Social drives a new set of skills - not what you know but can you find the expert who knows? #ibmsocialbiz #socbiz #ibmconnect
Interesting thought that came up today in discussion on Social in Education.
Is Social completely changing the "value" of skills? For instance, it used to be that the value was on what you knew. Classes focused on memorizing data, and reading lots of data.
Today, with smart mobile and social sites, it seems to have shifted to can you find the data? Do you know the right expert to ask? Do you know the right questions to ask?
Thoughts? And if you agree, how does this change the way we educate?
First Test Of ‘Interplanetary Internet’ -- Thanks to Ray Hammond! #socbiz #ibmsocialbiz #ls13 #mobile
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have used an experimental version of the interplanetary Internet to control an educational rover from the International Space Station. The experiment used NASA’s Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) protocol to transmit messages and demonstrate technology that one day may enable Internet-like communications with space vehicles and support habitats or infrastructure on another planet. Space station Expedition 33 commander Sunita Williams used a NASA-developed laptop to remotely drive a small LEGO robot at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. The European-led experiment used NASA’s DTN to simulate a scenario in which an astronaut in a vehicle orbiting a planetary body controls a robotic rover on the planet’s surface.
www.rayhammond.com
Small Business adoption of #SocBiz - Advice for Small Businesses and Social! #ibmsocialbiz #ibm #smb
Yesterday we showcased a small business using social in the restaurant business. This use of social in SMB is growing.
According to Laurie McCabe (http://twitter.com/lauriemccabe,) SMB adoption of social media did indeed jump, from 44% to 53% among small businesses (and from 52% to 63% among medium businesses from 2011 to 2012, based on trending analysis in our SMB Social Business Studies. The divide between social media haves and have-nots is also growing: our research reveals that 65% of SMBs that use social business tools anticipate revenue gains, while only 17% of “non-social” SMBs expect revenues to increase.
Cloud, social and mobile trends continue to reshape how channel partners must deliver value across the board. SMBs are increasingly choosing to purchase directly from software and cloud vendors in most areas. And Managed Service Providers (MSPs) have gained ground as a purchase channel over VARs in several solution areas, including security, BI and collaboration. The need for more specialized business and/or technology expertise has also made some types of channel players more relevant in each specific solution category than others.
Actions for Small Businesses:
- Start Social! Social can make a small company big! Take for instance, Richard Scott Salon and Day Spa.
They aggressively market their services and expertise through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Foursquare. His comprehensive integrated marketing embeds trust with every client. He has done no print ad for 1.5 years; but has had a tremendous growth in new clients. He will do a print ad this December with links to social tools and a QR code!
Listen and form relationships. Don't market! Social is about a relationship -- not a sales transactional event. Do what you do best! Form relationships. Share expertise. I love the Dry Cleaner in NYC who has focused his twitter page on getting out stains and his POV on cleaning!
Be Focused. To be successful, you must keep up the content and the conversation. Make sure you are driving the right level of content on a regular basis!
Social Business Coffee Break featuring a SOCIAL Restaurant! #ibmsocialbiz #socbiz #ibm #ibmmobile
I tend to get a lot of questions about the non large clients who are doing social! This is a great example of a restaurant that is a Grade A in Social!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBBME56oD1A&feature=youtu.be]
Cool Thanksgiving Infographic and my favorite recipe for the season!! #socbiz #ibmsocialbiz #ibm #thanksgiving #turkey
Recipe:
Sweet Potatoe Casserole
4 cans sweet potatoes
1 cup sugar
½ stick margarine
½ cup milk
4 tsp vanilla
2 eggs beaten
Mix all the ingredients together and then pour into greased dish. Top with the topping tomorrow. Cook at 350 for 45 minutes.
Topping:
1 cup chopped pecan
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup flour
½ stick margarine
A Christmas card before Thanksgiving? 3 Social Listening Questions to think through #socbiz #ibmsocialbiz
Holidays!
OK, I love my holidays! All of them and we celebrate and decorate for all of them at my house. My kids love the energy and excitement and learning about each.
But this weekend, I received my first Christmas card. While I LOVE getting Christmas cards, this one came before Thanksgiving. A bit out of order for my tastes! By the way, my friend isn't the only one out of order! Every store I have been in is already playing Christmas music!
Social Listening before Social Action!
Well, in social, many companies do the same as my friend did -- Go out of order -- they develop a strategy to "place" information into the blogosphere before they listen In any relationship, listening should proceed talking! So that are the best listen first.
Leading organizations are using social business technology to positively disrupt their industries and create competitive advantage and they begin by understanding the thoughts that their clients, employees, and influencers say about them. Organizations are now moving from “liking” – simply using social technology for basic communication, to leading – where they are applying social listening tools and culture to fundamentally change their core business processes, leading to positive disruption within their organizations and their industries. These organizations know that listening is a key first step!
Why Social Listening is so important
We all see that there is an unprecedented amount of data being gathered at every meaningful touchpoint about each customer. The best brands among us are very strategic about which touchpoints get instrumented, and what kind of data emerges as the result—not just from the touchpoints under the marketing function’s control, but all touchpoints the company has.
Question to ask: what is our instrumentation strategy on social listening?
The most skilled companies are combining social data, other Web-based data and transaction data—and running precise analytics over them to gain new kinds of insights. In this world, the path to success is largely dependent on having comprehensive access to the data you need to formulate these insights, and strategies to discern the veracity of that data.
Question to ask: what is our strategy for attracting data?
Armed with that strategy, we will be able to see a time when our understanding becomes predictive. What is the customer’s next likely move—so we can appropriately pair our response with the next best offer, next best action, next need.
Question to ask: how predictive must our insights about customers be to succeed in our competitive market?
I believe that these 3 questions are crucial to execute a successful Social strategy! They begin with understanding through listening. Doing things in the right order!
Pinterest drives more traffic to retail sites than google +, linkedin and youtube combined. #ibmsocialbiz #socbiz #ls13 #ibmconnect
I love Pinterest! Have you tried it? Did you know that
Pinterest drives more traffic to retail sites than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ri__4Zjgwg&feature=youtu.be]
Getting Social in 2013: Three Great Resources to Get You Started
The new year is fast approaching, so here are three great resources to help your company get off to a fast start in 2013:
First, at IBM we're gearing up for our big event of the year, Connect 2013 in Orlando. This is an exciting event where we're really digging into the crux of social business. Sure, we'll spend some time talking technical details, but we'll really focus in on the transformational power of social. This event is an amazing learning experience for any organization looking to get into social and equally as informative for those companies who are in the transformational process. Subject mater experts, real life success stories, technical demonstrations, transformations before your very eyes, all under one roof! I encourage you all to check out more details, this is the event of the year for social business.
Next, TODAY is an exciting day! Today at bookstores nationwide, as well as at all major online retailers, including Amazon.com, there's a new book that provides you with the ultimate playbook for transforming into a social business. Socialized!: How the Most Successful Businesses Harness the Power of Social, by Mark Fidelman, is a must read for any organization, small and large, thinking about jumping into social. Mark covers all the necessary components of a successful social business, from cultural implications, engagement challenges, measuring ROI and more.
Included in the book is an in depth case study on IBM's own social business journey. Mark chronicles the organization's use of social software to foster collaboration among our dispersed 433,000 person team -- a practice that began long before Generation Y became fixated with social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. It's really a tremendous use case in social and its impact on a global workforce.
Hats off to Mark for writing a truly exceptional illustration of what social business can do for an organization!
And finally, there's another book I highly suggest you get your hands on and buy for your product management team. Opting In: Lessons in Social Business from a Fortune 500 Product Manager by IBM's Ed Bill is available for pre-order now, expected for release on January 20. This is the ultimate educational resource for all those product managers who have either ignored social or don't see the value in engaging to get their job done. Ed provides a first person account of how he has used IBM's social business platform to help develop some of IBM's most innovative products for our clients. Your product team needs this book, another must read!
I invite you to take advantage of these three great social business resources now at your disposal. I hope to see you at IBM Connect 2013 in Orlando and be sure to pick up Socialized and Opting In to read on the plane down!
7 Things I learned from 10 days without power! #social #sandy
Here are my ahas! from living with the effects of Sandy (no, no me but the storm!)
1. Game night is ON and slumber parties rock! And they are great family bonding time! We loved the game nights but never had time! Now with no TV -- we had the time. Slumber night was fun! It was a real bonding experience!
2. I love my flashlight! Yep, I bugged my hubbie to prepare but I ended up buying the flashlights, and lights to illuminate the house. I ended up carrying it with me everywhere! Be prepared if this could happen to you!
3. I missed writing in my diary. As a young girl, I used to write in my diary daily! I have books and books of them! With the extra time, and no power but light. I wrote down my thoughts about the day, life, and more. It was a great exercise and very calming!
4. Innovation is alive! Cooking eggs on a grill? New spaghetti dishes from a microwave? yes, innovative food is a must during the event with little power -- and a grill to cook on .. but we did have a generator that we used for one room! You learn to appreciate your full kitchen!
5. Lines are frustrating but you meet new people in them!. During the power outage, we had lines for gas, lines for restaurants, lines for lines! While this added to the frustration, we met some cool people. And people really come together in a disaster!
6. I had withdraws from Social !! I could only go online at work. So my tweets, my blogs were done only in the day. I missed my online friends and the news available via Facebook.
7. I really really missed all the conveniences. I didn't realize until after the third day of fun with the family, how much I missed the basics. We are very blessed to have these daily and we do not even think about it!
2/3 not sure they understand the benefits of Social - Do you?! #ibm #ibmsocialbiz #socbiz #ibv
IBM surveyed 1,160 business and IT professionals to understand the state of social business adoption to take a pulse on how organizations are tapping the power of social technologies to advance business objectives. From the IBV survey, 2/3 of respondents were not sure they sufficiently understood the impact that social technologies would have on their organizations over the next three years. Check it out here!
I really want to help all companies on this one. This POV is from working with 1000s of clients. I'd love to know if this helps you!
A social business transforms itself by activating networks of people. Whether through online communities and meetings,
team spaces, blogs, wikis, profiles or other social tools, people can explore new ways to build and leverage their networks
beyond those dictated by traditional organizational structures or means of communication. Information also becomes more
transparent and accessible, opening up new wells of knowledge and expertise. As a result, people can be more efficient in their
tasks and more responsive, authentic and familiar in their interactions. In turn, the organization as a whole becomes
increasingly nimble, engaged and creative.
The key to implementing social software is to set clear, realistic objectives for your social business initiatives and to embed
social tools into existing role-based processes.
The end point for your organization includes the following:
• Enable an effective workforce: Operations, human resources and other departments can increase overall employee
productivity and job satisfaction through improved knowledge capture, expertise location, and collaboration. Travel, training
and teleconferencing expenses also can be reduced.
• Accelerate innovation: Product research and development teams can quicken internal idea sharing and discovery, as well
as transform how they generate ideas, share strategies and gather feedback from key customers and partners.
• Deepen customer relationships: With more immediate access to content and expertise, customer service representatives can
work more efficiently and provide higher-quality service. Marketing and sales teams can have more time to spend with
customers and to dedicate to customer-focused initiatives.
From the McKinsey Study, there are measureable results.
