Hugh McLeod of Gapingvoid fame provides a great primer on the concepts of what he calls "

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Episode #4:

Behold The Future of CRM - Forecast for 2008 from the Experts - and from Me

This final episode of the year looks ahead to the future of CRM in 2008. CRM next year will continue to both rise and to change.

What Can We Expect?
There is a lot that's covered so listen, okay? I can't write without getting knarly fingers and its late so just tune in. But here are a few of the highlights:

1. Software sales expected to be at $8.3 billion (Gartner);
2. Battle for platform leadership will continue to grow as many other players get on board (Pombriant);
3. Social search will come to the fore in 2008(Gillin);
4. Public sector, retail, financial services and health services will be the emotional verticals that will drool over CRM in 2008 (me)

This is only the tip of the holiday iceberg that I cover in my most interesting and possibly frenetic episode.

There are a few announcements to take note of:

1. We are adjourned until January 8 when we come back with our next episode and more content, new music, better sound and a renewed vigor
2. Brent Leary and I have come up with the name of our back and forth monthly edgy segment: The CRM Playaz (don't even TRY to get the URL. Brent already has it)
3. I won the InsideCRM 2007 Blog of the Year Award!! Yay!!

Finally, the music attribution you've been waiting for. This one is REALLY simple:

1. Intro and Closing: Waiting for the World to Change (cover) by Chris Lombardi
2. Forecast from the Cliff: Forecast by GSE Prophet
3. MyCRMCareer Commercial: The Long Train (cover) by Mark Henson Band

SEE YOU ON JANUARY 8TH. HAPPY HOLIDAYS

If you haven’t heard of master data management (MDM) yet, you will. If you didn’t realize that you use master data every day, you do.

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