Social Business Sandy

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Social Networks Help me Survive! 6 Degrees of Separation goes to 0!

October 8, 2013 / / 2 Comments

It began as a normal day. I flew to Brazil and when I landed, I Foursquared, Tweeted and Facebooked as I headed off to meet my partners and clients.  And when I finished, I would fly off to meet the CEO of one of my top clients! This was going to be a superb day!

But then a life-changing event occurred. With a bit of water, cobblestones and bad luck, I fell while heading up a ramp. When I saw people running toward me, I knew something was not right. I could not move my left side and was panicked because all I heard was Brazilian Portuguese. Employees at my hotel called for a doctor.  IBMers and others tried to assist and get me to the right hospital, but after four hours I was in intense pain with massive blood loss.

I was afraid and alone. I was scared, very scared. I have had few accidents in my life but before this, they all happened around my family.

But that was about to change.

My new family emerged…and rose up out of social networks, both online and in the real world. First, a colleague of mine came to ride with me to the hospital. I called my parents and husband. When I arrived at the hospital, I was greeted by three local IBM colleagues who gladly helped interpret and relay my needs, including the biggest at the time — pain killer, please!!!!

I broke two toes, my left rib,  and my femur — the biggest bone in the body. I also lost about 1.5 liters of blood. (They say shock sets in at 2L.) The surgery occurred the next day and went amazingly well. And yes, I do have a long recovery of about three months ahead of me (with no travel — ouch!).  But enough about the blood and gore…

This amazing story is about the people!

Let me start with the surgeon. strong>His name is Dr Jose Sergio Franco. He is a top-rated surgeon in Brazil and was a miracle worker for me. He did emergency surgery the day after the accident and did an amazing job. My doctor in New York said it was one of the best jobs he had ever seen — better than 95% of the surgeries for like injuries in the U.S. But Jose was more. He was my cheerleader, my comforter, and my hero.
He came to see me daily and encouraged me to hang in there (said of course in the Brazilian way) even though my family wasn’t nearby. I would not be where I am without him.

The IBM Nurse Dottie Robinson, who is based in New York, immediately jumped on the phone with me time and time again to advise, reassure and ensure that I was being taken care of. With bravery and compassion, she saw to it that I was cared for in the best possible way in a foreign land. She helped me get from Brazil back home. (This part was fun: medical evac plane to San Paulo to 10-hour flight through ambulances — and bigger cars to ensure my health at every step of the way!).  She more than did her job. She extended her heart to me like I was her very own family.

Our IBM Brazil Team was amazing. Fabio Pinto de Britto rode with me to the airport and got me that much-needed pain killer. His brother Djlama flew in from Mexico to make sure I was okay and worked through getting my husband a visa in four hours (a record!). Isabella Costa argued on my behalf to get me an English-speaking nurse, and offered to stay with me through the night. And Flavio de Figueiredo Mendes rushed over to the hospital immediately after returning from 40 days in China. The heart of this team, their care and their compassion moved me beyond belief. They came to visit every day while I was there — they were transparent, helpful, thoughtful … and as I learned, truly Brazilian in their actions. I can never repay them!

Back in the States, IBM HR Executive Leader Yara Saad was also amazing. As many of you know, I was recently placed in a new role as General Manager and new HR support. But since I had bragged so much about the support Yara had provided to me in my previous role, my husband called Yara when I was injured. Despite this “not being her job,” she worked my services, my flights, and my recovery as if it was her own. She is such an incredible and talented woman with so much on her plate. I was honored and deeply touched with the time and heart she spent helping me.

My husband Todd was of course his normal self. His giving personality came through and he was in Brazil within 48 hours. I could not have done any of this without him. No questions asked. He is a keeper!

My IBM Assistant Megan Mennonna has always been a blessing to me — but on this occasion, she went above and beyond. She and Becky Michel covered the meetings, and handled the top items that we needed covered. She is such a great friend and colleague.

Also, I have to say that I already knew IBM was a great company but this experience made me realize that it is a SUPERB company that cares and shows it!

Now, combine these in-person friends that I know with my blogosphere friends. From Facebook, I received messages from Africa, Turkey, U.S., Australia, India and more. More than 10 bouquets of flowers came to my hospital room. Candies and teas from around the world were also delivered. I had hundreds of check-up posts as well as calls that crossed the social bridge from the blogosphere to the real world. These friends crossed global boundaries, and included partners, clients, IBMers and more.

It made me realize that I never could have survived without my social networks. Six degrees of separation became closer than a family. I will always remember the kindness of all my friends!

Mixed Audiences into today's Social Business World

September 18, 2013 / / 4 Comments

Today, I was chatting with a client who proclaimed that he wished everyone was using social!  The world would be so simple!

Yes, it would but we don’t live in that world — and won’t for a few years.

Today, I see us having 3 types of people.

  1. Digital Natives.  These are people who grew up online and in social networks.   They work in a collaborative fashion — they grew up this way.   They do not do email or even answer phones.   (Note:  The post-millennial “digital native” was a term coined by U.S. author Marc Prensky. 
  2. Digital Immigrants.   These are people who have not grown up digitally but have taken to the new social world and use the tools like a native.   They have a foot in each world… being able to leverage email, and traditional forms of collaboration, with the new world. 
  3. Non Digitals or affectionately called The Analogs.  Yes we all know they and they are in very significant places of influence today.  They email, they dictate, and they don’t use Facebook.   These are some of your best clients, so you cannot leave them behind. 

Yes, and today there are digital outcasts.   These are folks who would grow up digitally but globally have not been blessed with the resources to do so.  Many companies are working on these issues which I believe must be fixed before we do see people across the globe plugged into the “AORTA,”  which is Always On RealTime Access, a term coined by Mark Anderson, the chief of the Strategic News Service.

What do you see?  How long before the Natives overtake enough influential positions?

Takeaways from Social Airline Summit in Prague

September 11, 2013 / / 0 Comments

I just returned from the 2013 IBM Airline Summit in Prague where I met with about 40 senior executives from airlines worldwide. The summit was two full days packed with stimulating panel discussions, group activities and breakout sessions with speakers from airlines, industry analysts, and other consumer-facing businesses such as Coca-Cola and Netflix.  I led a discussion about how nimble businesses are using social tools and techniques to help their employees be more effective, innovate, and share their knowledge.

Here are a few take-aways from the Airline Summit:

IBM’s Eric Conrad kicked it off with a fascinating vision for the near term future of travel.

Travel customers expect a truly personalized experience, before during and after their trip. That means airlines will need to become much more engaged with customers by using social business tools, big data and analytics.  Eric issued 4 challenges to the group:

  • Automate the ordinary to deliver the extraordinary
  • Collaborate far beyond current comfort zones
  • Elevate customer data analytics to an art form
  • Aggressively dismantle barriers to change

New IBM and PhoCusWright study about social business in the travel industry

PhocusWrights’s Norm Rose led a session about the new study PhoCusWright and IBM have launched for the travel industry. The study takes the pulse of the travel industry’s use and abuse of social platforms and reveals the strategies and tactics they are using today. Surveying all sectors of the travel market, the survey will dig deep into their tools, techniques, benchmarks, question marks, successes and flops. If you’re in the travel industry and you’re asked to participate, go for it!  Then watch for the results which will be published in a few months.

Why big data matters to airlines

We saw a panel discussion about “Airlines, Big Data & the Customer Experience.” Panelists discussed how airlines can take advantage of analytics to drive revenue growth and reduce costs. The consensus was that many organizations will need to change their culture and how they think about managing information. Here’s a fascinating white paper about Big Data and Analytics for the travel industry.

Saving fuel with analytics

Fuel is a very big deal to airlines, accounting for about one third of their total operating expenses. Air Canada’s Director for Fuel Efficiency, Captain Claude-Martin and IBM’s Lori Brewer presented a session describing how IBM Research and Air Canada have developed a solution using advanced analytics and “Watson-like” technology to provide decision support to optimize fuel usage. Attendees saw a demonstration of the fuel solution, named SIMON. Very impressive stuff!

Learning from Coca Cola Social Presentation at the Global Airline Summit

September 10, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Lessons from Coke on their Social Journey!

1.   We speak in storytelling.   We make sure the story is engaging, surprising, and grounded in experience.   It is choked full of emotion.   The new generation wants to be engaged in something exciting.   Coke showed a great video of bringing the world together featuring India and Pakistan.   Very Powerful!   We strive for Shareability.

2.  We embrace our new SalesForce.   Most openness comes when something goes wrong.  But look at something like TripAdvisor.  They have postive and negative.    Social networkers are willing to provide feedback both positive and negative.    Coca-cola has 24M impressions from themselves, and 124M impressions from consumers. 

3.  Listen first and then engage.   Everyone wants to be heard.   But they want a response.   If you start you must go all the way!  Coca-Cola uses gen y’s to answer the social questions. 

4.  Speed trumps perfection today.  Gave an example of the response of a top retail fashion company and it took 10 days for a response.   And it was in the form of a 3 line PR release….not in social!  Stock price took a beating while they polished the story.     Great example.   Oreo cookie speed on their “You can still dunk in the dark” when the lights went out unexpectedly at the US Superbowl.   Brillant social marketing in 5 minutes from Oreo!  It took over the social conversation — be ready, and give people the freedom to embrace the principle of speed.

5. Allow transparent conversation and play well.   Both positive and negative.  The way that you handle and manage them really matters.    Make sure you establish long term relationships.

SXSW: Key decision makers around the globe are influenced by social networks: GlobalWebIndex research SXSW session

September 6, 2013 / / 0 Comments

As part of my SXSW speaking proposal on ‘How to Avoid Being a Social Zombie in a Global World’, I recently caught up with Tom Smith at GlobalWebIndex who shared some fascinating insights from their unique and far-reaching study of the patterns of key decision makers: a theme we’ll be exploring further in our session.

 The findings are a must-read for anyone who does business globally!

 Take, for instance, the GlobalWebIndex finding that those decision makers who interact most on social networks are from emerging markets such as Thailand, Turkey and Mexico. If you are looking to do business in the emerging markets, don’t ignore the local social networks!

 Also, when asked what they consider the most influential marketing channel, decision makers overwhelmingly picked ‘Conversations with people from the company/organization on a social network’. Your employees are a more trusted source than than your webinars, sales presentations or events. This is in line with our push here at IBM to become a social business: we have a strong emphasis on employee enablement.

Now, another fascinating finding is that these decision makers make heavy use of mobile technologies to access social networks, whether that be a smartphone or a tablet. Business happens around the clock and these folks are always on. Are you?

You’ll find more even more insights in this 8 minute webinar I recorded with Tom:

We will be diving deeper into this topic during the proposed session http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/23204 at SXSW. Want to hear more?   Don’t forget to also see my other session: Socialytics Bootcamp! Social + Big Data + Analytic http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/23035

I look forward to seeing you at SXSW 2014!

 

 

Are you Engaged?

September 4, 2013 / / 0 Comments

This week so far I have been asked a dozen times to define engagement.   Here’s what I came up with …..

When you look closely, you see that engagement isn’t mostly resulting in better marketing. People are not clamoring for more of that. What’s happening instead is that marketing is being replaced by engagement, by useful assets, by value. In exchange for their data – who they are, what they’re looking for, even where they are standing or driving at this moment – they expect some kind of benefit in return… whether as customers, or patients, or students, or citizens.

Engagement. ]Your emotional connection with your client or employee, usually created by exceptional experiences that are integrated, interactive, and identifying. A Social Business connects people to expertise. It connects individuals whether customers, partners, or employeesas networks of people to generate new sources of innovation, foster creativity, and establish greater reach and exposure to new business opportunities. It establishes a foundational level of trust across these business networks and thus a willingness to openly share information, developing a deeper sense of loyalty among customers and employees. It empowers these networks with the collaborative, gaming, and analytical tools needed to engage each other and creatively solve business challenges.

Engaged Clients.  Clients who are 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.

Engaged Employees. 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 employees are about commitment and success.

Social Lessons from the beach: A little bikini is no match for a big wave!

August 28, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Yes, both of my daughters love their bikinis on the beach!  But as we went wave riding, they learned quickly that that little bikini is no match for the big wave!

The same is true in social!  Sometimes the wave is too big for just company spokespeople and with 70% of online consumers trust peer recommendations #1,  you will need more than just the “bikini” squad.  You need a brand advocate.

A brand advocate is a person who is passionate about your brand and references you as a matter of course.   They could be an influencer or a client or an employee.   Determining your brand advocates is about listening and selecting based on common interests, knowledge, and other key elements critical for your business.

In addition to seeking out your advocates, it is important to determine your best friends, or your tippers. These are those people who influence your brand online and those whom others listen to about your products.

These key influencers have a set of characteristics. Typically, they are people who have strong relationships, and are an expert or authority in a subject. Sometimes influencers are those who get attention, taking an atypical view, or are just loud. I was recently at a virtual conference and heard a speaker talk about an influencer as someone who is honest, trustworthy, and knowledgeable. They have a consistent opinion that is objective and not influenced by someone paying them! These items drive a level of social trust and that trust persuades another person to take action.

Finally, developing social trust is about showcasing care and value. Listen and change where needed. Always be honest, and demonstrate value-add to your clients and the industry.

These are the top elements of your plan to build your brand advocates:

[lb]       Determination of your friends or brand advocates today: A friend is a client, a potential client, or an influencer who recommends your brand, company, or product because they like it so much, they feel compelled to discuss it. Determining those who are your friends or brand advocates is important to your overall social trust plan.

[lb]       Determination of your “best friends” or tippers: These are people who influence the rest of the clients and potential clients online and offline, usually about 5% to 10% of your product’s or category’s population. These tippers are important people for your overall strategy and your company will pay extra attention to them.

[lb]       Brand advocacy strategy: A brand advocacy strategy is a plan to determine those actions your company can take to build brand advocates, or people who are passionate about your brand and reference you as a normal course of business. Part of this strategy could be in the content that you share, your shared vision of a point of view in the market, or even support of a common cause that is outside the primary goal of making profit[md]for example, making the planet a better place.

[lb]       Content activation plan: This is a plan to create content, distribute content, promote content, and measure its success. This content activation plan is usually determined in the Social Business Digital Council. The goal of the content is to showcase your company’s subject matter expertise or point of view (POV). It is critical when starting a community, and for guarding your reputation.

[lb]       Determination of key methods to establish social trust in your space: Based on your company’s goals, a trust plan is formed to create and protect trust through online experiences and dialogues with a company, product, or brand.

With this brand army, you can ride the wave with confidence!!!

Lessons from Vacation: Stop whatever you are doing to watch the sunset!

August 27, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Here is the sunset I saw on my vacation.  Stop what you are doing!

SUNSET

The same is true in Social!  If your company is using social without a social governance policy — stop whatever you are doing and create one!

The Social Business guidelines for your company should be based on your values. Consider following best practices from my book Get Bold. 

            1.         Guidelines should be written by your employees in a social group setting. Those guidelines developed in a participatory fashion will last.

            2.         Guidelines should state why the guidelines exist; for example, to innovate in a responsible way.

            3.         Guidelines should be short and to the point.

            4.         Guidelines should state your position on open dialogue what’s fair game and what’s not (confidential information).

            5.         Guidelines should state consequences.

            6.         Guidelines should encourage transparency.

            7.         Guidelines should state privacy and rights of your company’s partners and clients.

            8.         Guidelines should guide in adding value and learning from mistakes.

            9.         Guidelines should discuss time spent in social media.

            10.       Guidelines should encourage your company’s goals in social techniques.

On http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php you can find a collection of company social guidelines. Read through them and define your guidelines in sync with your culture and goals. For example, in sync with its corporate culture, Zappos’s Social Media Policy is “be real and use your best judgment.” This Social Policy showcases Zappos’s trust in their employees! Intel’s Social Media Guidelines have a few best practices as well. Examples include “be transparent” and “if it gives you pause, pause.” I also love their advice that “perception is reality and it’s a conversation.” I think the key is defining these with a collaborative group of digital citizens throughout your company.

For large global organizations, corporate culture sometimes needs to make way for local culture. For example, at IBM we have a very open-minded culture supported by our senior leadership team. We have sponsorship from the very top of IBM supporting our movement into end-user-generated content to become a Social Business. However, we do understand that there are also cultural differences across the globe. As such, we make sure to understand these cultural differences and embrace them.  With IBM operating in more than 170 countries, our team reviews privacy acts around the globe to ensure that we keep the interest of the employees at the center of focus.

Now, find a sunset and ensure your company has a policy!

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