As social media develops, I think it is getting increasingly important that the right operational definitions are created. As I have stated many times, that operational definition or "defining what something means is the core of creating clarity" is the difference between success and failure in any sale of something new whether this is inside the company or from outside the company.
Currently, as I walk across the business landscape trying to get people to believe that social media is going to impact them whether they like it or not. And one of the great misnomers in social media today is that almost EVERYONE uses the term listening almost exclusively.
I am going to go out on a limb here and say (as I did in my last post) that this is too broad a way to talk about social media. While it is very true that we are listening to what is going on across all that data, because it is already there and we are peering into to what is being said, there is definitely more to it. For instance, if I can tell you that in the last 24 hours there were 1,000,000 tweets on twitter MENTIONING a brand, what does that really tell you. In addition, if someone decided to then give you 50 sound bites for a flavor of what is being said. What does that tell you? I would argue...not much at all. Buzz volumes on specific sites are not going to give you much except a knowledge of how often you are mentioned. IT WILL NOT GIVE YOU ANYTHING STATISTICALLY OF WHAT THEY FEEL ABOUT YOUR PRODUCT OR ISSUE. This is the crux of the social media operational definition issue.
LISTENING AND UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL MEDIA ARE NOT THE SAME.
Understanding is something that gives you depth where Listening only scratches the surface of social media's power. To this end, if you can understand the vastness of what is being said, you can begin to come up with new ways to develop unbiased insights from all that information that is there already. Understanding can get to the nuance of why someone likes or doesn't like something. For instance, if people know that McDonald's is not healthy capturing mentions of that tells you little (what listening means). If you can suddenly tease out the specifics of why consumers think it is unhealthy you are now understanding the key points. Social media can do that if you have the right methods and the "natural language processing" that can really understand the sentences. And while our company does have that I come back to the point I always make. If you have good ability to parse sentences, you can then differentiate them accurately and ultimately have the data quality that gives you confidence. With this confidence you can then dive into the data in a way that gets you the traditional answer you want when interacting with the consumer in a different way.
So why make a fuss about this? Because if we don't differentiate these two terms in social media, then people will think incorrectly about what type of social media application will provide them. If you are talking about CRM of issues through the PR function, listening to the buzz can be very helpful especially if you can easily react and "stave off" the issue because you can hear the problem quickly. In this case, understanding would be helpful, but could take too long (as of today) to solve the problem at hand.
On the other hand, if you have an "event" that has the potential to be cataclysmic to you business, there is going to be value in being able to listening quickly and react, but think about if you can understand what is being said and where it is being said across the event (during the first day). With listening you might start to react to something so quickly that you are putting out data into the social media sphere that could only add to the chaos (you create more). If you can understand the real problem being expressed, you can actually THINK ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS AND THEN PROACTIVELY RESPONSE RATHER THAN REACT. This example to me is the meat of the issue and the reason a better definition is needed.
Understanding in social media is underutilized term and one that needs to quickly make its way into the social media lexicon if people don't want apply social media incorrectly. I would even argue listening and understanding have a cousin term that I can't even see yet, but creating better operational definition will make social media less of a fad (which it is not) and more scientific in the coming months and years.
I continue to worry for the companies who ignore social media. It is my job to convince people of social media's relevance and I am actually paid to do this. That being said, however, I have had the privilege of being involved with social media for 5 years now. And within that, I have gotten the chance as a change agent to successfully apply it to business problems. But what concerns me is that companies continue culturally to struggle to fit the social media box into their current measures and practices. In fact, you would be shocked at how many very intelligent business people will challenge the validity of the social media as a data set. And then when I ask them what they do first when buying a new appliance or electronic, the smile and say the web. This shows me they get it but their culture is keeping them from acting because "no one told me to use this data." This cultural challenge and fear is limiting many companies chance to get ahead of the curve. It is our job, however, to make sure we come up with the strongest ways possible to describe how to think about social media for those who are dancing with it. Simply lumping everything into the concept of listening does no justice to the power of social media, because it can lead people to think incorrectly about how to apply it.
And because it is my job to help people believe in social media, I take full responsibility in making sure we define it clearly for those interested and do our best to link those definitions to applications that fit their category, business, function, usage case and most importantly culture.
John Lennon said give peace a chance.
In social media, I would say the same thing to separating Social Media Understanding from Social Media Listening.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
why buzz, sentiment and passion are meaningful social media metrics
When people talk about social media the most widely used term to describe leveraging its value is listening. This is a very good way to describe what is now approximately 420 petabytes/year. There is so much content I guess the best you can hope to do is just that; listen. In fact the first time I learned how to put 420 petabytes in perspective I was astounded. 420 petabytes is equal to all the books every written in any language across the history of time...times 3600 (or at least this was a stat that has been shared with me a number of times...so I take it at face value). Boy that is a lot of content and on a yearly basis it is going to increase even more in the coming years.
But the question for those interested in social media is this...is listening good enough?
In fact, if you are only trying to listen are you even scratching the surface of what is possible in social media? I would argue you are not. And that brings us to the point of this post...
Listening isn't enough...you need to understand what it is saying. And understanding requires that you can pull apart the relationships within the sentences. If you can do that on mass scale then you suddenly can begin to understand what social media is really saying. Why? Because if you can efficiently understand the language of all that content you should theoretically have a much more accurate look at the data which then will enable the most important lynch pin in social media...METRICS.
In my experience on the social media dance floor everyone is trying desperately to tell you they can accurately understand what is being said. But the question is how do they BUILD their data set. Do they use "people who know where to look"? If they do then they are at the mercy of what I call the hit by a bus principle. If anyone who "knows where to look" is hit by a bus while crossing the street then than integrity and accuracy of that data just changed and it is less valid than it was before. Another thing I always see if people stating, "on this website there were 3.2 million tweets and here are sample of what they were saying". How is this helping you understand? Volumes of tweets are interesting because it give some sense of scale between two subjects (the buzz), but it does nothing to help you understand the sentiment (emotion) or better yet the concept of intensity (passion). It merely allows a small comparison between volumes on websites. And in the world of metrics that is only worth a bit but not everything.
In fact, how could you translate the number of tweets into ROI on say an advertising spend? This brings me to my "pitch" (a bit of promotion for my company NetBase). At NetBase, because we have 80-90% accuracy automatically captured in our Index (we have googled the web so to speak), you can now UNDERSTAND the emotion within the content using a repeatable method to collect the data. Because this is the case, each search that is done is apples to apples and because we pull this data from content that is indexed, the principle of comparison is at my disposal.
This brings me to the metrics. It is easy to think about how to apply social media first and THEN build metrics that suit the application. I choose to go a different direction in my conceptualization of applying social media to business. I would rather think about the measures I have at my disposal and THEN find the right applications.
What I have spent much of my time contemplating are the usage of buzz (mentions only), sentiment (emotional mentions) and passion (intensity measure like capturing love, like dislike and hate) to help create metrics that will enable viable applications of social media data. In fact, what I found quite interesting is that in our index for every 100 buzz sound bites, 20 of them will contain sentiment and 2 will contain pure passion (love, like, dislike and hate...while if you include other emotional expressions of passion the number goes up to about 5%). A good analogy would be the following...when you go to the carnival and grab the hammer to ring the bell...the deeper you connect with your consumers with either your products or online messages the more "response" you will get. If you "hit it" 1/3 the way up to the bell, you get buzz. 2/3 the way up you get sentiment. All the way up you get passion.
Another way to say it is this...
If my social media message gets a higher than average number of positive passionate expression on a daily basis without spending a dollar on advertising then I have gone viral and hit the holy grail.
That is really what we are all trying to do on social media. This post for instance (is mostly for me to get my thoughts out), but there is a part of me that wants millions of people to read this and say they love it without every having to tweet it to get people's attention. Why do I care about that? Because I like to think about concepts that create change and if my message has the maximum impact without any effort that I can drive a lot more change efficiently.
Now onto measuring your spend. If we think about those three counts as a means of accurately capturing what is being said online about a brand, I can begin to think about their application to something like advertising. In advertising we know what the strategy for the ad was. We also know what we spent on the ad. But how do we understand the response to it in near real time. I would propose that social media can be that response using buzz, sentiment and passion Why? Because after I start my campaign I can very easily begin to track buzz, sentiment and passion (if they actually ring the bell). Once I know those counts for a promotion, I can then begin to look more closely at the relationship between these measure.
The point is this...knowing what the buzz is only will never be enough to accurate extract real insight from social media. It is going to be accuracy in the data that only natural language processing can give you. It is going to be the ability to capture more measures than simple buzz. And lastly, it is going to be ALL ABOUT APPLICATION AND METRICS.
I always preach in social media the name of the game is application...and that is my game. Make it yours.
But the question for those interested in social media is this...is listening good enough?
In fact, if you are only trying to listen are you even scratching the surface of what is possible in social media? I would argue you are not. And that brings us to the point of this post...
Listening isn't enough...you need to understand what it is saying. And understanding requires that you can pull apart the relationships within the sentences. If you can do that on mass scale then you suddenly can begin to understand what social media is really saying. Why? Because if you can efficiently understand the language of all that content you should theoretically have a much more accurate look at the data which then will enable the most important lynch pin in social media...METRICS.
In my experience on the social media dance floor everyone is trying desperately to tell you they can accurately understand what is being said. But the question is how do they BUILD their data set. Do they use "people who know where to look"? If they do then they are at the mercy of what I call the hit by a bus principle. If anyone who "knows where to look" is hit by a bus while crossing the street then than integrity and accuracy of that data just changed and it is less valid than it was before. Another thing I always see if people stating, "on this website there were 3.2 million tweets and here are sample of what they were saying". How is this helping you understand? Volumes of tweets are interesting because it give some sense of scale between two subjects (the buzz), but it does nothing to help you understand the sentiment (emotion) or better yet the concept of intensity (passion). It merely allows a small comparison between volumes on websites. And in the world of metrics that is only worth a bit but not everything.
In fact, how could you translate the number of tweets into ROI on say an advertising spend? This brings me to my "pitch" (a bit of promotion for my company NetBase). At NetBase, because we have 80-90% accuracy automatically captured in our Index (we have googled the web so to speak), you can now UNDERSTAND the emotion within the content using a repeatable method to collect the data. Because this is the case, each search that is done is apples to apples and because we pull this data from content that is indexed, the principle of comparison is at my disposal.
This brings me to the metrics. It is easy to think about how to apply social media first and THEN build metrics that suit the application. I choose to go a different direction in my conceptualization of applying social media to business. I would rather think about the measures I have at my disposal and THEN find the right applications.
What I have spent much of my time contemplating are the usage of buzz (mentions only), sentiment (emotional mentions) and passion (intensity measure like capturing love, like dislike and hate) to help create metrics that will enable viable applications of social media data. In fact, what I found quite interesting is that in our index for every 100 buzz sound bites, 20 of them will contain sentiment and 2 will contain pure passion (love, like, dislike and hate...while if you include other emotional expressions of passion the number goes up to about 5%). A good analogy would be the following...when you go to the carnival and grab the hammer to ring the bell...the deeper you connect with your consumers with either your products or online messages the more "response" you will get. If you "hit it" 1/3 the way up to the bell, you get buzz. 2/3 the way up you get sentiment. All the way up you get passion.
Another way to say it is this...
If my social media message gets a higher than average number of positive passionate expression on a daily basis without spending a dollar on advertising then I have gone viral and hit the holy grail.
That is really what we are all trying to do on social media. This post for instance (is mostly for me to get my thoughts out), but there is a part of me that wants millions of people to read this and say they love it without every having to tweet it to get people's attention. Why do I care about that? Because I like to think about concepts that create change and if my message has the maximum impact without any effort that I can drive a lot more change efficiently.
Now onto measuring your spend. If we think about those three counts as a means of accurately capturing what is being said online about a brand, I can begin to think about their application to something like advertising. In advertising we know what the strategy for the ad was. We also know what we spent on the ad. But how do we understand the response to it in near real time. I would propose that social media can be that response using buzz, sentiment and passion Why? Because after I start my campaign I can very easily begin to track buzz, sentiment and passion (if they actually ring the bell). Once I know those counts for a promotion, I can then begin to look more closely at the relationship between these measure.
- I could look at the the counts in relation to an attribute beneath the brand like customer service versus store cleanliness.
- I could take a look at the amount of sentiment generated versus some average across all brands (this will help me see if the attribute like customer service elicits a greater sense of emotion versus another attribute)_.
- I could even look at the rate of change of each measure over time and see how the change relates to other events
The point is this...knowing what the buzz is only will never be enough to accurate extract real insight from social media. It is going to be accuracy in the data that only natural language processing can give you. It is going to be the ability to capture more measures than simple buzz. And lastly, it is going to be ALL ABOUT APPLICATION AND METRICS.
I always preach in social media the name of the game is application...and that is my game. Make it yours.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Innovation, the consumer and SaaS together at last! - connecting scalably to the consumer
As much of my writing suggests, my true passion lies in the area of innovation, culture and people. No surprise there. But one of the other things I find very fascinating is the framework by which behavior can be changed and innovation can thrive.
During my time within start-up world as Chief Evangelist of NetBase Solutions has been taking my experiences as a Product Developer of Cleaning Products at Clorox and translating those skills to tackling the social media market. Talk about a chasm to walk across on a string. That being said, I never realized until recently that when a person is tasked with mixing a bottle of chemicals together with susie home maker in mind and how this consumer will wipe a counter, clean a toilet or even take care of their children you gain the ability to put yourself in the consumers shoes. This "consumer variable" is something that has helped me think about not only what a good idea is but how to connect with the consumer who uses it. Many of us have it, but leveraging this knowledge and being a user is critical to helping this personal skill live.
What does this have to do with social media and SaaS companies? Actually everything. Most SaaS companies are working to create a solution that consumers will use and love everyday. It is the lifeblood of a scalable business model. But what are the consumer elements that give the business model life? There is no question that a huge portion of this lies in a companies' ability to develop a solution that fits into relevant business processes in a way that provide financial value of some sort on an ongoing basis. And while this is the tangible effort every company undergoes...is it enough? In some cases, the answer is yes. If the software is functional and performs a job that helps the company run better it can simply be the best technology that it can be to provide this value. On the other end of the spectrum, however, are solutions that require culture change to see them "cross the chasm". What is the secret to unlock this benefit so the software can scale and grow? It's emotion. And emotions that are tied to consumer perceivable benefits to really drive the change. So the next question what are the key emotions that will help create a scalable consumer perceivable benefit?
There are three (in my opinion) that any SaaS company should think about with each and every feature/function/improvement they consider adding to their offering.
What are they? Control, Confidence and Efficiency. As I like to say...take it in. Think about it a bit. Why these three? We have left out fun, easy, smart and many other relevant words. The reality is this; every consumer of your product is strapped for time, what to trust what they use on a day to day basis and most importantly have differing needs based on how they like to innovate (and thus control how they do things). Each of these emotions are critical to unlocking the key to consumer behavior.
A great example of this would be in our own business where our index enables consumer to search on a brand or topic to unlock the emotion and passion within social media data. What happens when your brand or topic is something like the brand Tide? Tide can mean a great many things. But at its highest level it can mean Tide laundry detergent (what you are probably searching for). But it can also mean the Alabama Crimson Tide or even the Tides in the ocean. How can you create a query that lets you zoom down to the data you want to look through? In fact for many months our software (and I am not the most experienced software user although I am good at applying social media) had no way to help you deal with this problem without thinking through the all the key terms you need to separate out the data so to speak. And as someone who only likes to focus on detail like that for short periods of time, I found myself not using the software. I was essentially stopped passing go because setting up a search wasn't (do I hear it) efficient. It took a long time to think through the words you would exclude or include, what context might help your narrow things down or where I might even want to look. Second, when I did try to go through this process when I had to I was never sure I had set things up right. So I had no Confidence in my work. I did have control, because I could choose whatever terms I wanted to make it go. But this problem at the beginning of our software lacked two of the three emotions (confidence and efficiency).
A few months later we added our disambiguation wizard. Now before I press go I can look into the search and see what key words are coming up. I can click on a word see a sample of sound bites to decide if this word is relevant and when I want to exclude it I can see how much data is removed from the dataset. I can go back to my search query and add more context or more filters or whatever I want and then go back to the wizard.....(you get the idea).
In the end I can cycle through the until my changes yield just that, little change...AND THEN PRESS GO.
This new system takes a few minutes (efficient), helps me know I have the right data (confident) and I can keep or remove what I want (control). Its the emotional trifecta of SaaS. Think about it. Every feature and benefit can be put through such a filter to help on decide whether they are hitting the right emotional consumer targets.
As the title says...innovation, the consumer and SaaS together at last!
During my time within start-up world as Chief Evangelist of NetBase Solutions has been taking my experiences as a Product Developer of Cleaning Products at Clorox and translating those skills to tackling the social media market. Talk about a chasm to walk across on a string. That being said, I never realized until recently that when a person is tasked with mixing a bottle of chemicals together with susie home maker in mind and how this consumer will wipe a counter, clean a toilet or even take care of their children you gain the ability to put yourself in the consumers shoes. This "consumer variable" is something that has helped me think about not only what a good idea is but how to connect with the consumer who uses it. Many of us have it, but leveraging this knowledge and being a user is critical to helping this personal skill live.
What does this have to do with social media and SaaS companies? Actually everything. Most SaaS companies are working to create a solution that consumers will use and love everyday. It is the lifeblood of a scalable business model. But what are the consumer elements that give the business model life? There is no question that a huge portion of this lies in a companies' ability to develop a solution that fits into relevant business processes in a way that provide financial value of some sort on an ongoing basis. And while this is the tangible effort every company undergoes...is it enough? In some cases, the answer is yes. If the software is functional and performs a job that helps the company run better it can simply be the best technology that it can be to provide this value. On the other end of the spectrum, however, are solutions that require culture change to see them "cross the chasm". What is the secret to unlock this benefit so the software can scale and grow? It's emotion. And emotions that are tied to consumer perceivable benefits to really drive the change. So the next question what are the key emotions that will help create a scalable consumer perceivable benefit?
There are three (in my opinion) that any SaaS company should think about with each and every feature/function/improvement they consider adding to their offering.
What are they? Control, Confidence and Efficiency. As I like to say...take it in. Think about it a bit. Why these three? We have left out fun, easy, smart and many other relevant words. The reality is this; every consumer of your product is strapped for time, what to trust what they use on a day to day basis and most importantly have differing needs based on how they like to innovate (and thus control how they do things). Each of these emotions are critical to unlocking the key to consumer behavior.
A great example of this would be in our own business where our index enables consumer to search on a brand or topic to unlock the emotion and passion within social media data. What happens when your brand or topic is something like the brand Tide? Tide can mean a great many things. But at its highest level it can mean Tide laundry detergent (what you are probably searching for). But it can also mean the Alabama Crimson Tide or even the Tides in the ocean. How can you create a query that lets you zoom down to the data you want to look through? In fact for many months our software (and I am not the most experienced software user although I am good at applying social media) had no way to help you deal with this problem without thinking through the all the key terms you need to separate out the data so to speak. And as someone who only likes to focus on detail like that for short periods of time, I found myself not using the software. I was essentially stopped passing go because setting up a search wasn't (do I hear it) efficient. It took a long time to think through the words you would exclude or include, what context might help your narrow things down or where I might even want to look. Second, when I did try to go through this process when I had to I was never sure I had set things up right. So I had no Confidence in my work. I did have control, because I could choose whatever terms I wanted to make it go. But this problem at the beginning of our software lacked two of the three emotions (confidence and efficiency).
A few months later we added our disambiguation wizard. Now before I press go I can look into the search and see what key words are coming up. I can click on a word see a sample of sound bites to decide if this word is relevant and when I want to exclude it I can see how much data is removed from the dataset. I can go back to my search query and add more context or more filters or whatever I want and then go back to the wizard.....(you get the idea).
In the end I can cycle through the until my changes yield just that, little change...AND THEN PRESS GO.
This new system takes a few minutes (efficient), helps me know I have the right data (confident) and I can keep or remove what I want (control). Its the emotional trifecta of SaaS. Think about it. Every feature and benefit can be put through such a filter to help on decide whether they are hitting the right emotional consumer targets.
As the title says...innovation, the consumer and SaaS together at last!
Monday, May 9, 2011
Applying social media - Getting beyond the fear
Over the past five years, I have had the privilege to be involved with social media. And not from a standpoint of creating it. No, my claim to fame has been applying it and using it for business. Over the past five years, I have come to trust the validity of social media data and the concept of netnography because I have seen it work.
And while I recently wrote in my introduction to Pipeline 2011 about getting over the fear, I figured I would spend a little time discussing at a high level how to think about applying social media to your business. At NetBase for whom I champion the social media cause, we have indexed the web and using natural language processing have given people the ability to quickly capture the relevant social media data they are looking for (say a brand like Tide) and allow them to UNDERSTAND the emotion being expressed in the data. Our natural language processing (something I am not an expert at understanding) enables us very accurately (clocked at 80-90% using independent people measuring its accuracy) extract the emotion in sentences. This huge index + accurate understanding of sentiment makes one giant database for capturing and observing consumer behavior in their natural habitat. My good friend Dr. Rob Kozinets calls it Netnography. This way of doing consumer research is very powerful because you can access this data and observe your consumer from anywhere anytime on any topic from your desk. Secondly, consumers in this natural habitat usually discuss things in a state free from bias because they don't know they are being observed (we only use the public web by the way...no private content). And lastly, because we have great natural language processing AND have indexed the web the data set is built the same way each and every search so all application work is not dependent on random data collection by people. It is an apples to apples collection of data that gives you a starting point to work from.
Enough about NetBase...the point of discussing this way of collecting social media data is to share how I collect my data when thinking about applying social media to real business problems. How do I begin to dimensionalize using social media everyday... I like to think about the following relationships.
TIME vs. RESOURCES vs. INFORMATION
This relationship is very critical to successfully beginning to think about the application of social media beyond counting sound bites. Let's think about it a bit more.
TIME vs. INFORMATION: In this case social media is a godsend. When you want to understand consumer behavior and you simply don't have the time to get the information where else can you go? There are many times when this happens. A great example is during what I call an "event". What is an event? It's a major issue your brand is facing because of something that suddenly occurs on the marketplace. This could be a celebrity making a verbal gaffe or a company's products making people sick. Either way, your ability to not only properly react but understand the data at hand is extremely limited. Normal methods requires days to prep and days to execute. Social brand trackers don't show real results for weeks after you need them. How will you have the time to get the information. Enter social media. I have had the opportunity to work on a number of "events" in recent weeks and to effectively do this you need some key measures to make it work. Fortunately, I have such measure at my disposal. Buzz or how much general comments are being made on a topic. Then there is sentiment. Sentiment is the positive or negative emotions being expressed about a topic. And lastly, there is passion or intensity. This is a special metric because not all sentiment is created equal. In fact, only with our natural language processing can we get at the passion count. Simply tracking the changes in these can be a powerful way for brand to understand a crisis. In fact, I spend much of my time these days playing with these three metrics to create novel social media business applications. Things like advertising effectiveness, event management, and innovation insight generation.
RESOURCES vs. TIME: This relationship is an interesting one. In the case of social media it about granularity. This is a case where you wouldn't take the time to spend the resources. There are many questions that a brand has that it might never answer because it just isn't worth the effort. I came across a great example a while back. At my previous company they had a brand that could be referred in two ways. One way was unique to our company the other was more generic. This piece of information was a debate for many years. In about 5 minutes we were able to unlock the secret from social media. When we checked the more generic way of labelling the product there 437 mentions. When we checked it our way it was 40. A 10:1 difference in buzz. The marketer I was working with at the time looked at me and said we would never spend to find that out but boy does everyone want to know the answer to that question. The speed and breadth of information that is available makes it possible to now learn what people are saying when it wasn't worth it before. My good friend Andrew used to look at me when I asked a stupid question and say, "you couldn't possibly care". I used to laugh and say he was right, I didn't. Now however, when someone says that about a brand question that is hard to fathom you can possibly care.
RESOURCES vs. INFORMATION: The most important thing to talk about in social media application. This is the game changer. Why? With our offering, a company can for the cost of about 5 focus groups have one analyst looking at any brand or topic at any time in any way. Why is this important? Because a company who could compete in the past because market research is too expensive has just become empowered to do as much market research as they want for about 10% the cost. This is how big companies will be taken down in the new market research data set that is emerging. If a small company can develop processes and methods for tapping all the data that is already out there...the game changes. In the past, these smaller companies didn't have the resources to get that information, but now they can. If they are hungry and not risk adverse they can now understand consumers with a SAS solution.
This is just one way to think about social media application but as I am very into rules of thumb and concepts like this, it makes a great way to begin to place your application methods in a particular box. I have no doubt after 5 years of applying social media that its power is only just being realized by companies. The ones that aren't afraid to try something new will win...those who stall will become dust.
An analogy I like to use regarding social media is this...
When I started applying social media to the business in 2006 it was midnight. It was dark and you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. In fact, I was often laughed at for suggesting this idea, but some people believed. Those who did started to be converted. I will never forget the time I was applying social media to acquisition work for one of my previous companies. During one cycle, we had generated a report on the pros and cons of the product from both a consumer and professional products perspective. We gave the report to the acquisition team (a great application of time versus information). They went to a report out meeting with the target. They had our findings with them. When one of the VP's got back I asked him how it went. I will never forget this social media moment...it was my magic moment. With wide open eyes he looked back at me and said quietly, "it was absolutely amazing, when they presented the pros and cons of the business I already had everything in my hand."
Well today it is only dawn. Most companies know they need social media but are still bewildered about where to spend or if they can even trust the data. I have worked across the corporate landscape in this respect having worked with visionaries who are forcing the change from those who know it is important, but are moving yet. Social media is a Ferrari bus with full tank of gas and a nitrous switch. If the bus leaves the station, it is going to move real fast.
The question remains when is NOON coming. The moment when the sun is high in the sky and brightness of the day shines on social media.
My prediction...we are nearly there...the Ferrari bus is revving and the driver has his foot on the gas.
And while I recently wrote in my introduction to Pipeline 2011 about getting over the fear, I figured I would spend a little time discussing at a high level how to think about applying social media to your business. At NetBase for whom I champion the social media cause, we have indexed the web and using natural language processing have given people the ability to quickly capture the relevant social media data they are looking for (say a brand like Tide) and allow them to UNDERSTAND the emotion being expressed in the data. Our natural language processing (something I am not an expert at understanding) enables us very accurately (clocked at 80-90% using independent people measuring its accuracy) extract the emotion in sentences. This huge index + accurate understanding of sentiment makes one giant database for capturing and observing consumer behavior in their natural habitat. My good friend Dr. Rob Kozinets calls it Netnography. This way of doing consumer research is very powerful because you can access this data and observe your consumer from anywhere anytime on any topic from your desk. Secondly, consumers in this natural habitat usually discuss things in a state free from bias because they don't know they are being observed (we only use the public web by the way...no private content). And lastly, because we have great natural language processing AND have indexed the web the data set is built the same way each and every search so all application work is not dependent on random data collection by people. It is an apples to apples collection of data that gives you a starting point to work from.
Enough about NetBase...the point of discussing this way of collecting social media data is to share how I collect my data when thinking about applying social media to real business problems. How do I begin to dimensionalize using social media everyday... I like to think about the following relationships.
TIME vs. RESOURCES vs. INFORMATION
This relationship is very critical to successfully beginning to think about the application of social media beyond counting sound bites. Let's think about it a bit more.
TIME vs. INFORMATION: In this case social media is a godsend. When you want to understand consumer behavior and you simply don't have the time to get the information where else can you go? There are many times when this happens. A great example is during what I call an "event". What is an event? It's a major issue your brand is facing because of something that suddenly occurs on the marketplace. This could be a celebrity making a verbal gaffe or a company's products making people sick. Either way, your ability to not only properly react but understand the data at hand is extremely limited. Normal methods requires days to prep and days to execute. Social brand trackers don't show real results for weeks after you need them. How will you have the time to get the information. Enter social media. I have had the opportunity to work on a number of "events" in recent weeks and to effectively do this you need some key measures to make it work. Fortunately, I have such measure at my disposal. Buzz or how much general comments are being made on a topic. Then there is sentiment. Sentiment is the positive or negative emotions being expressed about a topic. And lastly, there is passion or intensity. This is a special metric because not all sentiment is created equal. In fact, only with our natural language processing can we get at the passion count. Simply tracking the changes in these can be a powerful way for brand to understand a crisis. In fact, I spend much of my time these days playing with these three metrics to create novel social media business applications. Things like advertising effectiveness, event management, and innovation insight generation.
RESOURCES vs. TIME: This relationship is an interesting one. In the case of social media it about granularity. This is a case where you wouldn't take the time to spend the resources. There are many questions that a brand has that it might never answer because it just isn't worth the effort. I came across a great example a while back. At my previous company they had a brand that could be referred in two ways. One way was unique to our company the other was more generic. This piece of information was a debate for many years. In about 5 minutes we were able to unlock the secret from social media. When we checked the more generic way of labelling the product there 437 mentions. When we checked it our way it was 40. A 10:1 difference in buzz. The marketer I was working with at the time looked at me and said we would never spend to find that out but boy does everyone want to know the answer to that question. The speed and breadth of information that is available makes it possible to now learn what people are saying when it wasn't worth it before. My good friend Andrew used to look at me when I asked a stupid question and say, "you couldn't possibly care". I used to laugh and say he was right, I didn't. Now however, when someone says that about a brand question that is hard to fathom you can possibly care.
RESOURCES vs. INFORMATION: The most important thing to talk about in social media application. This is the game changer. Why? With our offering, a company can for the cost of about 5 focus groups have one analyst looking at any brand or topic at any time in any way. Why is this important? Because a company who could compete in the past because market research is too expensive has just become empowered to do as much market research as they want for about 10% the cost. This is how big companies will be taken down in the new market research data set that is emerging. If a small company can develop processes and methods for tapping all the data that is already out there...the game changes. In the past, these smaller companies didn't have the resources to get that information, but now they can. If they are hungry and not risk adverse they can now understand consumers with a SAS solution.
This is just one way to think about social media application but as I am very into rules of thumb and concepts like this, it makes a great way to begin to place your application methods in a particular box. I have no doubt after 5 years of applying social media that its power is only just being realized by companies. The ones that aren't afraid to try something new will win...those who stall will become dust.
An analogy I like to use regarding social media is this...
When I started applying social media to the business in 2006 it was midnight. It was dark and you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. In fact, I was often laughed at for suggesting this idea, but some people believed. Those who did started to be converted. I will never forget the time I was applying social media to acquisition work for one of my previous companies. During one cycle, we had generated a report on the pros and cons of the product from both a consumer and professional products perspective. We gave the report to the acquisition team (a great application of time versus information). They went to a report out meeting with the target. They had our findings with them. When one of the VP's got back I asked him how it went. I will never forget this social media moment...it was my magic moment. With wide open eyes he looked back at me and said quietly, "it was absolutely amazing, when they presented the pros and cons of the business I already had everything in my hand."
Well today it is only dawn. Most companies know they need social media but are still bewildered about where to spend or if they can even trust the data. I have worked across the corporate landscape in this respect having worked with visionaries who are forcing the change from those who know it is important, but are moving yet. Social media is a Ferrari bus with full tank of gas and a nitrous switch. If the bus leaves the station, it is going to move real fast.
The question remains when is NOON coming. The moment when the sun is high in the sky and brightness of the day shines on social media.
My prediction...we are nearly there...the Ferrari bus is revving and the driver has his foot on the gas.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Innovation Rules of Thumb - Preparation - Know Thy Client
When you have a big idea...who do you turn to if you want see it come to life? Within the corporate landscape, no innovator gets an idea done in a vacuum with no one's help. You have to rely on others to help make it happen and in many cases your idea needs a client to make it happen. This client can be an external customer, channel partner or internal stakeholder. And no matter what you will probably need someone to become the "consumer" of your idea.
When you have targeted your client, what is your rationale for picking them?
One method would be to think first about your idea. You might say to yourself, I love this idea and it is perfect for THIS client. In this case, the fit will be mostly about matching idea with client regardless of who the client is, what your relationship is with them and usually how much revenue or success it can generate for you or your company.
I would consider this the traditional method of finding a client for your idea. This to me is all about the business. The greatest success is tied to the greatest revenue. More money equals more success. And this is the most important metric in making innovation valuable. Because we are all in this to make money right? (Cue the sales guy dressed suavely in a tie laughing and slapping you on the back).
In fact, picking this method can give the biggest results, it can give the most pain. Why? Because people are self interested and when it comes to change they will only engage if it makes sense for them as we have previously discussed. That is why the rule of thumb KNOW THY CLIENT is so critical to helping you succeed. If you start down the wrong path at the beginning, how can you expect to make it to the end at all? There are so many pitfalls to the change agent game, starting off by picking the right partner to make things go is probably one of the most critical things we do.
As an innovator coming up with ideas is like popping popcorn, you put some heat on it many kernals pop. So rather that pick you biggest idea and match it to the right client, find the right client for the many ideas you might have. Success as an innovator is a game of big leaps but getting to leap is a game of inches. You can increase your odds of winning by always going to the right partner. And this means taking the opposite approach for success.
So what is the rule of thumb KNOW THY CLIENT about? Very simple...
If I have an awesome that is worth $1B and another one worth $100MM but the client for $1B is someone I can't trust, but the $100MM idea is for someone I have succeeded with many times, forget the $1B idea and go with $100MM idea.
This sounds kind of weird doesn't it? Picking the less valuable idea over the bigger one. But if you think about it a bit, it makes sense. In both cases, you will be asking your company to take a risk and do something different, so it is most valuable to make it happen rather than lose out because of who you stakeholder is for the idea. As an innovator, good partners are the most important thing to consider in making things happen and this starts with KNOWING THY CLIENT. The politics of innovation isn't about the merit of ideas, but what the people who make them happen think about the merit of the ideas. If companies don't innovate and people do, then choosing a good partner will more than likely help great things happen.
And what is most important to remember, KNOWING THY CLIENT is a personal thing. You know your innovation style and a good client is someone who you jive with, trust, and connect with in how you like to make it happen. Never be influenced by others. Know your style and bring it to the party when picking your client to bring an idea. Trust yourself.
Trust is the oil of innovation because it keeps friction down when working together. Bring the oil if you want to make great things happen....
When you have targeted your client, what is your rationale for picking them?
One method would be to think first about your idea. You might say to yourself, I love this idea and it is perfect for THIS client. In this case, the fit will be mostly about matching idea with client regardless of who the client is, what your relationship is with them and usually how much revenue or success it can generate for you or your company.
I would consider this the traditional method of finding a client for your idea. This to me is all about the business. The greatest success is tied to the greatest revenue. More money equals more success. And this is the most important metric in making innovation valuable. Because we are all in this to make money right? (Cue the sales guy dressed suavely in a tie laughing and slapping you on the back).
In fact, picking this method can give the biggest results, it can give the most pain. Why? Because people are self interested and when it comes to change they will only engage if it makes sense for them as we have previously discussed. That is why the rule of thumb KNOW THY CLIENT is so critical to helping you succeed. If you start down the wrong path at the beginning, how can you expect to make it to the end at all? There are so many pitfalls to the change agent game, starting off by picking the right partner to make things go is probably one of the most critical things we do.
As an innovator coming up with ideas is like popping popcorn, you put some heat on it many kernals pop. So rather that pick you biggest idea and match it to the right client, find the right client for the many ideas you might have. Success as an innovator is a game of big leaps but getting to leap is a game of inches. You can increase your odds of winning by always going to the right partner. And this means taking the opposite approach for success.
So what is the rule of thumb KNOW THY CLIENT about? Very simple...
If I have an awesome that is worth $1B and another one worth $100MM but the client for $1B is someone I can't trust, but the $100MM idea is for someone I have succeeded with many times, forget the $1B idea and go with $100MM idea.
This sounds kind of weird doesn't it? Picking the less valuable idea over the bigger one. But if you think about it a bit, it makes sense. In both cases, you will be asking your company to take a risk and do something different, so it is most valuable to make it happen rather than lose out because of who you stakeholder is for the idea. As an innovator, good partners are the most important thing to consider in making things happen and this starts with KNOWING THY CLIENT. The politics of innovation isn't about the merit of ideas, but what the people who make them happen think about the merit of the ideas. If companies don't innovate and people do, then choosing a good partner will more than likely help great things happen.
And what is most important to remember, KNOWING THY CLIENT is a personal thing. You know your innovation style and a good client is someone who you jive with, trust, and connect with in how you like to make it happen. Never be influenced by others. Know your style and bring it to the party when picking your client to bring an idea. Trust yourself.
Trust is the oil of innovation because it keeps friction down when working together. Bring the oil if you want to make great things happen....
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
One man's rules of thumb for navigating the politics of innovation - introduction
Back to the politics of innovation...
Now that we have delved into why innovators often fail and what makes them successful, there is another key thing to think about...the rules of thumb to live by. I guess to me having rules of thumb are principles you can use to help you make decisions quickly and when no one is there to help you. I guess the point here is if you wanna innovate in space (be able to tackle any situation) you will need to keep your wits about you. There are four key headers for the rules of thumb Preparation, Communication, Influence and Collaboration.
I will tackle them one at a time (although I have tackled a few already along the way)
here they are...
Preparation
Now that we have delved into why innovators often fail and what makes them successful, there is another key thing to think about...the rules of thumb to live by. I guess to me having rules of thumb are principles you can use to help you make decisions quickly and when no one is there to help you. I guess the point here is if you wanna innovate in space (be able to tackle any situation) you will need to keep your wits about you. There are four key headers for the rules of thumb Preparation, Communication, Influence and Collaboration.
I will tackle them one at a time (although I have tackled a few already along the way)
here they are...
Preparation
- Know thy Client
- Understand decision-makers personality types
- Know why you shouldn’t do it
- Success has many parents failure is an orphan
- The Concept-Approach principle
- It’s your fault they don’t understand
- Know when to start selling and when not to
- Never innovate by article or book
- Sell high informally
- Patience is a virtue
- Learn how to lead the horse to water to drink
- Sell you ideas in bits and pieces
- Always support your allies
- Look for opposite-minded partners
- Find bolt-on opportunities
- There is enough credit to go around
Pipeline 2011 - Social Media Meets Innovation
On June 1st, I will be the closing keynote speaker at Pipeline 2011, the online innovation conference on product development. And while I spend a great deal of time talking about innovation theory, I thought I would deviate today to discuss a bit about the subject of my talk...Social Media.
I have had the fortune to stumble upon the concept of using social media within the enterprise since 2006. In fact, my foray into the subject came about through my interaction with a supplier called Accelovation. This company eventually morphed into NetBase and after successfully implementing their social media solutions at my two previous companies, I have joined the company as its Chief Evangelist responsible for helping people see the power of social media as a data source for driving the business.
This post is not about what I have accomplished in social media as much as it is about starting a dialogue prior to my talk at Pipeline 2011. In fact, what I want it to be about is my favorite innovation subject...culture and trust. About two months ago I discussed the concept of culture based adoption. This idea, which discussed how new software is as much about getting people to use new tools as it is about changing culture in the process, is at the center of the social media debate in my mind.
For many months, I have learned much about what I consider the slow adoption of social media as a data source. In working with many companies in many fields, I have heard many reasons why they are slow to integrate what is clearly impacting all of us everyday. It's not accurate. It's biased. Only gen y is online. Companies are poisoning the data. The list goes on and on. But what often amazes me is this. When confronted by what I consider fear of change within the corporation (a topic of the politics of innovation), I always ask people one simple question. When you are about to buy an appliance or an electronic product what is the first thing you do? The all say go to the web and read up. This to me highlights the struggle social media faces within the Enterprise. The ENTERPRISE is not telling the WE or the ME (my earlier post) that social media is extremely important. There is cultural misalignment and therefore resistance to this new and powerful idea. The proof is in the fact the everyone (ME) turns to the web immediately about hundred times a day through their phone.
In fact, I had the pleasure of presenting at an offsite in February to discuss how it can be applied. This company was a one that sits on the tip of everyone's tongue everyday and more importantly is in the heart of silicon valley. At this offsite, I asked the group to raise their hand if they felt that social media could be a relevant data source. Not one person out of about 50 did. I was shocked. Here I am standing within one of silicon valley's giants and even that company is resistant. This company does ALL of its business online, but no one is telling everyone who uses the web personally everyday that the conversations online are relevant to learn from. And I did ask them the question above after no one raised their hands and people smiled and agreed they do look to the web when they buy.
Now many people will say that there are so many tools how do you know what to choose? This is a true statement, but I guess the point here is that to build a new capability you can't take all the risk out of your experiments. Even thought I represent a company that sells a profound capability to driving social media insights and analysis, I am a change agent and innovation broker at heart. I tell any customer I work with that they need to think about a suite of tools just like anything. Everyone wants one solution to do everything. And while the market will mature and there will eventually be that one tool, it is important to move from fear to exploration. We must stop letting social media impact us and move to a place of embracing the change by getting off the wall and asking our partner at the junior high dance to do just that.
How can stay competitive if you are unable to even take the risk to compete....
See you in June to learn more about how social media can make innovation faster, better and cheaper.
I have had the fortune to stumble upon the concept of using social media within the enterprise since 2006. In fact, my foray into the subject came about through my interaction with a supplier called Accelovation. This company eventually morphed into NetBase and after successfully implementing their social media solutions at my two previous companies, I have joined the company as its Chief Evangelist responsible for helping people see the power of social media as a data source for driving the business.
This post is not about what I have accomplished in social media as much as it is about starting a dialogue prior to my talk at Pipeline 2011. In fact, what I want it to be about is my favorite innovation subject...culture and trust. About two months ago I discussed the concept of culture based adoption. This idea, which discussed how new software is as much about getting people to use new tools as it is about changing culture in the process, is at the center of the social media debate in my mind.
For many months, I have learned much about what I consider the slow adoption of social media as a data source. In working with many companies in many fields, I have heard many reasons why they are slow to integrate what is clearly impacting all of us everyday. It's not accurate. It's biased. Only gen y is online. Companies are poisoning the data. The list goes on and on. But what often amazes me is this. When confronted by what I consider fear of change within the corporation (a topic of the politics of innovation), I always ask people one simple question. When you are about to buy an appliance or an electronic product what is the first thing you do? The all say go to the web and read up. This to me highlights the struggle social media faces within the Enterprise. The ENTERPRISE is not telling the WE or the ME (my earlier post) that social media is extremely important. There is cultural misalignment and therefore resistance to this new and powerful idea. The proof is in the fact the everyone (ME) turns to the web immediately about hundred times a day through their phone.
In fact, I had the pleasure of presenting at an offsite in February to discuss how it can be applied. This company was a one that sits on the tip of everyone's tongue everyday and more importantly is in the heart of silicon valley. At this offsite, I asked the group to raise their hand if they felt that social media could be a relevant data source. Not one person out of about 50 did. I was shocked. Here I am standing within one of silicon valley's giants and even that company is resistant. This company does ALL of its business online, but no one is telling everyone who uses the web personally everyday that the conversations online are relevant to learn from. And I did ask them the question above after no one raised their hands and people smiled and agreed they do look to the web when they buy.
Now many people will say that there are so many tools how do you know what to choose? This is a true statement, but I guess the point here is that to build a new capability you can't take all the risk out of your experiments. Even thought I represent a company that sells a profound capability to driving social media insights and analysis, I am a change agent and innovation broker at heart. I tell any customer I work with that they need to think about a suite of tools just like anything. Everyone wants one solution to do everything. And while the market will mature and there will eventually be that one tool, it is important to move from fear to exploration. We must stop letting social media impact us and move to a place of embracing the change by getting off the wall and asking our partner at the junior high dance to do just that.
How can stay competitive if you are unable to even take the risk to compete....
See you in June to learn more about how social media can make innovation faster, better and cheaper.
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