Denis Pombriant’s new book “Hello, Ladies! Dispatches From The Social CRM Frontier” is a thought-inspiring read for technology users and innovators, social media enthusiasts, economics junkies and, yes, professional communicators. If you enjoy writing that’s long on logic with a splash of wit, you’ll be right at home and enlightened.

Dispatches is a 166-page collection of Pombriant’s essays (mainly his blog posts, perhaps with some polishing) organized into several major themes: social media, sustainability, economics, customer relationship management, customer experience, Web 2.0 and cloud computing. Denis, an independent technology analyst, weaves today’s business realities and looming natural resource concerns within these themes to glue everything together. In the process he exposes the interdependencies of each and really gets you thinking about cause and affect.

Pombriant’s pragmatic approach to social networking – and really any technology’s promise – is what impresses me most. Like many, he seeks to indentify the ROI, but advises to first understand who is involved in a particular social network and what their motivators may be. Mere membership in an online community is not necessarily participation, he notes. Thoughts need to be exchanged, ideas mined, value generated.

The book explores the perpetuating online / on-demand economy to show how a profitable endgame is the sum of its parts. The publishing industry is touched on in several essays and the craft (or maybe it’s a science) of online billing and provisioning fee-based content and services, for example, is examined in an effort to steer publishing stakeholders toward a light at the end of the tunnel.

And for communicators…

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, communications professional or business representative there’s good advice you can glean from Pombriant’s approach, in addition his book’s content.

Format - Consider that this book is re-purposed blog posts – good ones that deserve more exposure. So whether it’s an Ebook, a compendium such as this, or bursts of information to fuel a content marketing or brand journalism strategy, you can gain extra mileage and a larger audience when applying a syndication mindset.

Style – Clear lines of thought go a long way toward informing and entertaining. I’ve always found Denis’ writing to do both and suggest a study of his style when considering a tweak to your own.

Thought Leadership - “You can’t expect to sell anything until you have convinced the customer of the correctness of your line of thought,” says Pombriant. Writing is exercise in some respects. If you do it often enough, you find your voice and some bright ideas worthy of consideration and use by others. That can go a long way toward building and sustaining your business.

I attended Gartner’s 360 Customer Summit this week as a Sage North America representative. Two sessions lead by Paul Greenberg, author of CRM at the Speed of Light – 4th Edition, were among the highlights. Many opportunities for PR  and communicators at large to help advance Social CRM (customer relationship management) surfaced within the sessions. Note that I’m not trying to evoke the “who owns social” debate here, but rather reinforce as many have that this is everyone’s space to engage in and benefit from.

Strategies for Engaging the Social Customer that Actually Work (Session 1)

Paul’s first session included Heidi Tucker of InsideView, Brian Komar of the Center for American Progress and Comcast’s Frank Eliason as panelists.

During a pre-panel hallway chat with Eliason he shared that PR has been one of the biggest advocates for his team’s well known customer support efforts at Comcast. He also gave nods to JetBlue and Southwest within the airline industry as prime examples of PR-lead social networking programs. Frank centered on PR’s concern for brand sentiment and reputation as reasons PR can play a major role in social media management; and he certainly wasn’t dismissing the value marketing colleagues bring to the mix as well.

As the panel progressed Paul cited Gartner’s Ed Thompson who earlier reminded consumer thinking has penetrated the enterprise, therefore we need to recognize at the end of the day we’re always dealing with consumers. At the end of BtoB there is still a C, as Paul put it.

And here we get deeper into Social CRM – Paul’s definition which includes elements he crowdsourced is good reference and grounding. You can find it in Jacob Morgan’s recent presentation (slide 27) for the Public Relations Society of America’s T3 tech communicator’s conference, and elsewhere. Open collaboration is a centerpiece of the definition supported by processes, systems etc.

I like how the “moment of truth” explanation many customer experience experts use fits here. We’re all looking to connect and solve problems through social technologies and the personal relationships they help develop, whether the “problem” is what movie to spend our leisure funds on or a much more complex personal or business issue.

Social CRM: Where is it today and where is it going tomorrow? (Session 2)

During his second session, co-presented with Gartner’s Michael Moaz, Greenberg explained that the social transformation of recent years has not been a business revolution but rather a communications revolution. Clear, concise, and I find this a nice nod to how the PR profession can participate in advancing the social web. PR practitioners, given their history and competencies, are in position to help nurture a good portion of the collaboration we seek, now in a more direct manner with customers and sort of as social glue if you will.

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, a chief strategist for Weber Shandwick, suggested from the audience that brands need to be wary of becoming fractured if everyone in an organization is off pursuing different social media agendas.

Some orchestration is required and I think PR folks are in a great position to insert value throughout the organization-to-customer communications spectrum. Most of us have heard the saying that everyone’s job (sales, marketing, support etc) includes some PR elements. Social CRM helps emphasize and expand upon this, while presenting a wonderful opportunity to prove it out.

Moaz brought the session in for a nice landing with a well-placed Marshall McLuhan analogy – a fave among PR historians – recalling McLuhan’s “the medium is the message” proclamation. Moaz pointed out that McLuhan was talking about TV then and that we’re now always connected via mobile devices. We’re all the medium. “You’ve gotta be part of the stream,” he noted. “Businesses will go social because that is how you survive today. Resistance is futile!”

My article, “Brand aid: Creating opportunities in your customer community,” appears in the June print and online editions of PRSA Tactics.  It looks at how public relations practitioners can identify interesting stories and conversation material by monitoring various aspects of their organization’s online communities, or really any Web communities where their customers and prospects congregate. I’m interested in any additional suggestions you may have regarding PR’s use of, or involvement in, customer communities.

There are several folks who I would like to thank for their assistance.

My appreciation as always to the Public Relations Society of America and the Tactics editorial staff. Also, thanks to Mike Hardy who took time to speak with me about the Pitney Bowes customer community, as well as Dan Ziman, Neil Beam and Jeff Porter at Lithium Technologies for sharing background on the inter-workings of successful communities. Finally, big thanks to Susan Etlinger at Horn Group who provided some PR agency perspective for the piece.

Next up for me: I’d like to write an article about measuring the impact of social media use. I’m looking for suggestions regarding the types of metrics to establish and the best tools to track them.