Big Data & Social Analytics are a powerful multiplier in predicting & preventing acts of violence

In the US, we have experienced some acts of violence. As President Obama stated shortly after a recent tragedy, “We won’t be able to stop every violent act, but if there is even one thing that we can do to prevent any of these events, we have a deep obligation, all of us, to try.”

What if there was a new emerging technology that has proven that some of these violent acts can be detected and prevented before they occur? 

Over the past eight weeks, several violent acts on school campuses throughout the United States & Canada have been successfully stopped through the use of “Social-Network-Intelligence-Policing”.  For example, last week at City University New York in Staten Island, a student was arrested after threatening to shoot and kill students at the CUNY campus in Brooklyn, New York.[i]  No students or faculty were injured.  On February 8th, 2013 in Kerns, Utah a high school student was arrested after he threatened to blow up his high school.  School police checking out the threat found a photo of explosives and put the school on lock down.[ii]  No students or faculty were injured.  On February 5th, 2013 in Murrieta, California a high school student threatened to kill his teacher.  The student was arrested before he could carry out his planned attack.[iii]

Research data shows that individuals, or groups of individuals who plan to conduct violent acts, most likely will post their intentions or a manifesto on public (non-private) social network sites just prior (8 – 72 hours) to initiating these violent acts or attacks. A small window of time exists where law enforcement and school faculty can legally monitor, detect and interdict these events before they occur.

In all three of these recent cases, the GEOCOP System (www.geocop.com) alerted law enforcement or school faculty to these emerging violent acts before they occurred.  GEOCOP stands for Geospatial-Common-Operations-Picture and it fuses social network monitoring and analytics services with geospatial data to give law enforcement predictive insights into emerging threats and events.

The recent emergence of “Big Social Network Data Monitoring, Analytics and Collaboration” technologies provide law enforcement and government agencies a powerful and legal force multiplier in predicting and preventing acts of violence on our school campuses.  Several State Police agencies across the United States use this system.  The GEOCOP system is another fantastic example where innovation and enterprise social network technologies are making a real difference in protecting our children and school campuses.


[i] http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/cuny_slay_threats_nZzeA3eQZCSORE3tZuKdBL?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20Local

[ii] http://www.nbc11news.com/news/nationalnews/headlines/Police-Student-to-face-felony-for-Twitter-threat-190389291.html

[iii] http://murrieta.patch.com/articles/student-arrested-for-alleged-online-threat-against-vista-murrieta-high-schoolteacher#comments_list

Note – The GEOCOP Solution is owned by Global Technologies Solutions (GTS Corporation) and is exclusively sold by HMS TECHNOLOGIES CORP.  The GEOCOP and TACTrend Solutions are built on IBM’s Social Business Software Technologies which include WebSphere Portal, SameTime, IBM Connections and IBM Analytics Technologies.

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http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/cuny_slay_threats_nZzeA3eQZCSORE3tZuKdBL?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20Local

[1] http://www.nbc11news.com/news/nationalnews/headlines/Police-Student-to-face-felony-for-Twitter-threat-190389291.html

[1] http://murrieta.patch.com/articles/student-arrested-for-alleged-online-threat-against-vista-murrieta-high-schoolteacher#comments_list

Note – The GEOCOP Solution is owned by Global Technologies Solutions (GTS Corporation) and is exclusively sold by HMS TECHNOLOGIES CORP.  The GEOCOP and TACTrend Solutions are built on IBM’s Social Business Software Technologies which include WebSphere Portal, SameTime, IBM Connections and IBM Analytics Technologies.


Social Business Tip of the Day: Sentiment Matters! #socialbiz #ibmsocialbiz #ibmconnect

What is Sentiment?  Per the Free Online Dictionary, Sentiment is the measurement of  thought, view, or attitude, especially one based mainly on emotion instead of reason.   So really, a view on whether someone is positive or negative about a company, brand, or idea that is in the blogosphere.

Sentiment is the way that people view what you are doing either positively or negatively.   A Social Business needs to be able to analyze sentiment and filter by concepts, hot words and media sets to have a complete comparative analysis by comparing positive, negative, neutral, or ambivalent sentiment.

Sentiment Analysis helps a Social Business make evidence-based messaging decisions with analysis into consumer and stakeholder sentiment.   It adds value in assessing  precision trends and changes in perception of your corporate reputation and reaction to campaigns.

In addition, it can help you identify and target new channels to drive greater advocacy of your products and services with key influencers based on an analysis of sentiment   For example, the effectiveness of your campaigns’ messages and their impact on consumers’ purchasing decisions as well as the resonance and believability of their promise is valuable information.


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.

 systems of engagement and record

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

big data and engagement

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