Digital Tip of the Week: Who’s talking about you or your company in Social Networks? Measure it!

Digital tip of the week  – Are you aware of who’s talking about you or your company in Social Networks? Measure it!

There are several free tools that can help you track the mentions of you or your brand in Social Networks. One of them is Social Mention, a social media search and analysis platform that allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web's social media landscape in real-time.

The tool tracks the strength of your brand (likelihood that your brand is discussed in social media), sentiment (ratio of mentions that are positive to those that are negative), passion (likelihood that individuals talking about your brand will do so repeatedly) and reach (measure of the range of influence.

 


IBM and Xamarin: Value for the Mobile Developer Ecosystem

I just love it when we  can help developer with their Mobile Development!

What was announced!
Today,  Xamarin is announcing a partnership with IBM that expands Xamarin's enterprise mobile developer ecosystem by simplifying the development of native mobile apps for iOS, Android and Windows devices to easily connect to enterprise data and systems through the IBM MobileFirst Platform. More than 750,000 developers use Xamarin to accelerate native app development for multiple platforms; with IBM's backend capabilities now those developers will have enterprise grade scale, security and management at their fingertips.

This collaboration will expand IBM's reach to C# and .NET developer communities.  This will help close the skills gap for software application developers by giving them the tools to quickly develop mobile apps.  With this collaboration, 6 million+ C# and  .NET developers will now have the tools at their fingertips to create both engaging user experiences and deliver secure mobile apps with speed and at enterprise scale.

The Facts:
According to Gartner, 70% of the mobile workforce will have a smartphone by 2016 and 90% of enterprises will have two or more device platforms to support. That's why it is so important for a mobile app solution to be able to scale!

Consider the challenge for today's developer; they have to meet the ever-increasing demand for secure, connected and sophisticated mobile apps. The relationship with Xamarin expands IBM's support for first class native development that allows millions of developers to focus more on innovation and driving business value through mobile!

This is GREAT for Developers!
Users in every category have an ever-expanding need to consume and contribute data via mobile devices.  Enterprises must build and manage high-performance apps with a device-optimized user experience that securely integrates into the enterprise environment.   The companies have created an enterprise mobile solution for C# developers that combines Xamarin’s fully native mobile development platform for iOS, Android and Windows Phone with the IBM Worklight platform for highly secure cloud-based data services.

The IBM MobileFirst Platform SDK and IBM MobileFirst Platform studio add-ons are available immediately at http://xamarin.com/ibm for the thousands of partners and millions of developers in the combined ecosystems of Xamarin and IBM.

Here's what Nat Friedman, CEO and co-founder of Xamarin, had to say:

"Together, Xamarin and IBM are creating an end-to-end foundation for developers to more effectively mobilize mission-critical enterprise data in their apps. The combined Xamarin and IBM solution gives millions of app developers a powerful enterprise mobile opportunity they have never had before."

xarmerin

I couldn't agree more! Xamarin and IBM developers will now have the tools to create engaging user experiences and deliver secure mobile apps with speed at enterprise scale!

To find out more about Xamarin, and to download the IBM MobileFirst Platform SDK and IBM MobileFirst Platform studio add-ons, go to  http://xamarin.com/ibm


Wharton and IBM Announce a First of a Kind Exec Program for CMO and CCOs!

Wow!

Did you see the CMO announcement from IBM and Wharton?   Wharton Executive Ed and IBM announced the launch of a first-of-its-kind executive program to help Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) and Chief Customer Officers (CCOs) prepare for and capitalize on the current explosion of customer data.

The course is 2 weeks long and is titled “The CMO Advantage: Evolving Beyond the Digital Revolution.”  It will explore the increasing importance of the CMO in leading customer engagement innovations in the C-Suite.

What does the course look like?

  • Gain a deeper understanding of the transformative impact of the connected consumer on enterprise value propositions and marketing practices;
  • Enhance the role and influence of the CMO and Chief Customer Officer in the C-suite, including rallying and orchestrating the wider organization to align in support of the brand promise;
  • Achieve personal transformation and challenge mental models by applying lessons through live simulations and rapid feedback;
  • Improve the performance of the marketing organization, including nimble organizational design, marketing return measurement, partner ecosystems, and winning the talent war; and
    Join a collaborative network of executive peers for continuous learning.

I believe strongly that the CMO needs to have credibility and authority to influence customer interactions across the organization, not just within the marketing department.

But our facts show something different -- the IBM Global CMO Study of more than 500 CMOs around the world showed that 82% of CMOs say their organizations are underprepared to capitalize with advanced analytics on the explosion of customer data.

Since most CMOs believe the complexity of data-driven marketing will accelerate over the next five years, less than half feel prepared for that (and, their confidence is eroding ... 70% reportedly felt they were prepared just three years earlier).

Clearly, the time to develop the acumen required to harvest insights and apply them to reinventing brand engagement is now!


IBM Design Team Dishes on the creation of BLUEMIX!!!

I caught up with a number of young rockstars from our Austin design studio at SXSW, and asked them to explain the process for the design of IBM Bluemix. We had quite a discussion!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6PPszabJI0?rel=0]

More on IBM Bluemix

More on IBM Design


Entrepreneur Fire! SmartCamp comes to Dallas, y'all! Visual Content and Conversion WON the Day!

The very first SmartCamp Dallas event was held recently, and there were PHENOMENAL startups competing to be a finalist in the event. Two startups stood out from all the rest: ImageVision and Digital Certainty!

Congratulations to ImageVision, the judges' choice and winner of SmartCamp Dallas! And congratulations to Digital Certainty, the people's choice award winner!

smartcamp_dallas

By using image recognition and machine learning technology, ImageVision built a search system that helps web and social media companies monetize their visual content and automate the recognition and tagging of images and videos. Customers can tap into their visual search system using ImageVision's web APIs.

Think of ImageVision as the watchdog for large web companies that deal with tens of thousands of images. ImageVision allows them to monitor and manage all those images and videos!

Digital Certainty's solution designed to increase the conversion rate of your marketing plan. Turning web and mobile visitors into paying customers - faster than anyone else - is their goal!

Lastly, congratulations to the Dallas team! Nice job on your first SmartCamp event!