'At their annual Amplify conference last week, Silverpop unveiled the culmination of a two year project that conveniently matches the Customer Data Platform (CDP) concept I’ve been describing for the past month. While the timing is just coincidental, Silverpop’s Universal Behaviors provide more evidence that a new breed of system is emerging. Silverpop’s new features load customer behaviors from all sources into a central database, match identities to create a unified customer view, and make the resulting information available for real-time, automated interactions across all channels. MORE >>

'Leadership and Teamwork – Pull the Oars … Count the Beats. Another guest blog today, from Patti Grimm.  Great message on working together for everyone’s benefit. Analogies and stories are powerful ways to communicate a message which people remember.  A lot of business writers, professors and business consultants use a number of different analogies to illustrate the value and power of working in High Performance Teams in order to deliver sustainable business results.  The challenge with these analogies is people can be a massive or passive rider on a bus. Leadership Management MORE >>

'Why do some blogs have thousands of readers daily, while others struggle to break a dozen page views for each new article? The difference is often in the social media and marketing efforts used to promote content. decade ago, simply blogging well and often was all it took for word to spread. Now, a content creator’s biggest challenge is gaining the attention necessary to get more subscribers. Based on the experience of some of the world’s sharpest blog marketers, we’ve curated some brilliant advice to help you triple your subscriber count: 1. Blog More. Pamela Vaughan, @Pamelump. Offer Value. MORE >>

'10 Things Your CEO Needs to Know Now about B2B Demand Generation. love salespeople. Are you one? feel for your suffering and want to help you. But to help you, you have to help me set proper expectations with your company’s leaders. That’s the theme of this post. Why do I feel for struggling salespeople? First and foremost, I carried a bag for over two decades, so I know how your feel. carried a quota. was you. Recent experience bears it out too. What can I do? My prospects are hiding under rocks! ” He begged me for advice, which I gave for free. There ain’t no magic. MORE >>

'You wouldn’t jump in your car to go from the living room to the kitchen or pull out the chainsaw to cut a stick of butter. Just because it is a more more powerful solution doesn’t mean it is necessary or advisable. Marketing automation is quickly becoming like the self-driving car for B2B marketing. Led by Eloqua (now part of Oracle) and Marketo (with a very successful IPO last week), today marketing automation companies are collectively worth billions. But like the self-driving car, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. When Marketing Automation Is Unnecessary. MORE >>