New "Thumb" for #socbiz Collective Intelligence! #ibmsocialbiz

Thumb is based on the concept of crowd sourcing.  Crowd sourcing is tapping the collective Intelligence which leverages the wisdom of the crowd to generate new ideas and to refine ideas that exist, as well as vote on the “best” idea.

Thumb uses personal crowdsourcing.    For example, my daughter doesn’t know what to match with her new skinny jeans.  She can upload a pic to Thumb and then use collective intelligence to source the best match.

It appears like even simple questions typically generate hundreds of thumbs up or thumbs down, plus comments, sometimes within minutes.

The site has very high engagement of its users with 4 hours a month of use by its members, which is second only to Facebook!

Have you tried it?  Your kids?!


Diving in Bonaire: 5 lessons of the coral reef & the Social Ecosystem! #ibmsocialbiz #socbiz

Last week I was on vacation and finally got to dive in Bonaire!  We went with Bob from http://vipdiving.com!  They were great.  Even though I had a back injury, they helped me tremendously to dive safe and took us to 2 amazing dive sites!!!  I'd highly recommend them to you!!!!

So what did we see on these dives?   I saw tons of turtles, eels, barracuda, flounder, and colorful coral reef.    But my favorite was a first for my dives ... I saw my first seahorse there!  He was a bit red, cool, and incredible.   Though I didn't get a pic, here's one from a pro that looks just like my sea horse!!!

Bonaire-CJE-2011-13603-Seahorse

YEA!!!!

But while I was diving I was thinking about the social ecosystem!!  (Folks like Dachis, Jeremiah Owyang in the past have done the same!!!)

A few of my thoughts:

  1. What I saw:   Seahorses hanging on for dear life like ... many companies struggling with Social.   They cling to the past.   We need to see that social is now a part of the business system.  I'd love to help you embrace it!
  2. What I saw:    Schools of fish being chased like...consumers banding together in communities, being chased by companies!
  3. What I saw:     My guide searching for fish we had not seen like... companies approaching social in a focused way.   Adding value, searching not for the masses but those consumers that matter to their business.
  4. What I saw:      Tons of turtles having fun in the sea but working hard too.  (Did you know that that marine turtles actively, and intentionally, remove algae from coral reefs)  like:  a great social analytics engine to remove the "stuff" that doesn't matter, and helps you identify what does!
  5. What I saw:    Lots of color and coral formed overtime like a great community platform (IBM Connections!) that enables the different social networks to form!  These tools are important and the security they provide enhances results!

Yes, I know many of you ask "do I ever stop thinking about Social?"   Ummmmm....no!!!