CRM Idol 2011: Our First Update. Awwwww.

If you haven’t heard, we launched CRM Idol 2011 as of Monday – this past one that is.  What is both lovely and surprising is the amazing response we’ve gotten from all involved – the potential contestants, the media, the vendors, the influencers – the entire ecosystem that’s risen in support of helping some of the small companies get a break or get some support that they might otherwise not get.  You can check out the fundamentals here but what I want to do is update you on what’s happened since Monday including who is now in and what slots are still available – and all the additions and even some rule changes and clarifications.

I mean, think about it, this is all since MONDAY.

Let’s rock!

The Numbers

So far, in the Americas, THE AMERICAS ARE CLOSED (April 29, 6:00pm Read this note). In EMEA we have 12 of the 20 filled (April 29, 6:00pm). See below for the who fills what slots when and which ones are still open (check out rules changes and clarifications for the explanation). Please note that if you’d like feel free to submit your entry (without times and dates) to a waiting list. We are going to do reference checks and if the references fail to check out, the entrants will be disqualified and the slot filled from the waiting list. Your call. Please note in your entry that you’re asking to be on the waiting list.

Human Being Additions

1. We’d like to welcome Barry Trailer, Managing Partner, CSO Insights.  Barry  along with partner Jim Dickie, are perhaps the two most influential individuals in the world of sales. Barry joins the CRM Idol Influencer Extended Judges Panel.
2. We would also like to welcome Michelle DeHaaff, Chief Marketing Officer of Attensity to the Vendors Extended Influencers Panel, Michelle has been around the social and CRM marketing world for well over a decade and has established herself as a real voice in the technology community.
3. Bruce Culbert, Chief Service Officer at the Pedowitz Group, a CRM industry pioneer and influencer joins Anthony Lye, Joe Hughes and Larry Augustin as a mentor to the finalists and winners.  Each mentor will provide a day where the finalists can communicate with them throughout the entire day to get advice, a critique, calm nerves, focus or whatever with these CRM veterans.  Bruce, already on the Influencers Extended Judges Panel has graciously volunteered a full day of his time to join these other leaders.
4. We’d like to welcome Alex Williams and Ramon Ray, both highly influential journalists in the social and small business world respectively to the Journalists Extended Judges Panel. Each of these stalwart gentlemen are powerful advocates of the use of social tools/channels in the business world. See below for the media partnership announcements.

New Prizes

1. Thanks to Jive Software for the addition of their prize which they are calling an Enterprise Launch Package:
   1. Free workshop with Mark Weitzel, Jive Apps developer evangelist and President of the OpenSocial foundation on how to socially enable your application with Jive's enterprise social graph
   2. 12 months free in Jive Apps Market (Jive waives their 25% revenue share)
   3. Free attendance and demo pod at JiveWorld 11 in Las Vegas on October 4th-6^th (1,500 enterprise attendees)

2. Thanks to Attensity for donating a free year of Attensity 360, their social media monitoring package, with 1 user and 5 topics.  Give them a huge round of applause, at least in your heads.
3. Primary Judge and CRM influencer, Denis Pombriant adds a free webinar to the prize list for the winners.  Cheers from all for this one.

New Media Partners

1. We’d like to welcome ReadWriteWeb, through their ReadWriteEnterprise property managed by Alex Williams (see above).  They are a powerhouse in the social world – and perhaps the most important and influential social property when it comes to understanding the enterprise. We are thrilled to have them onboard.
2. We’d also like to welcome SmallBizTechnology.com, the brainchild of small business power broker, Ramon Ray. They cut a wide swath through small business circles in North America and have an incredible reach.  We are lucky to have them.

Rules Changes and Clarification

1. Rather than “first come, first serve” on the times and “you’re out of luck” if the two times/dates you picked are already taken, we are going to be publishing the times and dates (see below) that are still available. For those who chose already taken dates/times, we’ve given them a single open date and time which they had the option of choosing or not. They’ve all taken the date/time available.
2. As we’ve seen the entrants register, several of the judges (including me) have had some sort of paid relationship with a small handful of the registrants. Each judge who has had that relationship can recuse themselves from the demo/evaluation and leave it to the other judges to make the evaluation. Those judges who make the evaluation will sign off on the evaluation that will be published the next day.

The Works in Progress

There is currently three works in progress which will be announced that are along with the continuing growth of prizes, media partners and panel selections.

1. The crmidol.com website (Joomla based) is being created.  Its going to be a bit before its live but it will be live and once live will be updated not only through the competition but ongoing.
2. There is a YouTube Channel that has been created that will be the home of the 7 finalists videos and prior to that, other videos that any entrant or interested party will be allowed to upload (with judges approval).  That will be announced soon along with the email address associated with it.
3. There will be a Facebook page devoted to CRM Idol also to be announced “soon.”

The Current Competition Calendar – Meet the Entrants

Okay, dudes and dudettes, here are your…current….candidates….for….C-R-M IDOL!!!!! (my best Ryan Seacrest) (cut to music).

The Americas (all times are Eastern Time)

Date
	August 15 3pm – PhaseWare 4pm – Performance Solutions 5pm – Solucciones 6pm – Jaguar TPM	August 16 3pm – Relenta CRM 4pm – LuxorCRM 5pm – thedatabank 6pm –Connected	August 17 3pm –Assistly 4pm – SplendidCRM 5pm – RO/Innovation 6pm - GreenRope	August 18 3pm – Cosential 4pm – Media Funnel 5pm – Tasker.ly 6pm – Aplicor	August 19 3pm -FreeCRM 4pm – Interactions Corp 5pm – Anthana LLC 6pm – Relayware
	August 22 3pm – Lookout Software, Inc. 4pm – InvisibleCRM 5pm – Negoxia 6pm -CiviCRM

August 23 3pm –Vigilius LLC 4pm – Hyperoffice 5pm – SalesNexus LLC 6pm – Salestrakr August 24 3pm – Brick St. Software 4pm – Stone Cobra 5pm – VIPorbit 6pm – Nimble August 25 3pm – Front Row CRM 4pm – GetSatisfaction 5pm – ContactMe 6pm – FuzeDigital August 26 3pm - bigWebApps 4pm – Loopfuse 5pm – Vertical Solutions, Inc. 6pm – Dovetail Software

EMEA (all times are GMT)

Date
	September 5 3pm - Swivelscript 4pm – InTouch 5pm - 6pm -	September 6 3pm - 4pm – B-Kin 5pm – Atollon 6pm -	September 7 3pm - Pipedrive 4pm – Akordis 5pm - 6pm -	September 8 3pm – Iko System 4pm – Zestia Ltd 5pm - Really Simple Systems 6pm -	September 9 3pm –The SelfService Co. 4pm – Digita Srl 5pm –ABCrm 6pm -

Thus….Available Times as of April 29 at 8:00 am ET

Americas (all ET)

• August 26 – 3pm

EMEA (all GMT)

• September 5 – 3pm, 5pm, 6pm
• September 6 – 3pm, 6pm
• September 7 – 5pm, 6pm
• September 8 – 6pm
• September 9 – 6pm

Please don’t bother to apply for any other times (which of course means that you’ll read the update notices on the original blog post to get to this one).  This is what is there.

Well, that’s the first update. More coming as soon as we’ve accumulated enough to update you on. Congratulations to those who have entered and the rest of you….get your butts in gear, slackers. You want to win right?