Thanks, Lance.
Social CRM has become part of the mainstream discussion. There is an 800 page book on it (the 4th edition of my book, CRM at the Speed of Light), it has use cases (the Altimeter Group's report, released in March 2010, "The 18 Use Cases of Social CRM"). There was even a Social CRM Magic Quadrant released by Gartner in June 2010, where it was announced that Social CRM was to be a $1 billion segment of the CRM market in 2011 - a tad optimistically I think.
Whether or not you have a decided opinion on your definition of SCRM or not, the reason that vendors are being forced to respond to upward pressures from the market with what has been called social CRM functionality and features is not because of the companies that want SCRM but because the customers of those potential prospects want to engage more than ever with the companies that they are purchasing from and they are conversing about those companies in the channels that the companies don't control. What companies are looking for then, are:
