As the final step in a closer look at Dydacomp/MultiChannel Order Manager, I attended the MOM User Conference in Chicago June 4th. This one day event was the first of its kind for Dydacomp, and long overdue. Turnout was quite strong – approx. 100 MOM users as well as a dozen sponsor and panel participants.
For many if not most attendees, this was the first face-to-face contact with Dydacomp staff – a welcome relationship-building step that was not lost on both groups. It was a good reminder that a simple “high touch” outreach effort is still appreciated in the low touch era of Internet communications that we are accustomed to.
This sentiment was reinforced by Fred Lizza, Dydacomp President, who spoke about a introducing a culture of openness since taking office 18 months ago. As you would expect, the words he chose in describing this culture change (e.g. “pro-active” versus “reactive”) resonated quite positively with users.
He also highlighted how, from a design standpoint, Dydacomp continues to open up the MOM software platform as well. As an example, one speaker – a MOM user – spoke openly about choosing the Magento shopping cart (over Dydacomp’s proprietary SiteLink). He cited open source and flexibility as the reasons for his decision.
Tim Parry from Multi-Channel Merchant set the stage as the keynote speaker. Social media, as always, was front and center. Tim repeated a warning (from Forrester Research) about Facebook that dramatized what I and many other marketers share:
“There was a lot of anticipation that Facebook would turn into a new destination, a store, a place where people would shop. But it was like trying to sell stuff to people while they’re hanging out with their friends at the bar.”
Tim also cited his own caution about the Facebook challenges in targeting and privacy issues.
Two senior development staff from Dydacomp – Kevin Loo and John Wu – led discussions about coming MOM features and functions. In particular, an e-Commerce Channel Manager module captured significant interest. This approach, beginning with Miva, is meant to integrate MOM with more Internet platforms – and of course furthering the openness initiative. In terms of favorite things, Sitelink seemed to get a favorable review from 2 of the 4 user representatives in a panel discussion – principally for its real time update capabilities.
Other conference sessions were targeted toward report writing details and SiteLink-specific interests. Surprisingly, recent Dydacomp “bumps in the road” (with license verification bugs) mentioned in my earlier blog did not come up for discussion. Indeed, the only random topics that seemed to generate groans included Quickbooks integration, and inventory reconciliation.
Audience inquiries about a timetable for MOM to release a web-hosted SaaS product were addressed by Fred Lizza at least twice: basically, no announcement can be made. Lizza offered that SaaS is where the industry is going, and investments are being made, but nothing more can yet be said.
A final congratulations offered by a participant to the Dydacomp staff -“the conference was a real winner” – brought universal applause. I believe this sentiment signaled that, with conferences of this type, MOM users feel they will now be heard, valued, and understood.
