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

Category: Duck

Talking Social Business with Airlines in Prague with a new Social Study for Airlines

 The GLOBAL AIrline Summit. 

On September 9, I’ll be talking with senior airline executives from around the world at the IBM Airline Summit in Prague, Czech Republic. The theme of the summit is “Smarter travelers expect smarter airlines: Delivering an exceptional customer experience while optimizing operations.”

Today’s travelers really do expect more from airlines than ever before. Yes, we expect smooth operations, a pleasant flight and good value.

But more and more we expect personalized customer service while we are shopping for a trip and during each step of the journey, delivered consistently through all the devices we use.

The NEW Socially Connected Airlines. 

Today, meeting those expectations depends on using the latest social business tools to help the airline workforce keep the planes on schedule and to create exceptional customer experiences.

I recently read a related article in Business Travel News that might interest you by Paul Campion, an IBM colleague in the UK.

The SUMMIT.  A Breakthrough Event!

 At the summit, airline executives will share their own experiences and hear speakers from other airlines, industry analysts, a leading international airport, Coca-Cola marketing, Netflix, and from IBM. 

We’ll be launching some exciting new social business research sponsored by IBM with PhoCusWright – “Social media in travel: mayhem, myths, mobile and money.” The study will provide clear quantitative insights around what travel companies need to manage, mobilize, and monetize their social strategy.

Of course, the Summit won’t be all work and no play. I hear that we’ll take a tram ride and walking tour through Prague’s beautiful old town. Then we’ll share a meal in one of the city’s great restaurants. I’m looking forward to it. Watch this space for my blog post after the event.

Mobile first. Social Always. Mind the data.

I am here today in Luzern, Switzerland at the Big IBM event with over 1200 companies talking about Mobile and Social!

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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!

Happy Friday! What is a Social Business Anyway?

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.

What’s your Duck? The Power of a Brand in the Twitter Stream #peabody #socbiz #ibmsocialbiz #socbiz #ibmconnect

Once upon a time, there was a world where social reigned  and where a teacher extraordinaire visited.  His name was Jeffrey Gitomer and he constantly declared simple points in a powerful way.   Then one day at Connect 2013 a magical thing happened.   At the Disney Complex , Jeffrey Gitomer reminded me about the wonder of the ducks at the Peabody Hotel.

So I tweeted about it … “What’s your duck?”   meaning what’s your brand like Peabody has done with the Duck!

Don’t know the story?   For over 80 years, in 3 hotels throughout the US, they have branded themselves with the ducks that march from their “palace” down an elevator to a “lobby pond” and back out again daily!   People from around the world have their ducks on their desk and on the tubs!  (See mine!)

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Now after I tweeted comes the magic.

I was “engaged” by the Peabody in Orlando.  The ‘people’ aka Kate, tweeted me personal messages and invited me to come for a behind the scenes tour.

ducks 001
Of course i said yes as I was already going to take my kids that night!  Now, there were non believers with me. They said “that’s an automated message” and “there’s nothing special about that!”  until we arrived and as directed in the Tweet went to visit Donald the Duckmaster.

Now a Duckmaster leads the ducks in and out.   He is magical.  I came up to him to ask about the behind the scenes tour and — wait for it — he knew my name, my twitter profile,, and my social graph that linked to his!!!   (He used to be the AT&T account manager on the IBM account a few years before.  Now retired, he joined the Duckmasters!)

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He invited me to be an honorary duck master for the night (my daughter said “Mom you are the coolest mom in the world”).  As I marched behind the ducks to the Duck palace, I thought about the power of the people .. the power of the duck .. all linked to social.

duck master 5

My conclusions:

  • The Peabody is a hip hotel with the right level of social engagement.  Kate rocked it by being personal, and meeting me in the person as well!
  • The Duck is going Social!  They know live not only in the pond, but in the twitter stream and blogosphere.   It is powerful.    You do need a duck.  What is yours?
  • The Peabody listened and responded.  And they knew my social graph.  Do you know your influencers Social Graph?  Do you know who your influencers are/
  • The Peabody demonstrated that the next generation of organizational productivity is based on unleashing the power of people.   It’s about leadership.   Culture.   Trust.  Transparency.

So, I end where I began.  What’s your Duck?   Do you engage?  The Peabody did.  I did.  And as a Result I am now an official Duck Master!  And the coolest mom in the world!

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Thanks to:

Kate Thomas, Sherri Wallen,  Tatum Jay Delia , and Donald Tompkins