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How integrated is you reference program? Here’s a quick diagnostic:  - Your social media and online community teams are starved for content. You’ve got lots of that. Are you regularly providing relevant, usable and if necessary, re-purposed content (from success stories, case studies, and other reference materials) to your online... read more →

Join your peers who run customer engagement programs -- including customer references, communities, advisory boards and forums, net promoter score, and others -- along with senior executives, from Intel, EMC, SAS, Wells Fargo, AT&T, AmerisourceBergen, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi Data Systems, National Instruments, Citrix Systems, Infor, Kronos and dozens of other top... read more →

Customer reference programs have just received a second stamp of approval from venerable Forrester Research. According to Laura Ramos in the just published Forrester report, Effective Customer Reference Management Anchors B2B Community Marketing Efforts, "Customer reference management has moved from the sidelines to the mainstream of corporate marketing activity."  ... read more →

Customer Reference Forum is now well into its 5th year, and we have some new initiatives to announce that reflect your changing needs as well as the changing nature of the reference profession.  I’m featuring these in this blog because we’re looking for your input.  SURVEY: LET US KNOW YOUR... read more →

Well, not exactly the underground, but some frank comments from several reference leaders I've chatted with since the February Forum - along with some of the senior marketing executives they report to. In no particular order: - One particularly thoughtful reference manager sees a bright side to the current downturn... read more →

inEvidence, Metia, Projectline Services and SumTotal Systems are currently looking for Customer Reference Professionals. For more info, please click (requires brief registration). Here's some more details: inEvidence, the specialist global customer reference agency, is expanding its Asia Pacific presence and is currently seeking additional freelance writers fluent in Japanese, Korean or... read more →

Despite the economy, we had strong representation again at last month’s 2009 Customer Reference Forum. Most of the world’s leading reference programs attended, including Microsoft, Oracle, EMC, Intel, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, SAS Institute, Hitachi Data Systems, Siemens, Sun Microsystems, Genesys, Teradata, Qwest Communications, Research in Motion, Salesforce.com, Alcatel-Lucent, Red Hat, National... read more →

I thought I'd give you a heads-up on new initiatives underway for the community, including introduction of a Membership option for Customer Reference Forum, a new Vendor Match Service to help you keep abreast of vendor solutions, an initiative to make the incredible content from the upcoming 2009 Customer Reference... read more →

This week I had a chance to interview Craig Nunes, VP of Marketing, 3PAR about how they are engaging previously 'unreferencable' customers - or "the other 90%" - through a remarkable application of Social Media and web-based survey tools. Craig will be a presenter at the  2009 Customer Reference Forum.   ... read more →

The 2009 Customer Reference Forum is just a few weeks away and this week I had the chance to chat with Intel's Rhett Livengood and Umang Shah, formerly of Xerox and VMware about a fabulous workshop they're planning.      The workshop will be a 90 minute "bring-your-laptop-and-get-your-hands-dirty" event showing how to... read more →