Social Networks Help me Survive! 6 Degrees of Separation goes to 0!
It began as a normal day. I flew to Brazil and when I landed, I Foursquared, Tweeted and Facebooked as I headed off to meet my partners and clients. And when I finished, I would fly off to meet the CEO of one of my top clients! This was going to be a superb day!
But then a life-changing event occurred. With a bit of water, cobblestones and bad luck, I fell while heading up a ramp. When I saw people running toward me, I knew something was not right. I could not move my left side and was panicked because all I heard was Brazilian Portuguese. Employees at my hotel called for a doctor. IBMers and others tried to assist and get me to the right hospital, but after four hours I was in intense pain with massive blood loss.
I was afraid and alone. I was scared, very scared. I have had few accidents in my life but before this, they all happened around my family.
But that was about to change.
My new family emerged...and rose up out of social networks, both online and in the real world. First, a colleague of mine came to ride with me to the hospital. I called my parents and husband. When I arrived at the hospital, I was greeted by three local IBM colleagues who gladly helped interpret and relay my needs, including the biggest at the time -- pain killer, please!!!!
I broke two toes, my left rib, and my femur -- the biggest bone in the body. I also lost about 1.5 liters of blood. (They say shock sets in at 2L.) The surgery occurred the next day and went amazingly well. And yes, I do have a long recovery of about three months ahead of me (with no travel -- ouch!). But enough about the blood and gore...
This amazing story is about the people!
Let me start with the surgeon. strong>His name is Dr Jose Sergio Franco. He is a top-rated surgeon in Brazil and was a miracle worker for me. He did emergency surgery the day after the accident and did an amazing job. My doctor in New York said it was one of the best jobs he had ever seen -- better than 95% of the surgeries for like injuries in the U.S. But Jose was more. He was my cheerleader, my comforter, and my hero.
He came to see me daily and encouraged me to hang in there (said of course in the Brazilian way) even though my family wasn't nearby. I would not be where I am without him.
The IBM Nurse Dottie Robinson, who is based in New York, immediately jumped on the phone with me time and time again to advise, reassure and ensure that I was being taken care of. With bravery and compassion, she saw to it that I was cared for in the best possible way in a foreign land. She helped me get from Brazil back home. 
(This part was fun: medical evac plane to San Paulo to 10-hour flight through ambulances -- and bigger cars to ensure my health at every step of the way!). She more than did her job. She extended her heart to me like I was her very own family.
Our IBM Brazil Team was amazing. Fabio Pinto de Britto rode with me to the airport and got me that much-needed pain killer. His brother Djlama flew in from Mexico to make sure I was okay and worked through getting my husband a visa in four hours (a record!). Isabella Costa argued on my behalf to get me an English-speaking nurse, and offered to stay with me through the night. And Flavio de Figueiredo Mendes rushed over to the hospital immediately after returning from 40 days in China. The heart of this team, their care and their compassion moved me beyond belief. They came to visit every day while I was there -- they were transparent, helpful, thoughtful ... and as I learned, truly Brazilian in their actions. I can never repay them!
Back in the States, IBM HR Executive Leader Yara Saad was also amazing. As many of you know, I was recently placed in a new role as General Manager and new HR support. But since I had bragged so much about the support Yara had provided to me in my previous role, my husband called Yara when I was injured. Despite this "not being her job," she worked my services, my flights, and my recovery as if it was her own. She is such an incredible and talented woman with so much on her plate. I was honored and deeply touched with the time and heart she spent helping me.
My husband Todd was of course his normal self. His giving personality came through and he was in Brazil within 48 hours. I could not have done any of this without him. No questions asked. He is a keeper!
My IBM Assistant Megan Mennonna has always been a blessing to me -- but on this occasion, she went above and beyond. She and Becky Michel covered the meetings, and handled the top items that we needed covered. She is such a great friend and colleague.
Also, I have to say that I already knew IBM was a great company but this experience made me realize that it is a SUPERB company that cares and shows it!
Now, combine these in-person friends that I know with my blogosphere friends. From Facebook, I received messages from Africa, Turkey, U.S., Australia, India and more. More than 10 bouquets of flowers came to my hospital room. Candies and teas from around the world were also delivered. I had hundreds of check-up posts as well as calls that crossed the social bridge from the blogosphere to the real world. These friends crossed global boundaries, and included partners, clients, IBMers and more.
It made me realize that I never could have survived without my social networks. Six degrees of separation became closer than a family. I will always remember the kindness of all my friends!
Social Selling! Tip #4 "Learning" Your Clients Through Social Networks
Happy Monday!
We are continuing our Monday series on Social Selling -- today focused on our Tip #4! I am to start the discussion on how you know your prospects and clients.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPtyzXUblD8&feature=youtu.be]
Women Rock Social !
Tonight I was doing a little reading on woman and men in the Social World.
Did you know that:
- 74% of women were users of social networking sites, compared with 62% of men. (Source: Pew Research Center)
- 25% of online US women use Pinterest, compared to 5% for men. (Source: Pew Research Center)
- Moms are 16% more likely than other women to visit Facebook daily (85% vs. 73%). (Source: Performics)
The biggest difference in engagement that I found to date was about the type of tools that are used. What do you think ? Are there other differences?
Social Business can save lives! Check out the Boston's Children's Hospital
Yesterday, n partnership with IBM, The Boston Children's Hospital launched OPENPediatrics!
What is OPENPediatrics? It is a Social Learning platform that enables medical personnel to gain expertise, make better decisions, and even share knowledge to save the lives of children.
The hospital has just started using it, but already there are over 1000 nurses and doctors in over 74 countries.
This use of Social Business will completely transform the healthcare industry! What can it do for your industry?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKQ7lEmPyWY&feature=youtu.be]
Social selling: Tip #5 Build your social graph!
Happy Monday!
We are continuing our social selling series and today will focus on one of the top 5 pieces of advice for strong selling in the blogosphere!
The Blogosphere is a connected community of all blogs and their interconnections, including micro-blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, and so on. Essentially all social tools online.
Have fun building your social graph!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR7NOuZ0OO0&feature=youtu.be]
Mixed Audiences into today's Social Business World
Today, I was chatting with a client who proclaimed that he wished everyone was using social! The world would be so simple!
Yes, it would but we don't live in that world --- and won't for a few years.
Today, I see us having 3 types of people.
- Digital Natives. These are people who grew up online and in social networks. They work in a collaborative fashion -- they grew up this way. They do not do email or even answer phones. (Note: The post-millennial "digital native" was a term coined by U.S. author Marc Prensky.
- Digital Immigrants. These are people who have not grown up digitally but have taken to the new social world and use the tools like a native. They have a foot in each world... being able to leverage email, and traditional forms of collaboration, with the new world.
- Non Digitals or affectionately called The Analogs. Yes we all know they and they are in very significant places of influence today. They email, they dictate, and they don't use Facebook. These are some of your best clients, so you cannot leave them behind.
Yes, and today there are digital outcasts. These are folks who would grow up digitally but globally have not been blessed with the resources to do so. Many companies are working on these issues which I believe must be fixed before we do see people across the globe plugged into the "AORTA," which is Always On RealTime Access, a term coined by Mark Anderson, the chief of the Strategic News Service.
What do you see? How long before the Natives overtake enough influential positions?
Takeaways from Social Airline Summit in Prague
I just returned from the 2013 IBM Airline Summit in Prague where I met with about 40 senior executives from airlines worldwide. The summit was two full days packed with stimulating panel discussions, group activities and breakout sessions with speakers from airlines, industry analysts, and other consumer-facing businesses such as Coca-Cola and Netflix. I led a discussion about how nimble businesses are using social tools and techniques to help their employees be more effective, innovate, and share their knowledge.
Here are a few take-aways from the Airline Summit:
IBM’s Eric Conrad kicked it off with a fascinating vision for the near term future of travel.
Travel customers expect a truly personalized experience, before during and after their trip. That means airlines will need to become much more engaged with customers by using social business tools, big data and analytics. Eric issued 4 challenges to the group:
- Automate the ordinary to deliver the extraordinary
- Collaborate far beyond current comfort zones
- Elevate customer data analytics to an art form
- Aggressively dismantle barriers to change
New IBM and PhoCusWright study about social business in the travel industry
PhocusWrights’s Norm Rose led a session about the new study PhoCusWright and IBM have launched for the travel industry. The study takes the pulse of the travel industry's use and abuse of social platforms and reveals the strategies and tactics they are using today. Surveying all sectors of the travel market, the survey will dig deep into their tools, techniques, benchmarks, question marks, successes and flops. If you’re in the travel industry and you’re asked to participate, go for it! Then watch for the results which will be published in a few months.
Why big data matters to airlines
We saw a panel discussion about “Airlines, Big Data & the Customer Experience.” Panelists discussed how airlines can take advantage of analytics to drive revenue growth and reduce costs. The consensus was that many organizations will need to change their culture and how they think about managing information. Here’s a fascinating white paper about Big Data and Analytics for the travel industry.
Saving fuel with analytics
Fuel is a very big deal to airlines, accounting for about one third of their total operating expenses. Air Canada’s Director for Fuel Efficiency, Captain Claude-Martin and IBM’s Lori Brewer presented a session describing how IBM Research and Air Canada have developed a solution using advanced analytics and "Watson-like" technology to provide decision support to optimize fuel usage. Attendees saw a demonstration of the fuel solution, named SIMON. Very impressive stuff!
Learning from Coca Cola Social Presentation at the Global Airline Summit
Lessons from Coke on their Social Journey!
1. We speak in storytelling. We make sure the story is engaging, surprising, and grounded in experience. It is choked full of emotion. The new generation wants to be engaged in something exciting. Coke showed a great video of bringing the world together featuring India and Pakistan. Very Powerful! We strive for Shareability.
2. We embrace our new SalesForce. Most openness comes when something goes wrong. But look at something like TripAdvisor. They have postive and negative. Social networkers are willing to provide feedback both positive and negative. Coca-cola has 24M impressions from themselves, and 124M impressions from consumers.
3. Listen first and then engage. Everyone wants to be heard. But they want a response. If you start you must go all the way! Coca-Cola uses gen y's to answer the social questions.
4. Speed trumps perfection today. Gave an example of the response of a top retail fashion company and it took 10 days for a response. And it was in the form of a 3 line PR release....not in social! Stock price took a beating while they polished the story. Great example. Oreo cookie speed on their "You can still dunk in the dark" when the lights went out unexpectedly at the US Superbowl. Brillant social marketing in 5 minutes from Oreo! It took over the social conversation -- be ready, and give people the freedom to embrace the principle of speed.
5. Allow transparent conversation and play well. Both positive and negative. The way that you handle and manage them really matters. Make sure you establish long term relationships.
Leaders in a Social World! A Video Blog!
I am ending my series on the Trends of Social!
Today we are ending on Social leadership. What are the qualities of the new leader? They seem to be more of servant leader.
Take a listen and tell me your thoughts!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZkttEBJI8k&feature=youtu.be]
Social Business Lesson: What is reflected?
As I was at the beach this summer, I caught this gorgeous picture of the moon reflecting on the water!
It got me thinking about how social reflects your company's culture and for you personally, your personal brand. Social really reveals all the parts of your culture -- good , bad, and neutral.
The moon's shine above in the picture is ampliflied by the water, just as your company's cultural elements are amplified by social.
One of my favorite quotes is:
"Social doesn't transform your culture. It reveals your culture."
This fact is why i advise my clients to do a cultural assessment before starting down the social path.
Here's a quick tidbit of that assessment. And I'll leave you with this question. What does social reveal about your culture?!
