Category: Social Business

The Social Triangle: Business, Brand and Analytics

Social TriangleMention social and we immediately think about the dizzying number of people using Facebook and, as businesses, how we reach them as customers or prospective customers.

 

This is only part of the story though.  Today, my own business, a provider of information software and services, will not find it’s customers on Facebook however hard we look.  However, this doesn’t mean that social isn’t relevant to us. That would be a limiting and ‘traditional’ view of Social as a Brand only which is a single point on the Social Triangle.

 

Michael Brito, SVP of Edelman Digital, commented in a recent article on Brainyard distinguished between the Social Business and the Social Brand.  The Social Brand, he argues, is a company, product, or individual that uses social technologies to communicate with social customers, their partners and constituencies, or the public. The Social Business, on the other hand, is one that has integrated and operationalized social media within job functions internally. The third point on the triangle is Analytics, the practical use of information to make decisions.

 

The aspiration is that both Brand and Business are for engagement not just broadcasting and that Analytics is used as actionable information. Let me offer an example.

 

I recently tried to book a London hotel room for my Son because he had a very early train journey on the Eurostar. I wanted to pay so that it was one less thing for him to be concerned about at 4am. I made an advanced reservation and several days, calls, emails and faxes (yes faxes) later and the hotel chain could still not confirm this part of the arrangement. Whilst I don’t do this often, I resorted to tweeting a #fail.

 

What happened next was pure Social Brand. A number of other hotel chains messaged me to offer me deals in London Hotels. Indeed, they still do. It left an overriding impression that everyone listened but no one heard.

 

A Social Business with a Social Brand using Social Analytics would have behaved completely differently. The tweet would have appeared in a dashboard and tagged as negative sentiment and that this related to dissatisfaction with the booking process.  Social Analytics would have been able to identify that I was a frequent traveller with children in university and that I was highly likely to use UK hotels over the coming 12 months. Social analytics would also have been able to identify the level of influence I have with others in this socio and demographic group (not as high as I think)

 

The information would have been shared around the organisation not just Marketing and it would have been shared efficiently using social tools not email.   A customer services representative may have tried to resolve the specific for me but the general issue would have found it’s way to a manager responsible for the booking process after which a decision will be made to  either fix this in their booking systems to attract other ‘surrogate bookers’ or to continue to deal with it as exception or even to do nothing. Next time a frustrated parent booking arrived everyone would know how to handle it or what the policy was because the whole dialogue would have been captured and tagged in a searchable activity stream. The marketing team might even build a new campaign that focused on how they understand their customers better and the ease of parental bookings.

 

A Social Brand engages in meaningful dialogue with it’s customers, a Social Business engages a motivated workforce to fix problems or to exploit new opportunities. Finally Social Analytics keep the whole process informed with timely and relevant information so that the focus is on the right customers and products and that effective, insightful and informed decisions are made.

Social Analytics … At a Glance

First off, let me stipulate that I absolutely support the notion that technologists of a certain age (let’s go with over 40) should regularly evaluate what they need to ‘unlearn’ in order to make way for new thinking.

However, some older techniques really do stand the test of time when attempting to understand new concepts. Take Social Analytics. It’s a hot topic and information specialists are trying to get their heads around what it it and what the business benefits are.

To help me understand, I started researching in the usual way. Books, white papers, articles and opinion. But as I did so, I drew up a ‘Dimension Map’ and a list of questions. Two simple devices that are as useful today in clarifying information requirements and their usefulness as they were err, a few years ago.

The first, a dimension map, has as it’s columns, the dimensions of measurement. So a revenue dimension map would typically have columns for product, customer etc. The rows are hierarchical levels so time (and most things are measured over time) might be years, months and days. The final column is a list of metrics. These are the measurements that can be analysed by the dimensions so a revenue dimension map would include sales value, sales qty. Easy, right. The social media dimension map below is very much a work in progress but I trust you find it useful as a ‘Social Analytics at a Glance’ diagram from which you can expand your thinking in the way that I intend to.

The question list is self explanatory but is a really simple and illustrative way to remind us that the purpose of information is to make decisions by answering business questions.

Social Analytics Dimension Map

Questions;

  1. Who does or does not like me|my product|my campaign|my brand?
  2. Who influences my customers?
  3. Do influencers like me|my product|my campaign|my brand?
  4. Are my customers talking more about me|my product|my campaign|my brand? than my competitors? i.e what is my share of voice?
  5. What are my customers saying about my competitor? i.e. what are the competitive opportunities or threats?

Social Gestures and Social Business Intelligence

Social Gestures

If, in the middle of a conversation,  I put my index finger to my lips you would instinctively lower your voice. If I held my hand out flat towards your face whilst you were talking you would stop mid-flow. These social gestures are powerful forms of human communication. They are efficient communication short-cuts.

Cheque Please

One of the most universally useful social gestures is pinching the thumb and forefinger together as if holding a pen followed by a short wave in the air as if writing. Used in restaurants around the world it invariably results in receiving the bill even if your previous attempts at the local language resulted in you getting the wrong dish which you ate whilst wishing you had swallowed your pride rather than what ultimately arrived and pointed clumsily at the menu when ordering. Human social gestures are shaped by culture, history, collective memory and there are are a growing amount of equivalent online social gestures.

The Power of Online Social Gestures

Online Social Gestures are specific and granular interactions supported by social tools. In a single gesture or click it is possible to ‘like’ a document ‘rate’ it’s value or ‘share’ it’s content. Online Gestures in social tools are powerful for two reasons.

Firstly, they simplify interactions. Let’s take another universal human gesture, lifting a single thumb in the air to signify our approval. A single click on a thumbs up icon communicates the same message as adding the comment ‘I like this’ but it’s easier. It’s a single click rather than two clicks and nine key strokes. The difference in ease of use is marginal but it removes a barrier, albeit a low one, to participating in the social discourse.

The second reason though is more significant. In adding a ‘like’ button we have identified a common interaction within the universe of interactions that we can isolate, capture, analyse and make further use of. For example, we can capture and count how individuals rate a document. The availability of that document in searches and lists can be influenced by the rating. The more readers positively rate a document, the more others will become aware of it and the wider and audience for good content as decided by the ‘crowd’.

Decision Making Gestures

There are specific Social Gestures for Social Business Intelligence and the interactions associated with decision making in an organisation. Today, the social interactions are very simple but we should expect these to grow as vendor offerings grow in their levels of sophistication. The following represent social gestures for Business Intelligence. Some exist today, some are inspired by the behaviour of decision makers as we see it so are effectively our suggestions to Social BI vendors;

  • Explain. Open a question to explain the real ‘meaning’ of a BI report is identified. This is likely to be a gesture initiated by a Senior Manager
  • Resolve. Explore the possible solutions to the issue now identified as a result of the investigation that has taken place.
  • Decide. Agree and announce the most suitable solution to the issue
  • Approve. Seek approval or challenge from those involved in the decision making discourse
  • Action. Execute the solution identified in the resolution discourse.

Capturing Decision Making Gestures

If we simplify and capture these gestures we can start to understand the significance of separating, capturing and analysing each of them;

  • Explain. Senior managers can easily delegate the task of discovery to domain experts and analysts until there is consensus on the meaning of a BI report. For example
  • Resolve. All considered solutions along with the discourse and debate can be tied back to the issue identified in the BI report
  • Decide. The chosen solution can be clearly identified along with all those that were considered
  • Approve. Those involved in the decision making process can agree, disagree or register a challenge to the decision either as part of a consensus driven approach or simply ‘for the record’
  • Action. The activity decided upon to resolve the issue can be tied back to the decision and it’s outcome as a success or failure recorded so that it can be considered as an option for similar future decisions

So online social gestures, as they relate to decision making are the starting point form which we can begin to understand the decisions in our organisations, how they came about and what they tell us about improving future decisions.

Social Media for the Keen Amateur

Social So Far

This week, I was asked to contribute some comments for an article in Vision, an IBM publication about Social Media. Clearly this was in my capacity as a keen amateur rather than a Social Media professional.

My interest in Social is partly driven by the converging fields of Social and Business Intelligence into Collaborative Decision Making Platforms but mostly as a fantastic way of reaching out and being part of a global conversation with those that share the same (and somewhat eclectic) interests.

We Don’t Own It

The key to being involved in Social, Twitter et al in a professional capacity (I only really tweet professionally) is to remember that it is not a marketing platform. First and foremost we corporate folk don’t own it! Social is a public conversation and like any other conversation, good manners and an authentic voice go a long way. If we are mindful of making a contribution to a conversation in a human voice then all other positive behaviours follow.

Vision Contribution

The article required a number of quotes about our experience as relative newbies in the world of Social. Not all of them were used, as is usual with any contributed copy so I have repeated them below for ‘the record’ Apologies to fans for the Emmin reference but I couldn’t resist;

Our Social Experience

1. With Twitter, we took time to listen first. We wanted to discover what others were saying, what generated interest, what subjects compelled a flurry of re-tweets. It gave us some interesting insights into what conversations were already taking place so that we could make contributions that would be considered fresh. We wouldn’t jump into any conversation without listening first and jumping into Twitter is like joining a conversation already in full flow.

2. Our Facebook friends and Twitter followers expect a professional tone on subjects that are related to our field which is analytics and information management. However, they also want to know that they are following a human, not a corporate collective mind. We have found that the occasional insight into how your day is progressing, the interesting people you meet or even something funny you heard on the train will allow your own voice to come through and make your company real to those that are following you. We don’t do it too often, maybe 1 in 10 tweets, but it’s interesting how often they get played back when you actually get to to meet.

3. It’s interesting who we have chosen to tune out over the couple of years we have been using Social media. Firstly the promoters, those that only tweet about their latest product or service offering are not kidding anyone that they are not contributing anything to the conversation. Their tweets are ad breaks and they get tuned out in the same way that we fast forward through the ads with our PVR’s at home. Secondly the road warriors. These guys only tweet about flight delays and long queues at the airport. It gets old quickly. Finally, those that I call ‘Tracey Emmin Tweeters’. These tweeters think we are interested in the minutia of their lives and tweet too often on subjects that really only tell us something about them and their lives. Apologies to the fans of Turner Prize winner Emmin but good conversations like good art tell us something about the world, ourselves and others not just you.

4. Blogging also takes time to get right. Don’t be surprised if there are times, after that initial burst of activity, that you feel like you are running out of ideas. Don’t expect to be a natural overnight and prolific blogger but don’t give up either. You will find that you need to read other peoples blogs to find out what your community are finding interesting. Like all Social Media interactions blogging needs to be more listening than talking. Take a leaf out of Seth Godin’s book (literally) He is a professional blogger but also an author of many books. I heard him comment on a radio show recently that he read 150 books as he was writing his recent (and inspiring) book ‘Lynchpin’.

Who makes the decision anyway?

You’re Fired

I know that anyone that watches ‘The Apprentice’ is not doing so for an insight into how a modern business is run but hearing the words ‘You’re Fired’ frequently bellowed through an office door couldn’t be further from my own experience. It represents a clichéd and caricatured view of management that I last saw to ‘comedic’ effect in Terry and June  a 70’s BBC Sitcom. I am sure it is a style that exists but hopefully in a diminishing minority of organisations that haven’t found a way to deal with the bullying and haranguing of greying and dysfunctional dinosaurs.

A New  Generation of Decision Makers

I was born in the 60’s which you have probably already worked out given the reference to Terry Scott and June Whitfield. I don’t recall being consulted by my parents on family decisions too often. Loving and supportive as they were, they were part of a generation that didn’t ask what kind of party we wanted, what cut of jeans we preferred or which destination we preferred for a day out.

Of course their choices were far narrower but this was the generation of parents that pre-dated Parenting magazine let alone Parenting.com.

Compare this with the generation entering the workforce today. Most have been involved in choices that affect them, carefully consulted in family decisions. Some, including those like Montessori educated Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin have taken their progressive education and created progressive and hugely successful organisational cultures.

Waning Autonomy in Decision Making

The connection with Alan Sugar’s pantomime boss and the future of BI is this. The purpose of BI is to make better decisions. Those decisions, two decades ago, used to be made by one person (and in the main it was a man) Increasingly those decisions are made by teams, peer groups, special interest groups and the staff that are impacted by it.

Waxing Collaboration in Decision Making

The drivers for the need for increasing collaboration in decision making are largely cultural. This includes the small matter of a whole generation entering the workforce that expect to be consulted and who are sociologically predisposed to sharing responsibility for the outcomes of those decisions. This means growing engagement in successful outcomes in organisations from a much broader group.

Until very recently, this was just too difficult to do. The cultural implications aside, how do you poll groups, get their input, collate views, share opinions and establish any kind of consensus without committee’s, sub-committees and employee councils? How to you distribute the information, the hard numbers, that are needed to make a decision that aligns the needs of the business, it’s stakeholders with the needs of those that participate in the business as employees and partners?

Social business tools and their convergence with BI are an enabler. They have made collaboration in decision making possible.

The opportunity is an engaged and an informed workforce that can positively participate in the decision making process. Even if the individual did not support the outcome, they will know that their voice was heard.

No, You’re Fired

If an engaged workforce sounds ‘fluffy’ then ask yourself what’s your organisations largest cost? It isn’t usually paperclips. Estimates vary but some suggest that knowledge workers will account for 80% of the cost in the US labour force in 2012.

If 80% of costs were in a machine would we be content on it idling, running at 25% capacity which some HR studies suggest is the current average level of engagement? I doubt it.

So the manager of yore, jealously keeping information to themselves so that they can exercise power and control and ultimately make autonomous decisions without offering or taking counsel… You’re Fired.

If only BI was as efficient as Facebook

BI, Facebook and Decision Loops

I  was at an analysts briefing event with IBM last week who were sharing their thinking on Social Business and what I believe is the inspired and innovative pairing of Connections Collaboration and Cognos Business Intelligence. IBM’s Social Business Leader for Northern Europe, Jon Mell shared a slide that compared the number of operations it takes to share a photo and gather feedback with friends on facebook and  the number of operations it takes to do the same on email.

This set my mind racing. If there are efficiency gains on something simple like sharing and getting feedback on a photo, imagine the productivity gains on sharing critical business information through Business Intelligence reports.

Why do I say this? Because sharing a photo is typically a single ‘sharing loop’ process. Someone publishes the photo, others contribute with their clever and witty observations. Done.

A single loop … Count ‘em … One. (A quote from Muppet Treasure Island, btw)

The out-dated view of BI is that it is shared this way too. That it’s published and the job is done. This just doesn’t hold true any more and I am not sure it ever did. BI requires many sharing or decision loops. Ten, distinct loops to be precise but some of these are repeated which means there can often more decision loops than a bowl full of fruit loops (an all too infrequent guilty pleasure of mine)

  1. Meaning Loop. Gain and assign agreement on the meaning of the information
  2. Implication Loop. Decide if the implication is neutral or if there is a problem or opportunity
  3. Investigation Loop. If there is an issue then it will be rare that the one piece of business intelligence will provide the full story. This loops is about investigating the problem or opportunity is in more detail.
  4. Solution Loop. Determine possible solutions to exploit the problem or resolve the problem
  5. Decision Loop. To decide on the best possible solution
  6. Action Loop. Once the solution is determined it will be broken down into tasks and assigned to individuals to be actioned.
  7. Progress Loop. Providing feedback on the progress of the solution
  8. Monitoring Loop. To determine if the solution has been successful or if the group need to return to refine the tasks or redo some loops.
  9. Conclusion Loop. Closure. Establish agreement that that there are no further actions and that the problem or opportunity is resolved.
  10. Celebration Loop. Acknowledge the support and contributions of those involved

That’s ten loops which means that if sharing a photograph on Facebook is more efficient than sharing it in the office using email, the productivity benefits of doing ‘real’ business are tenfold.

There are those that are sceptical about Facebook styled social platforms in the office because they may waste time. I understand this, I really do. However, the opposite is true. Organisations need social platforms, particularly for collaborative decision making. Without them, they are wasting time.

What 127 Hours Tells us About Social Networks

In an interview this week for Mark Kermode’s Film Review show, Danny Boyle made it clear that he used the success of Slumdog to make a film that might otherwise not have been made. To leverage the success of 2010 most acclaimed film is an indication that 127 hours is more than this years ‘would you?’ movie.

It, it is the true story of Aron Ralston who gets trapped under a boulder whilst canyoneering alone in Utah. The desperate measure that he takes to free himself is well documented so it is not giving anything away to say that he was trapped by his arm, he has a multi-tool (a really cheap one) and a little under 127 hours to debate if he should … or should not.

Before, I go on you might be wondering what’s the connection between BI and Social Networks let alone the connection between Danny Boyle’s latest movie and Social Networks. Those that follow my posts and tweets will know that Social platforms interest me because I think they are changing the way we share and use information in business and will profoundly change the Business Analytics space over the coming years. A social platform has already made it into IBM Cognos 10 because these guys, again, are ahead of the game. Many don’t see it yet because the original use of social platforms have trivialised their significance but it’s there nonetheless.
 
Back to the connection. Aron Ralston, played by James Franco, is an all-American hero. He’s young, fit, strong, intrepid and independent. He is good at what he does, he has spent a lot of time in his chosen wilderness and is able to navigate it with speed and ease. In fact, at one point in his story, he briefly but convincingly takes the role of park guide. The hopelessness of his literal and figurative fall takes a long time to sink in for our hero. Indeed, when it does dawn on him that he could have shared his hiking plan with his friends or family it wouldn’t be exaggerating to call it an epiphany. It’s clearly a powerful realisation for Aron that he’s not a hero, he’s an arse.
 
There is a moment in the movie where Aron says ‘thank you’. It’s a strange moment. I don’t want to give away why it is strange but once you have seen the movie, you will know why. For me, it was significant because he knew that if he made it home alive (which was still, by no means certain) then he would be changed forever. He would live the rest of his life in the knowledge that however strong, smart and experienced he was that those tiny connections we all make each day matter. Sometimes in small ways because it’s just about about sharing. Sometimes in significant and surprising ways.

For me, I am continually and pleasantly surprised by what I learn on the subjects of analytics, organisational leadership, productivity, start-ups and social media in my twitter stream. It’s full of links to content that cover important ideas from solid thinkers. Admittedly none of them are life-saving but, at a stretch, a rare few might be described as life-changing. Each of them make a tiny but positive difference and sometimes someone in my network helps me (or me them) in a surprising way.