One Week Before Black Friday .. did you know Social's role?
Holiday season is upon us! Black Friday is one week away. I am already planning my Thanksgiving dinner, my Christmas cards and caroling, and New Year's Plans!
So let's start thinking about this holiday season!
Did you know that people use social differently during the holiday weeks?
They increase their searches on social networks around products and potential gifts, recipes, and fun. This typically occurs starting now through early January. Their use of mobile goes up using the mobile device to show online and compare when they go into the store.
And don't discount Twitter it plays such a role! So get ready!!!
Top 3 Social Media Accidents and how to avoid them!
I was driving home tonight and had to avoid a highway due to an accident. It got me thinking about how to avoid Social Accidents.
The Three Most Common Social Accidents:
1. Talking only about your offering, service, product. Social media is about forming relationships and every relationship is about both listening and speaking!. Did you know that you can spot a healthy relationship by paying attention to how well the two people listen to each other!. Don't have an accident and have everyone avoid you by only talking and not listening. Share other's content and promote others' ideas as well as your own.
Action: If you communicate 6 things socially, 4 of those 6, or 67% should be showcasing content from your influencers. The other items you should be showcasing are your Point of View or Subject Matter Expertise . Something of value!
2. Being inconsistent. What an accident occurs when you have a professional picture on LinkedIn but a causal beach pic on your facebook? Be consistent with your brand just as you would consistently in person. Remember, every experience with your brand is non neutral so make each one count toward your brand goal.
Action: Think through purposefully what you want your brand to stand for. Always ask "is what I am doing right now consistent with that brand value"
3. Not having a social media policy. Companies who do not have a policy usually do not have strong employee usage of social because no one knows what they can and cannot do. A policy empowers employees to speak on your brand's behalf. And employees are your biggest brand ambassadors!
Action: Create a Social Computing Policy! Check out IBM's! http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html
What a Social Media First Aid Kit would look like ...
I went to pick up my daughter tonight at basketball practice, and I spotted a First Aid Kit. Inside were the right tools, an instruction training manual of what to do when, and medicines with a timetable of when to take them.
It got me thinking about what would be in a Social Business First Aid kit! Here's my top 3!
1. The Right Tools based on what you are trying to cure!! If your social strategy is not working, you need to check out the tools you are using. For instance, Pinterest tends to be very image focused , Google + tends to be more used by men, and LinkedIn tend to be focused on business users. Knowing who you are trying to attract and add value too, is critical for success.
2. Skills and training. I think it is essential to have your team training on social. Lunch and learns, learning by experimentation, and other ways are required to execute a successful strategy.
3. Ways to listen and determine key influencers . Just like a stethoscope and thermometer signals where there are good signs or a problem, every social strategy must include a way to Listen and to determine the right influencers to engage. I have been playing with several tools lately to engage the right audience like Klout.com, Communi.it and others. Commun.it even suggests the right doses and timings for interactions.
Here's a real case study from IBM on these 3 elements!
In IBM, our ibm.com team must attract a high volume of leads from a new set of customers. Since Social has become a tool for getting information on products and services, we wanted to explore how to leverage word of mouth.
We determined that for a focused product, that Twitter and LinkedIn were tools these buyers used most frequently. For instance, after a Twitter search or deeper conversation in a LinkedIn group or forum, potential buyers might ask companies for more information, but they also often turn to their peers, other clients and trusted advisors.
So our ibm.com team decided to go social. Our inside sellers drove prospects to their Rep Pages –- personalized ibm.com pages that play a “virtual business card” role for inside sellers. These pages have relevant information to clients, enhance the relationship, and give clients one-click access to interact with their reps.
After training on how to engage and nurture potential clients, the ibm.com team built Twitter profiles to establish a presence in the social networking world. The ultimate objective of this pilot was for sellers to use social media to add value to conversations and build a pipeline of leads.
We (IBM) also worked to identify the most prominent influencers in the our space, so sellers could then follow them and comment on or retweet their posts and learn and connect. We developed a unique engagement strategy for each influencer, based on their activity and what they were saying.
To make it easy to maintain their Twitter presence, sellers also have a social message calendar, accessible via the feed reader function within Lotus Notes. The calendar features time-sensitive messages reps can tweet, with enough content for three tweets a day.
Over a 7 month period, these ibm.com teammates increased their Twitter followers by 5X
In the first two weeks of this effort, sellers’ Rep Page visits rose by 106 percent –thanks to a systematic pattern of Twitter mentions. The sellers reached 1.9 million contacts.
As we move ahead, social selling success will be reflected by the rep’s Klout score, which gauges influence in the social world, an increase in the number of direct Twitter followers, and relationships developed with key influencers.
ABCs of Exceptional Digital Experience!
One of my top questions that I am getting from my clients is what does an exceptional digital experience look like?
An exceptional digital experience delivers a compelling, relevant, empowering, and consistent experience across multiple touch points breaking through the silos of multi-channel interactions and drawing customer insights to ensure a company is exceeding customer expectations and aligned with rapidly changing interaction preferences of customers.
Here are the 3 ABCs that I begin my client discussions with!
Autonomy: This attribute is both a digital and attitude focus. Autonomy changes how employees view customers–and how customers view employees. For instance, at the Ritz Carlton for many years have given their staff $2,000 of discretion (yes, this is per employee per guest) to be used to solve any customer challenge in the manner the employee feels is appropriate. Digitally this means that you need to enable Autonomy. Top performing companies spend more on empowering their workforces with mobile devices than the rest. And since 81% of purchasers get advice from their social network, there is a requirement to participate in social networks and support audience communities.
Bold Personalization: 83% of customers say they are more likely to do business with brands that allow them to personalize and control where, when and how they interact through their preferred channel combinations. And customers are willing to spend up to 20 minutes configuring a personal profile in exchange for better experience. Personalization techniques focus on understanding the customer, context, location, and device to customize content, offers, products, and even site layout
Compelling and Consistent. Part of being compelling today is the ability to understand customers and employees as individuals. 84% of businesses today are using web analytics. Bringing together the right set of capabilities to reach and understand the digital user is now the new norm. In addition, there is a requirement to deliver an immersive experience of interactive information to drive compelling offers.
Consistency must exist across the multiple channels that clients use. When we interact through all of these different channels, we expect that the business is thinking about experience – not just in a single channel at a point in time but holistically as we interact across the channels to complete whatever it is we are trying to do. We EXPECT that a site will be relevant if we get to the site from a banner ad or search term. We EXPECT that the profile we set up online is the same profile for the mobile application. And, we get a little annoyed when we have to repeat all of our information to the customer service representative after already entering it all through the phone keypad.
These ABCs require a great combination of strategy, culture, and technology.
The Gap in skills for mobile, social, analytics continues! VBlog!
Skills have been quite the topic lately. Why? We have such skills gaps that any great company must really address the challenge, with the industry.
Here's the results of the study that show the gaps! Read last week's blogs for IBM's focus with the academic universities in security and analytics!
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Trifecta of IBM announcements: Cyber Security Skills Infographic
Bridging the Cyber Security Skills Gap
We all know about the war for talent and one big gap is in security. Today we(IBM) are announcing that we are adding 11 academic collaborations to its more than 200 partnerships with universities across the globe, focusing on cyber security.
I was looking at some stats from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and this field of cyber security is expected to grow by 22%. Especially with the Cloud , and data in mobile environment, this experience will become one of the most crucial!. A UK government report said that it may take 20 years to address the current cyber security skills gaps.
The IBM Academic Initiative (yes, part of my new role!)
As part of IBM's Academic Initiative, we are launching new curriculum and programs focusing on cyber security with Ballarat University in Australia, Fordham University, Georgia Institute of Technology, San Jose State University, Technische Universität Darmstadt in Germany, Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore, Universidad Cenfotec in Costa Rica, Universiti Kebangsaan in Malaysia, The University of South Carolina, University of Texas at Dallas, and Wroclaw University of Economics in Poland.
IBM's Cyber Security Innovation Program:
With all the gaps in skills, we have worked to design and facilitate collaboration with educators around the globe to teach students cyber security skills needed to be competitive in a rapidly changing work environment. As part of the Cyber Security Innovation Program, we will provide:
- Technology & Tools: Including access to IBM software portfolio through the IBM Academic Initiative and donated network scanners for use in research labs to monitor intrusions.
- Course Materials: Including a Skills Taxonomy with links to appropriate online pages on Academic Initiative, examples of university programs, security and IT services curriculum, publications and trend reports, as well as case studies and real world challenges
- Faculty Awards: Given to faculty with winning proposals about how to incorporate IBM technology into its curriculum and share what they build with other universities worldwide
IBM Announcement: The new Watson Ecosystem!
Today represents a milestone in the IBM Watson journey: the IBM Watson Ecosystem!
As you may recall, the Watson Technology is at the forefront of the next generation of cognitive computers: systems that can mine vast amounts of structured and unstructured data and share insights using natural language. Now, through the IBM Watson Ecosystem, you will have the opportunity to leverage this technology in the Cloud to build your own disruptive applications. We are initially focusing on the healthcare, travel and retail industries (in English language) but will be expanding this over time.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRMevlv673M&w=560&h=315]
So, how exactly can you partner with us to develop ground-breaking solutions?
We offer three options:
1) Application partners can leverage the Watson Developer Cloud to build solutions using the IBM Watson technology
2) Content partners can deliver knowledge and expertise through the Watson Content Store
3) Partners with strong skills in the areas the Watson Ecosystem covers can offer these through the Watson Talent Hub.
Organizations that are interested in collaborating with IBM to develop Watson-powered applications can learn more here.
Winning the war for Skills: IBM Announcement Analytics Talent Assessment
Last week, IBM co-hosted the Big Data & Analytics EdCon event (with Syracuse University School of Information Studies (iSchool) and University of Ottawa Telfer School of Mgmt), bringing together leading academic thinkers who are pioneering curriculum in the Analytics space. All are wrestling with how to strike the right balance among interdisciplinary topics to achieve the right blend of market-ready skills in their students.
Data is exploding!
We all experience the explosion of data from my fav social to sensors in factories. Due to this explosion,all companies need more data scientists, analytics professionals and Big Data trained decision makers who can not only crunch data, but turn it into effective strategy.
Creation of a skill gap.
There is a widely-discussed skills gap between the growing number of jobs being created to support Big Data & Analytics and the available talent pool to fill these jobs.This "skills gap" is a significant concern across industries. Our research uncovered a dramatic gap in analytics skills, with only 1 in 10 organizations believing it has the skills it needs to be successful.
Collaborate to win!
To narrow this gap, IBM is collaborating with more than 1,000 academic partners to develop curriculum that reflects the mix of technical and problem-solving skills that is necessary to prepare students for Big Data and analytics careers, across all industries.IBM has a unique, hands-on model for collaborating with universities to build degrees and coursework from the ground up via the Academic Initiative ( this is part of my new role as the IBM General Manager of Ecosystem Development! )
- We provide schools with access to IBM Big Data and analytics software
- We help faculty develop curriculum materials
- We build case study projects for students based on real-world business challenges
- We offer IBM experts who visit classes as guest lecturers
- We make available faculty awards, whose funding fuels new coursework on Big Data and analytics
- Faculty members become part of a global community of educators working together to educate the next generation
Announcing the Analytics Talent Assessment!
The Analytics Talent Assessment offers insight from IBM clients (see the press release below showcasing both Boeing and Nationwide) on what analytics skills drive positive business outcomes.
Using the IBM Analytics Talent Assessment, university students can now gauge their readiness for public and private sector Big Data and analytics careers and gain guidance on ways to develop and position themselves for these in-demand jobs through a simple online questionnaire.
The eight universities piloting the assessment (Fordham University, George Washington University, Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Massachusetts Boston, Northwestern University, The Ohio State University, Southern Methodist University and the University of Virginia) are pioneers teaching Big Data & Analytics skills"
-- Fordham's dual track degrees, which are designed to train marketing analytics professionals
-- GWU's career-track courses support fields such as sports and marketing
-- IIT integrates Big Data and Analytics courses in their Stuart School of Business
-- UMass Boston offers an undergraduate and a graduate concentration in Business Intelligence
-- Northwestern University offers an MS in Analytics as well as an online MS in Predictive Analytics
-- The Ohio State University is partnering with IBM Academic Initiative to develop undergraduate and graduate big data and analytic programs
-- SMART projects with schools like SMU bring bring together a commercial entity with a real world problem that students can then apply analytic skills to solve
-- University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce offers an undergraduate Business Analytics track and they continue to broaden their Big Data and Analytic programs.
This focus is essential for winning the war for talent. With the access of the technology and expertise for the assessment, this initiative provides the insight into today's state-of-the-art curricula, and provides the client insight, technology, and proven outcomes these skills can drive.