The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is the Grateful Dead's wonderful acoustic album Reckoning. Unplugged before Unplugged existed:
 

Cisco has announced its first Cisco Eos customer outside the United States, U.K.-based Dogwoof, a film distributor in the United Kingdom specializing in social issue films and documentaries.

 

Some of Dogwoof's recent productions are Age of Stupid, the Academy Award-nominated documentaries Food, Inc. and Burma VJ. The company is deploying the Eos platform to "expand and empower its increasing online community, enabling conversations around the social issues raised by the films beyond the initial viewing," company officials say.

 

Individual Eos-powered sites will be developed for each film that Dogwoof distributes and the social issue it addresses, company officials say, adding that each of the film sites "will tie back to a centralized Dogwoof site called 'Good with Film' that will help audience members interact not only with social films and their content, but also with other people interested in the same topics."

 

Cisco Eos is a hosted software as a service platform described by company officials as letting media and entertainment companies "create, manage and monetize social entertainment experiences built around their portfolios of branded content."

 

In addition to the new relationship, Dogwoof is announcing two new sites powered by Cisco Eos: Good with Film: Dogwoof's central online community that ties together all of the social issues their films raise, and Dirty Oil, "a site built around the documentary exposing the exploitation of the tar sands deposits in Canada," Dogwoof officials say.

 

Dogwoof will release more than six additional sites over the next 12 months; these will include sites for films such as No Impact Man, Videocracy, H2Oil and Budrus.

 

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Voices.com is joining the mobile revolution, its officials say, with its own app to showcase its roster of over 25,000 voice over talents by making MP3 audio samples available "with the touch of a finger."

 

Voices.com's mobile app is "changing how audio and video producers search for, audition and hire professional voice over talent, company officials say, adding that users can find a complete listing of audio samples organized by category such as audiobooks, movie trailers, podcasts, radio, television, videogames and voicemail recordings.

 

"Voices.com's services are growing and converging," company officials say, "providing the underpinnings for growth in mobile Internet usage by its customers and access to its Web application via mobile devices."

 

Some features of the Voices.com mobile app include an optimized browsing experience with smooth screen rotation, audio samples available to play with the touch of a finger, click-to-call functionality to connect with a live Voices.com representative, integration with Google Maps to locate Voices.com's head office and quick links to mobile versions of Voices.com's Facebook and Twitter accounts.

 

"On the heels of Apple's success with the App Store, other device manufacturers and operating system providers, including BlackBerry and the Android platform championed by Google, will be aggressively marketing their own virtual storefronts where Voices.com will showcase its application," company officials say.

 

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Cegedim Dendrite has announced that sanofi-aventis U.S., a global healthcare company, is continuing its relationship in the U.S. and will upgrade to Cegedim Dendrite's flagship CRM product, Mobile Intelligence.

 

"Mobile Intelligence was designed to be flexible, and that flexibility will enable sanofi-aventis U.S. to better support the evolving needs of its stakeholders," said Mark Fleischer, Senior Vice President and General Manager, North America CRM for Cegedim Dendrite.

 

Because of multiple changes in the industry, Cegedim officials say, many life sciences companies have changed their commercial models in order to adapt to the needs of different types of stakeholders:

 

"These companies require a flexible and dynamic CRM system that provides Managed Care, Key Account Management and Key Opinion Leader configurations to better manage their relationships with these key stakeholders through increased visibility and collaboration."

 

Sanofi-aventis U.S. has been using Cegedim Dendrite CRM since 2001. As part of the renewal, sanofi-aventis U.S. will upgrade to Mobile Intelligence, which supports the pharmaceutical industry's commercial model.

 

The upgrade to Mobile Intelligence includes a full suite of supporting services comprised of implementation, data, hardware and help desk services, according to Cegedim officials. Various sanofi-aventis U.S. commercial teams will be using different functionality within Mobile Intelligence.

 

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Organic, Inc. has announced the release of its latest white paper, "CRM Moves from Elite to Everyman: Four Elements for Creating a Social CRM Strategy." The white paper "looks at the evolution of traditional Customer Relationship Management, the emergence of its Social CRM counterpart and then outlines key best practices on how businesses can create more meaningful and sustainable relationships with customers through social media channels," its authors say.

 

The way the paper describes it, "for years CRM systems were exclusive to the large companies with big budgets, talent and IT resources, all necessary elements to ensure a successful deployment. Recent times, however, have witnessed a fundamental shift in consumer behavior fueled by the emergence of social media and new open social technology platforms."

 

As a result, the paper finds, "CRM has become accessible to all businesses many of which are now morphing the best of the traditional model, like behavioral targeting" with the new social CRM component.

 

"The challenge for businesses today no longer centers on CRM technology costs, but rather the desire to make customers love your company. This is where Social CRM comes into play," said Organic EVP and COO Marita Scarfi. "By placing a greater emphasis on the relationship component of CRM, companies can glean a far deeper understanding of their customers and ultimately have the opportunity to really impact business results by increasing both brand awareness and brand preference."

 

The paper, "CRM Moves from Elite to Everyman," discusses four core strategies companies can use to deepen their relationships with their customers on the social Web, including understanding your customer's digital ecosystem, asking for advice - "a Keller Fay and Bazaar study found that 90 percent of the people who write product reviews do so to help others, and 80 percent do so to help the brand."

 

Make it easy to share as well, and advocate for your customers: "Many marketers want to create brand ambassador programs to enable their most loyal customers to advocate on the company's behalf, an extremely effective marketing strategy.