The Rewards of Co-Creation

Clearing out the kitchen cupboard where I throw all my papers this week, I came across an IBM proposal dated November 1997 outlining how they could help me with the Customer Information Programme I was running at the time - for a mutual organization as it happens.  As I’m a great believer in serendipity, I had to wonder why this particular document had suddenly decided to reveal itself?

Flicking though its pages the names of the wide variety of people I worked with so closely on that ground breaking work brought back memories: the collaborative mix of IT and business skills; the innovative ideas from outside that we shaped to our own business needs; the smiles and tears, success and politics.  Some names, I still know well others I’ve completely lost touch with.  However, I’d like to thank Merlin Stone, Andrew Law, Derek Starling, Pete De’Giovanni, Chris Atkinson, Kate Lennard, Leslie Ross, and Alistair Stevenson for all their support and guidance.  The results of the work we did ten years ago has travelled the world and been the base of good CRM practices in many companies.

And if you’re goggling your names and find this, and we’ve lost touch, do send a hello, I’d like to tell you what happened to all our ideas!!