Digital Déjà Vu

The Human API: Access to the single source of truth

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 16 Nov 2015 07:22:00 +0000

We all know that today a mobile device is possibly the most personal thing you carry. If you had access to a person's mobile phone (like apps do via APIs), you would have access to his location, contacts, gallery, and other personal data.

But what if an API existed to access the human data set, i.e. a human API* to access the ultimate, direct data source to understand consumers. What would that mean?

As we are aware brain scans reveal human emotional states, as well as brain stimulation in response to what is being observed. Heart, pulse rate and sweat on the body reveal truth or deception, along with facial expressions.

Today retail uses facial recognition and body scanning to provide personalized services in store. We are already seeing a lot of news about the impact of wearables with fitness devices tracking heart rate, sleep, calories burnt etc.

One of the 5 features in wearables launched in 2015 is Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) sensor technology, commonly used in polygraph testing or psychological research). Basically this tech can identify and track human emotions by measuring the electrical conductance of the skin, i.e. how much micro-sweat is present and determines simple emotions such as whether you are calm or excited!

The intersection of wearable and medical technology is being used to collect data and the human API is making this happen.

So what is the killer app of the Human API? Think context.

IMAGINE if your target audience was watching one of your marketing videos on YouTube and you wanted to know their reaction. Possible?

IMAGINE you felt happy after watching the video, the wearable device could send a signal to auto-generate a smiley emoticon as a response to the video post. Wouldn't that be the most authentic reaction to track!

Let's take this to a step further...

Imagine a brand communication being tailored or media being programmatically bought based on not only physiological but also psychological data from wearables. Ads will actually become sentient and know how you are "feeling" at any point of time.

Could this become the next version of personalization? Could real time psychological data be used for remarketing? Theoretically yes.

The Human API is the only growth hack that Marketing will ever need. (Tweet this!)

With consumer in control of brands these days, Marketing is now realizing the importance of treating consumers as humans that have emotions. It is also now scientifically proven that ultimately feelings, not facts, overwhelmingly drive our behaviors when making decisions.

But with the human API gaining access to our emotions, the dilemma we create (once again, after the mobile phone) is that of invasion of privacy. The answer to that is to give control to the on/off switch to the customer. But, in the first place...

Will you be willing to give away this level of personal data to brands? Will we, humans, let advertisers access our API?

Will the advertising industry go all the way to listen to our emotions directly from the source, only because it can?

Normal people and advertising folks :), what do you think?

@goodthing

(p.s. Three years back when I wrote about the future of media being in the Internet of Things, we discussed how every thing and person around us had the potential to learn and share from each other. The concept of the human API enables technology to directly learn about humans by accessing their data source without human intervention. This is truly enabling the Internet of Me.)

*ref: Brand Quarterly, July 2015

We are Humans, not Consumers (Marketing, listen up!)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 16 Nov 2015 07:07:00 +0000

In recent years, Brands have started tapping into logic and (not or) emotions to connect with consumers however more recent research shows that ultimately feelings, not facts, overwhelmingly drive our behaviors when making decisions.

Humans are feeling machines who think and not thinking machines who also feel. (Tweet This!)

So what does this mean for the world of brands and marketing!

1. Let your Story rise above the Medium: As the media landscape continues to evolve, we pay too much attention on the medium instead of connecting with consumers that matter. Consumers are humans. And humans don't connect with media. They interact and connect with emotions and people respectively. So before providing a logical reason for a person to buy into you, you need to emotionally connect with him. So start telling stories that emotionally connect with humans (not consumers). Weave in the story with their lifestyle and help address pain points.

2. Seamless Storytelling: While the story is more important, people do need a seamless experience for consistency in an omni-channel world. Today it might be about mobility and cross platform marketing, the future of media is in the internet of things. As our media becomes more sentient and we head towards a future with the internet of things, seamless brand storytelling will no more be an option. It is the need of the hour and one of the fastest growing trends in media today.

3. Humanize your Brand: It is our thoughts and emotions that define our beliefs and intentions, which in turn drive behaviors and resulting actions. Since emotions play a stronger role than logic in making decisions, we need to understand behaviors of individuals. And hence, if a brand can track behaviors, it can truly influence the emotions and thoughts of individuals to take desired actions that are beneficial for the brand.

Possible? Would love to hear your thoughts on the above point of view.

Lucy, Internet of Things and The Big Digital Brain

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 22 Feb 2015 16:22:00 +0000

What we learn from Lucy -

Our brain only uses 10% of its celebral capacity.

Should we have the power to fire up unused cells, we will become more capable.
That may not be possible today.

What is, however, possible is - connecting to other people's brains.

How?

The internet is a platform to connect people and things.
Everyday more things and people are getting connected (14.8 billion+ and counting).

Consider each person or thing like a brain cell.
When billions of things starting connecting, talking and learning with each other,
The more knowledgeable we become.

Access to this collective capacity of knowledge results in innovation.
Application of this collective knowledge can take us to the next evolution of mankind.

The earth is like one big brain
that is getting more and more connected every day
providing growing knowledge and opportunities for evolution.

Implications for brands, media and marketing

In the age of digital consumerism, brands need to understand consumers better and more than ever before. Brands today that have the most data on their target consumers have a competitive advantage.

Besides publicly available consumer data on social media channels and company-owned transactional data, there are also some new technologies, being developed by Neuro-insight and Thync, that are making it possible for us to gain access to the consumer's brain. If brands having access to this data, the possibilities of exceeding consumer's expectations will become limitless.

Is the future of marketing in the Internet of Things? What do you think?

Is it time for Digital to transform into Mobile?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 04:46:00 +0000

Let's take a look at the top 10 trends for 2015 and what this means for brands, media and marketing. This will be a year when Mobile will strengthen its hold on our industry in a big way, smart data will outshine big data, and real-time marketing will become an achievable goal.

8 out of 10 Digital Trends in 2015 are MOBILE!

#	2015 Trends	Implications for Brands
1	App Downloads Will Surpass Facebook Friend and Twitter Followers for Most Brands	Think Mobility. Mobile First becomes the new normal. Change your business model to become mobile-centric. Mobile is where consumers are making decisions that affect your bottom line.
2	Mobile Departments and Leaders Emerge	Dedicate a Mobile champion for your department who will make key technology and marketing decisions to drive positive customer experiences and marketing ROI. Think mobile solution; don’t split media from creative.
3	Mobile and Location Advertising Will Continue to Accelerate	Build context into every brand communication going forward. Location-based advertising will become the norm this year.
4	Mobile Campaign Management and Platforms Take Hold	Continue leveraging first-generation point solutions for SMS, push notifications and mobile advertising. Next-generation mobile platforms will emerge to offer marketers the ability to connect and communicate with mobile customers throughout the purchase process and across channels.
5	CRM, Social Data Combines With Mobile Signals to Drive Better Experiences	Brands have a wealth of consumer data , both transactional, social and mobile data from past campaigns. Consider prototyping mobile cloud solutions and decisioning engines to make better, smarter decisions in real-time, taking real-time, relevant mobile messaging to the next level.
6	Mobile to drive E-commerce	As consumers continue to increase their confidence in mobile for online transactions, brands can now build marketplaces or tie-up with e-tailers to close the online consumer purchase journey.
7	The Gap Between Digital and Physical Experiences Closes	Brands will have to seamlessly connect and sense and respond to customer needs throughout the customer journey and across both physical and digital channels. With more time being spent on mobile, brands must create consistent cross-media consumer experiences.
8	Content Strategy and Optimization Continue to Be Crucial Focus	Every brand must have a Content strategy and render it smartly and optimally to create a positive multi-channel experience.
9	“Smart” Data Overshadows Big Data	With the volume of data exploding, Brands will shift focus to smart data and embrace robust analytics to better understand consumer events and behaviors, and respond to future needs.
10	Real-Time Becomes an Official Goal/Benchmark (hi-octane alert!)	Competitive advantage for those brands that can facilitate real-time, hyper-relevant marketing communications. The consumer expectation to get any information they need at their precise moment of need on their device of choice will require marketers to re-examine their systems. Capabilities like Command Centers and programmatic buying will become key enablers.

Like if you agree? Drop a comment if you have a point of view.

[Trending] Teens leaving Facebook.. and going to (like) where?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 16:38:00 +0000

Oh boy.. and we thought Facebook was for keeps (like) forever ever !

So where are the new gen teens residing these days ?

You guessed it!...

Instant text, image and video sharing apps like whatsapp, instagram, vine, wechat, snapchat. These are some of the key platforms where communities are being built and an opportunity for brands to leverage.

6 Hot Trends in Mobile for 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 07:22:00 +0000

What other trends do you think will stay in 2014?

STOP [story]TELLING and START LISTENING to Your Customers!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 07:31:00 +0000

Enough of storytelling! While you can tell the most engaging stories and craft the most immersive experiences for your consumers, are you making an equal amount of effort to [constantly] listen to your consumers? Because just by developing a se*y and innovative digital platform for your campaign may win you awards but may not result in intended marketing objectives!

So what should Brands start doing to achieve intended campaign outcomes?

The answer is simple! Stop your core storytelling process (for a moment) and start the "listening" process - a scientific process that will require patience and analytical skills. And also will require creativity of a different kind, when you tweak your story to cater to what your consumers are talking about!

Here's how you (Brands) need to roll -

Once sufficient engagement or inflection point from your target group is achieved for your campaign,

Brands should carefully listen, understand, analyze and amplify earned media by continuing to invest in paid media channels, but this time the investment should be towards the objective of improving campaign messaging to sell what customers are talking about in earned media channels.

Constant monitoring and analyzing of customer conversation that reveal topics trending, brand sentiment, influential customers, engagement analytics, etc. is necessary for this approach to work.

This evolving, iterative approach to improving ad communications and reach also optimizes media spends for the brand.

Couple the social interaction data with transactional data (CRM system) and form a more meaningful and complete view of your consumers. If the campaign manages to go viral then Big Data scientists need to work with Media and Marketing professionals to separate the noise from the signal. There are many social analytics tools (free or low cost: Peoplebrowsr's Playground, Social Mention, Bottlenose) available to derive social business intelligence.

The true measure of success of a campaign is the sustainability of benefits derived from story refinement, because ultimately the Brand is what the customer says it is and not the other way around!

Continue reading about the new brand tree and growing the fruits of earned media here.
So how are you tweaking the mood and content of your campaign to incorporate the voice of your customer? What techniques have you used to optimize your media spends?

The Connected Viewer - The End of Disengaged TV Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:52:00 +0000

Many advertisers were worried about the impact that DVR would have on TV ads. Guess what!

The Connected Viewer is changing TV ad consumption.

Going by the growing multi-screen trend, loss of TV viewers from second screen viewing to advertisers is way bigger than the DVR. If consumers are spending time on a second screen, it is quite obvious that the impact of traditional advertising is getting smaller. And this behavior of tuning out from TV ads (generally due to lack of engagement) will only get worse!

So how can advertisers address this changing behavior?

Understanding the “Connected Viewer”

First and foremost, advertisers must understand that in the era of digital consumerism, consumers will always have the upper hand. This war cannot be won by traditional media and neither by old marketing techniques. Also they should stop fretting about consumers using the latest technologies. In a world where every thing and person will ultimately be interconnected, what advertisers should really attempt to do is try and understand the underlying consumer behaviors and how to leverage them instead of fighting them.

Derived from a recent report's findings, three key consumer behaviors have been observed in the context of the "connected viewer". TV viewers are primarily using web, social or mobile medium to -

1. Validate content seen on TV

2. Look for more information and interact with online content

3. Start or join a discussion and sharing reactions with friends

So if consumers are willing to enjoy content at their own time (i.e. time shifting trend enabled by the DVR) and are open to sharing content with their friends while watching TV (i.e. connected viewing trend enabled primarily by mobile devices), why not create an experience that will leverage both these trends within the context of your brand campaign.

Here are two ways for advertisers to leverage these behaviors:

1. Start a conversation on TV, but sustain engagement beyond TV - Television ads should be a starting point for a conversation with your consumers. Incentivise (i.e. show them value) to visit a dedicate campaign site whenever they want - where they can find more information, discuss your product or service, and make it easy for them to share with their friends. That way brands can earn media in the process. Ensure that your site can be easily found on Google or Bing and is mobile-compliant.

2. Make your storytelling media agnostic - While the content of your story will always be a constant, the delivery mechanism is becoming more complex with the explosion of media channels and customer touchpoints. So effectively tailor your message depending on the channel. In this case, communicating to mass audiences on television is dramatically different from mobile storytelling - that provides opportunities for brands to not only interact with their consumers but also tell stories to far more targeted groups in the connected digital world. Be effective and consistent with your campaign story. Remember your story starts when the consumer starts watching the ad on TV and may continue anywhere, at any time, on any device.

Can you think of any other changing consumer behaviors in the context of TV viewing? Do you have any other ideas to leverage these behaviors?

Forget Digital.. Future of Media is in the "Internet of Things"

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 11:35:00 +0000

The foundation of the new digital economy is built on the changed behaviors and attitudes of people who increasingly rely on digital technologies - primarily enabled by the internet. But the Internet is continuing to evolve. Initially it was the static Web, and now it is social, mobile, cloud computing and wireless networks. However beyond the technology (open, simple and distributed), the Internet's culture of collaborative innovation keeps having a transformative impact on companies, communities and institutions.

In 2008, the number of devices connected to the Internet exceeded the number of people on Earth. And these devices are not just smartphones and tablets. They are everything around us - from smart televisions to interactive coke machines, from motivated running shoes to the interconnected cows, bananas and more.

While social networks (network of connected people) is reaching saturation, the 'internet of things' (network of connected things, as well as things and people) is gaining traction. By 2020, there will be 50 billion things connected to the internet! Every person, animal, and thing could be connected.

Here's a realistic scenario from Cisco's blog:

When billions of things are connected, talking and learning from each other, imagine what this means for the future of Brands and the Media industry.

In this growing trend of hyper-connectivity between person-with-machine and machine-with-machine, potentially everything could become media. In other words, it will be possible to create a media channel of (pretty much) any thing, thereby allowing brands to communicate by owning or paying for these new media touchpoints. Let’s see how this could become possible.

How Every Thing can (potentially) become Media

Firstly let's take a step back and understand that by definition,

Media is anything that can carry a message or be a means of communications.

As we know, digital devices and technologies (powered by the internet) enable consumers to connect, engage, consume and experience brands; but as non-digital, physical objects begin to embed digital technologies or become digitally-enabled, any “thing” around us can become media that can be either owned, earned or paid for.

To transform any “thing” into media that can be consumed or experienced, brands will need to digitize it in a way so that brands are able to have a conversation with the consumer or interact effectively for a desired outcome that can be measured and analyzed. With digital media, this kind of an experience comes with the medium, however for non-digital media and traditional media, digital technology will need to be embedded to provide brand engagement.

With Augmented Reality, NFC, RFID, wireless sensors and other pervasive or ubiquitous technologies starting to bring traction to the 'internet of things', the vision of transforming any thing into media for brand connect is becoming a reality. Here are sightings of some impressive campaigns and more here that leverage the 'internet of things'. Seems like the Minority Report vision of digital shop assistants will finally be realized!

Bottom-line: Brands need to stop developing isolated channel strategies, and need to begin tracking and analyzing the underlying behavioral changes as the internet continues to evolve. Today there is a smartphone and tablet explosion. What companies need to understand is that it's not about "mobile", it's about "mobility".

A mobile marketing strategy is not going to cut it! A more holistic, behavioral approach to address the future of media is needed.

Tomorrow there will be many more devices connected and the 'internet of things' to deal with. While there will be a plethora of touchpoints for brands to connect with their consumers, brands will need to use the right technologies to leverage changing consumer behaviors and attitudes for brand connect and engagement.

Here are 10 key questions for media gurus, media owners, brands, publishers, agencies, advertisers and other constituents of the current media ecosystem:

Will the new brand tree be able to withstand the coming explosion of interconnected things?

As media becomes ubiquitous and interconnected, how should media strategies be shaped?

As every thing starts to become media, how will the growing universe of media channels and platforms be addressed?

Will the media universe be simplified?

How will this growing trend impact the future of media planning and buying?

How will the distribution of ad spends be affected when every thing becomes media?

Will brands need to break departmental silos?

Will agencies and platform vendors partner with each other to help brands address this trend?

How will ad networks need to shape up?

Will this transformation bring about changes in media measurement and analytics? How?

Irrespective of how the media industry addresses the changing landscape, one thing for sure is that finally consumers will truly become the center of all decisions. And it is only a matter of time that brands will have to adopt a consumer-centric strategy and change their structure, culture and processes to prosper in the age of digital consumerism.

The (virtually) Real Difference between Old Media and New Media

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 09:14:00 +0000

“I thought the attractions of being an astronaut were actually, not so much the moon, but flying in a completely new medium” - Armstrong told his biographer.

It's always been about the experience in a new medium! And today you don't need to be an astronaut to fly into a new medium. New media technologies are available at the consumer's fingertips. The real question for brands today is how to effectively leverage these consumer technologies in order to take brand experiences to the next level. But before that, it is important to understand the key differences in old and new media:

Media 1.0 (Old Media)

A Commodity buy
Banners, TV spots and other static media (paid, owned)
Traditional media silos
Measurement not real time and not across media
Driven by Marketing
In-the-face, intrusive advertising

Media N.0 (New Media)

Enables innovative, integrated, impactful, sustained brand connect

Immersive transmedia storytelling with integrated marketing strategies

Leverages the convergence of Digital (social, mobile, cloud, information) forces and the coming Internet of things for a hyperconnected world.

Focus on earned media to grow the new brand tree

Native advertising for seamless, value-oriented experience

Strongly ties to business objectives (beyond marketing)

Measurable across media channels and platforms (Big Data Analytics)

Real-time Campaign measurement and impact tools

Read more about the Future of Media here.

What other differences can you think of?

The New Brand Tree: Growing the Fruits of Earned Media

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 11:03:00 +0000

What is the the new Brand Tree?

The new Brand Tree is inspired by nature.

Building a healthy brand is like growing a healthy tree.

(= symbolizes)

Seeds = Owned media
Fruits = Earned media
Fertilizer = Paid media (organic fertilizer = social media, inorganic fertilizer = traditional media)
Roots = Brand foundation
Tree trunk = Brand strength
Ploughing = Storytelling

Brands cannot buy or create Earned media. Fruits of earned media have to be grown with the right mix of paid and owned media.

However just like ploughing is an art, storytelling is too! With the proliferation of social media, mobile, and emerging technologies, Brands need to create unique, compelling stories with the right blend of paid and owned media channels. Brands that become great at telling stories to engage consumers will enjoy the fruits of Earned media.

Taking this analogy a step further - when a fruit falls, its seeds give birth to a new tree, that means Earned media has the potential to produce more earned media, thereby bringing brand sustainability. Therefore brands should change their focus to designing campaigns that will result in earned media.

To help the new tree grow better and faster, it is advisable to add some seeds of paid and/or owned media. The right mix of media can only be determined based on what the brand wants to communicate. Brands who are not prominent in their consumers' social ecosystem will be perceived as weak brands. They will need to create compelling stories that consumers will want to share in their social networks.

Final word: Earned media brings sustainability to the Brand!

Just like a tree's health is judged by the fruits it bears, similarly a brand's health can be evaluated by the media it earns as a result of good storytelling, and the right mix of paid, owned, and earned media.

Read about challenges that brands are facing and how they can win the Great War of Digital Consumerism.

The New Brand Tree: Growing the Fruits of Earned Media by Avinash Jhangiani is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Give Brands nothing, but take from them EVERY THING!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:40:00 +0000

Battle: The Great War of Digital Consumerism
Strategy: Use Digital to connect, engage, and destroy brands, one interaction at a time!
Weaponry: Digital media or media enabled by the converging forces of social, mobile, cloud and internet of things
Incumbent: Brand
Challenger: Consumer

Who will win this war - consumers or brands?

Consumers push Brands forward...
If today brands are feeling that customers change loyalties at the flip of a coin, they have absolutely no idea about the Great War that is only beginning to take shape. This War will be started by the Digital Consumer and will inspire the entire consumer base to rise and win the war of consumerism if brands don't act now!

There are 2 main challenges and they go hand-in-hand:

1. Consumers are in control - With the proliferation of the social media, internet, and mobile platforms, consumers have access to product information and peer reviews, and are constantly challenging the brand proposition. Brands today are more exposed than they've ever been before. Whether a brand owns the media channel or not, consumers will find a way to share their opinion or experience. This may negatively impact your brand health.

2. Everything is becoming Media - There is a new digital revolution in the horizon and we are only beginning to see how disruptive it can be. Brands will find it increasingly difficult to keep up with their consumers. If you think, consumers on social media platforms have forced brands to fish where the fish are, Brands haven't seen anything yet! The Generation S (Screen) today expects everything to not only become mobile but also touch and swipe. And with smartphones, context-aware pervasive devices (QR codes, RFID, NFC) and internet of things starting to take traction, every thing around us can potentially become media that can be experienced and consumed.

Will Brands ever be able to win the war if consumer behaviors and technologies change so frequently?

How Brands can win the War of Digital Consumerism:

In the new digital age, brands need to rethink the way they communicate with consumers.

The problem is that majority of the brands are still using traditional marketing tactics with digital weaponry.

For instance, while many brands have begun owning media, such as creating their own Facebook pages and Twitter sites, their tactics of engagement are still old school -- many are treating each platform separately and stressing about ROI from each investment. And therefore even if brands today exist where their consumers dwell, they will continue to struggle to effectively engage their consumers in a sustained fashion. Brands are wasting their energies, time and money creating silo'd digital campaigns.

So here are 5 strategies that brands can immediately adopt:

1. Earned Media is a Secret Weapon. Treasure it!: Earned media fulfills the unique promise of creating authentic social proof for your brand. Brands cannot buy or create earned media (i.e. free consumer-generated media, such as likes, shares, comments). It has to be organically developed and earned from its consumers. That means brands must create content that consumers will want to share. Also, Earned media has a multiplying effect and causes viral behaviors. So the more brands accumulate earned media, the more authentic it becomes in the eyes of the consumer. Brands focusing on growing earned media save customer outreach and acquisition costs, as well as build a more sustainable consumer-centric brand.

However Earned media is a double-edged sword. Since this kind of media weaponry is developed using social tools, the resulting outcome can cause damage to brands as well. Brands need to sharpen the right edge of the sword and skillfully use it along with owned and media weaponry.

2. Converge Media: Add "owned" and "earned" media, and build a "converged media" armor when fighting the digital war. Brands that are able to effectively apply a hybrid of paid, owned and earned media to connect with their consumers stand a chance to win this war. (For examples refer to this paper from Altimeter.)

3. Integrate traditional and new media channels (social, web, mobile): Brands need to keep up with the consumers and more importantly, integrate traditional with digital media in order to be where the consumers are. Greater presence across social media channels provides brands more opportunities to listen to their consumers and encourage conversations, that in turn improve brand awareness and health.

4. (updated 16-Aug-2012) Orchestrate and improve brand storytelling across converged media: It will not only be important to orchestrate a compelling story across converged media channels but also select the "right application" of new media channels based on the campaign or brand story. Brands will need such skilled media technologists and transmedia storytellers to maximize impact. Critical success factor: Make sure you take cues from the social ecosystem of your consumers and incorporate them into your stories. This will improve odds of acceptance. For recently published insights, refer to 5 storytelling principles and Birth of Storytelling.

5. Become agile and act on consumer insights from all channels: Brands that listen to their consumers in real-time across customer touchpoints, understand changing consumer needs and behaviors, and continuously innovate as consumer insights are acquired will remain sustainable. Metrics of awareness, engagement, viral and influence must be monitored across paid, earned and owned channels.

To summarize, brands are fighting a battle that cannot be won with traditional media or by using owned or earned media in isolation. If brands want to be more effective in the new digital age, they need to leverage converged media, and integrate traditional and digital media seamlessly to the marketing mix. Also organizations cannot afford to have internal departments, such as Customer Service, Operations and Marketing, operating in silos. Implementing integrated media experiences will first require the breakdown of these internal silos. Brands will also need to work with multiple agencies to provide such an orchestrated, converged media experience. And lastly, brands need to enhance consumer knowledge and insights from interactions with their consumers on all channels in order to build a stronger brand with long-lasting relationships with their consumers.

If you have used any of the above strategies or have any additional strategies, please do share..

You may also be interested in reading about The New Brand Tree and Fruits of Earned Media.

The Digital Epicenter: Convergence of Forces to drive Innovation

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 12:36:00 +0000

Three years after I wrote the article on the new facets of Innovation, we are seeing forces come together to redefine how business will be conducted by keeping the consumer in the center of all decisions.

Multimedia, social media, and the Internet of Things is fueling exponential growth in data for the foreseeable future. To enable the next frontier for innovation, competition and productivity, companies will need to fish where the fish is (on social networks), allow consumers to access information in anywhere, anytime (via mobile devices), and derive customer intelligence from big data. This can only be possible using scalable yet cost-effective cloud infrastructure.

The digital epicenter, as show in the figure above, is the point of convergence of digital forces - social (behavior), mobile (access), cloud (delivery), big data (context)*. This is the target state that companies should aim for, where true customer-centricity can be realized.

Companies that are able to leverage this convergence of all these forces will gain a sustainable competitive edge. Key business benefits:

Top line growth
Surround business efficiency
Better decisions from big data analytics
Better retention with CRM (incl. social CRM)
Innovative customer engagement at new touchpoints
Co-creation of new products and services with customers
Reduced cost of technology operations

Developing a discipline of innovation through information will enable organizations to respond to customer, employee, product or environmental changes as they occur. It will enable companies to leap ahead of their competition in operational or business performance.

In the foreseeable future, companies who do not leverage big data to innovate will be forced to seize operations!

Here are some additional thoughts I had shared with the CIO / digital community on how big data will drive innovation and beat competition:

Indian CIOs: Big data analytics help beat competition

What's driving business analytics? CIOs ponder

So is your company moving to the digital epicenter? And is leveraging big data a part your company's innovation strategy? How is your company leveraging data coming from social networks and pervasive technologies?

*based on Gartner's nexus of forces.

4 Tactics to influence the new, SOCIAL consumer!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 07:21:00 +0000

Traditionally the value of a customer was measured by his ability to purchase a company's products and services or CLV (customer lifetime value). But now with consumers recommending products and sharing experiences on social networks, the purchase cycle has changed. It is becoming increasingly necessary for companies to measure their social influence. Therefore, as shown below, value of a customer increases with customer revenue as well as social influence, also known as social CLV or CLV 2.0.

So what tactics can Marketing deploy to influence the social consumer?
There are 4 tactics that can be deployed depending on level of customer's revenue and social influence.

4 tactics to influence the social consumer

Tactic 1 - Engage
Customers who have not purchased your products or services and are also not engaged in your social ecosystem (i.e. don't follow you on Facebook or Twitter) will need to be engaged with your products and services. Now it's a well known fact that the cost of acquiring a new customer is far greater than retaining an existing customer. However if companies are able to get prospective customers into their social networks, the overall customer acquisition cost can be reduced and marketing effectiveness can be improved. For instance the cost of acquiring a customer via Facebook is much lesser than sending out mass mailers, offline campaigns, or traditional methods of acquisition.

Tactic 2 - Connect
Customers who purchase often or have a high purchasing power have the potential to influence their friends and impact future sales. Companies should try and connect with such consumers who have a high purchasing power but focus on those who have been very satisfied with the purchased product or purchase experience. The idea is to have them start engaging with your business.

Tactic 3 - Convince
Customers who may not have bought products or services but have a strong presence in your social ecosystem are the ones that need to be convinced. By leveraging digital experience platforms where customers are able to interact with the products and services and understand your value proposition, companies will find it more easier and more cost effective to identify prospective buyers.

Tactic 4 - Retain
Companies should get more aggressive in identifying high value customers who have a strong influence in your ecosystem. More than loyalty programs, collaboration platforms (e.g. Starbucks ideastorm) that allow consumers to provide feedback and co-create new products and services have the potential to engage and retain customers in a sustainable fashion.

Updating the Holistic View of the Customer
Besides, collaboration platforms and apps that provide the means to connect and engage with consumers, BI and CRM (includes social CRM) analytics tools will also be required to provide a holistic, 360 degree view of the customer. These tools will be able to help Marketing identify and track social consumers; thereby aiding in the retention process. This kind of view will need to be derived from big data analytics that consolidate structured data (transactional or customer revenue) and unstructured interaction data (social influence).

As consumers become increasingly social, CLV 2.0 is the new metric that Marketing could use to measure their effectiveness in deploying the 4 tactics mentioned above.

CLV 3.0: Measuring Co-Creation Value of a Customer

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 07:15:00 +0000

credits: redheadedfrog

While social media finds a way into the enterprise, it is imperative for companies to take a look at an essential metric that measures how much each customer is worth in monetary terms - CLV or customer lifetime value (you may also refer to HBS' CLV Calculator).

However with social CRM's capability to centrally store data that measures and reports on social media activities, there comes a need to revisit how we measure the value of our customers on the basis of two primary actions that they are actively performing -

Referring actions - Like, share, recommend existing products and services resulting in Customer Referral Value
Innovation actions - Co-create new products and services resulting in Customer Innovation Value

Customer Referral Value:

With customers liking, sharing, recommending, influencing our products and services, we need to add the customer's referral value (CRV) to the current CLV metric. (sources: definition by Daniel, Oracle's Tara Robert)

So CLV 2.0 or social CLV looks something like this:

CLV 2.0 = CLV + CRV,

where CRV is Customer Referral Value.

Customer Innovation Value (new metric):

While a very large percentage of users recommending our products and services, there is also a small yet relevant base of customers willing to co-create our next product or service (ref: Starbucks, Dell). These are truly high value, high potential customers. Companies that are able to strengthen relationships with such customers will gain sustainable competitive advantage. And this is the future of competition!

So CLV 3.0 would look something like this:

CLV 3.0 = CLV + CRV + CIV,

where CIV is Customer Innovation Value.

So how do you think companies can measure CIV? Is there a science to it yet?

And should companies tweak their loyalty programs to reward customers who have made contributions of outstanding significance to a company's profitability, measured in terms of monetary, social, and innovation value? Maybe call it "Customer Lifetime Value Rewards" :) ?... what do you think? (Pardon the analogy to Grammy's Lifetime Achievement Awards!)

(Check out my next posting on how companies can leverage the purchasing power and social influence of their consumers.)

Social media's big push within the enterprise (finally!)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 07:11:00 +0000

Six years after the term Web 2.0 was defined, it's extremely heartening to know that social media is finally entering the enterprise in a big way with the blessings of Oracle and Salesforce.com!

With Oracle's acquisition of Virtue and Collective Intellect, and Salesforce.com's acquisition of Buddy Media, social media and the new facets of customer engagement and innovation will finally begin to see the light of day within the enterprise in the form of social CRM - a key customer relationship management offering that will plug into social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, etc and provide the missing piece of the 360 degree view of the customer.

Through these acquisitions — and the eye-opening price tags behind them — Oracle and Salesforce.com show that the business world is getting ready for social media. It’s no longer considered a fad, definitely not just hype, and not going away any time soon. Businesses must care about social media because it’s clear that consumers already do. - Forbes

What does this mean for Marketing and IT teams?

Marketing will now be able to centrally create, publish, moderate, manage, measure and report on social marketing campaigns and activities on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+.

So suit up, IT... and get ready to shake hands with Marketing and drive the social CRM story forward... what say?

Digital Pandey: Rise of the underdog from your IT backyard

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 21:34:00 +0000

When Bollywood star - Salman Khan - decided to take on the role of Chulbul Pandey in the blockbuster – Dabangg, little did anyone foresee the impact of social media and customer segmentation in the film industry. While many corporations still stayed resistant to tweet or create a fan page, here was a fantasy hero breaking records with more than 19,000 followers in one day and tweeting his experience live during the shooting of this movie. The positioning of the brand – Chulbul – was strategic, and marketing of ‘Munni Badnam Hui’ was extravagant. Touching the hearts and minds of a target audience, this movie set out to become a lesson for businesses to learn, consume, and act upon.

Can the real Chulbul please stand up? Let's be honest. The PC age, Y2K phase, and Dot com era have come and gone; each of them highlighting the relevance of effectively managing Information Technology (IT) in the business environment. Despite multiple attempts to prove its worth, the IT department in many organizations is still undermined and under-funded. It continues to struggle to change its perception of being merely a support function for the business.

So what is it going to take for IT to prove its worth and come in the limelight? When will companies truly believe in IT as a strategic driver for the business?

Well, the time has come!

Today there is a lot of pressure for IT to innovate in support of their businesses and help drive new product development, increase operational efficiencies, and improve customer satisfaction. Similar to social media, other disruptive trends such as cloud and mobility have also emerged. IT is now on the forefront of business. It seems as if it’s now or never.

While the time to rise and shine has come for IT, the expectations to drive business strategies have also increased dramatically. IT will need to continue to act as a support function for the business. But now with the expectation to drive technology-driven strategic changes in the enterprise, IT seems to officially have an added responsibility of playing the role of Chulbul Pandey in today’s business context.

Here are three ways to Dabangg-ify your IT department to meet new business expectations:

1. Get business-savvy. If IT wants to lead fearlessly, then it will need to develop its business acumen as well as understand the business well. Going forward, IT will increasingly be invited to present their innovation plans at board meetings. Skills such as financial forecasting and budgeting will become imperative to justifying large investments. These new IT investments are bound to face resistance from CFOs if IT is unable to demonstrate their value in a clear and measurable way. IT will need to develop business cases and explain how new technology investments will make the company more profitable and competitive in the marketplace.

2. Effectively align IT with business. IT will not only need to talk business but also closely work with business to understand their goals and effectively apply new technologies to meet their goals. However, in order to work closely work with business, IT leaders will firstly need to build strong relationships with key business stakeholders and patiently listen to their current concerns and future needs. In doing so, IT will be able to become a trusted partner on the journey to innovation.

For instance, it is not uncommon to find companies these days adopting customer centricity as the means to sustainable business growth. As consumers spend increasing proportion of their time connecting and expressing themselves on the internet today, companies are looking for ways to leverage these social behaviors to understand, acquire, and retain their customers across digital channels. These intensive data collection and analysis efforts can only be successful if IT effectively partners with business teams – Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service. IT should not just provide technology services and tools but use the opportunity to effectively apply these consumer-facing platforms and technologies to meet the goals of the business. To ensure effectiveness, reduce risk, and justify cost of a radically new technology investment, a detailed technology assessment (including a proof of concept) should be collaboratively conducted and reviewed with business. Once the project is approved, releases should be incrementally rolled out. To build further credibility for such efforts, tying technology metrics to business metrics is also strongly recommended.

3. Sustain innovation capabilities. Social media, cloud computing, mobility, analytics, and Green IT are some of the emerging zones of technology heroism. This is only the beginning of an age of enterprise innovation. Tomorrow there will be a new wave of technologies and trends coming our way that companies will want to leverage in order to refine their business processes or even redefine their business models.

To drive the business with IT-enabled innovation, IT leaders will need to embody creative leadership and inspire others to walk the path of innovation.

They will need to develop the right long term strategy and supporting structure, such as creating a nimble, high performance team of business-savvy IT resources and dedicating time to assessing emerging technologies on a regular basis.

To summarize, if you are a part of the IT department in your organization and are excited about innovation, chances are that there is a Digital Pandey in you. So why not take this opportunity to transform yourself, put measurable value from innovation on the enterprise table, and change the perception for IT in your organization!

Your company's Facebook makeover: A social face with skin deep value

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:35:00 +0000

Two years back when I wrote a point of view on the business value of social media and what it could mean for business, I pointed out 4 underlying concepts - social networking, collaboration, broadcasting, and rich user experience. With Facebook becoming a clear leader on the web today] that leverages all these concepts, CEOs, please be advised that "Facebook is not going anywhere!".

Many wise digital marketing experts will tell you that Facebook is NOT a strategy but merely a platform for effective consumer engagement, brand management, and marketing efforts. While this is quite true (technically speaking), Facebook is no more a matter of choice but a necessity for companies today.

CIOs need to seriously take a look at leveraging Facebook as an initiative to enhance consumer engagement and viral outreach. In today's web where the network is your customer, the power of 'Like' and other social plugins must not be underestimated.

Before jumping on to the Facebook bandwagon, it is advisable to first understand your consumers and build your presence around them with a 360 degree marketing strategy that connects both online and offline worlds.

In one way, it actually a good thing that the web is dead! With users spending more time on Facebook than other websites, it makes it easier for CIOs to develop an integrated online strategy. You should nevertheless take a look at your company's online ecosystem more holistically and build the right structure and processes to continuously refine it for sustainable benefits.

Product Innovation 2.0 - The new facets of innovation in a virtually boundaryless enterprise

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:50:00 +0000

It is no unwritten fact that organizations are actively seeking ways to harness the collective intelligence of its employees and customers for product innovation.

The Knowledge Worker

Much of the value added today to products and services comes from knowledge work. This could be streamlining operations for better supply chain management or synthesizing organizational cultures in mergers and acquisitions. Enterprises are looking for opportunities to increase the productivity of workers involved in such complex interactions that constitute 41% of the workforce in the US (according to McKinsey).

The Informed Customer

With information more easily accessible and readily available, customers are getting smarter about products and demanding a say in the design of products. It has become challenging not only to gain the trust of new customers but also retain the loyalty of existing ones. Predicting buying patterns and satisfying the demands of today’s customers are complex business issues that are difficult to define in advance.

Three New Facets of Innovation from the Long Tail

Traditionally, innovation has been internally-driven with a top-down approach where leadership bears the structural authority and controls interactions within the enterprise. Also, traditional innovation is driven by a “go to the customer” corporate strategy and based on market research, surveys, and focus groups. Legacy business models that use such a reactive, structured approach to innovation have failed to effectively address today’s business issues.

Enabled by Web 2.0-based collaboration platforms, today enterprises are seeing the birth of a vibrant, unstructured collaborative ecosystem as entities, within and outside the enterprise, interact with each other (refer to diagram above for a graphical representation of these enterprise interactions). Collaborating, sharing, and learning are rapidly becoming the norms for the next generation enterprise. These interactions are shaping three new facets of innovation:

Intranovation – employees in the organization collectively provide ideas on products and services in an unstructured yet guided (and not controlled) format

Internovation – innovation with customers and the enterprise collaboratively design products and services

Extranovation – innovation with customers designing products and services

The table below further describes these new facets of innovation and explains how sustainable value can be created.

	Intranovation	Internovation	Extranovation
Description	This innovation technique will cause innovation, content creation, and control to exist at the bottom of the enterprise. It will turn control upside down. Bottom up innovators usually will not have the structural authority to order people to join a team; instead the innovator will succeed by influencing them and leveraging a personal network – collaborating, sharing, inspiring, and leading.	Customers and the enterprise will collaborate to create new products and services. The size, needs, and engagement of customers in product design and promotion will build a vibrant ecosystem that would continuously help the enterprise to create and improve products and services.	In such an outwardly driven innovation technique, customers come together to define the products and services they need, without interference from the enterprise. The enterprise may provide the platform and facilitate such an innovation.
Innovator(s)	Employee	Employee and Customer	Customer
How is sustainable value created?	Value creation through improved employee productivity and greater employee satisfaction, significant internal shift of control when employees have greater control to easily create or change business processes	Value creation when customers and employees collaborate to build a vibrant ecosystem leading to greater customer loyalty and retention	Value creation with greater customer satisfaction and loyalty when customers create products/services causing a significant external shift of control to customer

These new facets of innovation represent new opportunities for open, continuous innovation driven by the enterprise’s intellectual capital of its employees and demands of its consumers. The fact that the outcome does not tend to have an end state and there is always potential to improve existing products and services, causes the business value generated to be truly sustainable.

The next generation, virtually boundaryless enterprise will leverage these innovation techniques to support unstructured, complex interactions and gain competitive advantage from the knowledge of its employees and customers. The enterprise will become more competitive in the market, build and maintain customer stickiness, be able to respond to market changes and improve employee productivity. Tactically, enterprise applications will need to increase access to data and information, support decisions, improve communications, and support multi-party workflows and collaboration.

So does your enterprise currently employ any these techniques? In what organization functions do you see the potential of these new facets in revealing untapped innovation for your enterprise?

Convergence of Forces are driving Consumer Innovation! (Updated: May 2012)

Three years after I wrote the above article on the new facets of Innovation, we are seeing forces come together to redefine how business will be conducted, keeping the consumer in the center of all decisions.

Multimedia, social media, and the Internet of Things is fueling exponential growth in data for the foreseeable future. To enable the next frontier for innovation, competition and productivity, companies will need to leverage big data. Companies will need to change their systems to conform to the nexus of converging forces - social (behavior), mobile (access), cloud (delivery), information (context) - and shift control to the consumer / end user.

Developing a discipline of innovation through information will enable organizations to respond to customer, employee, product or environmental changes as they occur. It will enable companies to leap ahead of their competition in operational or business performance.

In the foreseeable future, companies who do not leverage big data to innovate will be forced to seize operations!

I recently provided thoughts to the CIO community on how Big Data will drive innovation and beat competition:

Indian CIOs: Big data analytics help beat competition

What's driving business analytics? CIOs ponder

So is leveraging big data a part your company's innovation strategy? How is your company leveraging data coming from social networks and pervasive technologies?

Web 2.0 is NOT the new Coke: Understand its value and get your enterprise ready

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:29:00 +0000

Can Web 2.0 positively impact business value?

CIOs and CEOs listen up! Web 2.0 is not going anywhere. This is NOT the new Coke that many hope it is. This is the beginning of digital socialism. The sonner IT realizes this, the faster it will be able to truly become a strategic partner of the business. Agreed that it is difficult to measure ROI for Web 2.0 or social media implementations but can you afford to not leverage the underlying concepts and technologies to empower your employees, untap hidden networks, enable better collaboration, and foster innovation?

Business today requires change and Web 2.0 has the potential to positively impact your business. So stop making excuses and just go for it!! And here's why (in business terms) -

Web 2.0 technology	What does it do?	Impact	Value Driver
Wikis	Allow users to contribute and share information available in real-time	Improve corporate/shared service efficiency	Reduce cost of internal business interactions > Lower Operating Margin
Social networks	Decentralize decision-making and let solutions evolve through collaboration	Increase staff productivity	Improve asset productivity > Higher Asset Turns
Mashups	Aggregate online content sources within and outside the enterprise to create new, richer services or situational applications	Increase integration efficiencies	Reduce total cost of integration > Lower Operating Margin
Blogs	Improve the ability to provide instantaneous feedback on products and services	Acquire new customers and retain current customers	Higher volume > Grow revenue
RSS feeds	Subscribe to digital content, such as news feeds, podcasts, or blogs	Improve customer interaction efficiency	Reduce cost of external business interactions > Lower Operating Margin
Web services	Help analyze and make decisions faster by making it possible for different business systems to talk to each other	Improve execution capabilities and increase business adaptability	Improve information utilization à Grow revenue
Rich internet applications	Rich user experience by bringing the interactivity of desktop applications to the web	Retain and grow current customers	Higher volume > Grow revenue

*Note: The table lists one benefit for each Web 2.0 technology in order to demonstrate its business value. The benefit may not necessarily be the most popular application of the technology.

The democratization of supply and consumption may threaten the traditional enterprise, thereby classifying Web 2.0 as a disruptive trend. However, enterprises that leverage the long tail will reap the benefits of open, continuous innovation – a sustainable competitive advantage.

So what will it take? And is your enterprise really, really ready?

As consumers and knowledge workers become more internet savvy and collaborate for information, enterprises should be better prepared to adopt Web 2.0. Today’s mainstream consumers are taking control – wanting to help each other and solve each others’ problems. Not only are consumers demanding intuitive, engaging, and relevant digital experiences, knowledge workers (consumers within the enterprise) are also demanding richer user experiences with customizable business process applications that can talk to each other. Gone are the “green screen” days of the mainframe within the enterprise. The confidence around web based technologies to run the business and the maturity and comfort of the work force using these technologies are compelling drivers for early adoption of Web 2.0.

To fully benefit from Web 2.0 technologies within the enterprise, the enterprise will not just need to be comfortable with web-based technologies, but will also need to adopt the following socially-driven business principles:

The enterprise leverages the web to diffuse enterprise boundaries, resulting in –

a) less vertical boundaries (flatter organization structures),

b) loose horizontal boundaries (more cross-functional interactions),

c) external boundaries (customer and enterprise interactions), and

d) shrinking geographic (global business units) boundaries

The enterprise considers open innovation as a key strategic driver to leverage the wisdom of the knowledge worker and needs of the customer for sustainable growth
The enterprise promotes the culture of collaborating, sharing, and knowledge creation.

Once bitten by the internet revolution, the enterprise will be shy to take advantage of the Web 2.0 trends and welcome it within the enterprise. Also the decentralization of control may cause reluctance in Web 2.0 adoption, however the value created by improving the productivity of the knowledge worker and building customer loyalty far outweigh such risks.

As Web 2.0 revolutionizes innovation with its emergent, unstructured, collaborative approach, this will probably need to be one of the most influential strategic initiatives for web-based innovation within the enterprise. To reap the benefits of Web 2.0, the management needs to create a receptive culture and a common platform for a collaboration infrastructure. Interactions should be guided and not controlled. A transitional, informal rollout of the technologies is recommended more than a formal procedural change. Web 2.0 will definitely need the support from leadership but this [unstructured, let it collaboratively evolve] path to value should not be treated like just any other strategic initiative. This path does actually pledge a truly non-replicable, sustainable competitive advantage for the enterprise.

Data Visualization 2.0 from IBM Alpaworks

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:31:00 +0000

Imported data from CDC's National Health Statistics, selected a Visualization (line chart), and created the visualization below. All this in 30 min. Pretty good deal!

Talent Management 2.0: How HR can use Web 2.0 to attract and retain Talent

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 03:17:00 +0000

Attracting and retaining talent are two major challenges for HR these days.

If you think about it, talent managment really starts from recruiting through on-boarding; and carries on until the employee is comfortable with the culture, is made to feel at home in the organization, and is equipped with the tools to be productive.

Talent attraction
Some thoughts around how HR can use Web 2.0 concepts and tools to attract talent:

1. Use employee-generated videos to describe a day in their life or what the company really means to them. These videos are able to establish a more "real" connection with potential recruits.

2. Create company's external-facing social networking platform where candidates can ask questions or chat live with recruiters about the company and recruiters can share experiences more than formal facts about the company. They can also meet other candidates. E.g. companies use Facebook as a social networking platform for potential recruits.

3. Create a virtual / rich 3D experience for employees to learn more about the company using cool self service features, have walk in interviews or interactive info sessions, get a virtual feel of the culture, and overall learn more about the company through rich media interfaces. E.g. companies can use SecondLife to provide such a rich and close to real experience.

4. Conduct video conferences or virtual interviews, and accept multimedia/video resumes.

Talent Retention
The real work for HR really begins once the offer is accepted. Promises made during the interviews need to be fulfiled. Many times a company hires a person for a specific role but what really keeps that person in his chair is not merely the role he was hired for. For large companies, it is difficult for HR to provide every employee the attention they deserve. Therefore HR needs to consider providing 'self-service' tools and methods to retain employees.

To retain an employee it is important to provide him the right tools to be productive, and that includes providing the ability to quickly establish the social connections that he needs to be successful in job. We all know that work is really done through informal networks and with the tacit or unstructured type of work these days, structured tools and systems that exist in organizations today do not help.

Some thoughts around how HR can use Web 2.0 concepts and tools:

Once the offer is accepted, HR provides the new employee with a URL to access the intranet for the following:

1. Provide the ability to create his/her own profile on a social networking platform on the intranet.

2. Start with searching employees in the company who may be a friend, classmate, or worked with him before. This can be done using web services that read directly from the employee's personal address books in Yahoo, Gmail, MSN, etc. and finding employees from the company's address book and social networking portal - similar to the Friend Finder feature in Facebook.

3. Also by feeding his interests into the portal so that he can quick find others with similar interests.

4. Provide the ability to search and join online groups. Suggest online groups based on his interests, such as volunteer / social service groups - an important criteria to select an employer these days.

5. Allow personal blogs, wikis, and ability to tag employee-generated content.

Social networking can specifically turn new hires into star performers, and should also be considered for faster onboarding. Such web-based onboarding, also known as 'relational onboarding', is a shift from adminstrative onboarding.

These methods can particularly be useful in tough times, i.e. when resolving issues at work. They can particularly prevent employees from leaving the company when they are not satisfied with their current roles by letting them search and apply for internal job postings.

Wondering whether these methods really add any business value. Watch slide 4 at this link! And click here for on-going research on HR and Web 2.0.

Would love to hear your thoughts on talent management using Web 2.0 and next generation internet trends.

Non Profit 2.0: How Web 2.0 can change the game for Non Profits

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 30 May 2008 12:36:00 +0000

It's not until you read a book like the 8th Habit or like Muhammad Yunus' book on Social Business you realize that there can be a better, more sustainable way to conduct business.

What better opportunity for me to merge my on-going attempt to build eminence in Web 2.0 with my interests in non-profits and social business. Yep.. I have been invited to Boston to present Web 2.0 to Non Profit executives. I am tag teaming on this topic with a Professor from Bentley College - Mark Frydenberg. We plan to have plenty of discussion around this topic. I am planning to cover the trends and applications of Web 2.0 to Non Profit that can be found at the end of this posting.

Let me just clarify that I believe non profit organizations face a lot of technical challenges - in terms of technology aptitude and adoption. Web 2.0 is good news for them because the technology behind Web 2.0 is not as important as the underlying concepts and themes that can be seen on the internet today. Also I do not believe NPOs need to necessarily create a Web 2.0 platform on their web sites to build cohesive online communities, user generated fundraising pages, etc. They can leverage sites like Facebook.com, Firstgiving.org, etc. to overcome technology hosting and user adoption.

Hopefully the slides will provide some insight and get you excited about why and how Web 2.0 can make the difference.

Would love to know your thoughts. Also if you do come across any useful sites or information on how NPOs are using Web 2.0 / social computing concepts and technologies please let me know. Cheers!!

Enjoy the presentation below:

| View | Upload your own

Your city is waiting - Web 2.0 meets GREEN

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:51:00 +0000

Harnessing the power of collaboration for sustainability or to resolve energy issues has never been as powerful or altruistic as this.

The time has come! Enterprises are changing the way they market their products and services as consumers are demanding more than just good quality products. Going green is core to the business model of many large companies, and consulting companies are also green-ifying their service offerings to put sustainability on their list of hot topics.

As we all know, addressing energy issues and reducing carbon footprint are on the minds of most CEOs and CIOs these days. As much as we know that resolving these green issues cannot be resolved overnight, many companies are still looking for that silver bullet.

We need to realize that improving the company's image in the eyes of the investor by resolving such global issues requires the co-operation and collective intelligence of the common crowd. The underlying concepts of Web 2.0 can be pave the path to a greener future.

Do you agree? What are your thoughts?

Gen Y lives on Web 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 04:49:00 +0000

I met two very interesting women from Gen Y (Gen Y are today's young kids waiting to get into the workforce, Gen X who are the junior level working crowd, and baby boomers are those who are senior menagement type of crowd). I took my two minutes to glorify my interest about the social computing trends these days, but it took even lesser time to know (or should I say feel good to hear) that they dig the web. We instantly connected!

They couldn't imagine a life without the internet. One of them, studying public health, kept talking about how she used the web to research, while the other studying international business, talked about how she used MySpace to connect and keep in touch with friends. Just by the way, "Search" and "Social networking" are two of the five underlying concepts of Web 2.0.

They were excited, or at least they showed the interest, to know that I was bringing Web 2.0 inside the enterprise. They also raised their eyebrows to the fact that the lives that Baby boomers are living is so stereotypically money minded and usually lacked the passion for what they did. They would swear they never take up anything that did not motivate them. What they didn't realize is that people like us, i.e. Gen X, constantly live in a state of confusion -- not being able to reconcile with the fact that we are not always doing what we want to do with our lives. The former lady had served in India at a few villages that aided her research and wanted to continue serving the needy. She wouldn't, however, want to let go of her world pleasures of partying once in a while :) This one disliked MySpace though as she felt her life would be a little too revealed if she acted as one of her friends on the site. When we talked about Kiva, the public health lady hadn't heard of it when it actually affected her career more than the international business lady who had heard about Kiva on the Oprah show.

Anyways, it also felt nice to share with them about my work in the enterprise context, which is not as important to note as much it is to mention the takeaways from this meeting with strangers from Gen Y (two in mumber, not a statistically significant number but still noteworthy):

1. Gender: Women are as excited, if not more, about social computing. Popular belief says that usually women aren't as tech savvy as men, so does that mean that "men as well as women equally enjoy social computing"!

2. Web 2.0 in the enterprise: Definitely, they would prefer having to work with Web 2.0 technologies and be more productive as they are used to these technologies outside the enterprise. So as a business, wouldn't you want to provide the tools to your employees that they are most familiar with!

Conclusion: Gen Y will prefer to use the Web 2.0 tools at work. The question is not when but how ready or how fast will leadership introduce these tools in their organization. Read more on what Gen Y really want.

Do you think Gen Y will choose to work with a company that empowers them with Web 2.0 tools? What do you think about the willingness of leadership to welcome Web 2.0 inside the enterprise?