Who is the smartest in the room? Social can tell you!

Ask a social executive, ‘who is the smartest in the room?’ and she will answer: the room.  (Now, since she answered this way, does that make her the smartest again?!)  

Why? The Fortune 500 lose “$31.5B a year by failing to share knowledge”  according to Lisa Quast, Forbes Online.    The "room" is the group that generates ideas because they are closest to the clients and the market.   But only 25% of companies are good at Idea Generation & Idea Conversion.

So yes, that executive who can harness the power of the room, wins everytime!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnb4onPPbAs]


Social Business Use Case: A more successful Acquisition using social

Happy Monday and welcome to today's  Social Business Coffee Break!

Today we are continuing the series on Top Social Business Use Cases.  This one is how to leverage social to have more successful acquistions!  It makes sense - right.  Social helps with communication, ideation, and integration.  All the things that companies need to retain the top talent in companies that have been aquired.

Tell me what you think!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L72HUFKeus&feature=youtu.be]


Social Media Tip of the Week – Using Twitter for business

Using twitter is more or less easy, but being seen by the right people is not that simple. How do you stand out from the crowd without looking like “our company is the greatest” or “buy our products”?   On key suggestion on how to use Twitter without contributing to the noise:

  • Cultivate a following:

Relevant followers are more important than just big numbers. Thus: Understand who your customers are, and find them.


IBM Partners in NYC!

Today we hosted a great set of partners down in NYC at the IBM Boardroom!  And gave them a great tour of the IBM Library along with the rich history!

Check out these superb partners!

1SandyCarterBusinessPartnerRoundtable080113


New role at IBM! Ecosystems on #Analytics, #socbiz , #Mobile, #Cloud & Big Data & Entrepreneurship

I am truly excited to be taking on a new role here at IBM! As General Manager of Ecosystems, ISVs and Entrepreneurs or our IDR group, I look forward to the opportunity to work with a wide range of talented and innovative business partners, clients and IBMers to help enhance IBM's position as a leader - fostering growth and success through influencer partnerships. I'm hitting the ground running. Here's a few areas I am focused on...

First, nurture our Startup partners so we can achieve more together! IBM's commitment to the entrepreneurial community is stronger than ever and will continue to grow, as evidenced by the success of the

IBM Global Entrepreneur Program

Since 2010, this program has helped launch more than 500 new businesses in key areas such as green energy, health care and transportation. How? By nurturing startups, bringing them into our 121,000-strong business partner ecosystem and helping them get their technologies ready for market. IBM's work with startup companies helps us build and strengthen new markets such as cloud, mobile and big data/analytics. It also extends our geographic reach -- for example, to companies like Sproxil in Africa.

Second, continue to grow the IBM SmartCamp initiative. Past SmartCamp participants have gone on to generate more than $90 million in VC/Angel funding following their work with IBM. With your help, I intend to deepen our commitment - focusing on nurturing and deepening our relationships with Startups so we can achieve broader success with more partners.

Finally, in an effort to spur ecosystem growth, we will focus deeper on our fundamentals: drive awareness to recruit new ecosystem partners; work closely with partners to enable our technologies with their solutions; and actively drive our go-to-market activities and sales engagements.

We will continue to focus on strategic initiatives, including Smarter Analytics, Social Business, Mobile and Cloud computing and our overall Big Data strategy. And we will show our partners and customers how they can use IBM expertise and resources to drive results through our "Learn - Build - Sell" model:

Learn: Understand the benefits we offer our partners and increase their technical and business expertise

Build:  Differentiate partner solutions using our resources, and collaborate with leading technical experts

Sell: Expand the ecosystem network and drive demand for joint solutions

With our combined energy, innovation and expertise, I'm confident we can make it happen.

Time to get moving and I'd love to hear from each of you on how I can assist!


Safety is a great Social Business Use Case!

Happy Monday!  Today's Social Business Coffee Break is featuring a surprise use case --- Safety. I love this one as it does have high ROI in reduced worker's compensation but the ROI I love is saving employees from injury. 

Take a listen!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zTS5uh2RFI&feature=youtu.be]


Social Media Tip of the Week – 3 Social Media sins you should avoid

Social media is a great way to connect and work with people. But don’t make these mistakes in the business world of Social Media:

1. Not responding to messages, post, tweets or comments (-> Social Media means communication!)

2. Sharing every little thing you do or like (-> not everything is for the public world to see)

3. Using every Social Media site ever invented (-> not every platform is relevant and useful for everybody)


Join me July 31st on GET BOLD for Social Business!

Today, everyone is talking about social.  You hear about politicians, movie stars, and everyone in between talking about social, using social with Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. 

But you’re a business.  What does all this mean to you? 

Sure, your business has a website, and it probably has a social media executive responsible for posting and /or monitoring comments about your company that might be posted on Twitter or Facebook by customers.  But ask yourself….is your company a social business company?  Are you leveraging social to be more customer-driven?  Are your employees engaged with social in their jobs?  Are you really utilizing the tools and techniques that social offers to improve your business and take advantage of opportunities for growth?

Join me on Wednesday, July 31, on the Victory Circle Radio hour as I talk about my book, “Get Bold”, in which I provide a framework for social.   www.victorycircles.com/radio-show

I’ll also share some case studies of companies who have successfully used social technology to connect with customers, helping them create communities and experiences they need.  According to a recent study, some 60% of customers use social media to discover new brands and products; 46% of customers use it to strongly influence their purchase decisions; and 40% check social media before making purchase decisions.  Your customers are already connecting and talking about your brand.  Are you connecting with them so they can become brand advocates?  I’ll share examples of customers who have successfully used social technologies to listen to and respond to their customers.

Becoming a social business is about more than simply building a social network.  It’s about offering information and services that your customers and partners need.  There are companies who have successfully used social technologies and offered meaningful services to their customers, while gaining critical feedback from the customers.  It’s about collecting and understanding the data that’s available on the various networks.  About 81% of purchasers get product purchase advice from social networks.  You need to know who is saying what, and know how to tap into the conversation. 

Today, it’s an economic reality that social is here to stay.  According to an IBM study, during the next 5 years, 95% of standout organizations will focus on getting closer to the customer.  Join me on Victory Circle Radio on July 31 and hear how my social framework can help you become a social business.


Socialytics!

Did you know that CEO’s & CIO’s identified “Insight & Intelligence” as the number #1 focus over the next 3-5 years?  Doing Social without Analytics really doesn't make much sense in today's world. 

According to IBM's CEO Study, C-level executives are worried about enhancing customer loyalty and better understanding what customers want. 

We are calling this Socialytics  -- a way that companies can simply collect big data across the social spectrum, and within seconds conduct complex analytics functions that show what your customers are saying and buying.  What your competitors are saying and doing.  And what is happening in the markets in real time.   

It is the combo of Social + Analytics + Big Data!

all together

 Essentially we are providing valuable insights and intelligence to business executives so they can make more informed business decisions. 

I think this is core to Social -- being able to combine the analytics with the social data.

socialanalytics