BIZTECHBUZZ in the world of social, cognitive, IoT and startups

Month: May 2009

Interesting – Practice of Flourishing Families

I am at my Harvard Business School Reunion. It is so great to see all my friends again and catch up!

But we also get to attend great classes by Harvard Professors. One that I find intriguing today was by Charlie Collier on the Practices of Flourishing Families.

The highlights included:
— A discussion on what it takes to be a member of your family (do you have a set of family values, and a mission?)
— How do you encourage your children to lead their own lives yet stay connected to the family (tough one that we debated for a while!0
— How do you influence your child to be the best they can be (The discussion was around leading by example)
— We also discussed how you discuss money and prepare your kids to manage money (his theory was that we do not spend enough time educating our kids on how to manage their money)
— And we discussed how to raise a child to give back!

We discussed at length these questions and he ended with 6 questions that you should ask your parents and video tape to show your kids.

The 6 questions were:
1) What was the turning point in your life?
2) What was a high point in your life?
3) What was a low point in your life?
4) Who were the most influential people in your life and why?
5) What is your biggest regret?
6) What is the unifying theme of your life? Your legacy?

I think I am going to do this exercise — for my in laws, my parents, and me!

What do you think?

Top 10 things Women want! Social Media

I was just reading a blog on a survey done for
women by Mary Kay. Very interesting that
Social media made the Top 10 list of what
women want now! It was a global survey!

Take a read!

Ten Things Women Want Now
1. Completeness
2. Strength & Independence
3. Family + Choice
4. Fulfilling Career
5. Connection/Sisterhood
6. Personal Income
7. Men, sometimes
8. Pampering
9. Social Media
10. Trust

We just won 5 Hermes Awards for Social Media!

Great news!

My SOA marketing organization has received 5 Hermes Awards, as follows:

Platinum Awards:

Impact 2008 (Event Marketing category)
Smart SOA Widget (Electronic Media/Other category)
IBM Smart SOA Newsletter (E-Newsletter category)

Gold Awards:
Smart SOA World Tour (Integrated Marketing/Other)
World Tour “Get Smart” Videos (Viral Marketing category)

Hermes Creative Awards is administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals. The international organization consists of several thousand marketing, communication, advertising, public relations, media production, web and free-lance professionals. The Association oversees awards and recognition programs, provides judges and sets standards for excellence.

The home page for Hermes Creative Awards links to the winners’ list.
http://www.hermesawards.com/

IMPACT Case Study #2: CICS and Social Media?!!!!

The CICS team has been leveraging social network marketing to prepare for IMPACT and beyond. It is catching steam – with active twitter followers, facebook group participants, regular followers like Steve Baugh – a popular blogger – who further broadcasts the message – and expand the reach in the marketplace in new ways.

Here’s recent interview w/ with Dave Andrews.

The viral communications afforded by these new media are providing interesting ways to get the word out to new audiences that CICS has some exciting things to offer – the CICS community is delivering robust solutions in increasingly new and innovative ways. Great given the stereotype for a CICS user!!!

Some examples!:
I ♥ CICS
I Love CICS Facebook group
Youtube

Recently, Hostbridge, an IBM Business Partner joined us on facebook – posting information about one of their webcast events on our facebook group to extending THEIR usual marketing reach, driving additional attendence and awareness for this activity. Mike O’Neill and Susan Henderson of Hostbridge, felt this was a very positive extension of their usual marketing efforts and have since worked on a number of co-marketing activites with us. Hostbridge was so impressed with the value of using facebook as a way to establish community contact that they started their own facebook group.

We also had a joint webcast with Hostbridge and IBM – and leveraged all these social networking tools to broadcast registration information and we had a 10x registration rate!!!!

The facebook group is a tool to promote other co-marketing work we cemented (CICS Spotlight articles, webcasts, etc) and extending our reach to other facebook groups that are maintained by various CICS user groups, Mainframe communities, Academic communities, etc.

The viral effect is shown as other bloggers pick up the feed. For example, The Master Terminal actively promotes the I Love CICS facebook group and our recent Youtube clips – extending the usual marketing reach – as are many other bloggers and user groups on facebook.

The more we do to connect the communities….the broader our reach..and that of our partners.

Our facebook group membership accelerates and goes more global, Youtube views are getting picked up faster – as new ones are introduced- reflecting an active and interested community is engaging with our social networking efforts.

Who would have thought for the mainframe community! GO CICS!!! And thanks to Diane Johnson for her leadership here!

Innov8 Success at IMPACT! Social Media Case Study!

I have such excitement from the announcement of INNOV8 2.0 at IMPACT in Las Vegas!

Did you see it– if not click me!!

The early results from INNOV8’s eNurture campaign shows that our click through numbers are exceedingly above industry average: 77.8% compared to an average of 25%.

In addition, since using opt-in registration is a barrier to public score posting, our use of tailored emails worked well where the content mirrors the gamer’s scenario interest really works!

Although it is still early, this has been a most excellent pilot for us to explore how we can use games to not only Train but to Persuade, thus showcasing IBM as a thought leader.