14:00.002+01:00

Long time, no post. Simple reason though, I always wanted to post issues here I ran into managing the CRM system at my employer. As this mostly happens on the business side of things and technology is working rather well by now (let's just skip over the Outlook plugin and mail merges), there was just not much to report.

One thing that did happen today was that I tried to change the maximum length of an attribute to a higher number, however the published change is not applied. I have posted it on https://community.dynamics.com/forums/p/26187/43406.aspx and am waiting for a reply.

What I do run into more and more frequently since summer, is numbers. Analyses. Statistics. Training. Change Management. As I am not a consultant these are confidential and make it hard to post. Maybe I'll use this space for something else, we'll see. For those of you who showed up in my Google Analytics reports, thanks for now.

Enriching data in Dynamics CRM

2009-06-29T09:20:00.006+02:00

Enriching data is something we all want and which (originally) didn't make it to Dynamics CRM 4.0.

I have read that it has been added now which is fine. However, we often have several records which are not uniquely identified by their name, so I still like another idea posted by Yaniv Arditi a few weeks ago here.

His approach has the advantage that each record is uniquely identified, so no problems with unclear matching of records.

He basically exports everything to a dynamics worksheet, and unhides (!) hidden columns, which brings us the GUIDs! If I would have known that half a year ago already.

Update 8 July 2009: We are using this all the time, it's fantastic. GUID's make it really easy to update big amounts of data.

Data import to Dynamics CRM

2009-06-15T09:51:00.004+02:00

Lately I realised that data import seems to be a constant issue, especially for newcomers to CRM.

So, you have two main options of importing data to Dynamics CRM, using a data map and automatic. A data map involves creating a test file, importing it to CRM while creating a new data map, and of course mapping the columns. This was the weapon of choice for me at first. Downside: You are unflexible to changes after adding attributes, changing anything in the attribute names and so on. Not fun, believe me, I tried it.

Well, automatic mapping works like a charm, as long as you keep the Display names as column names in your csv file. During the data import you just select the csv file and in the next step the record type. Data map changes to "Automatic" and you're done!

If your desired outcome "automatic" does not show up, you messed up with the column names. Yes you did. Export yourself a list of the correct display names and save it somewhere, write a Macro, whatever works for you.

Happy importing.

Workaround for Advanced Find shortcomings in Dynamics CRM

2009-06-12T11:20:00.005+02:00

I recently found an interesting blog post on PowerObjects.com regarding finding accounts with no contacts. Actually the lack of this functionality in Advanced Find made me crazy,too.

My problem was rather finding Leads who had no related activities in a fast way. This works for my problem too.

The solution is really low-tech, and probably many are using it as a workaround. Anyway, I found it very useful.

So here's the link, and I'm looking forward to trying this out on some other entities.

http://blog.powerobjects.com/2009/05/04/accounts-with-no-contacts-and-fun-with-subqueries/

CRM project challenges in a small business

2009-05-28T11:37:00.003+02:00

Some observations, strictly from my and a small business perspective. If this applies to you or you disagree, it would be great to hear about it. A few challenges in any CRM project replacing another solution:

get the planning right
assign the right people
assign enough resources
roll-out in reasonable time, get it working
get back to the old productivity level

Now if you can do that without overspending or sacrificing functionality you did a good job if we believe the research. The tricky part starts however when it comes to fulfilling the (often exaggerated) expectations. So a few words from a small business perspective (<50>

All the top points apply. I strongly believe that a good team made up of good (if possible, the best) people from the business and IT side is key. Two points from academia:

1. A quote from Bill Fischer, an excellent professor who is also occasionally guest lecturing at our school: "Polite teams achieve polite results". Constructive fights between business and IT are good, it means both sides are committed and have something to say.

2. Salman Mufti, another visiting professor here argued in a class on Strategic Management of IT, that a good team is even more important than a good plan, because a good team will make a good plan on the way.

If you get to the point of productivity, you better make sure your team doesn't fall apart. Change Management is absolutely crucial, and your users might just be lost. Worse, they get lost over and over again, because we all tend to forget, especially stuff we don't use a lot. So with a successful roll-out and some intial training, you did a fair job. However to move the CRM system to the next level you need to take an approach of evolution and revolution. From time to time you do evaluation, probably more frequently at the beginning, then in longer intervals.

How we do it: We check the gap between our CRM strategy, our goals defined in general and for this period, and how we are doing. The next step is to look at frequent complaints we are getting, whether this is technical problems and requests, or process-related and inter-department issues. Next is to plan the steps to take the next "revolution" in CRM use. This means, working on things which can really boost productivity.

Priorities: You should have goals or a strategy behind your CRM initiative. That's the place to start. If you're too far away, do something. Make a plan for this year, to make sure you know where to go and what to measure.

Training: Repeat the basic training where needed. People forget, some are new. After doing your homework on gaps and suggested improvements, plan advanced training sessions and who should attend. Try to make sure the key people are there. Help them after the training to make sure they can work efficiently with the system. They are your customers.

In the best case you make the right calls what will raise productivity, your users follow your plan, understand your training and start to be more productive and enjoy to use the system more than before. Ideally you plan for regular revolutions and let people work freely in between. You might be surprised with which evolutions they can come up with, and maybe there's a revolution coming at you.

We're in the middle of this never-ending process, but we're moving in a good direction.

Controlling CRM database size

2009-04-10T14:27:00.002+02:00

Mailing activity tracking is a great feature of a CRM system, noone would want to miss that data. Now-you might wonder why your database size is growing exponentially since the moment you start using these activities. Attachments might just be the answer, as they are stored in every E-Mail record.

If you have any great ideas, I am listening, our approach is to get rid of them on the SQL level, just leaving the file name intact and saving the files on another location. Results, you ask? Shrinked for more than 50%, in less than an hour. Backup server happy.

Dynamics CRM synchronisation to Outlook

2009-04-03T11:50:00.008+02:00

The Outlook client for Dynamics CRM is a special animal. As it fits the "look and feel" of Outlook it is the obvious choice for our employees. If you use it, you know that it is not the most smooth of experiences. Especially promotion of items to CRM can be a pain, along with mail merges.

In terms of installation you have two choices, with or without offline access, which come with substantial resource hunger, so I read. We don't need that functionality, so I can't judge from my own experience.

In both ways, every user can choose which items are synched by accessing "CRM" and "Options" in Outlook, then moving on to the "Synchronisation" tab. Now, unchecking one of these boxes means nothing is synched anymore. So no contacts, no tasks etc.

To define this in more detail (e.g. contacts from Eastern Sales region), you can define a filter by opening "CRM" and "Modify local data groups". In the installation without offline access only Contact synchronisation settings can be adapted. By default Outlook synchronises your active contacts with the address book if you check the synchronisation with contacts checkbox. You can change this filter to synch only contacts from a certain Account, country and so on.

If you want to do the same for also for other entities, you need the offline access installation. This should also allow you to synch only open tasks, to make an example someone was asking on a Dynamics CRM newsgroup.

I got pointers to this on the Customer Effective blog (Post A and Post B), which also points out how to change the sync settings for all users.

Mapping custom attributes between Leads and Contacts

2009-04-02T14:53:00.008+02:00

As most things in life, rather trivial if you know how to do it. Still something that pops up a lot on the web in newsgroups and communities. When converting Leads to contacts/accounts all ootb attributes are automatically mapped. Now how can you map also your custom attributes?

You just go to the Lead entity, look under 1:N relationships, "contact_originating-lead" and then "mappings".

Customer Loyalty

2009-04-01T15:30:00.006+02:00

Customer Loyalty should be underlying the CRM vision of any company. You don't have the system to lose customers, obviously. I found two interesting points in an article by Mila D'Antonio

First, she says that a hotel is a place to expect great service, because they can make face-to-face contact with the customer and have plenty of data. This is true. I often wonder when I receive newsletters and the like on my private account, how the service "offline" and "online" can be so different. I think that for most companies who deliver services in contact with customers, a large part of their communications happens out of their premises. So the footprint of their communications through E-Mail, phone calls, advertising etc. is actually huge.

Second, putting yourself in the situation of evaluating every customer experience you have in a certain period is a great idea. You get to evaluate many different companies and it's hard to judge in advance what kind of products and services you will use on e.g. a business trip. It should also give you a good view on service provided online (bookings -> use of CRM after that) and offline (cabs etc.).

Edit Thursday, 2 April 2009: Great post about this topic on CustomerTHINK

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Blogs

2009-03-31T21:45:00.005+02:00

The reason why I feel I might write a blog: I don't feel overly represented in the blogosphere right now. If you look at what you can find on the web you will find blogs and newsgroups which are written or frequented by two main groups.

The first group is consultants, developers, and people who are in some way connected to Dynamics CRM implementations until the rollout. You can find tons of information, questions, answers and opinions about how to solve problems in this area. The problem with this is, that most of the issues discussed don't deal with what happens after the rollout. My daily work right now centers around real-world business issues. User support, bugs, process improvements, and Change Management. There is little support in this area.

The second group active in Blogs and newsgroups is Microsoft employees or associates of Microsoft partners. These have interesting information, also for me, but they are sure not objective concerning dealing with CRM implementations and people. I appreciate them very much, I am part of their community, too. You do however feel lonely at times with your daily issues.

To make one thing clear: I frequent many of these resources daily, and they are very valuable to me. I am certified for Dynamics CRM 4.0, and have deep product knowledge. I just lack contributions from people who deal with problems after the rollout.

I look forward to finding other professionals who deal with what we produce. I am responsible for the mistakes we have or might have made when designing the solution. I deal with it every day. If you are in this area and feel some of my pain, let me know.

If you are (one of those) in charge of running CRM

2009-03-31T14:08:00.006+02:00

Getting Dynamics CRM running, keeping it running, and developing core functionalities further over time is quite a job. The system wouldn't be running without the support from IT Office, the data wouldn't have been transferred without experts, the processes would have failed without proper planning by our project team.

What I am trying to say? Just having the basics covered well is an achievement. Driving user adoption, providing support and developing new processes and process improvements can drive you crazy.

User adoption: I read today on MSDynamicsWorld that one common mistake would be the following:"There are no carrots for the users; only sticks are employed to force user adoption". Well - yes. However, that helps for a week or two, then the carrots (=what is better now than it was with the old system), are forgotten and digested. You need a constant supply of carrots, if you don't have them make something look like carrots. If you are a consultant, you don't care that much about this. If you are in-house and have been strongly involved in the development - you might stand a chance. If you are taking over the responsibility without product knowledge and the proper standing in your company - good luck.

Providing support: I am a business person. I have learned many things about IT, about databases, about Access. I'm still clueless in many ways, but support is tougher. If you read this, you probably only smile, but believe me, for me answering the same questions all the time was a culture shock. Why I changed my opinion? Providing training and doing some support by yourself (I'm lucky to have help) helps you to keep in touch with the solution. Although Usability is nothing too customizable in this solution you need to know what works and what doesn't. Whenever I did not take care of proper training or monitoring support needs I regretted it later. If for nothing else: you need to find more carrots, otherwise you're loosing momentum.

Process improvements: Well, let's put it like this. There are many demands, like for a one-click label print from the contact card. Yes, it can be done, but if you are fighting to change major issues it can drive you crazy. If the person who requested a change for EVERYONE is the last to provide the template, it can drive you crazy. You get the idea. Just make sure you distribute some carrots.

New processes and functionalities - Find your Zen: This is getting more interesting now, you need to some challenges. After the implementation phase things start to get more - let's say - calm. After six months of not dreaming, planning, strategising, and discussing in a project team you are full of new ideas. Our current challenge is to integrate our new website with our CRM solution. Yes, we know there are tons of solution out there. That's not what we are looking for, we'll probably take a DIY approach. As I said, it's getting more exciting again, to be continued...

Edit Thursday, 2 April 2009: Found an article by Anne Stanton which reflects how to develop processes in CRM for sustainable success http://www.crmlady.com/2009/03/walk-a-day-.html