Listening technologies aid heart-based initiatives

March 25, 2012 No Comments

Share via email
 Share

Love does not dominate, it cultivates. – Goethe

Creating an organization characterized by heart-orientation requires leadership to implement listening technologies and human-run analyses of conversations. These analyses can lead to extremely effective internal and external focus groups geared towards bringing employee and customer needs to the forefront. Such research also exposes potentials for excellence previously unnoticed. This “positive shadow potential” can be just what an organization needs to move forward into the next level of excellence.

Unconscious processes are a central reality of organizational life, just as in individual life. Effective market research using social data can reveal such processes. When I peer into the conversations surrounding an organization and within an organization, much is revealed about the workings and doings of that team. A primary value for large enterprises in hiring a market research team to work internally is discovery of shadow aspects within the silos. When unseen trends within staff are revealed through conversation research, leadership can take steps to elevate positive potential and heal negative propensities.

Seeing into the heart of an organization via social listening projects is a very effective measure for weaving the strengths of the silos together for total organizational success. For example, the customer-facing staff who are involved in servicing complaints and solving technical difficulties are often at odds with quantitative, sales-driven staff. The results-orientation around money in the sales department runs contrary to the nurturing orientation in the customer service department. Sales leaders need to hear the chief complaints from customers via the market research staff. This will help the sales staff to bring their pitches into closer alignment with what the customer truly wants and needs.

To cultivate a heart-based organization, leadership must itself be willing to invest in a unit focused on listening. This is the first step in nurturing deep growth and consistent attention customer need.

Growing Community: the KPI of the heart comes first

March 1, 2012 No Comments

Share via email
 Share

Growing community in social networks begins with a passion for shared experience. If you want to be part of something exciting right now, put a few words associated with YOUR favorite activity into a search field at any social network. You are sure to find living, breathing human beings awake and actively discussing your passion RIGHT NOW.

The metrics of growing communities have to be related to heart first. We all want and love specific people and activities in life. And that passion dictates how and where we spend our hard earned dollars. Community managers who understand this very real truth about human beings do not push products, events or services. They initially engage in conversation with others about a shared passion. The offerings within a dynamic community generally emerge out of a collective wish list or a mutually desired experience. Those highly attended events are birthed from noticing where people like to congregate. Great community managers are passionate about the niche topics related to their brand and lead others into mutually gratifying experiences.

When we lay out a plan for growing a community, our initial goals ought to center around creating meaningful content and discovering individuals who feed passion. A community manager who has lived, eaten and breathed a topic finds this naturally and is excellent at listening and encouraging members of the community. Everyone in a community has their own unique way of expressing interest, insight and observation. Good community managers facilitate a collective story fed by everyone in the “circle”. This weaving of stories is how cohesive communities form and provides a context for spreading awareness of a product/service. We need those thousand true fans as our initial base to carry on the work of the Community Manager.

It is the job of a Community Manager to nurture conversation. A Twitter stream, a Facebook wall post, a comment thread on a blog, a winning presentation on Slideshare, a location on FourSquare, a widely pinned photo on Pinterest, a video on YouTube that gets passed around: these are ALL seeds to be watered and nurtured by a Community Manager. JESS3 has given community managers a very precise map of content that different consumers interact with when considering a product or service (The Content Grid). It is a community manager’s job to identify, create and spread each of these pieces of content into the social fabric of the Internet.

For more on people-centered Community Management read this interview I did with Eleftherios Hatziioannou, former social manager for Mercedes Benz.

Internal and External Data: The Nexus Point

February 5, 2012 No Comments

Share via email
 Share

“If Social CRM deliverables can yield measurable lift in sales for businesses, then we are beginning to provide real value.” JP Lind, SVP of Giveo.

Humans are very excited to share personal thoughts & inspirations on social networks. Brands with personality and a living spirit can do this too. And the nexus point of this excitement is where a relationship between brand and individual takes off. Identifying possible nexus points of connection and “spark” between brand and individual is a core function of social business intelligence.

How to do this? Themos Kalafatis accurately points out that “the answer to true Social Media Intelligence is the use of Predictive Analytics (Data & Text Mining) applied to Social Data.” (SOURCE) Mr. Kalafatis is a global pioneer in this work, applying his data-mining expertise in such countries as Serbia and Greece, two very difficult languages in which to apply text-mining methods. The lessons he has learned through this work are fascinating and available at his blog.

The corporate conversation: Ed Fullman, CEO of Reunify (formerly Incentica), says, “At the end of the day it gets down to who is asking about who.” Reunify is focused on scoring traditional CRM using, in part, social data (amongst other identifiers). Business strategist Dion Hinchcliffe writes, “Having the big picture today means connecting internal business data to external information streams, live & without delay.” Connecting the internal conversation at brand/agency HQ with the external conversations in a market niche continues to be a very valuable action, yielding challenging questions to company leaders and agency strategists. Additionally, connecting conversations in social networks WITH actual buying behavior visible in the back-end CRM is a core action by social business intelligence practitioners.

Real-time observation affirms archetypal truth: Conversations and communities in social networks flesh out the “archetypal” pillars of customers that have always congregated around specific phenomena. The particular ways in which this consumer behavior is cloaked is defined by the times one lives in. And it is this flavor that marketers are after in their research. Social data gives us this flavor and data from CRM confirms campaign efforts. While the CFO says, “I would rather pay for qualified leads derived from a social CRM process than insights & trends from ongoing social monitoring,” the CMO says, “We’d like to see those insights and trends available via social business intelligence.” Both are important.

archetypes

Different types of customers orient around specific archetypes, which we can associate with specific brands. Click here to see the image in a larger format. (Image: Mapping the Organizational Psyche by John G. Corlett & Carol S. Pearson, CAPT Publishers, Gainsville, FL. 2003)

archetypes

Different types of customers are at various stages of considering a product/service. These stages can be associated with specific content. Click here to see the image above in a larger format. (Image: The Content Grid 2 by Jess3 and Eloqua Agencies.)

A parting question for brands and agencies: Have you matched your CRM with content-pieces organized by type of buyer? Imagine matching content within THE CONTENT GRID 2 CHART (above) with your CRM (customer database). That’s an essential and powerful action of social business intelligence.

Matching internal and external communities

January 24, 2012 No Comments

Share via email
 Share

A leading value of introducing listening into organizations and communities is found through matching internal identity with external contribution. What is given within often mirrors what AND where the same gift is given externally. Our customers AND our co-workers are one and the same. We learn within how to give outside.

Market Intelligence that is informed with social data from networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn yields rich insight into BOTH internal AND external communities. The conversations within the marketing or sales department are potentially at the very cutting edge of customer thought as well. The customer has called in with a complaint or a wish list item. Customer service takes this in and, ideally, submits this request to leadership in product development. The net result is a more powerful offering by the company.

Social listening software (like Radian 6 or Sysomos) AND social-network management software (like HootSuite or RightNow) allows organizations to match what customers are saying with what employees are saying. And the nexus point of these conversations is where product/service innovation occurs.

Ideally, the Director of Market Intelligence is passing findings on to department leaders: a vendor suggestion from LinkedIn to Marketing, an employee suggestion from BranchOut to HR, a customer wish list request to Product Development, a customer complaint to Customer Service, a competitor’s press release to the C-Suite. This is the value of an on-going and well organized Market Intelligence effort within an organization. And social listening software has reached a stage of sophistication and specificity that allows accurate signals to be captured by able-bodied research analysts.

An organization without a Market Intelligence function is like a butterfly without antennae. A primary function of antennae is timing. “In the case of the Monarch butterfly, it has been shown that antennae are necessary for proper time-compensated solar compass orientation during migration, that antennal clocks exist in monarchs, and that they are likely to provide the primary timing mechanism for Sun compass orientation.” (Source)

Using the butterfly analogy, an organization with even a rudimentary set of social business intelligence “listening” capabilities has a far stronger chance of finding the sweet spot in social networks and discovering what employees and customers want.

Social networks can be "mise en abyme", a lived experience of stories within stories

January 14, 2012 No Comments

Share via email
 Share

A story within a story, also rendered story-within-a-story, is a literary device in which one narrative is presented during the action of another narrative. Mise en abyme is the French term for a similar literary device (also referring to the practice in heraldry of placing the image of a small shield on a larger shield).

In Wikipedia, it is written that a story within a story (“mise en abyme”) can be used in novels, short stories, plays, television programs, films, poems, songs, and philosophical essays. But I argue that such artistic devices may be used in our real fleshly lives as a means of discovery, innovation and evolution. And I propose that digital social accounts like Facebook contain nested stories, all of which are doorways into alternative experiences or possible existences…a living fabric of “mise en abyme” that you have assembled for any purpose under the sun…

For more on the device “Story within a story” see the Wikipedia entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_within_a_story

The story behind a product, the tale of a community

January 10, 2012 No Comments

Share via email
 Share

The reality is that many products and services have a real human story at the root of their existence. Tapping into this story is what connects us to the heart of a product’s latent community, the living fabric with an orientation toward a specific service.

The existing corporate story related solely to sales should cease as the number one tale known to contemporary society. And this needs to happen now.

Humanity is tired of being “sold”. Humanity wants and needs the magic, the tactile sensibility of a story populated with sweat, flesh and the intricacies of a rich inner life. That’s where connection occurs.

A brief description of Social Business Intelligence

January 10, 2012 No Comments

Share via email
 Share

WHAT IS SOCIAL BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE: The basic concept behind the term “social intelligence” is to derive customer, competitive and market intelligence via data scanned in social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

THE NET RESULT OF A SOCIAL BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE PROJECT (WHAT YOU GET FROM A S.I. PROJECT): The value of a social intelligence project is manifold, including the following benefits:

• discovery of warm leads related to psychographics and demographics from a customer’s current database.

• discovery of current trends and developments in a market sector that could lead to product/service innovation.

• discovery of a competitor’s activities that may aid one’s sales efforts.

• discovery of what your customers talk about, leading to product/service innovation and changes in marketing/sales strategy/tactics.

• discovery of new regions where your product/service is being discussed and your competitors are making money.

• discovery of upcoming events where you could generate awareness and sales.

• discovery of new pools of customers in digital networks. You may not have been aware of these pools of customers and their interests.

• discovery of conversations that social marketers and community managers can enter and utilize for higher brand awareness and sales.

• discovery of vendors and employees via professional networks like LinkedIn or the European Women’s Professional Network.

HOW TO PERFORM SOCIAL BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:

WHO: Gathering social intelligence is best performed by someone trained in research. Although a great amount of data may be aggregated automatically during a social intelligence project, it takes a human being to segment and make sense of this data and create insights related to the data.

HOW: There are many tools used to gather social data. Some of the best are expensive and require additional training to master. One of the best ways for a novice to begin is to use Twitter and LinkedIn. After setting up accounts in both social properties, use the free tool Listorious to research lists of influencers surrounding specific keywords in Twitter. Be sure to sign up for an Executive Account in LinkedIn so you can use all of the features in the Advanced Search tool.

WHICH TOOLS: More advanced social intelligence tools include Radian6, Sysomos, BrandWatch, PeopleBrowsr, Crimson Hexagon, Recorded Future and Trackur. A comprehensive list of these and other social intelligence tools may be found here.

Why study influencers' social streams?

November 27, 2011 No Comments

Share via email
 Share

When one goes slowly and with imagination through a list of influencers, reading about their passions, studying their proclivities, observing the vicissitudes of mood and opinion in their social stream…a story emerges and forms about that individual, about their market sector and about the customer in that sector. And it is such stories that form the basis of potent marketing campaigns, the focus of which is to grow awareness of YOUR product/service.

Social Business works for the Hearts of your customer first

November 13, 2011 No Comments

Share via email
 Share

Brands belong to everyone, not just any specific leader of a corporation or a government. ~Peter Economides

Take your passion and make it happen! ~Irene Cara

I once met a CEO who asked his CFO and CMO, “How much money and when?” I met another one, who asked, “How many hearts won and when?” If you want to build a community, try starting with Relational KPIs. It is NOT about automation. It’s about humanization. The most perennial of brands, the ones we all love, found connection via relationship.

Economic systems are often solely attached to numerical growth whereas social systems are attached to depth of connection and meaningful relationships. Perennial business is focused on social psychology vs. pure numeric results. Organically grown business is real and deep and, in the long run, far more lucrative in all respects. Humanity needs this now.

I grew up within the system of America – I am a son of corporate America and of the Church of America, both. I also grew up all over the World – I respect the spiritual and cultural traditions of the nations. The greatest organizations and individuals I met during my travels were human. H-U-M-A-N. I’ll fight to my dying breath for the mammal, for the sweat, for the emotion, for the heart. And I’ll work to my dying day for technology to be driven BY and work FOR the heart of humanity.

Karen Gritter writes, “Getting out of the “factory” and “numbers” mentality is also critical for our planet. Factory farming is destroying our soils.” Paul Farmer writes, “I work in manufacturing and I have a couple hundred people working for me and production can occur with a few mechanics and laborers because the machinery does the rest. But production done well occurs with trust and encouragement!” I would add that “factory farming” mentality is ALSO destroying our hearts.

Kate Carter of Life Chronicles (http://www.lifechronicles.org/), writes, “We at LifeChronicles love that we use technology for compassionate service to humanity-our student volunteers love that we call them Compassionate Technologists.” The robotic and the numeric MUST be “overgrown” now with flesh and filled with blood. We are human and we MUST use technologies for human ends.

Is the end goal really about numbers then? Let’s go into that mansion built by the one’s focused only on numbers and see how happy its inhabitants truly are. Now, let’s make a similar journey to the farm built by those who were focused on the heart. My hunch is that life on that farm, in spite of all the human issues, is a happier and more abundant place. And that’s the place our World needs now. A circle of Love and Trust. Not a Hierarchy of Numeric achievement.

THE FUTURE:

2012: The year the CCO (Chief Customer Officer – http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/04/the_rise_of_the_chief_customer.html) replaced the CMO, the CCO (Chief Collaboration Officer – http://www.zdnet.com/blog/collaboration/chief-collaboration-officer-hansens-cxo-challenge/1644) replaced the COO and the CSO (Chief Social Officer) replaced the CEO. We need a C-Suite that gloats over hearts won and worlds bettered vs. dollars banked and pockets lined. Once again, If you want to build a community, try starting with Relational KPIs. It is NOT about automation. It’s about humanization. The most perennial of brands, the ones we all love, found connection via relationship.