Social Business Sandy

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

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Core question from Agile Marketing Class

Yesterday I taught an agile marketing class at Carnegie Mellon’s Silicon Valley MBA program.  As I teach, I usually learn a lot from the student’s questions.IMG_6148

One of the questions from this class was:

What’s the real difference between digital marketing and traditional marketing?  Is it just that one is done online with more data?

Great question right?

Where of course, there are elements of traditional marketing in digital.

But the fundamental differences are these:

  • Digital removes any barriers between you and the client.   Typically you are going straight to a client, not going through a seller of a focus group for insight.
  • Digital is more of inbound as the overall goal if done right is for people to find you!.
  • Digital is about earning trust through multiple touches some that are your brands and some that are from advocates of the brand

Digital disrupts marketing like Uber has disrupted the transportation industry.

What are your thoughts?

 

The retail industry goes cognitive at SXSW

What a great weekend it was here at SXSW in one of my favorite cities… Austin!
Let me start by saying that I love to shop and what woman doesn’t, right?! Have you ever thought about the reason why you love to shop? Sure, we all appreciate a great bargain, but have you ever thought about what draws you to a particular store, website or brand? Things like product placement and assortment, digital media, customer service, packaging, visual displays, coupons or special events? Even more, have you thought about the experience of shopping that you enjoy, what goes into the process of purchasing your favorite new bag? Well I’m proud to say that cognitive is here to stay in the retail world and its introducing major innovation in retail! All of which is being showcased here at SXSW in the retail innovation lounge.
To give you a bit of background, retailers are spending millions of dollars and collecting astronomical amounts of data to analyze what makes you knock down their doors and remain loyal to their products! Thanks to new technologies and a strong emphasis on employing innovative individuals, companies are becoming more focused than ever before on enhancing the shopper experience.
Today at SXSW I will be leading a panel with some of the latest and greatest retail innovators who are also female founders!
Join IBM and some of our retail partners at the Retail Innovation Lounge  http://ibm.co/1R7o955
   @ SXSW Friday March 11th- Tuesday March 15th for panels discussions, keynotes, and networking sessions. Bring your best handbag!
-Sandy

Anatomy of a cognitive startup – LIVE from SXSW

Every year, SXSW Interactive comes alive. Like a human body, all of these various systems of technology intermingle and create something magical for a few days here in Austin. Today, I had the chance to talk about some anatomy myself: The Anatomy of a Cognitive Startup.

On the outside, the anatomy of a cognitive startup is just like any other in the IBM Ecosystem: focused, innovative, and always forging the future of tech. The true difference comes when you examine the tools of the trade our cognitive startups leverage as they achieve their goals. The IBM Cloud offers a diverse set of software and services dedicated to maximizing developer and startup utilization of the defining tools of the Cognitive Era. When coupled with the laser-focused guidance of the IBM Developer Ecosystem,
Cognitive startups are utilizing IBM Watson visualization, trade-off analytics, personality insight, tone analysis and other cognitive services, with cutting-edge results. Atlanta-based Simple C uses both the IBM Cloud and cognitive systems to provide media-delivered therapies targeting the behavioral symptoms of dementia and related cognitive disorders, providing breakthroughs in the medical industry.

Look at FinTech startup Alpha Modus. By utilizing IBM Bluemix, they’re disrupting the entire investment management industry with tremendous results by using social media to analyze the market sentiment. In fact, their efforts won them the Beacon Award for Best New Application on IBM Cloud from an Entrepreneur at the PartnerWorld Leadership Conference 2016.

Stay tuned for so much more from SXSW Interactive as we dig deeper into the innovations and the people behind them that are truly defining Cloud, Cognitive, and social influences of the future.

Honoring Robin Carey, a social media legend at SXSW – Saturday 5pm

Today I am pleased to share my condolences related to a well-known social media figure who passed last year. Robin Fray Carey founded Social Media Today, one of the first companies to manage online B2B communities that connect large organizations with people that they want to influence.

There’s not better place than at SXSW, the land of digital to hold a memorial for such a powerful and innovative woman! Robyn spent years building her reputation as a powerful force architecting strategies that helped companies reach their goals and audiences consume content they enjoy.
Here at SXSW we’re gaining the tools we need to be successful social professionals. Robyn led the charge in discovering that social media platforms offer huge promise to corporations seeking to interact and learn from customers, employees and experts!
Thank you Robyn for being such a powerful female figure and founder, and for leading the way toward a social future!
Much love.
-Sandy

Happy International Women’s Day !

Today is international women’s day.      To me, this is a significant day as it celebrates the achievement of women around the world!   Women are over 50% of the world’s population — so inclusion is very important to the world.   For instance, did you know if there was parity of women and men in the workforce in Egypt that the GDP would go up by 34%?

I am passionate about innovation and study after study shows that diversity breeds innovation.

So today, let’s celebrate and commit to parity across the world !

Sandy

 

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