In one of his books, physicist Richard Feynman, shares a few stories about inventions he concocted as a young boy. Although they were rather ingenious (one was a potato slicer), they were quickly cast aside with irritation by the grown-up crowd, regardless of how useful they were. The moral of the story is that innovation is a very difficult thing in the real world.

Marketing automation solutions are built, top to bottom, beginning to end, with great detail. In the end, everything is measurable and gives a definite quantitative result. From there efforts can be fine-tuned and better-targeted. It's the great promise of marketing automation.

But all too often, the crucial marketing paper trail is either broken or muddied. The technology is never the problem. It's the people. And I mean that in the best way possible.

Old habits die hard. When new protocols are first put in place, it's easy to revert to the old methods, circumventing new processes.

Roles and responsibilities should be clearly defined. As a general rule, if it's not restricted, somebody will eventually do it. You don't want just anybody to upload lists of prospects or to have control of the prospect database.

All processes relevant to the prospect data should be clearly documented and should include methods for dealing with "other" cases that may not have been considered as part of the original solution.

The problem of wrangling your team into new daily habits and getting them to see the changes as part of a larger picture is not insurmountable. However, when building an innovative new system, it's easy to get lost in the details and forget this not-so-easy piece.

I've seen this issue rear its ugly head in organizations both large and small. We'd like to hear your stories of success (or trouble) in rolling-out a marketing automation system to your colleagues.

Comment below.