I discovered these interesting products on social.
I’d love ones that you’ve seen!
Higi –It like a Klout score that combines your eating and activity habits, all the while ranking your score, scoring pictures of food for calories and protein , etc. They have ‘stations’ set up in drugstores so that you can weigh in, test your blood pressure, etc while combining your “community” or friends into your overall score. VERY cool!
Virtual Receptionist / Concierge — So you are a smaller or medium company and you cannot afford an assistant, see this video that allows you to have a virtual and smart assistant. Very furturist — I just landed at an airport and I was directed by an virtual concierge!
Cuelight Pool Table – Yes, gaming! Cuelight allows you to transform any pool table into a digitally-enhanced video experience. High-definition imagery responds in real-time to every shot. User-selectable themes yield infinite possibilities. It is real and is already in the Paradise Tower Penthouse, Hard Rock Hotel & CasinoTM, Las Vegas and the Esquire SoHo apartment. Check it out!
OK. I admit it. I tweet multiple times a day, I have 2 blogs, and I love social. My passion is reaching customers and having them connect with my company in new and smart ways. As such, I experiment, learn from my peers, and measure these new tools for marketing. As an executive at IBM, I have found that these Social 2.0 techniques drive down costs and increase revenue.
IBM’s 2012 CEO Survey revealed that 57% of CEO’s identified social business as a top priority and more than 73% are making significant investments to draw insights into data. And more than 1,700 chief marketing officers reveal 82% plan to increase their use of social media over the next three to five years.
This shift of consumer to business networking, known as “Social Business” has become the next big challenge for organizations which are quickly learning that social networks are no longer the new water cooler but rather their new production line, a place where employees, partners and clients connect to share vast amounts of knowledge. The big winners will go those who harness the ability to capture and analyze the knowledge their social network creates and share it throughout the business to accelerate innovation, out-market competitors and remove boundaries internally and externally.
Consider the Social Graph. A Social graph is a graph that depicts personal relations of internet users Understanding the connections of your clients helps you see the networks, where clients are isolated and where connections can drive revenue.
For example, chief marketing officers (CMO) are looking to gain insights from both internal and external data from sources like Facebook, Twitter and public forums to react more swiftly to customer trends and build their brands. HR Leaders are looking to build communities to improve recruiting and talent management services.
By interacting with the video game, students can make real-life business situation decisions. They can see the results of their decisions right away, and if they make a mistake, it’s much more private than “failing” in front of a classroom of their colleagues. Because a love of gaming is shared around the world, professors have told us the game can help to bridge cultural barriers While it’s too soon to measure the full implications, there’s a new business environment emerging.
We cannot ignore the changing group dynamics and social implications. In fact, we should tap into the most innovative ideas to redefine the fundamental nature of educating the market. Just as games present us with situations that invite players to make choices, consider the advantage of using graphics and decision-making steps of games in business. Using Social Media, we could allow decision makers to immerse themselves in the real-world simulations, judging cause and effect before making decisions.
The arrival of Social Business has created an emerging battleground for IT vendors. For example, financial analyst firm CLSA recently cited enterprise social software as one of the top tech trends in 2013 and Forrester Research reports that the market opportunity for social software will exceed $6 billion by 2016.
Here is our Monday Social Business Coffee Break and I am thrilled to host Clarisa Felts, the fearless HR & Collaboration leader at Lowes! Her famous quote is: “Social didn’t transform our culture; it revealed it.”
I am here today in Luzern, Switzerland at the Big IBM event with over 1200 companies talking about Mobile and Social!
We have a special Digital Media Room to assist clients getting started with Social. Social has a STRONG ROI component which I find is very appealing to our Swiss clients. And the transformation itself is getting noticed in how it is changing the way we work. Did you know that 83% of gen y has joined a social network and $200B in mobile money transfers by 2015?
IBM believes in this transformation so strongly that Social Business has been a key enabler of IBM’s legendary business transformation and global integration. IBM is the most prolific user of enterprise social technologies.
Today, more than 400,000 IBM employees use IBM social technologies, including Connections, IBM’s social business platform. As a result, more than 130,000 communities have been developed, 842,000 files shared globally have generated more than 22.1 million downloads. Every day, IBM generates 50 million instant message chats. IBMs recent $1.3B acquisition of Kenexa brings relevant data and expertise into the hands of business leaders within every functional department (marketing, HR, sales, product development).
After the keynote, I’ll post our key points for this powerful transformation!
I was just at the IMPACT conference, and a new term came up — A business in motion! I loved it. It is dynamic and a living organization! A business in motion is ready to meet customers on their terms, with a complete understanding of each customer, used to create deeper, more meaningful engagements.
Here’s what I learned about in terms of the imperatives for a Business in Motion! 5 key imperatives:
Put mobile first, because this is the first point of engagement for your customers, partners and employees.
Social Everywhere. Reinvent the way you work in the market — this is the new norm.
Reinvent your design and business processes to meet new expectations for instant, seamless and insightful interactions
Adopt a flexible and secure integration model so that back-office systems can keep pace with rapid change
Be Insight and Data Driven to uncover opportunities, build efficiencies and make informed decisions
My dad was placed in the hospital for emergency brain surgery. I got the news while in Vegas, and booked the first flight out. I had to wait for the plane for over 6 hours — hoping to get home in time.
I was going crazy in the wait — and really needed to talk to someone.
So I did something I usually don’t do — I posted something very personal on Facebook about my dad. Much to my surprise, within minutes I had response from friends all over the world. The outpouring was overwhelming — over 500 comments plus dozens of calls.
I had calls from friends that I had not heard from since High School.
Prayers poured in
Comments of encouragement came in texts, comments, tweets
And I didn’t feel alone
No one gave up either — days and weeks went by ….. and the love flowed in through twitter, facebook and beyond.
I talk about the power of social in business — and the power there is very strong and real. But this personal impact — priceless.
Happy Monday and welcome to our Social Business Coffee Break!
Today we feature Caterpillar Inc. a leader in building the world’s infrastructure, and in enabling progress for millions of people around the globe, .as a Best Practice Social Business!
Do you follow somebody on twitter who publishes great content but also tends to retweet anything (like anyone who thanks them), thus making it really hard for you to spot the interesting pieces in the mass of tweets? Than try this useful function: To turn off a person’s retweets, go on their profile, click on the little person icon next to the following button and select “Turn off retweets”. One exception: This only works for retweets sent by using the retweet button, not for those with RT at the beginning of the tweet.
96% of companies don’t link internal & external efforts – Dachis Social Business Council, August 2012
And if you do link them together as per McKinsey’s Web 2.0 Survey – calculating the average benefit increase of Fully Networked compared to only Internal or External — showed that “Fully Networked” companies achieve 3.6X higher benefit increase.
In most of the visits I do with companies on social, the big question I get asked is what is the benefit of becoming a social business?
Here are a few great benefits that I see:
Stronger employee engagement. Stronger employee engagement leads to great client engagement. In a social business, employees are smarter, more loyal, and engaged because their organization uses social networks, collaboration systems and shared messaging services.
Great talent in and around! A “social” approach enables employees around the world to tap into each other’s expertise and connections. Companies can attract top talent and give employees the social tools they need to work together. Executives can layer analytics on top of social technologies to make sure their companies have the right skills and expertise to meet market demands.
Exceptional client service. A social business is also one where customer service is exceptional because the company reaches out to customers through social networks, Twitter and blogs in innovative ways and acts on the insights it pulls together about consumers. That way, customer service teams have the insights and the analytics they need to predictand resolve problems before they happen.
Personalized. Value in a Social Business is created not for ‘market segments’ or demographics but for individuals. Companies can dish up more targeted offers to customers and respond more quickly to their problems. R&D can gain new sources of inspirations and insight from customers and employees so that the products customers want are the ones that get to market … customized to their particular need, even made to order!
What are your thoughts on the value you see in Social?
A tribe is a group of people connected to an idea, connected to a leader and connected to each other. Being a member of a tribe not only changes the way you perceive the world — you see members of the group as insiders and nonmembers as outsiders — it changes your affiliation with the team. You are no longer just a fan but you’re part of the family!
When you form a relationship with someone, your brain thinks of that person as being part of you. This is called self-expansion. With you use social engagement you form a self-expanding relationship with your clients. This explains alot of the emotion you feel. The companies successes and failures feel like your own.
Did you know that LinkedIn just announced a new function – mentions – which makes it easier to engage with your network by mentioning connections and companies in conversations on LinkedIn. Just start typing the name of a connection or a company in your status update box or a comment field and select the person from the list that appears in the drop-down.
The person or company you mentioned will receive a notification that they have been mentioned. Mentions will be rolled out to English-speaking members first.
I have been fortunate to meet an incredible group of women through my professional and organizational roles, and one person who shares my passion for expanding opportunities would like to encourage more women to connect with each other and access great resources through her organization, The Women’s Toolbox. Janet Powers, the Chief Executive Connector, will — in her own words — help you FIND Your Voice, SHARPEN Your Skills, SHARE Your Expertise and EXPAND Your Network. Its tagline (“Practical Advice for Busy Business Women”) illustrates its mission is to empower, educate, and entertain women.
I had the opportunity to talk with Janet at a lunch I hosted for female executives during our recent global customer event IBM Connect, and she suggested we work together in our support of women’s empowerment. As part of her commitment, I am excited to share that if you become a new member of The Women’s Toolbox, for a limited time you will receive a copy of my book, Get Bold: Using Social Media to Create a New Type of Social Business. I hope you will learn more about the resources available from Janet’s organization, and that you will share the opportunity to participate with the women in your networks as well.
Is losing control of your brand a good thing or a bad thing?
We are used to operating with the idea that we have to protect the brand. How do we lose control of our brand so that our customers have a role in shaping our brand as much as we do?
Well, we know that your brand is not what you say it is, but what everyone else decides. Social enables you to influence your brand and engage where and how others want to talk. You can identify and engage influencers and unleash your employees as a “digital army” by building with customers and convert them to brand ambassadors
If you use Social Analytics to identify needs in the marketplace for specific products, features, or process enhancements by listening and this could allow you to tweak your brand value prop. Leveraging crowdsourcing to engage employees, partners, and even customers in innovation discussions increases the number and sources of new ideas; but also enables the best ideas to become more visible and mature through collaboration.
I LOVE having brands be leveraged by clients is great — and I don’t think that it is anything new. Companies now orchestrate and can shape the brand not based on what we are selling but on their character, their interactions, their experiences.
With over 66% of top financially performing companies leverage social in their processes and over 80% positive impact on trust for CEOs who openly communicate on social, social can mean power to some and hype to others.
In the next 3-5 years the use of social media by Insurers will increase from 4% to 51% as one of the most important mechanisms to engage customers according to IBM CEO study.
Is this because of hype? I don’t think so. Financial Services has always been a “social” industry – we are now just shifting from F2F and phone to more online interaction; mirroring the shift of our customers and employees. The leading FSS companies are using social to explain changes to the financial environment and to provide increased clarity around specific products – partially due to changing regulatory requirements, but also to build trust.
Financial Services as a sector suffers from a major trust gap – social is a powerful capability for building trust
Financial Advisors are using social to engage clients and prospects – using social compliance capabilities to provide support for suitability and records retention. Many financial companies have embraced external social media for brand promotion, engagement, and marketing. Leading financial companies have also brought social capabilities inside the firewall. Regulatory requirements necessitate active social compliance monitoring and reporting
Complex, expert-oriented activities (e.g. commercial or specialty underwriting) can be faster (social collaboration) and more accurate (engaging the right people). Networking social capabilities into traditional core insurance and financial services business processes and legacy systems can create dramatic value while leveraging investments you have already made.
Today I am at Prudential for their Technology Leadership Conference and we will discuss these topics and more! I’d love your thoughts – especially if you are in the industry!
Researchers analyzed a global database of e-mail messages, and their locations, sent by more than 10 million people over the space of a year. The results suggest that the pattern of connections between these people, clearly reflects the host civilizations. In other words, the way we send e-mails is a reflection of the mesh of civilizations that is an important driver of future conflict.
I have been meeting with a lot of clients and see a lot of discussion around governance and structure required. In a survey done in 1Q 2013, we see 2.7X the focus on developing social business governance.
Because there is no natural organizational owner of “social,” an effective governance structure must balance responsiveness and inclusiveness.
Being inclusive means engaging stakeholders early and broadly to build shared understandings and expectations. Responsiveness provides for clear accountability and speed in decision making. The challenge is to build governance structures and processes that accomplish both.
Having a relationship with your employees not just rules makes a huge difference in how successful you are!
Achieving the transformative value of becoming a Social Business involves connecting all parts of the organization (including channels, partners and customers) in new ways. It often requires quite new ways of managing people, flatter organizations, and significant cultural change. While becoming social provides individual flexibility, it’s important that the change achieves the unifying value for the company of the new goals and culture.
A strong governance program facilitates coordinated change. The governance is led by two complementary leadership groups who’s members include the major “organizational structures” (e.g., LOBs, Finance, Supply Chain, HR, Channel Management, …).
The first, the Executive Sponsor Group, defines the strategic linkage and goals of becoming a social business. Members are leaders across the organization. The second is a Digital Council. These are executives who are responsible for the organization-wide, execution creation of the Social Business plan. The representatives are often the social business leaders in their respective LOBs and functional areas, which ensures focus on the vertical and horizontal needs.
The Digital Council focuses on the key areas of a social program:
Community Management – Provides a common approach to drive change and adoption at and across the LOB and functional level. It includes actions like community management, Content Management, community analytics, and best practices. While the focus is value at the LOB / functional level, the governance processes has a Center of Excellent that shares best practices to create a common social voice and approach across and outside the organization.
Metrics and Measurement - Covers all elements of data and measurement. Starts with analytics / listening to guide the where and how to engage socially. This includes internal analytics of social networks, expertise, and projects, as well as the external listening and analytics. This group also is responsible for creating and automating the overall program measurements to track success, progress on the plan, and social return.
Reputation and Risk Management – Focuses on 3 main areas: 1. regulatory risk and compliance(if relevant), social record retention for general discovery, and other legal and financial risks; 2. policies, guidelines and processes for the organization and associates to participate in social media (for example, IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines); and 3. proactively managing the organization’s reputation and having a defined plan to respond to various levels of negative media or emergencies.
Standards – This group focuses on process and technical standards for a social business. While LOBs, major business functions, etc. require the freedom to build their social programs tailored to their needs, the Standards group ensures that the overall company can be nimble in connecting across boundaries in ways not always anticipated. Standards for brand and ways of connecting with partners, channels, clients, etc. ensure that the company is viewed as coordinated and focused on needs vs. a “collection of parts.” On the technical side, a common social business framework enables the new ways of working.
Please forgive me if you know this but I have had so many questions at SXSW on “What is a Social Business” that I jotted down my thoughts to share!!!
If you are 201, please skip but I am hoping this is helpful to a lot of you!!
1. What is social business?
A major change is taking place in social media these days: leading-edge companies are moving from “liking” to leading.
Social media has become an extension of traditional paid media with many companies broadcasting messages, from traditional to innovative. The next step will be much deeper as the leaders recognize that social engagement is an opportunity to redefine the client service experience, be proactive in delivering customer care and differentiate in new ways.
We call this social business. And just as social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest changed the flow of information by helping people share insights, opinions, and news with anyone anywhere, social business is changing the way people connect with companies and inside of them and how organizations succeed.
What is a social business? It’s an organization that integrates social technologies with critical business processes to improve the productivity of its workforce and create exceptional customer service.
Forrester Research estimates the market opportunity for social software is expected to rise 60% annually from 2010.
2. How is social business different from social media?
Organizations have quickly learned that a Social Business isn’t a company that just has a Facebook page and a Twitter account. A Social Business means that every department in the organization has embedded social capabilities into their traditional business processes to fundamentally impact how work gets done to create business value. A Social Business utilizes social software technology to communicate with its rich ecosystem of clients, business partners and employees.
Three shifts are creating an opportunity for social technology to create real business value
Pressure to build and share expertise for competitive advantage
Increasingly influential and vocal customers
Growing demand for 24/7 and mobile connectedness
Leaders in every industry are leveraging Social Business technology to disrupt their industries and create competitive advantage. They are improving productivity and unleashing innovation by tapping into the collective intelligence inside and outside their organizations. With social, they’re creating a smarter workforce.
3. What are the benefits of becoming a social business?
In a social business, employees are smarter, more loyal, and engaged because their organization uses social networks, collaboration systems and shared messaging services.
A “social” approach enables employees around the world to tap into each other’s expertise and connections. Companies can attract top talent and give employees the social tools they need to work together. Executives can layer analytics on top of social technologies to make sure their companies have the right skills and expertise to meet market demands.
A social business is also one where customer service is exceptional because the company reaches out to customers through social networks, Twitter and blogs in innovative ways and acts on the insights it pulls together about consumers. That way, customer service teams have the insights and the analytics they need to predict and resolve problems before they happen. Companies can dish up more targeted offers to customers and respond more quickly to their problems. R&D can gain new sources of inspirations and insight from customers and employees so that the products customers want are the ones that get to market.
4. Example of social business transformations. Teach for America: Teach For America, a nonprofit organization that works in partnership with communities to expand educational opportunity for children facing the challenges of poverty, is using IBM’s social business platform to help bridge the gap in educational inequality for 600,000 students nationwide. Teach For America’s 40,000 teachers, alumni and employees are accessing a digital network built on IBM’s industry leading social
networking platform to share best practices and innovative teaching techniques in the classroom, across school districts, and state borders. Teach For America’s digital portal, TFANet, allows incoming and current teachers, alumni and staff to connect and share knowledge, resources and guidance to help deepen their impact as educational leaders. All 40,000 corps members, alumni and staff have access to discussion forums, blogs, wikis, videos, and user profiles to exchange information and insight across the organization’s 46 regions. IBM social networking technology has allowed Teach For America to build a network and digital experience for its teachers and alumni that includes a resource exchange with over 30,000 user-generated classroom materials focused on classroom management plans and worksheets, lesson plans, and new teaching techniques to help increase efficiency and learning in classrooms across the country. Members can access more than 600 content-specific communities, nearly 20 blogs, and 500 video clips and virtual classroom visits, providing Teach For America members with vital advice and insight from their colleagues to help advance their performance in the classroom.
LeasePlan: LeasePlan, one of the leading vehicle leasing and fleet management companies in the world, is using IBM Connections across the multi-national company of over 40 subsidiaries, in 30 countries and over 6,000 employees. LeasePlan is using IBM Connections for knowledge retention, optimizing workflow, increasing innovation, and transforming business processes. Nearly 800 communities have been formed, 400 blogs, and over 800 forums are all helping the organization decrease the amount of emails sent and received, helping the workforce easily find expertise and saving employees valuable time. Wim de Gier, LeasePlan’s Senior Global Project Manager Corporate Strategy & Development says, “LinkedPeople makes it easy to find people with specific expertise. Employees create personal profiles that include information such as their background, expertise, and links to articles or papers they have written. By searching tags, users can locate specific information and find colleagues suited to answer particular questions. Users can also find questions relating to their expertise that they can answer.”
Electrolux: Electrolux is powered through the innovations of its employees to create products that consumers need. Because of this, the ability for employees to access content and collaborate on the fly is crucial. Using IBM enterprise social networking software, Electrolux employees can now easily find experts and gain valuable insight from information and data. They are engaging in over 1,000 collaboration spaces, including 100 information portals managed by more than 450 editors and visited by employees 15,000 times a month and 9,000 times a day.
CEMEX: Speeding innovation and time to market
CEMEX is the third largest building materials company in the world, with employees in 50 countries. To meet business challenges, it had to bring its global community closer together, so it created a social network initiative, called Shift, for open collaboration across its entire workforce. Within a year, over 20,000 employees were engaged, over 500 communities had formed, nine global innovation initiatives were underway — and ideas started flowing around the world among specialists in all areas and levels of the company. Wikis, blogs and communities became links between operating units around the world, and the collaboration among employees led to impressive results — for instance, the launch in under four months of the first global brand of CEMEX’s Ready Mix special product. If the same level of collaboration now enabled by Shift were conducted today through traditional meetings by phone and travel, CEMEX would be spending an additional US$0.5 to US$1 million per year.
In the US, we have experienced some acts of violence. As President Obama stated shortly after a recent tragedy, “We won’t be able to stop every violent act, but if there is even one thing that we can do to prevent any of these events, we have a deep obligation, all of us, to try.”
What if there was a new emerging technology that has proven that some of these violent acts can be detected and prevented before they occur?
Over the past eight weeks, several violent acts on school campuses throughout the United States & Canada have been successfully stopped through the use of “Social-Network-Intelligence-Policing”. For example, last week at City University New York in Staten Island, a student was arrested after threatening to shoot and kill students at the CUNY campus in Brooklyn, New York.[i] No students or faculty were injured. On February 8th, 2013 in Kerns, Utah a high school student was arrested after he threatened to blow up his high school. School police checking out the threat found a photo of explosives and put the school on lock down.[ii] No students or faculty were injured. On February 5th, 2013 in Murrieta, California a high school student threatened to kill his teacher. The student was arrested before he could carry out his planned attack.[iii]
Research data shows that individuals, or groups of individuals who plan to conduct violent acts, most likely will post their intentions or a manifesto on public (non-private) social network sites just prior (8 – 72 hours) to initiating these violent acts or attacks. A small window of time exists where law enforcement and school faculty can legally monitor, detect and interdict these events before they occur.
In all three of these recent cases, the GEOCOP System (www.geocop.com) alerted law enforcement or school faculty to these emerging violent acts before they occurred. GEOCOP stands for Geospatial-Common-Operations-Picture and it fuses social network monitoring and analytics services with geospatial data to give law enforcement predictive insights into emerging threats and events.
The recent emergence of “Big Social Network Data Monitoring, Analytics and Collaboration” technologies provide law enforcement and government agencies a powerful and legal force multiplier in predicting and preventing acts of violence on our school campuses. Several State Police agencies across the United States use this system. The GEOCOP system is another fantastic example where innovation and enterprise social network technologies are making a real difference in protecting our children and school campuses.
Note – The GEOCOP Solution is owned by Global Technologies Solutions (GTS Corporation) and is exclusively sold by HMS TECHNOLOGIES CORP. The GEOCOP and TACTrend Solutions are built on IBM’s Social Business Software Technologies which include WebSphere Portal, SameTime, IBM Connections and IBM Analytics Technologies.
Note – The GEOCOP Solution is owned by Global Technologies Solutions (GTS Corporation) and is exclusively sold by HMS TECHNOLOGIES CORP. The GEOCOP and TACTrend Solutions are built on IBM’s Social Business Software Technologies which include WebSphere Portal, SameTime, IBM Connections and IBM Analytics Technologies.
I am tingling as I use our new Notes 9 Social edition! Not because it is a next release of Notes, but because it is an amazing Social tool! It is Social Mail — here today!
Some people think e-mail has always been social, and others say email and social are like oil and water.
I think it’s a mix! And that’s why I love it! My husband says I like my cake and eat it too! So with Social Mail I can do both — have mail and social!
Social mail is the seamless integration of everything — all your collaboration tools — where and when you want them. Often, that’s alongside your inbox.
And I mean everything. All the new & cool social stuff like Profiles, communities, file sharing, real time audio and video communications, presence and more, all right there. And I mean your desktop applications; your public social networks; your Tweets; and your other business applications. All together. No switching, stopping, or waiting.
But social mail is is also about the integration of messaging into those other applications– shouldn’t my desire to communicate be freed from the boundaries of a traditional email client application? Social mail is about having access any time & anywhere — on my PC, my phone, my tablet, on my desktop, and even in the cloud.
Social mail lets me focus on my idea or the business problem I need to solve. Ultimately, a social mail experience is about empowering people to collaborate seamlessly and in context, so you forget about managing email and just get work done.
What is Sentiment? Per the Free Online Dictionary, Sentiment is the measurement of thought, view, or attitude, especially one based mainly on emotion instead of reason. So really, a view on whether someone is positive or negative about a company, brand, or idea that is in the blogosphere.
Sentiment is the way that people view what you are doing either positively or negatively. A Social Business needs to be able to analyze sentiment and filter by concepts, hot words and media sets to have a complete comparative analysis by comparing positive, negative, neutral, or ambivalent sentiment.
Sentiment Analysis helps a Social Business make evidence-based messaging decisions with analysis into consumer and stakeholder sentiment. It adds value in assessing precision trends and changes in perception of your corporate reputation and reaction to campaigns.
In addition, it can help you identify and target new channels to drive greater advocacy of your products and services with key influencers based on an analysis of sentiment For example, the effectiveness of your campaigns’ messages and their impact on consumers’ purchasing decisions as well as the resonance and believability of their promise is valuable information.
South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, TX, starts on Friday, March 8! If you’re not familiar with this event, or if you want to test your trivia knowledge, then check out this interesting infographic from Rocksauce Studios, which Guy Kawasaki shared earlier this week.
There are so many exciting sessions and speakers that it’s hard to choose which to attend. Even if you’re not attending SXSW, you can follow along on Twitter by searching #sxsw. You’ll be able to join the conversation and share what you see with your followers.
One session that looks incredible is Tina Roth Eisenberg’s keynote on March 10. She’ll be talking about social’s impact on design.
As the mother of a tween daughter, two other sessions have caught me eye:
Mentor Session With Rawn Shah, Social Business Strategist, IBM
Engaging Government for Fun, Profit & MeaningWith Gadi Ben-Yehuda, Innovation & Social Media Director – IBM Center for the Business of Government, Amanda Eamich from USDA, Mary Krakowiak from National Archives & Records Administration, and Tammi Marcoullier from US General Services Administration
With Bill Curtis Davidson, Accessible Transportation Solutions & Business Development Lead, IBM , James Pol from US DOT, Kamiar Kordari from TRX Systems, and Mohammed Yousuf from DOT.
I will be participating on a panel that is not on the SXSW schedule but will be fun and informative:
Gone are the days when brands used a brochure or static website to tell their story. Today, social media provides a platform where brands can communicate their story through the way they engage and interact with followers. And often, those interactions shape the brand in new ways, too. Join TechCrunch, IBM, Bare Escentuals and Shoutlet as we take a look at social storytelling and provide practical tips and tools for the job. You’ll hear a robust discussion on how to effectively manage online communities, listen to fans and impact buyer behaviors and preferences. More details here.
When: Saturday, March 9 from 2:00 – 4:30 pm
Where: Lambert’s Downtown BBQ
IBM is planning an extensive presence at SXSW. Please stop by and say hello!
Date: Sunday, March 10 through Wednesday, March 13
Location: Austin Convention Center, Exhibit Halls 3 & 4
What: IBM booth will showcase solutions for Social Business, the Mobile Enterprise, Digital Marketing & Analytics, and Global Entrepreneurs
Last but not least, the famous Grumpy Cat from Twitter and Facebook will be doing meet & greets and “signing” autographs. That’s just the type of event that you expect at SXSW!
As many of you know, I am in the business of Social Business. There is nothing more social than face to face and breaking bread with a friend, a colleague, a customer or someone new.
While at SXSW, I know many of you will be getting social on a daily basis. With Austin exploding as a foodie town in its own right, there more places to choose from that any one person could fathom. People have dedicated books and blogs, tweets, time, tours and television shows to share the culinary experience that is Austin.
Here are my picks for places you might want to check out during SXSW.
BBQ. It should be considered the state food of Texas.
La Barbecue – South First BBQ trailer. They have free beer and live music. Try the pork ribs and sausage. They are some of the best in the city. @la_Barbecue
Live Oak Barbecue & Beer – This one year old, great east side location, is a hidden gem. They smoke all their meats, even the sausage. You will find yourself wanting to return the next day. @liveoakbbq
Rudy’s – Get some gasoline and BBQ in one visit. Serves up no-nonsense good oak smoked BBQ on butcher paper with their own “Sause.” Try the ribs! Great place for the whole family. @rudysbbq
Breakfast tacos. It’s breakfast! It’s a taco! What more could you want? An Austin tradition.
Juan in a Million – The owner, Juan, greets you with a handshake as if you are a regular (even on your first visit). The Don Juan El Taco Grande for $3.80 comes with three tortillas and is enough to feed two people. @DonJuanTaco
La Mexicana Bakery Panaderia – They have breakfast tacos starting at $1.30. Try the cactus and egg or the chorizo with egg and potato. They are open 24 hours and have a Mexican bakery case sure to tempt most sweets lover. @PanDulceee
mi Madre’s Restaurant – Serving up some of best breakfast tacos in Austin with healthy portions and prices that won’t break the bank. Eat them there or take them to go. Salsa is pretty spicy, so go easy until you know how hot is too hot for you. @mimadres
Burgers. We all love them. You can find them everywhere, but no two burgers are created equal.
Counter Café – One of the last of the great American diners. They do local and organic from scratch cooking. The Counter Burger was ranked #2 on the Texas Monthly’s 50 Greatest Hamburgers in Texas. The beef is perfectly seasoned and the burger is perfection. P.S., try their scratch made biscuits and gravy for breakfast. #CounterCafe
Mighty Fine Burgers, Fries & Shakes – They source their meat from certified small ranchers and grind it fresh daily at the restaurant. It’s a no nonsense burger. Wash it down with one of their hand dipped shakes or a hand-squeezed strawberry lemonade. @mightyfinetx
Wholly Cow Burgers – This little gem has wholesome, all natural, grass fed beef and makes their burger to order with a whole list of toppings to choose from. They do as much organic as possible and cook up a heavenly burger that is well seasoned. Try it with the sweet potato fries. @WhollyCowATX
Food trailers. You cannot truly experience Austin, without eating from a trailer. There are guides, books, festivals, Meetups and food tours dedicated to this culinary revolution. While I cannot do it justice, I have mentioned some in my other category picks. Below are a few notable trailers worth mentioning.
Also, be sure also to check out SouthBites, on the corner of Driskill and Rainey Street. This is a collection of food trailers selected by Paul Qui, winner of Top Chef Season 9. Be sure to follow #SouthBites to keep up to date with their lineup. Also, follow #SXSWtrailer for any changes on trailer hours, locations and events.
Hey… You Gonna Eat or What? – These are not your mama’s sandwiches. Try the Shiner Bock beer-battered Monte Cristo and prepare for angels singing. It is well worth the calories. You really cannot go wrong with anything on their menu. @UGonnaEatOrWhat
Kebabalicious – Fresh Turkish-style wraps made from scratch. Vegetarians and Meat eaters can coexist in harmony, as there are choices for all. The spicy items will pack a kick. Try the Meat/Lamb Kebab and be careful not to drip the sauce all over you. It is a messy and delicious dining adventure. @kebabalicious
Three Little Pigs – Located outside of East End Wines, you can have your pork and wine too. Pick up a bottle, walk outside and you have BYOB. Try the Pork Belly Sliders, Bacon Wrapped Craklin’ Meatloaf and the Brussels Sprouts. @3LittlPigs
Happy Hour.Being a university town, for some, Happy Hour is the most important meal of the day. Cheap food and beverages on a budget are the way many afford both their dinner and socializing. Happy Hours are mentioned throughout this list. Below are a few more worth checking out.
Contigo – Enjoy happy hour inside or on their spacious dog-friendly patio, Monday-Friday from 5-7pm. They offer reduced price bar snacks, $1 off draft beer/wine by the glass and a $6 selection of cocktails. All charcuterie and condiments are made from scratch. Try the pigs in a blanket and the white bean dip. @contigoaustin
Salty Sow – They bill themselves has Swine + Wine + Beer, but you don’t have to be a pork lover to enjoy their fare. They have a $4 Happy Hour menu, 7 days a week, from 4:30-6:30pm. Try the Brussels sprouts and the deviled eggs. They are also known for their Truffle Duck Fat Fries. @saltysow
Ten Oak – This Bourbon house has more than just bourbon. With a full bar and some great food, they have Happy Hour 7 days a week from 4-7pm. You can choose from $5 for specialty cocktails and select menu options including Pulled Pork Sliders and Chicken Pizzetta. @TenOakAustin
Mexican food.Say Cheese… it’s Tex-Mex. Say Interior, it’s Mexican. No matter how you say it – we have it all.
Curra’s Grill –Avocado Margarita is a must try and if they are not too busy, ask for a sauce sampler so you can determine your favorite before ordering. More interior Mexican than Tex-Mex, they make their own corn tortillas. Try the red chili corn tortilla in your taco. Get some to-go. @CurrasGrill
El Alma – Great rooftop patio to watch the sunset. The Queso Fundido is delicious and half price during Happy Hour. Try the Duck Enmoladas or the Duck Relleno… you won’t be disappointed. @ElAlma_ATX
Maudie’s – Don’t wait for the cheese, get the Queso. Try it with some taco meat and pico de gallo (Diablo sol food). Wash it down with their regular house margarita for just $3.50 at Happy Hour (Monday 3pm-close, Tuesday – Friday 3-6:30pm). @MaudiesTXMex
Off the beaten path, but worth the trek.These places will require transportation, but are definitely worth the trip
Jack Allen’s Kitchen – Locally sourced fare. Best Pimento Cheese (oh yes they do) in Austin. $15.99 Sunday brunch buffet. Happy hour, 7 days a week, starting at 3pm, with half price appetizers and assorted drink specials. Try the Bacon Wrapped Texas Quail appetizer.@jackallens
The Oasis on Lake Travis – Definitely a big tourist draw but the perfect spot to watch the sunset with a margarita. They specialize in high volume, so order up some chips and salsa and wander next door to Soleil or another spot for your dinner. This way, you get the best of all worlds. @OasisLakeTravis
Trattoria Lisina – This is Damian Mandola’s perfectly executed, little piece of Tuscany in the Texas hill country. Their authentic Italian food is complemented by the Duchman Family Winery next door which offers wine tasting and tours next door. Reservations are helpful. Enjoy live outdoor music with plenty of places to sit, relax and enjoy a bottle or glass of wine. @TrattoriaLisina
Pizza. From thin crust, thick crust, cheese, pepperoni, all the toppings and the convenience of delivery, it is hard to get through a SXSW without indulging in a slice of Pizza.
Austin’s Pizza – With locations around Austin, gluten-free and thin crust options and delivery, they are sure to be a lifesaver for the hungry. Try the sausage pizza. @AustinsPizza
Roppolo’s – New York-style pizza and a downtown Austin staple, they’ve been selling pizza in their trucks for years. Now you can enjoy a slice in their newer store front on E 6th or catch one of their food trucks about town. They sell it by the pizza or the slice. Try the Italian Mex or the Rosalie. @roppolos
VIA 313 – Detroit-style pizza made in auto parts pans and baked to perfection, VIA 313 brings a little bit of Motown fare to the Live Music Capital. Try the Cadillac Pizza and enjoy the cheesy caramelized edges on every slice. @Via313Pizza
Wine bars. The wine scene is alive and well in this town. With Austin being the home to well known Sommeliers, it is easy to find a wine bar with a creative affordable selection of solid wines.
Apothecary Café & Wine Bar – Their wine selection changes up, and is guaranteed to suit most any palate. Not into wine, they serve up a selection of Texas beers and have a full espresso bar. The menu is seasonal and inventive and includes a weekend Brunch menu. They have Happy Hour specials from 4-7pm every day and all day on Sundays & Mondays, including $10 off bottles. @apothecaryatx
House Wine – Cozy and uniquely Austin. It is an actual house turned wine bar with perfect outdoor seating. On Sunday’s, all their open bottles sell by the glass for ½ price until they are gone. Curl up in any spot with a glass, and it feels like home. @HouseWine
The Red Room Lounge – This speak easy ambiance is the perfect beginning or night cap to an evening in Austin. Texas’ Best Sommelier 2011, Bill Elsey, has artfully selected top notch yet affordable wines. Their list will satisfy the lover of the common to the obscure varietals. BYO Food is encouraged, as they only serve wine. @RedRoomATX
To infinity and beyond! Since I was a math minor in college and so I saw the Infinity sign in my daily tasks and fell in love with it! Infinity is the unlimited extent of time, space, or quantity, or in plain English …. boundlessness.
Just on a POP note! Today it is one of the most popular necklaces because it represents endlessness … (just ask my daughter who walked me through 4 cities looking for an infinity sign necklace that was in stock — they are hard to find!) I am sure New Dimension has a lot to do with that!!!
Social Infinity: But in Social, it is money for your business because it represents the endless cycle of engagement with clients, and the knitting together of the employee and the client! The engaged employee is key.
Engaged employees are those who know the company’s values and are empowered to leverage those values with their partners and clients. They know their role and understand how to reach out to the right expert. These new social employee are about commitment and success.
An engaged employee yields an engaged Client!
This Engaged client is one who is attentive, interested, and active in their support for your brand, product, or company. The depth of their conversations online showcases their knowledge and care. They recommend and passionately advocate on your behalf in the blogosphere — they become loyal Brand Ambassadors — speaking on your behalf!
A brand ambassador is a person who is passionate about your brand and references you as a normal course of business usually done socially! And that makes you as a company a more desirable company! Becoming an infinite loop of success and money!!!
Addendum: The funny thing is I wrote this before my call with Janet Powers from the Women’s Tool Box! And she had the exact same thoughts!!
I love to share case studies and here is one from our superstar IBM team in Europe! Mark Osborn’s (@mark_osborn) leadership was the driver to a very successful joint Sales and Technical Education event .
He leveraged Social to drive all the core and key elements in the event:
Ideation: Creation of the agenda based on the team’s suggestions. First requests for topics were collected in an Activity. Common themes were organised into tracks and relevant speakers identified. Everyone voted for speakers and topics
Continuous Improvement. The speakers could see the requirements from the team and posted draft agendas back to the Activity for comment, further honing their pitch.
Realtime Reaction. During the event agendas and updates were made available via an event wiki.
Immediate Usage. After the event speakers posted their presentations on Connections Files with the event tag, creating an event presentation feed. Several of our speakers, were virtual and presented via LotusLive & Sametime Web Meetings
Best Social tools used! Leveraged IBM Connections
The team in Europe created a ‘Ideation Blog’. This is a blog set up for using the collective intelligence of an entire team to create ideas and build upon each others thoughts. They took the suggested with the highest number of votes to create the agenda – there was a very high number of topics that were very popular!
And this was the Feedback from the team on this years event 97% satisfaction This demonstrates that the social approach to planning the event was not only highly effective, but created a much stronger sense of ownership with the participants, encouraging them to feed-back.
Today, we continue our 10 step Adoption best practice! Today we are going to focus on Adoption Step #6. Evangelism! The video below will go into details on how to do this to be effective in adoption throughout your organization and your clients.
I LOVE Austin! As a former Austin resident, I relish the chance to visit any time and hope to make it my home again some day.
If you are new to visiting Austin, or are back again for South by Southwest (SXSW), you can never run out of places to see, eat, drink, shop and enjoy. Next week, I will have a blog focused on how to make the most of your SXSW visit providing you a list of some of the places that truly make Austin the crown jewel of Texas. It will mostly be focused on dining, but I will also include some not to miss shopping, outdoor favorites and places that help to “Keep Austin Weird.”
A great place for unique Texas fare is Lambert’s Downtown Barbecue. They serve up an original twist on BBQ in a vintage downtown Austin building with an uptown vibe.
Join me at Lambert’s on Saturday, March 9, where I will be participating in a panel discussion called Just Add Followers — The Key Ingredient to Telling Your Brand Story and Getting Results, along with Shoutlet and Bare Escentuals, moderated by TechCrunch. This should prove to be a very lively and interesting session! The details are below. It would be great if you could join us. Please come early as there is limited seating on a first come basis. http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5497186232#
Just Add Followers — The Key Ingredient to Telling Your Brand Story and Getting Results
Gone are the days when brands used a brochure or static website to tell their story. Today, social media provides a platform where brands can communicate their story through the way they engage and interact with followers. And often, those interactions shape the brand in new ways, too. Join TechCrunch, IBM, Bare Escentuals and Shoutlet as we take a look at social storytelling and provide practical tips and tools for the job. You’ll hear a robust discussion on how to effectively manage online communities, listen to fans and impact buyer behaviors and preferences. More details here.
What: Panel Discussion with Shoutlet, IBM and Bare Escentuals, moderated by TechCrunch When: Saturday, March 9 from 2:00 – 4:30 pm Where: Lambert’s Downtown BBQ — 401 W 2nd St, Austin, TX 78701
The Scottish Qualifications Authority- the body which creates and manages exams for Scotland’s schools and further afield – have become a social business with the rollout of the first part of their Staff Social Portal – IBM Connections. Using Connections they are better able to communicate, collaborate and share information across their 800-strong workforce. Even before going live there were nearly 400 initial users, and 138 communities set up, dealing with work and socially-focused activities (like their ever-popular jogging club).
As I discussed with Rob Gibson, he commented ” This has been a thoroughly enjoyable project from start to finish. We spent a lot of time researching how to best sell this type of solution to the organisation and then setting up an “Early Adopters” community to test the set up and iron out any issues before we opened up to everyone else.
The other main task for the Early Adopters was to populate the system and get the conversation going ahead of general opening. This created a substantial amount of momentum which we have carried on past the launch day. We started with around 15 Early Adopters and grew to nearly 400 in around three months (approximately half of the organisation).
The system is in full swing with all manner of conversations and networks being built. I am delighted with the overall response so far but we have some ideas about how we can reinvigorate the system should it require a helping hand in a few months time. We also have a planned upgrade to a future version of Connections later in the year. This will give users a great uplift and help to keep the interest levels high.”
A big “well done” to Alan Hamilton (@alanghamilton) at IBM Premier Business Partner Seric Systems (www.seric.co.uk) who used our 10 step Adoption methodology to becoming a social business!
Thumb is based on the concept of crowd sourcing. Crowd sourcing is tapping the collective Intelligence which leverages the wisdom of the crowd to generate new ideas and to refine ideas that exist, as well as vote on the “best” idea.
Thumb uses personal crowdsourcing. For example, my daughter doesn’t know what to match with her new skinny jeans. She can upload a pic to Thumb and then use collective intelligence to source the best match.
It appears like even simple questions typically generate hundreds of thumbs up or thumbs down, plus comments, sometimes within minutes.
The site has very high engagement of its users with 4 hours a month of use by its members, which is second only to Facebook!
Last week I was on vacation and finally got to dive in Bonaire! We went with Bob from http://vipdiving.com! They were great. Even though I had a back injury, they helped me tremendously to dive safe and took us to 2 amazing dive sites!!! I’d highly recommend them to you!!!!
So what did we see on these dives? I saw tons of turtles, eels, barracuda, flounder, and colorful coral reef. But my favorite was a first for my dives … I saw my first seahorse there! He was a bit red, cool, and incredible. Though I didn’t get a pic, here’s one from a pro that looks just like my sea horse!!!
YEA!!!!
But while I was diving I was thinking about the social ecosystem!! (Folks like Dachis, Jeremiah Owyang in the past have done the same!!!)
A few of my thoughts:
What I saw: Seahorses hanging on for dear life like … many companies struggling with Social. They cling to the past. We need to see that social is now a part of the business system. I’d love to help you embrace it!
What I saw: Schools of fish being chased like…consumers banding together in communities, being chased by companies!
What I saw: My guide searching for fish we had not seen like... companies approaching social in a focused way. Adding value, searching not for the masses but those consumers that matter to their business.
What I saw: Tons of turtles having fun in the sea but working hard too. (Did you know that that marine turtles actively, and intentionally, remove algae from coral reefs) like: a great social analytics engine to remove the “stuff” that doesn’t matter, and helps you identify what does!
What I saw: Lots of color and coral formed overtime like a great community platform (IBM Connections!) that enables the different social networks to form! These tools are important and the security they provide enhances results!
Yes, I know many of you ask “do I ever stop thinking about Social?” Ummmmm….no!!!
