Its 2012...and frankly it is starting to move very quickly. We are almost finished the 1st quarter of the year. As I am now entrenched in the maturation of a new marketplace (not only the creation of social media but the usage of it for running the business), I am starting to think about what key factors will drive the success or failure of those trying to help companies successfully use the data to their advantage.
There is an ongoing battle that is being debated one company at a time. It is this...what is the best way to tap into what I fondly refer to as THE CROWD? This is using all the social media data available to understand consumers in their new natural habitat. The questions that are troubling everyone at this point in the debate is the following
1. How much data is enough to make decisions?
2. What are the metrics that will help you measure its impact?
3. Can you trust the dataset that is being created on the web?
4. Can I trust the content?
5. Is is getting the best quality data more important that getting all the data to make decisions?
This is essentially the PRECISION versus RECALL debate.
Precision by definition is getting the most accurate data to make decisions. Recall is not missing a single piece of data when deciding what to do. It is a dicussion that has been going on over the last 24 months.
As a member of the precision camp for more than 5 years, I have defended the following concept for a long time. I used to say what is key is being able to collect the right data set the same way everytime to make sure that you are comparing apples to apples with every study you do. Call it the way of the scientist (which I am) because I have been trained to carefully manage variables to make sure that only the right study is done. With only the best data, I have argued that you can do your work to understand consumers in the social media sphere. I have championed that it takes many measure like the ones I have access to to be able to really create meaningful business knowledge and metrics (that is buzz, sentiment and passion data). The whole time I have been able to very easily prove time and time again, that I can develop insights and create social media theories that will push the envelope.
I am here to say that I have been wrong...dead wrong.
In the last 3 months, I have been able to learn something critical to success of any social media program. In order to make the shift across the enterprise, it takes BOTH precision (my camp) and recall (the other camp) to really tell the complete story for the business.
Why?
Three reasons
1. Recall is critical to surface issues being discussed acros social media. I have had some experiences with some methodologies (can't discuss today or yet) that are showing me recall type measurements are outstanding and way more senitive for surfacing an issue. If you can grab the key discussion points from all that is being said, you will get to the what more effectively.
2. Precision helps you understand why. I have one customer who I work with that has shown me how they help their constitutents understand what consumers are saying online about their brands. What I learned is this, they cannot get the depth of insight they need from simple recall. Recall is the fluff and precision represents the depth in studying consumers online.
3. Both precision and recall will be the key to unlocking one's ability to measure the ROI from social media. What do I mean by this? Anyone who has spent their time trying to figure out this problem gets too stuck creating data breakdowns that lead down the path of someone asking them so what. The reality and the next big thing in social media validation is going to come from leveraging the speed at which data can be collected (the buzz, the sentiment and the passion...the recall and precision) will be mixed with the data that companies trust.
The fight over how to best leverage social media data to run the business has been always founded in what I consider a culture change. Even when you steadily prove what it can do, there is someone who is always skeptical of what you did. This is the nature of culture battles. Social media analytics has always been asking people to use new methods but also to use a new set of data. To best overcome the changes needed by the organization, those interested in proving its worth will need a way to mix what is trusted and what is new.
Precision and recall will be the path to success. Mixing all the data (so those wondering if they are missing something can be appeased) with the most accurate ways to measure consumers' opinions is the first step. The second is building trust by making sure measures (sales, units, margin...etc that are near and dear to their risk adverse hearts is part of the solution not an old friend to be cast away for some thing new an better.
That is all I have to say now...but stay tuned here to the proof in the pudding...
I will go Social Medieval on this point soon...
stay tuned!
Monday, March 26, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Features, Content and Accuracy...Oh MY!
I figured I would write a short post from the trenches. I wanted to pose a question to the masses...
How do you know that your "counts" of sound bites are even accurate?
I have been spending an enormous amount of time working with people across the social media wild west and one of the things I cannot get my head around is the battle of numbers in social media data. Culturally, we are shifting the very foundation of what data means from a place of strict quantification to a place of the more data the better with blind faith.
As a scientist who is trained in variable management, I was always taught that there is no bad data only data. And this tenet is surely true as the field of social media measurement continues to mature slowly. That being said, I am surprised at how much push people are asking in the area of quantificaiton, but rarely question how the data was counted.
Yes, it is imperative that when someone tells you a sound bite is positive that it truly is, but for any technology company, trying to live up to the perfect coding standard is impossible. Then I will see someone question how many sound bites they have on their brand.
I am shocked that people are so quick to declare victory of their facebook fan page likes, but are so loathe to stop and think when you tell them that their multimillion campaign on generated 7500 soundbites naturally. Why is this the case?
Yes, social media data is extremely powerful. The data is vast and the potential for real time understanding translating to business results is real and will become tangible as this year wears on, but to simply say more data is better without asking how that number was generated is folly.
I figured I would post some thoughts on how to think about social media analytics to "clear the air". We all want our tools to look pretty and do wild things. But what else is there to consider? I would argue there is more than one thing to think about when getting a great tool.
In fact, there are three critical components to think about
Features - This is the obvious part. This is about bells and whistles, slicing and dicing the data so you can mine it and use it. Most peopl solely focus on the ease of use that a tool has. And by the way I couldn't agree more with that thinking. Many tools are very powerful but very difficult to use. Having something that is flexible, powerful and nimble is critical. This is becoming table steaks for anyone interested in building something good. But frankly if you have a great tool there are two other things to think about...
Content- This is the point I am trying to make here. Did you get ALL the content? Or better yet, did you get ALL the CLEAN content? Here is the distinction...if you get 100,000 sound bites and 30,000 are duplicate posts it doesn't matter how great your features are, you now have crappy content and you are comparing apples to oranges in doing your work. Many social media junkies will focus solely on the numbers and not on whether they are accurate. Are you asking that feature provider to open their kimono so they can tell you how they get there content? Do you know how they verify their streams? I think people need to spend a whole bunch more time on this issue before worrying about how pretty the data is sliced and diced. Why? Becuase if you are so worried about the ROI of social media data then your content and thus you counts better be good or you data is bad and your reco is flawed.
Accuracy - Again if you are trying to understand what social media is telling you (not listen) then you need to be concerend with this small thing. No one is going to get you all the way to 100% accuracy. At least, not until skynet is built and we all go down in a ball of MATRIX flames. But for now, after you get your counts right, you need to make sure that sentiment is accurate. There are a lot of claims out there as to how to best calculate it. While I work for an NLP company, I won't argue that we are the end all be all, but we do go for accuracy of the smaller sample set as one of our targets to help you know WHY people feel a certain way. Accuracy is the key to good sentiment analysis and critical if you want to get away from coding a thousand soundbites by hand...ugh.
Why am I writing this? Because I see a lot of resistance from people I work with when trying to get comfortable with social media data. It starts with not asking question about what appears to be bigger and better. It is about making sure that what is under the hood is in working order or you just bought a car that has a beautiful body, paint job, awesome seats, great stereo and an even cooler steering wheel, but is powered by a YUGO engine under the hood. That car is great to stand around an party and look good but could get you to the liquor store to buy a case of beer...
How do you know that your "counts" of sound bites are even accurate?
I have been spending an enormous amount of time working with people across the social media wild west and one of the things I cannot get my head around is the battle of numbers in social media data. Culturally, we are shifting the very foundation of what data means from a place of strict quantification to a place of the more data the better with blind faith.
As a scientist who is trained in variable management, I was always taught that there is no bad data only data. And this tenet is surely true as the field of social media measurement continues to mature slowly. That being said, I am surprised at how much push people are asking in the area of quantificaiton, but rarely question how the data was counted.
Yes, it is imperative that when someone tells you a sound bite is positive that it truly is, but for any technology company, trying to live up to the perfect coding standard is impossible. Then I will see someone question how many sound bites they have on their brand.
I am shocked that people are so quick to declare victory of their facebook fan page likes, but are so loathe to stop and think when you tell them that their multimillion campaign on generated 7500 soundbites naturally. Why is this the case?
Yes, social media data is extremely powerful. The data is vast and the potential for real time understanding translating to business results is real and will become tangible as this year wears on, but to simply say more data is better without asking how that number was generated is folly.
I figured I would post some thoughts on how to think about social media analytics to "clear the air". We all want our tools to look pretty and do wild things. But what else is there to consider? I would argue there is more than one thing to think about when getting a great tool.
In fact, there are three critical components to think about
Features - This is the obvious part. This is about bells and whistles, slicing and dicing the data so you can mine it and use it. Most peopl solely focus on the ease of use that a tool has. And by the way I couldn't agree more with that thinking. Many tools are very powerful but very difficult to use. Having something that is flexible, powerful and nimble is critical. This is becoming table steaks for anyone interested in building something good. But frankly if you have a great tool there are two other things to think about...
Content- This is the point I am trying to make here. Did you get ALL the content? Or better yet, did you get ALL the CLEAN content? Here is the distinction...if you get 100,000 sound bites and 30,000 are duplicate posts it doesn't matter how great your features are, you now have crappy content and you are comparing apples to oranges in doing your work. Many social media junkies will focus solely on the numbers and not on whether they are accurate. Are you asking that feature provider to open their kimono so they can tell you how they get there content? Do you know how they verify their streams? I think people need to spend a whole bunch more time on this issue before worrying about how pretty the data is sliced and diced. Why? Becuase if you are so worried about the ROI of social media data then your content and thus you counts better be good or you data is bad and your reco is flawed.
Accuracy - Again if you are trying to understand what social media is telling you (not listen) then you need to be concerend with this small thing. No one is going to get you all the way to 100% accuracy. At least, not until skynet is built and we all go down in a ball of MATRIX flames. But for now, after you get your counts right, you need to make sure that sentiment is accurate. There are a lot of claims out there as to how to best calculate it. While I work for an NLP company, I won't argue that we are the end all be all, but we do go for accuracy of the smaller sample set as one of our targets to help you know WHY people feel a certain way. Accuracy is the key to good sentiment analysis and critical if you want to get away from coding a thousand soundbites by hand...ugh.
Why am I writing this? Because I see a lot of resistance from people I work with when trying to get comfortable with social media data. It starts with not asking question about what appears to be bigger and better. It is about making sure that what is under the hood is in working order or you just bought a car that has a beautiful body, paint job, awesome seats, great stereo and an even cooler steering wheel, but is powered by a YUGO engine under the hood. That car is great to stand around an party and look good but could get you to the liquor store to buy a case of beer...
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Looking at the space between the cracks - Between the theatre and DVD
In the every continuing quest to figure out how to apply social media to business, I continue my mini use cases with a new look at something different. In the past, I have looked at politics a ton. Most recently, I looked at the concept of the social media fingerprint (which in my professional work continues to bear fruit as being an interesting concept) and today...what about white space?
What do I mean by white space? What happens between the launch of a product. You can apply this idea on longer time frame the first launch of product to its product improvements. In fact, some would call this launch analysis because the time frame between product launch and improvement can often be months. Another good example would include monitoring a test market of new product or service. Many times if one studies what occurs during the test market there is a great chance to learn something idea before you go full launch. The focus of this study is to look at another shorter time frame white space; between when a movie launches and when its dvd goes live.
What is amazing about this particular use case is that the time frames are getting so short between when movies hit the screen and when we see them at home that social media will become a critical methodology for studying such white space.
In the analysis I will do today, I chose to look the movie Cars 2. The reason for this choice is it launched last year and also launched its DVD in 2011 as well. It's box office totaled $191MM in the US and $368MM outside the U.S.. In addition, it was ranked the #4 most successful DVD sales in 2011 with $71MM dollars. The Movie hit the theaters June 24th, 2011 and the DVD launch occurred on November 1st. 2011. Below is analysis of the launch, white space period and after the DVD launch.
First Lets take a quick look at the net sentiment and summary metrics for the entire year around the topic of Cars 2.
This chart gives a very good overview of the movie Cars 2. You will see that net sentiment for the film is pretty strong overall. What is good about this full year look is the obvious spikes that occur in sentiment around the time of the launch with a smaller spike during the DVD release. This correlates with one would expect from the movie launch.
As we analyze the concept of movie white space, we will look at three quarterly periods. The first is May, June and July. This will represent the launch of the movie and about six weeks after launch. The white space period will include August, September and October. This is perfect as the the DVD launched on November 1st at the end of the white space period. And after the DVD launch will be the third period which includes November, December and January.
Let's look at the launch to get a sense of what people were saying. I will look at 4 things here. The first is the net sentiment trend for the period that you see above and the summary data. I will also look at the sources breakdown and the top 10 likes and dislikes for the period.
For the launch...
You will see a blow up of the launch period. In this period, we see the majority of sound bites. In addition, the net sentiment and passion intensity scores vary little from the overall data set. As for the source breakdown, almost 87% of the traffic comes from both social networks and twitter. These two sources often represent mainstream discussion. One would expect during the launch that much of the chatter would occur on these channels.
As for likes and dislikes...some of the highlights are sort of interesting. For one, the major like is the movie trailer. If you remember this movie didn't receive very strong critical acclaim. It seems that most people were excited by the concept of the movie more than its delivery. In fact, none of the other likes (while voluminous) are not very strong. They include like good movie and okay. These are not ringing endorsements of the film. It is interesting to note here that this movie did almost over 600MM in sales with only about 33% coming from U.S. sales.
As for dislikes, we see there is many mentions of the less than critical acclaim. In fact, rotten shows up (which is focused on rotten tomatoes less than fresh rating of 38%.
Let's move onto the white space breakdown.
Below are the same set of charts we saw for the launch period.
The summary metrics for this period look very similar to the launch period except for the fact that the volume is much lower. You will see more peaks and valleys in the sentiment postings. But as you move into the likes and dislikes you will see some differences.
In the likes category you can see some of the Pixar's marketing efforts are emerging. The number one mention is the Cars 2 App. At the launch of the movie, the app launched and was a huge success on the marketplace. In addition, we see mention of the Cars 2 toys. What is evident here is the fact that Pixar's marketing efforts are keeping buzz on the movie going beyond its stint in the theaters. This is very interesting because it does show that the concept of keeping the movie top of mind could be a critical component of the white space period for films between the theater and the DVD launch.
What becomes most interesting, however, is the change in the sources breakdown. Previously, 87% of traffic came from consumer channels like twitter and facebook. During the white space period, this number drops to 64% (a total change of 23% on an absolute basis). Subsequently, the blogs and forums have gone from 18% to 31%.
What does this mean? It means that the social media fingerprint is a real thing. You can read about the hypothesis here (link to Iran blogpost on social media fingerprint). As I have written previously, blogs represent a place where experts speak to the world and forums are those who like a topic love to chatter at each other. Facebook is friend talking amongst themselves. And twitter is the individual shout out to others letting them know how they feel.
How does this manifest for the movie industry. My hypothesis here is that to best study the consumer for a DVD launch, one must look to the blog/forum chatter to connect with those who will buy the DVD. These people are talking about there thoughts and usually movie buffs are interested in movies. This isn't the greatest example because in the case of Cars 2, a children's movie, parents will simply buy it. But the fact that these channels grow in chatter suggest it is a robust place to study.
Lastly, I will post the after launch period.
This period shows some continued evolution. For one, from a likes perspective we see two pieces of pie around take flight and thrill. Both of these slices center around marketing of a new cars 2 toy (presumably for Christmas). Again...the marketing continues and keeps the momentum for the film. On the dislikes side, there is a unique mention of not get nomination. The chatter continues for the film. The volume is reduced, but there continues to be evolution in the topic.
But again, the forums and blogs percentage has again gone up to 40% from 31%. This shows that the continue dialogue around Cars 2 eventually is centering on passionate people discussing the film and not mainstream consumers (when compared to the launch period)
Let's look at the brand passion.
the first is a chart of the brand passion during the three periods.
this chart shows the the rotten tomatoes score of 38% is about accurate. In this quadrant which looks at buzz (size of bubble), sentiment (y-axis) and passion (x-axis) to get an overall view of the brand across time, we see that people simply liked this film. And we see that during the white space period there is a decrease in passion while it increases in overall passion after the DVD launches.
This helps us get sense of what was going for the film over time.
I also looked at the white space period's BPI with a breakout of the sources during this timeframe.
It is below...
Here we see how each source is contributing to the brand passion during the white space period. This is a good guide for deciding where the passion is coming from before the launch. It help see where the positive chatter is happening and where the negative chatter is happening. It is a map to study your consumer prior to launch.
While there is major planning to the entire period when a movie launches this study has shone there is great nuance to what social media can tell us. In the case of Cars 2, there seems to be changes in the chatter during this crucial white space period. While I have only scratched the surface in this blogpost, the concept of social media fingerprint again plays out. The question remains will the current culture of planning and process keep organizations from learning on the fly as their critical dollars are spent on their business.
It looks like Pixar has the last laugh with its mediocre release...why...because of the 600 million box office and 150MM in DVD sales...we don't even know what the toys brought in.
Happy viewing...
What do I mean by white space? What happens between the launch of a product. You can apply this idea on longer time frame the first launch of product to its product improvements. In fact, some would call this launch analysis because the time frame between product launch and improvement can often be months. Another good example would include monitoring a test market of new product or service. Many times if one studies what occurs during the test market there is a great chance to learn something idea before you go full launch. The focus of this study is to look at another shorter time frame white space; between when a movie launches and when its dvd goes live.
What is amazing about this particular use case is that the time frames are getting so short between when movies hit the screen and when we see them at home that social media will become a critical methodology for studying such white space.
In the analysis I will do today, I chose to look the movie Cars 2. The reason for this choice is it launched last year and also launched its DVD in 2011 as well. It's box office totaled $191MM in the US and $368MM outside the U.S.. In addition, it was ranked the #4 most successful DVD sales in 2011 with $71MM dollars. The Movie hit the theaters June 24th, 2011 and the DVD launch occurred on November 1st. 2011. Below is analysis of the launch, white space period and after the DVD launch.
First Lets take a quick look at the net sentiment and summary metrics for the entire year around the topic of Cars 2.
This chart gives a very good overview of the movie Cars 2. You will see that net sentiment for the film is pretty strong overall. What is good about this full year look is the obvious spikes that occur in sentiment around the time of the launch with a smaller spike during the DVD release. This correlates with one would expect from the movie launch.
As we analyze the concept of movie white space, we will look at three quarterly periods. The first is May, June and July. This will represent the launch of the movie and about six weeks after launch. The white space period will include August, September and October. This is perfect as the the DVD launched on November 1st at the end of the white space period. And after the DVD launch will be the third period which includes November, December and January.
Let's look at the launch to get a sense of what people were saying. I will look at 4 things here. The first is the net sentiment trend for the period that you see above and the summary data. I will also look at the sources breakdown and the top 10 likes and dislikes for the period.
For the launch...
You will see a blow up of the launch period. In this period, we see the majority of sound bites. In addition, the net sentiment and passion intensity scores vary little from the overall data set. As for the source breakdown, almost 87% of the traffic comes from both social networks and twitter. These two sources often represent mainstream discussion. One would expect during the launch that much of the chatter would occur on these channels.
As for likes and dislikes...some of the highlights are sort of interesting. For one, the major like is the movie trailer. If you remember this movie didn't receive very strong critical acclaim. It seems that most people were excited by the concept of the movie more than its delivery. In fact, none of the other likes (while voluminous) are not very strong. They include like good movie and okay. These are not ringing endorsements of the film. It is interesting to note here that this movie did almost over 600MM in sales with only about 33% coming from U.S. sales.
As for dislikes, we see there is many mentions of the less than critical acclaim. In fact, rotten shows up (which is focused on rotten tomatoes less than fresh rating of 38%.
Let's move onto the white space breakdown.
Below are the same set of charts we saw for the launch period.
The summary metrics for this period look very similar to the launch period except for the fact that the volume is much lower. You will see more peaks and valleys in the sentiment postings. But as you move into the likes and dislikes you will see some differences.
In the likes category you can see some of the Pixar's marketing efforts are emerging. The number one mention is the Cars 2 App. At the launch of the movie, the app launched and was a huge success on the marketplace. In addition, we see mention of the Cars 2 toys. What is evident here is the fact that Pixar's marketing efforts are keeping buzz on the movie going beyond its stint in the theaters. This is very interesting because it does show that the concept of keeping the movie top of mind could be a critical component of the white space period for films between the theater and the DVD launch.
What becomes most interesting, however, is the change in the sources breakdown. Previously, 87% of traffic came from consumer channels like twitter and facebook. During the white space period, this number drops to 64% (a total change of 23% on an absolute basis). Subsequently, the blogs and forums have gone from 18% to 31%.
What does this mean? It means that the social media fingerprint is a real thing. You can read about the hypothesis here (link to Iran blogpost on social media fingerprint). As I have written previously, blogs represent a place where experts speak to the world and forums are those who like a topic love to chatter at each other. Facebook is friend talking amongst themselves. And twitter is the individual shout out to others letting them know how they feel.
How does this manifest for the movie industry. My hypothesis here is that to best study the consumer for a DVD launch, one must look to the blog/forum chatter to connect with those who will buy the DVD. These people are talking about there thoughts and usually movie buffs are interested in movies. This isn't the greatest example because in the case of Cars 2, a children's movie, parents will simply buy it. But the fact that these channels grow in chatter suggest it is a robust place to study.
Lastly, I will post the after launch period.
But again, the forums and blogs percentage has again gone up to 40% from 31%. This shows that the continue dialogue around Cars 2 eventually is centering on passionate people discussing the film and not mainstream consumers (when compared to the launch period)
Let's look at the brand passion.
the first is a chart of the brand passion during the three periods.
This helps us get sense of what was going for the film over time.
I also looked at the white space period's BPI with a breakout of the sources during this timeframe.
It is below...
While there is major planning to the entire period when a movie launches this study has shone there is great nuance to what social media can tell us. In the case of Cars 2, there seems to be changes in the chatter during this crucial white space period. While I have only scratched the surface in this blogpost, the concept of social media fingerprint again plays out. The question remains will the current culture of planning and process keep organizations from learning on the fly as their critical dollars are spent on their business.
It looks like Pixar has the last laugh with its mediocre release...why...because of the 600 million box office and 150MM in DVD sales...we don't even know what the toys brought in.
Happy viewing...
Friday, February 24, 2012
The social media fingerprint....Iran...Iran so far away
There has been much talk in the papers about Iran. Most of it centers around the issues with their nuclear program. But recently, there has been a ton of talk about linking the recent climb in gas prices to Iran. Rather than simply sit on the sidelines, I figured I would take a quick look to see how the "news" reporting on this has been accepted by consumers.
This post will be short, because I have a ton to do tonight, but in order to preclude the issue rising and saying I knew it I figured I would throw out there what I found. It is very telling look at what I call the finger print of social media.
I have often been curious how one could categorize social media fingerprints. By fingerprints, I mean when a story hits how does it flow through the different channels of social media. The first time I noticed this was doing some work for our PR firm around an announcement about a changing of the guard in the wine critique world. Big whoop. When I looked more closely there wasn't a ton of data. Really it was just a few thousand soundbites.
In this study, a very well respected wine critique named Robert Parker retired and passed the baton to his protege Antonio Galloni. I am not a big wine guy, so my interest in telling this story is truly from a social media perspective. It was big news in the wine community. But when I went to study it (and there was lots of telling stuff in there), I noticed something very interesting about where they talked about both these wine aficionados. Below are the source breakdowns...they are fascinating (to a social media geek like me anyway).
Firstly, you will notice how little data comes up in the sub search on gas/gasoline. This already begins to tell us that this topic is only being discussed in the news and people have not started reacting. it makes up less than 2% of the total data. People are more worried about other things than gas/gasoline when talking about Iran. This is no surprise actually. They are more concerned about nuclear war one would suspect.
Next, Let's look at the buzz trend and the sentiment trend for the last year on Iran.
The net sentiment is about the same for both. But there is some difference. When looking at the normalized buzz for the Gas/Gasoline search we see a much greater climb in buzz 140% versus 60% very recently. Normalized buzz uses the NetBase index as a benchmark to account for changes in content and thus is an apples to apples comparison the change in buzz on any topic (since data is fluid we account for changes that can occur as we clean and add data from time to time). This suggests that the amount of chatter about Gas/Gasoline is rising faster lately versus all topics on Iran. So it is picking up steam.
I then looked at the naturally surfaced likes/dislikes on all Iran data to see if the terms around gas/gasoline rise to the top. At 2% we would suspect it wouldn't but that is the beauty of natural language processing. You get to just let it do its work neutrally. Below are the likes and dislikes charts for Iran total over the past 12 months.
As expected...nothing about the rising gas prices which I am reading about all the time now. I have noticed these articles blaming the tensions on Iran as a reason gas prices could go up.
Here is the dislikes pie chart for the gas/gasoline search. I didn't look at likes because that isn't the point. We want to see if this something negatively mentioned because nobody wants to see the prices go up...makes commuting expensive.
Now we are focused in on mentions of Gas/Gasoline with emotion towards Iran. You will see in this search that there is some mention of the gas prices, but it is not astounding as to how much. In addition, there isn't a ton of data with people expressing emotion towards Iran when mentioning gasoline. So I figured it was only fair to flip it right. So I then ran the following search
Topic: Gas, Gasoline
Time frame:1/1/12 to 2/23/12
Context: Iran
In this case, we are now looking at what people are saying how they feel about gas since the beginning of the year when mentioning Iran. Here we would expect to see something different no? We would expect greater discussion about the rising gas prices and how it essentially sucks (I commute a long ways). The chart below looks at the chatter since 1/1/12 AND removes the news from the data so it is mainstream consumer data (blogs, forums, social networks and microblogs...etc.)
Now we are talking...all the dislikes are fear about gas prices. People are worrying about gas when mentioning Iran. We see expensive by hour and expensive as the top two mentions. Now lets look at the same search with NEWS ONLY.
You will see it is a bit different...
It is a bit higher level now with U.S. economy being mentioned first and then expensive. It looks like news. They are talking about sanctions and government stuff.
So we have looked at the issue both ways. We have taken emotion towards Iran in the context of gas and gas in the context of Iran. People are talking about a lot of things...but on to my point.
Is this really a viral issue that is bothering the average consumer? Let's assume if it is, then Twitter is the benchmark for major social discussion. If they are discussing it in blogs it is opinionated idiots (like me) talking about subjects. If it is forums it is crazies debating the issue. If it is facebook we know they either like or dislike it. But if it is twitter, then it is on the mind of THE CROWD as I like to say.
Let's start with Iran overall. Where is the conversation or the social fingerprint of the discussion on this very current topic.
This post will be short, because I have a ton to do tonight, but in order to preclude the issue rising and saying I knew it I figured I would throw out there what I found. It is very telling look at what I call the finger print of social media.
I have often been curious how one could categorize social media fingerprints. By fingerprints, I mean when a story hits how does it flow through the different channels of social media. The first time I noticed this was doing some work for our PR firm around an announcement about a changing of the guard in the wine critique world. Big whoop. When I looked more closely there wasn't a ton of data. Really it was just a few thousand soundbites.
In this study, a very well respected wine critique named Robert Parker retired and passed the baton to his protege Antonio Galloni. I am not a big wine guy, so my interest in telling this story is truly from a social media perspective. It was big news in the wine community. But when I went to study it (and there was lots of telling stuff in there), I noticed something very interesting about where they talked about both these wine aficionados. Below are the source breakdowns...they are fascinating (to a social media geek like me anyway).
What jumped out at me immediately was the top sources differed so greatly. In addition, I was so used to seeing Twitter and Facebook dominate the social media sources that to see Blogs for Robert Parker and Forums for Antonio Galloni was astounding. It was the same area of focus, same job, but totally different breakdowns. This awakened me to the idea of a social media fingerprint. How does the data flow when announcements happen. In this case, it makes sense. The established wine critique is talked about in a bit more mainstream way on blogs. People sort of reporting the news about wines and what he says. Galloni, on the other hand, represents a more niche persona in niche industry. Only the very serious talked about him. They dialogued about the change and their opinion of him. On to the forums baby! On the most committed talk about a subject on a forum and Galloni was new. They were bantering about whether he could cut the mustard in the new job. Again different places for different conversations. I drag on because it is important to share the moments when a concept is born.
What does this have to do with Iran? Everything. I have started noticing the constant discussion BY THE NEWS AGENCIES about how we are in trouble because gas is rising on worries in Iran. I wanted to experiment with this fingerprint idea and figured I would see what it looked like in social media. My hypothesis was that the news is where things are "created" and as they move through social media they eventually end up on twitter where the average person takes it viral as an issue briskly stating their opinion on the subject.
First, I looked at Iran as a discussion over the last year. Again, to keep is short (too late I guess), I took a look two searches.
Search 1
Topic: Iran
Time frame: last 12 months
Context: All data
Search 2
Topic: Iran
Time Frame: Jan 1st to Feb 23rd
Context: Gas, Gasoline only
The goal was to see what Likes/Dislikes surfaced in the total data versus when focused on gas/gasoline. Below you will see the total counts of both searches.
Firstly, you will notice how little data comes up in the sub search on gas/gasoline. This already begins to tell us that this topic is only being discussed in the news and people have not started reacting. it makes up less than 2% of the total data. People are more worried about other things than gas/gasoline when talking about Iran. This is no surprise actually. They are more concerned about nuclear war one would suspect.
Next, Let's look at the buzz trend and the sentiment trend for the last year on Iran.
The net sentiment is about the same for both. But there is some difference. When looking at the normalized buzz for the Gas/Gasoline search we see a much greater climb in buzz 140% versus 60% very recently. Normalized buzz uses the NetBase index as a benchmark to account for changes in content and thus is an apples to apples comparison the change in buzz on any topic (since data is fluid we account for changes that can occur as we clean and add data from time to time). This suggests that the amount of chatter about Gas/Gasoline is rising faster lately versus all topics on Iran. So it is picking up steam.
I then looked at the naturally surfaced likes/dislikes on all Iran data to see if the terms around gas/gasoline rise to the top. At 2% we would suspect it wouldn't but that is the beauty of natural language processing. You get to just let it do its work neutrally. Below are the likes and dislikes charts for Iran total over the past 12 months.
As expected...nothing about the rising gas prices which I am reading about all the time now. I have noticed these articles blaming the tensions on Iran as a reason gas prices could go up.
Here is the dislikes pie chart for the gas/gasoline search. I didn't look at likes because that isn't the point. We want to see if this something negatively mentioned because nobody wants to see the prices go up...makes commuting expensive.
Now we are focused in on mentions of Gas/Gasoline with emotion towards Iran. You will see in this search that there is some mention of the gas prices, but it is not astounding as to how much. In addition, there isn't a ton of data with people expressing emotion towards Iran when mentioning gasoline. So I figured it was only fair to flip it right. So I then ran the following search
Topic: Gas, Gasoline
Time frame:1/1/12 to 2/23/12
Context: Iran
In this case, we are now looking at what people are saying how they feel about gas since the beginning of the year when mentioning Iran. Here we would expect to see something different no? We would expect greater discussion about the rising gas prices and how it essentially sucks (I commute a long ways). The chart below looks at the chatter since 1/1/12 AND removes the news from the data so it is mainstream consumer data (blogs, forums, social networks and microblogs...etc.)
Now we are talking...all the dislikes are fear about gas prices. People are worrying about gas when mentioning Iran. We see expensive by hour and expensive as the top two mentions. Now lets look at the same search with NEWS ONLY.
You will see it is a bit different...
It is a bit higher level now with U.S. economy being mentioned first and then expensive. It looks like news. They are talking about sanctions and government stuff.
So we have looked at the issue both ways. We have taken emotion towards Iran in the context of gas and gas in the context of Iran. People are talking about a lot of things...but on to my point.
Is this really a viral issue that is bothering the average consumer? Let's assume if it is, then Twitter is the benchmark for major social discussion. If they are discussing it in blogs it is opinionated idiots (like me) talking about subjects. If it is forums it is crazies debating the issue. If it is facebook we know they either like or dislike it. But if it is twitter, then it is on the mind of THE CROWD as I like to say.
Let's start with Iran overall. Where is the conversation or the social fingerprint of the discussion on this very current topic.
For the year...33% microblogs. This is percentage of people simply sharing their thoughts outwardly on the subject. The discussion about Iran is pretty mainstream. There are lots of conversations. In addition, there is a great amount of social "discussion" on forums and people stating their opinion on the subject to whoever will listen on blogs. News at about 10% is reasonably high (it can be about 5% so let's call it 2x). We see that Iran as a topic is mainstream.
Let's go to Iran context gas/gasoline next. We know when people share emotion towards Iran when mentioning gas it isn't really about the prices too much. Is the fingerprint different. Remember, I only looked at the period since the beginning of the year when the issue started.
I would call this a different fingerprint wouldn't you. Blogs or people sharing their opinions on the subject has very large volume. 40% of the traffic. And those blathering their opinion in special places at each other a solid 20%. Microblogs...a mere 12%. This is not a mainstream discussion. It is a call to arms maybe but not the populace feeling the effects of the problem.
So I thought...great we see a different fingerprint for Iran in general versus Iran context gas/gasoline. But what about gas/gasoline context Iran for the period from the beginning of the year. Surely, people are getting pissed about the prices going up. They should be screaming...let's take a look.
Remember I took this study on because it is current and I have been reading about it in the news a ton lately. If it is affecting people they should be talking about it on twitter where people share outwardly what they think about something to whom I have no idea...drum roll please on this experiment............................................................
I rest my case! 40% blogs, 20% forums, 13% microblogs. The source breakdown mirrors the other search. We see in the discussion around gas/gasoline context Iran that people are expressing their displeasure about the rising gas prices (and blaming Iran) BUT the discussion is still people talking to each other in special place or just talking about the issue AND NOT sharing their frustration.
So where is the proverbial slam dunk? Below is the source breakdown for another trending topic of late. Whitney Houston...for the past year (it proves my point so much that I didn't bother to narrow it by date range)
Yes...61% of the traffic is people lamenting her death among other things AND 22% of them are commenting on Facebook a whopping 83%.
There is not much else to say accept that social media fingerprints do exist and they need to be studied a whole bunch more...
By the way, I nearly freaked out when I went to buy gas last week and it was $3.85. On Sunday it was $4.07 and today...jeez da wheez $4.17. Needless to say I was pissed.
But sadly...I didn't tweet about it...I wrote about it on my blog...does that make me a rube???
And then I am going to tweet this to get people to read it.
Am I creating solutions or just a small voice fishing in the social ocean.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Political Smackdown: What does social media say about the parties?
Back to politics...
It is a hot topic and of course, people are curious to hear what is going on...so why not focus on different aspects of the election. Today, I figured I would go up a level to look at the parties themselves. We spend a ton of time these days focused on the candidates and the he said, he said of what is going on in a very bloody and inter-partisan Republican race. But what is happening at the party level.
The questions I had are...
1. Who is driving the dialogue and are the democrats even "awake" yet?
2. Is the "red meat" primary awakening the democrats yet?
3. Who really has the advantage as we head in 2012?
4. What are some of the high level details driving each party's positive/negatives?
I found those answers...let's discuss them...
I wanted to take a look at the buzz and sentiment comparison for both as well as the changes in net sentiment over the last year. They are below
I found the data fascinating. First off, the amount of chatter mentioning Democrats is significantly lower than Republicans. The buzz difference is at more than a 3:1 ratio for Republicans vs. Democrats. This is not surprising as all the air time is about what is happening in the GOP, but what you will notice in the table in the bottom is the positive net sentiment the Democrats have since the Republican primaries have gone into formal and full swing. The net sentiment for the Democrats is now at +8 (out of -100 to +100). This is nothing to celebrate, but in my experience looking at this data, politics because of its polarity, tends to have net sentiments near 0. Either way the spread right now between the Republicans and Democrats is at +17. That is a significant difference. In addition, for the last 12 months the Republicans have not enjoyed a positive net sentiment month. The Democrats have 6 months in the positive territory as well as the last 5 months in a row (and the trend is going upward). I did not delve into whether this is due to positive feelings about the economy or simply because of the toxic rhetoric being used in the Republican primary. I can look into that next time. But what it is saying, the Democrats are trending upward. The Republicans are trending downward. Not a good sign for a party trying to expand its lead in Congress AND unseat a sitting president.
Next I will show the stacked data for the Democrats and Republicans. Also below...
What is interesting in the slide above is how razor thing the advantage is between the two parties when measured across a year. But take it with a grain of salt. That difference in buzz is also telling. Democrats have some serious momentum because of the "lack of focus" on their efforts, but if they don't get their people creating more hype that could spell another path to doom for them. Watching you opponent tear itself to pieces is one strategy, getting you base to get the message out with more louder volume is another that appears to be missing. But it is true that they are not the focus of the discussion right now.
The last slide I will present is a likes/dislike attribute array on both parties. It is a side by side comparison of the top 10 likes/dislikes for both. I have added some color to the chart that groups some of the insights I see in the data. See below
In my opinion, the data is telling. You will see that there little that is unique about the positives for both. I have color coded what I consider to be unique naturally surface insights from the NLP. You can see that majority of the likes for both center around the discussion of them "winning" or "controlling" the dialogue in the government. This is no surprise. Both parties want control and believe their party will get it. Sure the Republicans are saying they want to beat Obama but that is nothing new.
On the Democrat side there are two unique things being discussed. I think they would be thrilled to learn that they are considered both Powerful and Responsible. Without looking deeper into the data, this suggests their brand is gaining momentum for their continued efforts to "help the middle class". Again, I can dig in at another time. The issue is that these unique attributes are #5 and #9. There is work to do but it seems their message is resonating with those discussing the party.
On the Republican side, there are three things being uniquely mentioned. #6, #9, and #10 we see "simple", "care about", and "better job". Like the Democrats they are not top 5 likes for the party but they do center around some interesting things. For one, the comment simple suggests that the Republican economic platform is viewed as more straightforward. Regardless of party, they do talk a lot about simplifying things like the Tax Code. As for care about and better job, this suggest that folks do have some level of connection with the Republicans around being a party that is focused on the individual (their general message) as well as doing a better job overall. Who really knows if these positives are very definitive.
What is more telling are the dislikes...
There are distinct themes surface for both parties. I have used colors to capture some general categories across both parties. The dark red is representing very strongly expressed attributes focused on the damage the party is creating. The bright red are expressions of opinion about that party. The lighter red is about control of the playing field (in the positives there was no differentiation here, but in the negative there are). And the light pink is focused on things that are simply mentioned on both sides.
Let's focus on the dark red (rather than party by party). For attributes that represent perceived damage, the Republicans are definitely not paying attention to the American people. Four of the top 10 dislikes about the Republicans are focused on them literally hurting the U.S. economy. I have read much about how the Republican's focus on cutting without raising revenue is starting to have an impact. In addition, the constant dialogue about the 1% and protecting it seems also to potentially play out here. I would say regardless of why, the fact that #4, #6, #9 and #10 all fit this "damage" category is a real issue that cannot be ignored. With the extended primary and continued red meat, I would say Republicans are damaging themselves without the Democrats throwing a punch.
On the Democrat side, there is other danger. Their #1 dislike is Kill it. If you look more deeply at why, it seems that Democrats seem to be getting labeled as simply killing things they don't like. People seem to be saying that Democrats simply stop it if they don't agree. I believe this is about things like healthcare that people consider to be forced through. They are forcing their will and sometimes that is being viewed badly. They are also viewed as corrupt. Not a good word to be associated with. Especially, when the Republicans are not considered corrupt. This is a fundamental issue being expressed. When you are corrupt, you are not trusted. This is bad.
The darker/light red for the Democrats is a more lopsided discussion about them losing the election and control of the bodies of government. The telling perception here is that the Democrats are "losers". This sort of says when they win, they win because the Republicans are trying to hard to push their extreme agenda. Call it putting them in their place. That being said, the democrats always have this label of losing. It is stated here. What is interesting about this insight is as the vitriol continues by the Republicans the risk of the back lash is growing. Couple that with a growing economy and that spells trouble. While the Democrats are perceived losers, the cantankerous discussion is dangerous.
the bright red. Well it is Republican unique. It is all about dissension and the negative impact it is having on their efforts this election season. Being called weak as #1 isn't a good thing. But desperate? Uh oh. It stinks of the crazy mud slinging going on. For crying out loud, Santorum continues to say things very exteme and then back tracks with an aw shucks mentality. Even if you agree with his statements, you have to at least appreciate that the extremeness of them does polarize and plays into these emotional expressions of being weak, desparate and making it harder.
So what does it all say...here are my shortened thoughts
1. The Republicans are getting blamed for the economy now because their stubborness isn't about fixing things but holding them up.
2. The Democrats are perceived as losers right now and need to show more strength and give a better case as to why they will not be.
3. The GOP better finish this debacle of a primary season or they run the risk of alienating folks over to the Democrats for fear of extremism.
4. The Democrats better get their base energized soon. The 3:1 difference in buzz says Democrats are asleep right now waiting to take action. Get them energized now and the opportunity to create a tidal wave is there.
5. The Democrats need to pull out their stat sheets and let people know how all that stimulus actually did something. They could start by showing in the first $787B how much was paid back and how much interest they got. It shows their spending led to ROI.
6. Stop the red meat GOP...it is killing you and your persona. It may be too late.
This election will not go quiet into the night.....
It is a hot topic and of course, people are curious to hear what is going on...so why not focus on different aspects of the election. Today, I figured I would go up a level to look at the parties themselves. We spend a ton of time these days focused on the candidates and the he said, he said of what is going on in a very bloody and inter-partisan Republican race. But what is happening at the party level.
The questions I had are...
1. Who is driving the dialogue and are the democrats even "awake" yet?
2. Is the "red meat" primary awakening the democrats yet?
3. Who really has the advantage as we head in 2012?
4. What are some of the high level details driving each party's positive/negatives?
I found those answers...let's discuss them...
I wanted to take a look at the buzz and sentiment comparison for both as well as the changes in net sentiment over the last year. They are below
I found the data fascinating. First off, the amount of chatter mentioning Democrats is significantly lower than Republicans. The buzz difference is at more than a 3:1 ratio for Republicans vs. Democrats. This is not surprising as all the air time is about what is happening in the GOP, but what you will notice in the table in the bottom is the positive net sentiment the Democrats have since the Republican primaries have gone into formal and full swing. The net sentiment for the Democrats is now at +8 (out of -100 to +100). This is nothing to celebrate, but in my experience looking at this data, politics because of its polarity, tends to have net sentiments near 0. Either way the spread right now between the Republicans and Democrats is at +17. That is a significant difference. In addition, for the last 12 months the Republicans have not enjoyed a positive net sentiment month. The Democrats have 6 months in the positive territory as well as the last 5 months in a row (and the trend is going upward). I did not delve into whether this is due to positive feelings about the economy or simply because of the toxic rhetoric being used in the Republican primary. I can look into that next time. But what it is saying, the Democrats are trending upward. The Republicans are trending downward. Not a good sign for a party trying to expand its lead in Congress AND unseat a sitting president.
We can see the illustration of this trend side by side in the chart below for those who are visual...
Next I will show the stacked data for the Democrats and Republicans. Also below...
What is interesting in the slide above is how razor thing the advantage is between the two parties when measured across a year. But take it with a grain of salt. That difference in buzz is also telling. Democrats have some serious momentum because of the "lack of focus" on their efforts, but if they don't get their people creating more hype that could spell another path to doom for them. Watching you opponent tear itself to pieces is one strategy, getting you base to get the message out with more louder volume is another that appears to be missing. But it is true that they are not the focus of the discussion right now.
The last slide I will present is a likes/dislike attribute array on both parties. It is a side by side comparison of the top 10 likes/dislikes for both. I have added some color to the chart that groups some of the insights I see in the data. See below
In my opinion, the data is telling. You will see that there little that is unique about the positives for both. I have color coded what I consider to be unique naturally surface insights from the NLP. You can see that majority of the likes for both center around the discussion of them "winning" or "controlling" the dialogue in the government. This is no surprise. Both parties want control and believe their party will get it. Sure the Republicans are saying they want to beat Obama but that is nothing new.
On the Democrat side there are two unique things being discussed. I think they would be thrilled to learn that they are considered both Powerful and Responsible. Without looking deeper into the data, this suggests their brand is gaining momentum for their continued efforts to "help the middle class". Again, I can dig in at another time. The issue is that these unique attributes are #5 and #9. There is work to do but it seems their message is resonating with those discussing the party.
On the Republican side, there are three things being uniquely mentioned. #6, #9, and #10 we see "simple", "care about", and "better job". Like the Democrats they are not top 5 likes for the party but they do center around some interesting things. For one, the comment simple suggests that the Republican economic platform is viewed as more straightforward. Regardless of party, they do talk a lot about simplifying things like the Tax Code. As for care about and better job, this suggest that folks do have some level of connection with the Republicans around being a party that is focused on the individual (their general message) as well as doing a better job overall. Who really knows if these positives are very definitive.
What is more telling are the dislikes...
There are distinct themes surface for both parties. I have used colors to capture some general categories across both parties. The dark red is representing very strongly expressed attributes focused on the damage the party is creating. The bright red are expressions of opinion about that party. The lighter red is about control of the playing field (in the positives there was no differentiation here, but in the negative there are). And the light pink is focused on things that are simply mentioned on both sides.
Let's focus on the dark red (rather than party by party). For attributes that represent perceived damage, the Republicans are definitely not paying attention to the American people. Four of the top 10 dislikes about the Republicans are focused on them literally hurting the U.S. economy. I have read much about how the Republican's focus on cutting without raising revenue is starting to have an impact. In addition, the constant dialogue about the 1% and protecting it seems also to potentially play out here. I would say regardless of why, the fact that #4, #6, #9 and #10 all fit this "damage" category is a real issue that cannot be ignored. With the extended primary and continued red meat, I would say Republicans are damaging themselves without the Democrats throwing a punch.
On the Democrat side, there is other danger. Their #1 dislike is Kill it. If you look more deeply at why, it seems that Democrats seem to be getting labeled as simply killing things they don't like. People seem to be saying that Democrats simply stop it if they don't agree. I believe this is about things like healthcare that people consider to be forced through. They are forcing their will and sometimes that is being viewed badly. They are also viewed as corrupt. Not a good word to be associated with. Especially, when the Republicans are not considered corrupt. This is a fundamental issue being expressed. When you are corrupt, you are not trusted. This is bad.
The darker/light red for the Democrats is a more lopsided discussion about them losing the election and control of the bodies of government. The telling perception here is that the Democrats are "losers". This sort of says when they win, they win because the Republicans are trying to hard to push their extreme agenda. Call it putting them in their place. That being said, the democrats always have this label of losing. It is stated here. What is interesting about this insight is as the vitriol continues by the Republicans the risk of the back lash is growing. Couple that with a growing economy and that spells trouble. While the Democrats are perceived losers, the cantankerous discussion is dangerous.
the bright red. Well it is Republican unique. It is all about dissension and the negative impact it is having on their efforts this election season. Being called weak as #1 isn't a good thing. But desperate? Uh oh. It stinks of the crazy mud slinging going on. For crying out loud, Santorum continues to say things very exteme and then back tracks with an aw shucks mentality. Even if you agree with his statements, you have to at least appreciate that the extremeness of them does polarize and plays into these emotional expressions of being weak, desparate and making it harder.
So what does it all say...here are my shortened thoughts
1. The Republicans are getting blamed for the economy now because their stubborness isn't about fixing things but holding them up.
2. The Democrats are perceived as losers right now and need to show more strength and give a better case as to why they will not be.
3. The GOP better finish this debacle of a primary season or they run the risk of alienating folks over to the Democrats for fear of extremism.
4. The Democrats better get their base energized soon. The 3:1 difference in buzz says Democrats are asleep right now waiting to take action. Get them energized now and the opportunity to create a tidal wave is there.
5. The Democrats need to pull out their stat sheets and let people know how all that stimulus actually did something. They could start by showing in the first $787B how much was paid back and how much interest they got. It shows their spending led to ROI.
6. Stop the red meat GOP...it is killing you and your persona. It may be too late.
This election will not go quiet into the night.....
Monday, February 20, 2012
Nanocapitalism part 3 - Hovering above the social chasm
The more I think about this concept, the more it rings true to me.
I spend an awful lot of time working across many verticals watching the social media marketplace mature. Many people are constantly clamoring to serve to create solutions that are the next big thing. They focus on developing infrastructure with a focus on themselves and their business, but they often miss the point of why we do things. I believe that our goals as individuals is to make the world a better place. And make no mistake like everyone, I want to "not have to work again".
But would I stop? Never! I believe that using my mind is the most important thing I can do. I am given time on Earth and I choose to use it to help advance whatever is going on in the short blink I have. But if you think more deeply about most people's rationale for doing things it is with a focus on ourselves. We all work to make ends meet and when we work in something like social media, we are believers in what this cultural change in how we communicate can bring to our lives.
But there is a chasm that exists here. I have been writing about it. That chasm is about the world of business and the world of individuals. On one side as I wrote above, we work to develop technologies that help the business world connect to the individuals. The technological goods and services proliferate almost as fast the tweets on twitter. You need a way to manage your life goals. You need a way to have your network find you work. You need more cell service so you can find out what movie to see and when. All these services are the cross-cultural chasm between business helping people and making money. It is the essence of the joke that is social media fatigue. Which I really consider a joke (see here). We all now beholden to capitalism because of the need for the technology that connects us.
On the other side, we have the individuals who use the products of the New Corporation to change our lives and how we now treat each other. My kids can be bullied in a virutal world. People can see pornography without anyone knowing. You can cheat on your spouse and hide so easily. You are able to connect with old friends more easily. You can let people know what you like even if they don't want to know. You can show off on Facebook about how great your are presenting yourself as something you are not. I don't mean to bash, but the reality is the MEO as I have heard it termed is now solely about bringing attention to oneself through the multisocial channels that are growing everyday. I almost see people put each other down for now knowing how to use technology.
Call me a ludite but I think its all a big pile of you know what. We are losing our identities in the sheer fact that we think that others are not on top of it when the reality is that we are locked in a new cultural war that is seemingly sucking the life out of culture altogether.
There has to be a middle ground between the corporate technology and the personal narcissism. A place where people can feel free to leverage the technology to help others succeed not to put them down.
This is the place where the chasm will fill. I believe this is where the concept of nanocapitalism plays. Its is almost a time warp backward with an eye to the future. The concept of Nanocapitalism is really about a time when the past principles of business which had so much more that what you did for me lately. When technology was not there to "cyber gossip" or "cyber show off" people cared more about each other in business. They were loyal to the principles of true relationship building. We didn't know so much.
But today, as the concept of C2B grows and the individuals take back power from the companies meant to serve them, the rise of the entrepreneur has new meaning in a nanocapitalist model. Nanocapitalism is really just about increasing an individuals ability to live their life and prosper by focusing on what they do best. Nanocapitalism is about helping you be rewarded for your specialized skills in a new form of meritocracy. It is about using social media tools to help you "find" opportunities to perform and help others who have what you need perform to bring the best solution possible to those who need it.
It is about trust, transparency and collaboration across a network fed by new tools. Everyone can win. Each individual who doesn't want to work for a large company can more easily be brought to solve problems for those who do.
The rise of a concept where social media tools help people bring their best for parts of project where specialized solutions are needed is a from of expert crowdsourcing that is truly missing. There are many services out there that tout crowdsourcing as a means of cutting costs for your business. There we go again a system that hurts the individual. Instead, wouldn't you want to pay more for expert value that is efficient and effective? Skills that save you money while bringing you value and expertise you need?
Nanocapitalism is about breaking the corporate social media paradigm AND the individual one. Closing the chasm is about removing the cost cutting at the expense of your workforce. It is also about showing individuals that it is more about creating a reality show narcissistic spotlight because we are so good.
It is about getting more people to win. 15 years ago, that sausage maker in west texas I read about in the book Evil Plans had only those fortunate enough to stumble upon them for them to grow their brand. Boy that has changed with the event of ecommerce.
Now we need to find ways to help people find each other to bring the best team with the best solutions for the problem to the table when the answer is needed.
It removes the narcissism and increase the collaboration. It destroys the inhumanity of increased ROI for some and brings it to many.
Nanocapitalism is the perfect chasm closer that helps the issues GEN Y has with corporate America to be solved in a way that meets everyone's needs.
I spend an awful lot of time working across many verticals watching the social media marketplace mature. Many people are constantly clamoring to serve to create solutions that are the next big thing. They focus on developing infrastructure with a focus on themselves and their business, but they often miss the point of why we do things. I believe that our goals as individuals is to make the world a better place. And make no mistake like everyone, I want to "not have to work again".
But would I stop? Never! I believe that using my mind is the most important thing I can do. I am given time on Earth and I choose to use it to help advance whatever is going on in the short blink I have. But if you think more deeply about most people's rationale for doing things it is with a focus on ourselves. We all work to make ends meet and when we work in something like social media, we are believers in what this cultural change in how we communicate can bring to our lives.
But there is a chasm that exists here. I have been writing about it. That chasm is about the world of business and the world of individuals. On one side as I wrote above, we work to develop technologies that help the business world connect to the individuals. The technological goods and services proliferate almost as fast the tweets on twitter. You need a way to manage your life goals. You need a way to have your network find you work. You need more cell service so you can find out what movie to see and when. All these services are the cross-cultural chasm between business helping people and making money. It is the essence of the joke that is social media fatigue. Which I really consider a joke (see here). We all now beholden to capitalism because of the need for the technology that connects us.
On the other side, we have the individuals who use the products of the New Corporation to change our lives and how we now treat each other. My kids can be bullied in a virutal world. People can see pornography without anyone knowing. You can cheat on your spouse and hide so easily. You are able to connect with old friends more easily. You can let people know what you like even if they don't want to know. You can show off on Facebook about how great your are presenting yourself as something you are not. I don't mean to bash, but the reality is the MEO as I have heard it termed is now solely about bringing attention to oneself through the multisocial channels that are growing everyday. I almost see people put each other down for now knowing how to use technology.
Call me a ludite but I think its all a big pile of you know what. We are losing our identities in the sheer fact that we think that others are not on top of it when the reality is that we are locked in a new cultural war that is seemingly sucking the life out of culture altogether.
There has to be a middle ground between the corporate technology and the personal narcissism. A place where people can feel free to leverage the technology to help others succeed not to put them down.
This is the place where the chasm will fill. I believe this is where the concept of nanocapitalism plays. Its is almost a time warp backward with an eye to the future. The concept of Nanocapitalism is really about a time when the past principles of business which had so much more that what you did for me lately. When technology was not there to "cyber gossip" or "cyber show off" people cared more about each other in business. They were loyal to the principles of true relationship building. We didn't know so much.
But today, as the concept of C2B grows and the individuals take back power from the companies meant to serve them, the rise of the entrepreneur has new meaning in a nanocapitalist model. Nanocapitalism is really just about increasing an individuals ability to live their life and prosper by focusing on what they do best. Nanocapitalism is about helping you be rewarded for your specialized skills in a new form of meritocracy. It is about using social media tools to help you "find" opportunities to perform and help others who have what you need perform to bring the best solution possible to those who need it.
It is about trust, transparency and collaboration across a network fed by new tools. Everyone can win. Each individual who doesn't want to work for a large company can more easily be brought to solve problems for those who do.
The rise of a concept where social media tools help people bring their best for parts of project where specialized solutions are needed is a from of expert crowdsourcing that is truly missing. There are many services out there that tout crowdsourcing as a means of cutting costs for your business. There we go again a system that hurts the individual. Instead, wouldn't you want to pay more for expert value that is efficient and effective? Skills that save you money while bringing you value and expertise you need?
Nanocapitalism is about breaking the corporate social media paradigm AND the individual one. Closing the chasm is about removing the cost cutting at the expense of your workforce. It is also about showing individuals that it is more about creating a reality show narcissistic spotlight because we are so good.
It is about getting more people to win. 15 years ago, that sausage maker in west texas I read about in the book Evil Plans had only those fortunate enough to stumble upon them for them to grow their brand. Boy that has changed with the event of ecommerce.
Now we need to find ways to help people find each other to bring the best team with the best solutions for the problem to the table when the answer is needed.
It removes the narcissism and increase the collaboration. It destroys the inhumanity of increased ROI for some and brings it to many.
Nanocapitalism is the perfect chasm closer that helps the issues GEN Y has with corporate America to be solved in a way that meets everyone's needs.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Nanocapitalism part 2 - My sister the nanocapitalist...a model for success
I have been thinking about the content of my last post which discussed how social media data will change how small business runs. (See previous Blogpost) link here The reason? With increase technology that is happening around us, there will clearly be efficiencies in how things get done, but there will also be changes to how we interact as business professionals. The advent of social media is about create tons of key content, connecting people more effortlessly, and giving you key modalities to share information. While this is all very good and interesting, the rise of nanocapitalism in my opinion finds its foundation in something much deeper.
In my previous corporate lives, I spent the majority of my time working to help large organizations find reasons to do things they didn't want to do. Whether I was working in the lab developing toilet bowl cleaners, managing partnerships at a high level to connect people who needed technology or simply finding new ideas that could be applied to the business to create ROI, the core of those efforts was about people, culture and change. So while all the tools and methods involved in social media create astounding ways to communicate, tools are just that tools. They are merely a means to an end.
Are they powerful? Absolutely! Why? Because as I often write here, with my companies' product, I am able to learn about the consumer behavior on just about any topic in a very short period of time for little to no money from my dining room table (literally). NetBase has an offering that is changing the way you filter and understand social media data. What I see countless times within customers is always the same. It is about people, it is about application of that technology and almost always it is about cultural change. You can sell anything to anyone (insert ice to eskimos analogy here!) but once they have the tools you need to help them see how it fits the structure.
This brings me back to my point (sorry for rambling a bit). Nanocapitalism is a concept that is about the application of tools to a process of doing business that can lead to a "new world order". And from a competitive perspective, changes to the landscape mean changes in who is successful. We say giants can't fail. I believe one day the rise and fall of groupon will be a great case study, but that is for another day.
Nanocapitalism my friends is not only going to be about the efficiency created by new tools. It is not only going to be about the costs you can save in your business. It is about the corporate culture of one. It is about the confidence it will bring to the small business owner to focus on what they are good at and not feel compelled to hire others in a formal way to run things. The cross section of great technology, connectivity and small business corporate culture to create an acceleration of what's possible to achieve.
I will use dear sister as an example of the rise of nanocapitalism. Her efforts as a sole proprietor in her photography business is what I consider the perfect example of someone who is going to kick some serious tail in a nanocapitalistic society. Let's start with her website (link here). You go there and see a great example of her storefront. Anyone can do this. She has done a great job of giving you insight in to how she runs her shop. Her photos will strike you as different (she shoots tons of weddings, people, food and I guess whatever). Next, Let's take a look at her ability to market herself online (2nd generation of ecommerce) (her facebook page). Again, beyond her storefront, she has done a great job of "sharing" her work with others. She also has a blog (blog link here). Again, she canvasses using freely avaiable tools to connect you not only with the images she shoots but also enable references on facebook to "like" her and through her blog gives perspective on what she is shooting and why. My sister is a great example of a small business owner who is leveraging social media to build her brand. She is missing doing market research on her very craft however (tee hee...her brothers' job and passion).
Most would say, wow, that is nanocapitalism. Look at the small proprietor building her business using social media tools. In my opinon, it is not. I grew up with my sister (duh). One of the reasons she has always been an inspiration to me and someone who has taught me much about how to embrace differences in people's path in life is because of her ability to leverage her strengths (like we all have) to get where she is today. She is a potential model for nanocapitalism because of the things she is doing that are not mentioned above.
She hires no marketer because she has the tools. She is constantly mentioning new social apps to me like pinster that are driving connectivity between what people want to what she has. No market research needed. She shared with me the tools she is implementing to connect to her bookkeeper who works for her on a part time basis. She is part of a network of expert photographers that "validate" her work because she is part of the group. She partners with other photographers to round out her resource needs in running her business. The list goes on an on.
She is a nanocapitalist because the tools are giving her the confidence and path to have a networked corporate culture. I always tell her she has two paths towards expansion: bring in more people or do such a great job she can charge a hell of a lot more for what she does. I often believe to leverage her own skills the second would be better. Nanocapitalism gives her the choice. Why? Because the second path is possible because that method can be attained with the help of the tools she uses. When her business gets too big for her to take the time she can find other "experts" to spend a portion of their time helping her. She can "partner" for pieces of their time to build her brand bigger without taking on any overhead whatsoever. And thus her corporate culture can play to her strengths and desires and give her options. Hell, people can pay her for a piece of her time.
Imagine a time when her blog writer who she pays a small fraction to do work knows of a bloggers conference (I made it up) that needs a photographer for two days. Because her marketing efforts have allowed to focus on creatively building her expertise and brand she may get that opportunity and be able to charge 3X versus if she spent all her time having to be the expert. But wait there's more! Because she uses nanocapitalistic principles, her ROI on this work is 50% higher because her overhead will be lower.
This process could help the US win in its innovation effort because the free market is getting flipped on its head. Gone will be the days that size and scale are needed to really grow a business. Is it better to have your own business that has $50 million in sales with a 10% profit margin or a business that has $10million in sales with an 50% profit margin. Oh yeah, the $50 million dollar company has 50 people working for it, while the $10 million has 3. The point is this...small businesses are going to get the opportunity to think about the American dream differently. We are all overworked, overtired, and in my opinion OVERCORPORATE CULTURED to death. To have control, make the same and perhaps have more time for yourself is becoming the American dream.
Social media has shifted the balance of power from B2C to C2B. The consumers have the power and are taking it back from the corporations. In the coming years, I predict that new brands will not be made but purchased because it is cheaper to Buy than Make. The second is people's financial gain could grow if they can leverage others with technology as a means to enable it to increase their profit margins. The term MEO can move from a narcissistic statement about our own need to be heard and into a place that means I run my business with quiet confidence.
And my sister...she has the frustrating tendency to take the predictions or advice I give her as I have for years about how great she is and why her decisions are so good and attribute to someone else later.
I figured I would go on record publicly to predict this. She is a model of nanocapitalism and her desire to maintain control of how she does things AND leverage others to scale her business in a smart way will lead to a day where her ability to do the same work for higher fees is the reason she will succeed. Her mindset is the model of small business and her ability to conquer the fears many of us have in starting are own thing is something that requires some thought.
I just hope she doesn't charge her brother too much to get a better headshot.
In my previous corporate lives, I spent the majority of my time working to help large organizations find reasons to do things they didn't want to do. Whether I was working in the lab developing toilet bowl cleaners, managing partnerships at a high level to connect people who needed technology or simply finding new ideas that could be applied to the business to create ROI, the core of those efforts was about people, culture and change. So while all the tools and methods involved in social media create astounding ways to communicate, tools are just that tools. They are merely a means to an end.
Are they powerful? Absolutely! Why? Because as I often write here, with my companies' product, I am able to learn about the consumer behavior on just about any topic in a very short period of time for little to no money from my dining room table (literally). NetBase has an offering that is changing the way you filter and understand social media data. What I see countless times within customers is always the same. It is about people, it is about application of that technology and almost always it is about cultural change. You can sell anything to anyone (insert ice to eskimos analogy here!) but once they have the tools you need to help them see how it fits the structure.
This brings me back to my point (sorry for rambling a bit). Nanocapitalism is a concept that is about the application of tools to a process of doing business that can lead to a "new world order". And from a competitive perspective, changes to the landscape mean changes in who is successful. We say giants can't fail. I believe one day the rise and fall of groupon will be a great case study, but that is for another day.
Nanocapitalism my friends is not only going to be about the efficiency created by new tools. It is not only going to be about the costs you can save in your business. It is about the corporate culture of one. It is about the confidence it will bring to the small business owner to focus on what they are good at and not feel compelled to hire others in a formal way to run things. The cross section of great technology, connectivity and small business corporate culture to create an acceleration of what's possible to achieve.
I will use dear sister as an example of the rise of nanocapitalism. Her efforts as a sole proprietor in her photography business is what I consider the perfect example of someone who is going to kick some serious tail in a nanocapitalistic society. Let's start with her website (link here). You go there and see a great example of her storefront. Anyone can do this. She has done a great job of giving you insight in to how she runs her shop. Her photos will strike you as different (she shoots tons of weddings, people, food and I guess whatever). Next, Let's take a look at her ability to market herself online (2nd generation of ecommerce) (her facebook page). Again, beyond her storefront, she has done a great job of "sharing" her work with others. She also has a blog (blog link here). Again, she canvasses using freely avaiable tools to connect you not only with the images she shoots but also enable references on facebook to "like" her and through her blog gives perspective on what she is shooting and why. My sister is a great example of a small business owner who is leveraging social media to build her brand. She is missing doing market research on her very craft however (tee hee...her brothers' job and passion).
Most would say, wow, that is nanocapitalism. Look at the small proprietor building her business using social media tools. In my opinon, it is not. I grew up with my sister (duh). One of the reasons she has always been an inspiration to me and someone who has taught me much about how to embrace differences in people's path in life is because of her ability to leverage her strengths (like we all have) to get where she is today. She is a potential model for nanocapitalism because of the things she is doing that are not mentioned above.
She hires no marketer because she has the tools. She is constantly mentioning new social apps to me like pinster that are driving connectivity between what people want to what she has. No market research needed. She shared with me the tools she is implementing to connect to her bookkeeper who works for her on a part time basis. She is part of a network of expert photographers that "validate" her work because she is part of the group. She partners with other photographers to round out her resource needs in running her business. The list goes on an on.
She is a nanocapitalist because the tools are giving her the confidence and path to have a networked corporate culture. I always tell her she has two paths towards expansion: bring in more people or do such a great job she can charge a hell of a lot more for what she does. I often believe to leverage her own skills the second would be better. Nanocapitalism gives her the choice. Why? Because the second path is possible because that method can be attained with the help of the tools she uses. When her business gets too big for her to take the time she can find other "experts" to spend a portion of their time helping her. She can "partner" for pieces of their time to build her brand bigger without taking on any overhead whatsoever. And thus her corporate culture can play to her strengths and desires and give her options. Hell, people can pay her for a piece of her time.
Imagine a time when her blog writer who she pays a small fraction to do work knows of a bloggers conference (I made it up) that needs a photographer for two days. Because her marketing efforts have allowed to focus on creatively building her expertise and brand she may get that opportunity and be able to charge 3X versus if she spent all her time having to be the expert. But wait there's more! Because she uses nanocapitalistic principles, her ROI on this work is 50% higher because her overhead will be lower.
This process could help the US win in its innovation effort because the free market is getting flipped on its head. Gone will be the days that size and scale are needed to really grow a business. Is it better to have your own business that has $50 million in sales with a 10% profit margin or a business that has $10million in sales with an 50% profit margin. Oh yeah, the $50 million dollar company has 50 people working for it, while the $10 million has 3. The point is this...small businesses are going to get the opportunity to think about the American dream differently. We are all overworked, overtired, and in my opinion OVERCORPORATE CULTURED to death. To have control, make the same and perhaps have more time for yourself is becoming the American dream.
Social media has shifted the balance of power from B2C to C2B. The consumers have the power and are taking it back from the corporations. In the coming years, I predict that new brands will not be made but purchased because it is cheaper to Buy than Make. The second is people's financial gain could grow if they can leverage others with technology as a means to enable it to increase their profit margins. The term MEO can move from a narcissistic statement about our own need to be heard and into a place that means I run my business with quiet confidence.
And my sister...she has the frustrating tendency to take the predictions or advice I give her as I have for years about how great she is and why her decisions are so good and attribute to someone else later.
I figured I would go on record publicly to predict this. She is a model of nanocapitalism and her desire to maintain control of how she does things AND leverage others to scale her business in a smart way will lead to a day where her ability to do the same work for higher fees is the reason she will succeed. Her mindset is the model of small business and her ability to conquer the fears many of us have in starting are own thing is something that requires some thought.
I just hope she doesn't charge her brother too much to get a better headshot.
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