So, why am I so excited to be attending the WITI conference in a matter of days?
Check out this video to find out!
Hopefully see you at WITI in Santa Clara, CA!
Category: event
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.
Yes, I am southern pure as they come! I love my sweet ice tea, grits with butter, screen doors, and Kudzu.
In the summer, the screen door is an essential element of everyone’s home. The screen door’s entire point is that it’s not a barrier. Its job is to open easily. It is a welcome to all visitor’s and friends that approach it.
Is your social media site like that screen door? Does it open and welcome others in?
Tips to make your site as welcoming as that Southern Door!
- Do you make people type in that “code” to enter? Don’t!
- Is your site mobile friendly and usable?
- Do you have stellar content ? Content is Queen!
- Is Video part of your strategy? Video is the highest trusted media! Use it wisely!
- Do you have a Twitter Widget on your Home page to engage your audience? (Check out my blog on IBM Voices!)
- Can you feature other guests on your site?
- How do you listen? All relationships listen first!
- Are your employees empowered to really represent the brand on your site?
- Have you chosen the right social tools that welcome your audience? For instance, if you are selling to men, Pinerest may not be the best first choice.
- Do you constantly review the feedback and make changes to adapt and change?
Today, everyone is talking about social. You hear about politicians, movie stars, and everyone in between talking about social, using social with Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.
But you’re a business. What does all this mean to you?
Sure, your business has a website, and it probably has a social media executive responsible for posting and /or monitoring comments about your company that might be posted on Twitter or Facebook by customers. But ask yourself….is your company a social business company? Are you leveraging social to be more customer-driven? Are your employees engaged with social in their jobs? Are you really utilizing the tools and techniques that social offers to improve your business and take advantage of opportunities for growth?
Join me on Wednesday, July 31, on the Victory Circle Radio hour as I talk about my book, “Get Bold”, in which I provide a framework for social. www.victorycircles.com/radio-show
I’ll also share some case studies of companies who have successfully used social technology to connect with customers, helping them create communities and experiences they need. According to a recent study, some 60% of customers use social media to discover new brands and products; 46% of customers use it to strongly influence their purchase decisions; and 40% check social media before making purchase decisions. Your customers are already connecting and talking about your brand. Are you connecting with them so they can become brand advocates? I’ll share examples of customers who have successfully used social technologies to listen to and respond to their customers.
Becoming a social business is about more than simply building a social network. It’s about offering information and services that your customers and partners need. There are companies who have successfully used social technologies and offered meaningful services to their customers, while gaining critical feedback from the customers. It’s about collecting and understanding the data that’s available on the various networks. About 81% of purchasers get product purchase advice from social networks. You need to know who is saying what, and know how to tap into the conversation.
Today, it’s an economic reality that social is here to stay. According to an IBM study, during the next 5 years, 95% of standout organizations will focus on getting closer to the customer. Join me on Victory Circle Radio on July 31 and hear how my social framework can help you become a social business.
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 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.
