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!!!
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:
- 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!
- What I saw: Schools of fish being chased like...consumers banding together in communities, being chased by companies!
- 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.
- 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!
- 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!!!
Social Tip of the Day! What is Social Currency! #socbiz #ibmsocialbiz #ibmpartners
What is Social Currency? n. Value earned from the exchange of positive human interactions. Usually measured by Trust.
“Social currency” is replacing information as a key power driver of change. The concept of earned influence is more powerful than paid elements like advertising. Trustworthiness
is demonstrated by
- Following through on commitments
- Congruence in words and deeds – walking the talk
- Acting with integrity and honesty at all times
Trust earns your Social Currency. Remember social is about a relationship, not a broadcast or technology.
My recommendation is that you take your great relationship skills online. Focus on conscious, purposeful, mindful approach to managing relationships. Relationship is 2-way! So talk and listen, but listen first!!!
Ways to listen:
- Tweet scan
- Friend feed
- Technorati
- Backtype
- Boardtracker
- Google Alerts
- Google Blog Search
- Talkdigger
- Bloglines
What’s your social currency?
Social and BIG Data! #socbiz #ibmsocialbiz #bigdata #socialbusiness
I love the concept of systems of engagement and systems of record. These systems of engagement have a need for a diverse range of information from traditional systems of record to new sources such as social media, machine data and enterprise content.
How does Big Data enable this shift?
The new era of computing is built on a foundation of big data, where:
- All data is harnessed for its full potential to power new insights, policies and actions across the organization – both internally and externally.
Analytics helps you understand and anticipate, giving you the conviction to act
- Descriptive data describes ‘who” the customer is and typically refers to information such as age, billing address, preferred contact method etc, and often use geo-demographic information as well
- Behavioral data describes what a customer has acquired and refers to the raw transactions that the customer executes including orders, payments, usage etc, and how they use products and services. This also includes Sensor data from instrumented devices and systems, for example, your cellphone.
- Interaction data describes “how” the customer interacts through all the touch points including email, chat and the notes from contact centers – this typically includes a high proportion of unstructured data (enterprise content)
- Attitudinal data describes how customers think and feel - gives insight into the “Why” (i.e. motivation) – social media is a rich source of attitudinal data along with other sources such as surveys
To turn the mass of global conversations in social media into Useable Insights can improve results in marketing, sales, customer care, product development, and more
Smarter Workforce Uses Resume 2.0 #socbiz #smarterworkforce
A smarter workforce looks for Resume 2.0!
A company that demands a smarter workforce uses great techniques to acquire the best skill. Using innovative techniques to find the right people for the right roles, assessing culture fit before investing and offering compensation plans that motivate and build loyalty as well as the overall brand are attributes of this type of company.
Anyone who wants to work for a top company needs to work on their Resume – but Resume 2.0! 64% of employers are logging onto social networks to examine profiles of candidates.
So what does a Resume 2.0 look like? What should you think through?
- Professional-ize your image (your picture and working)
- Secure Yourname.com
- Make your e-mail @yourname.com
- Ensure your paper resume links to web -- mixed mode works best!
- Develop your own personal brand document to ensure all you do online fits that brand!
- Add a Twitter widget to bring freshness
- Add a Podcast on your capabitilities
- Video cast as video is the most trusted media
- Slideshow of your character and experience
- One of candidates sent me “The Brand of Jia” as her resume. It was amazing!
What else would you recommend if you are hiring people? What’s your best practice?
The Marble Effect! Build an Intentional Social Business Ecosystem! #ibmsocialbiz #socialbusiness #socbiz
The Marbles have 300% more surface area!! So what does this have to do with Social?
Your voice gets magnified the more people in your network. Your POV and listening impacts the best solution.
Take a look at this picture where you have a tiered Marble impact. The upper tiers have impact and have direct linkage and work with a Social Business Manager. The term “brand ambassador” has been a round for ages, but do we really want to create brand ambassadors? The analogy isn’t quite right. Nor do we want to put pressure on people to mindlessly share content on their personal networks. So you need a bit more of a nuanced approach. An intentional social enablement system!
IBM has been working on a bunch of different enablement tiers that create an ecosystem of social enablement for IBMers. Starting with a foundation of guidelines and policy – see our Social Business Coffee Break from yesterday blog post! – and moving up to general education about social media, cybersecurity and reputation for all IBMers in the Digital IBMer hub. From that tier, IBMers can move into the Forward Thinker Program which enables them to be surfaced on ibm.com and other external experiences – and also to be identified for the IBM Select program, which is a small group of high-tough, bespoke plan enablement for the top tier. All of this is managed by people from many different areas within IBM – the social business managers…we’re not suggesting that we create a whole department of social business managers, but this is definitely an emerging set of skills that people need!
I'd love your thoughts on this approach!!!
How do you balance Social and the Workday?
I love to multi-task and social really enables me to do more than one thing at a time.
However, the study by (Visual.ly) showed that
- The typical worker is interrupted once every 28 minutes on average.
- 28% of the average work day is spent on interruptions and recovery time.
- 45% of workers believe they are expected to work on too many things at once.
- And tasks done in parallel take on average 30% longer to complete than those performed in a sequence
So what are my secrets to getting more done with social:
- I schedule social time in. 15 minutes at the start of the day, middle and end so that I can focus on listening and learning.
- I plan my social calendar. On the weekend, I plan my blogs my subjects to focus on, and even the tools of the week.
- I focus on what's important with social analytics tools that help me sort through the rivers of information.
- I focus on the relationships and engagements.
- I love experimenting and look for surprises and learnings in everything (like see my last blog on the Ducks!) If you don't look, you won't see it!
What would you add?
Social Business Coffee Breaks: Adoption Best Practice 1 #socbiz #ibmconnect #ibmsocialbiz
We at IBM have a great set of Adoption Best Practices for companies both who are early adoptors and more advanced!
I will do a series of 10 of these each Monday! My goal is to help you with your adoption!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBaKXHEX9gE]
Social Business Hot Tip: It's not about age! #ibmsocialbiz #ibm #socbiz #marketing
Gang,
I hear all the time about the Gen Y in Social Business. They are really important! This new consumer group representing more than 95 million in the U.S. alone is referred to by the media as ‘Generation Y’. A retailer I talked to today called them the ‘Future of Retail.’
But they are not the only future of Social!!!
A fact! Did you know that there are 47.7 million adults 50-plus visiting Facebook in October of this year alone, according to ComScore. WOW! Did you know that the AARP is on the way to having over 1M members on Facebook?!
It is not about age but whether you are a digital immigrant learning or have an interest in social!
Advice:
- Target by Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants -- not by age!
- Look at behaviors not age
- Go personal!
- For example, millennials have the opportunity to become your loyal customer with literally the swipe of a finger. Doing things like offering free WiFi in stores, mobile checkout, free delivery and social sharing are just a few ways retailers can begin to attract this new consumer group.
- For example, according to AARP, they found that their fans, love anything that happens in the news. Anything current, timely and really visual works. For the last year, AARP has been focused on figuring out a way to tell interesting stories through photos and videos, because these types of posts perform four to five times better than others.
- Learn your audience!!
BlogHer -- Fiskar's Use of Fiskateers!!! Great social networking case study!
Fiskars! 360 year old brad is the second case study at BlogHer. Three talented women spoke: Angela Daniels,
Carrie Woodward, and Suzanne Fanning
How did social media start at Fiskars? They started with what do people think of when they think of the brand Fiskars. They wanted to build an emotional bond with Fiskars.
They decided to go after the passion about scrapebooking and sharing their lives. Fiskars used Brains on Fire to find 5 people that are passionate about scrapebooking. It was kind of like like American Idol!
They found 5 top women and brought them up to Fiskar to teach them about Fiskar's products. They met with all the key folks there and they were able to "play" with the materials for scraping! We got to see our business through their eyes. These women were so excited to see the building, the development, and it was that moment of seeing their excitement that I knew we had done the right thing!
Now, they paid their advocates because of the amount of time they would spend on this project of blogging about the Fiskars products. They paid them for 20 hours, but they loved it so much they did more than 80 hours. They were clear in their disclosure on the blog itself. They are not paid to positively blog about the company. They are paid to plan contests, crafts, and projects.
Interesting point to this case study. They created Fiskar- Teers! They gave these cool and different scissors -- so that even when someone didn't want to talk about the Social Network and Blogs on Fiskar, people would ask...where did you get those scissors? (Note over 60K comments about the coolness of the scissors!!)
The Fiskateer site launched in 2006! They wanted 200 people to talk about their products. They had 200 within the first 24 hours. 1100 by the end of 2006 and today they have over 6417 active Fiskateers -- 70 countries and all 50 States!!!
Gallery of pictures gets 11K comments, and 7K uploads of pictures of the work itself.
Fiskar increased their brand image a lot! 600x mentions in other sites outside their own site!!! WOW!
Fiskar started this as a PR action. However, now they use the information in product development, marketing, and service and support.
Another great case study! Stores that had Fiskar participants had 3x the sales for the company!!
They are using as well in some of their other areas. Examples included teacher community but not a special group.
Their best advice...they did this from the grassroots effort. They did a countdown to the FiskarTeer launch! They had 24K visits in the first day! What did they do to get people there? They did a grass roots effort. They reached out to those who were excited about their program.