Social Business Tip: Social Infinity and beyond! #socbiz #ibmsocialbiz #ibmconnect #sxsw
To infinity and beyond! Since I was a math minor in college and so I saw the Infinity sign in my daily tasks and fell in love with it! Infinity is the unlimited extent of time, space, or quantity, or in plain English .... boundlessness.
Just on a POP note! Today it is one of the most popular necklaces because it represents endlessness ... (just ask my daughter who walked me through 4 cities looking for an infinity sign necklace that was in stock -- they are hard to find!) I am sure New Dimension has a lot to do with that!!!
Social Infinity: But in Social, it is money for your business because it represents the endless cycle of engagement with clients, and the knitting together of the employee and the client! The engaged employee is key.
Engaged employees are those who know the company’s values and are empowered to leverage those values with their partners and clients. They know their role and understand how to reach out to the right expert. These new social employee are about commitment and success.
An engaged employee yields an engaged Client!
This Engaged client is one who is attentive, interested, and active in their support for your brand, product, or company. The depth of their conversations online showcases their knowledge and care. They recommend and passionately advocate on your behalf in the blogosphere -- they become loyal Brand Ambassadors -- speaking on your behalf!
A brand ambassador is a person who is passionate about your brand and references you as a normal course of business usually done socially! And that makes you as a company a more desirable company! Becoming an infinite loop of success and money!!!
Addendum: The funny thing is I wrote this before my call with Janet Powers from the Women's Tool Box! And she had the exact same thoughts!!
Case Study: Create a great EVENT using Social! #ibmconnect #socbiz
I love to share case studies and here is one from our superstar IBM team in Europe! Mark Osborn's (@mark_osborn) leadership was the driver to a very successful joint Sales and Technical Education event .
He leveraged Social to drive all the core and key elements in the event:
- Ideation: Creation of the agenda based on the team's suggestions. First requests for topics were collected in an Activity. Common themes were organised into tracks and relevant speakers identified. Everyone voted for speakers and topics
- Continuous Improvement. The speakers could see the requirements from the team and posted draft agendas back to the Activity for comment, further honing their pitch.
- Realtime Reaction. During the event agendas and updates were made available via an event wiki.
- Immediate Usage. After the event speakers posted their presentations on Connections Files with the event tag, creating an event presentation feed. Several of our speakers, were virtual and presented via LotusLive & Sametime Web Meetings
- Best Social tools used! Leveraged IBM Connections
The team in Europe created a 'Ideation Blog'. This is a blog set up for using the collective intelligence of an entire team to create ideas and build upon each others thoughts. They took the suggested with the highest number of votes to create the agenda - there was a very high number of topics that were very popular!
And this was the Feedback from the team on this years event 97% satisfaction This demonstrates that the social approach to planning the event was not only highly effective, but created a much stronger sense of ownership with the participants, encouraging them to feed-back.
Social Business Coffee Break: Adoption Best Practice #6 - Evangelism! #socbiz
Happy Monday!
Today, we continue our 10 step Adoption best practice! Today we are going to focus on Adoption Step #6. Evangelism! The video below will go into details on how to do this to be effective in adoption throughout your organization and your clients.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooEKghzFqtA&feature=youtu.be]
#SXSW here we come! Sign up for ... #socbiz !
I LOVE Austin! As a former Austin resident, I relish the chance to visit any time and hope to make it my home again some day.
If you are new to visiting Austin, or are back again for South by Southwest (SXSW), you can never run out of places to see, eat, drink, shop and enjoy. Next week, I will have a blog focused on how to make the most of your SXSW visit providing you a list of some of the places that truly make Austin the crown jewel of Texas. It will mostly be focused on dining, but I will also include some not to miss shopping, outdoor favorites and places that help to "Keep Austin Weird."
A great place for unique Texas fare is Lambert's Downtown Barbecue. They serve up an original twist on BBQ in a vintage downtown Austin building with an uptown vibe.
Join me at Lambert's on Saturday, March 9, where I will be participating in a panel discussion called Just Add Followers -- The Key Ingredient to Telling Your Brand Story and Getting Results, along with Shoutlet and Bare Escentuals, moderated by TechCrunch. This should prove to be a very lively and interesting session! The details are below. It would be great if you could join us. Please come early as there is limited seating on a first come basis. http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5497186232#
Just Add Followers -- The Key Ingredient to Telling Your Brand Story and Getting Results
Gone are the days when brands used a brochure or static website to tell their story. Today, social media provides a platform where brands can communicate their story through the way they engage and interact with followers. And often, those interactions shape the brand in new ways, too. Join TechCrunch, IBM, Bare Escentuals and Shoutlet as we take a look at social storytelling and provide practical tips and tools for the job. You’ll hear a robust discussion on how to effectively manage online communities, listen to fans and impact buyer behaviors and preferences. More details here.
What: Panel Discussion with Shoutlet, IBM and Bare Escentuals, moderated by TechCrunch
When: Saturday, March 9 from 2:00 - 4:30 pm
Where: Lambert's Downtown BBQ -- 401 W 2nd St, Austin, TX 78701
The Scottish Qualifications Authority goes Social! #socbiz #ibmsocialbiz #ibmconnect
The Scottish Qualifications Authority- the body which creates and manages exams for Scotland's schools and further afield - have become a social business with the rollout of the first part of their Staff Social Portal - IBM Connections. Using Connections they are better able to communicate, collaborate and share information across their 800-strong workforce. Even before going live there were nearly 400 initial users, and 138 communities set up, dealing with work and socially-focused activities (like their ever-popular jogging club).
As I discussed with Rob Gibson, he commented " This has been a thoroughly enjoyable project from start to finish. We spent a lot of time researching how to best sell this type of solution to the organisation and then setting up an "Early Adopters" community to test the set up and iron out any issues before we opened up to everyone else.
The other main task for the Early Adopters was to populate the system and get the conversation going ahead of general opening. This created a substantial amount of momentum which we have carried on past the launch day. We started with around 15 Early Adopters and grew to nearly 400 in around three months (approximately half of the organisation).
The system is in full swing with all manner of conversations and networks being built. I am delighted with the overall response so far but we have some ideas about how we can reinvigorate the system should it require a helping hand in a few months time. We also have a planned upgrade to a future version of Connections later in the year. This will give users a great uplift and help to keep the interest levels high."
Twitter: fastest growing social platform +40% Q2 to Q4 2012 #socbiz #ibmconnect
Check out the new infographic from my favorite Global Webindex.
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 Business Coffee Break! Adoption BP #5 Social leadership! #socbiz
Happy Monday!
Welcome to our Social Business Coffee Break on one of my favorites! The importance of key leadership is crucial for great Adoption!
Tell me what you think!!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st3cgXVKDtw&feature=youtu.be]
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