Posts Tagged: ‘swindell’

XwebX Berlin – My final day thoughts!

13. Juni 2013 Posted by Rebecca Swindell

Day three first session of the day for me was Perfect Orchestration from Thomas Bryner. He spoke about social media content and that whatever I push out today an be recontext and reused a long time in the future - which can be a good thing or a bad thing. What it calls for is close monitoring of what is going on, and asking "what is happening to my content?"

He talked about how referrals are the most effective form of marketing, but marketing should be targeted and addressed to individuals, not just message dumping, your followers should be used as a message hub to others. Value of Facebook - a unique chance to reach the social referral system of the people you engage with.  But like buttons are too easy, and people might forget the company they have just liked within ten minutes.

He then smoke about conversation rates for various media, banner ads is 0.2%social channels is 0.71% search is 1.95% but the biggest is email at 3.19%. I was surprised by this as personally, and speaking to friends and colleagues, I rarely buy from an email, and more from social channels or search - but maybe that's because I love social and spend a lot of time there, or maybe it a generation thing? Interested to know people's thoughts on this...

He also spoke about being present on social just for the sake of being social probably isn't a good idea - couldn't agree more! He also discussed news jacking - which is a new term for me, but he gave the example of how when the miners in Chilli were trapped, Oakley gave them all free sunglasses for when they came into sunlight, which would not have cost the company much but was worth a hell of a lot in brand advertising due to the mass global news coverage of the disaster.

My next session was from Jason Cornell and Stefan Hepper on Exceptional Web Experiences with Digital Asset Management. Jason started by showing some website that are using extensive rich media content to capture people's attention in an ever crowding online world - which is why it's imperative to have a Social Web Experience.

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He spoke about IBMs rich media solutions- including the newly announced Digital Asset Management. Stefan then took the audience through some use cases and a gave a quick demo.

Jason then talked about Digital Asset and Web Content flow
 

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And then talked about some case studies of the solution - including this one from Showtime

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My penultimate session of the conference was from Mac Guidera and Adam Ginsburg on Leveraging the power of IBM Connections and Websphere Portal.

Mac started by talking about Forbes view of how social media takes custom relationships to the next level and how important it is - as after all we are all social animals. In addition we are all web savvy now and it's important for us to understand what is happening to the data we generate online and know that the companies we interact with our listening.

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Customers are on the driving seat - connecting with the individually requires a consistent and engaging online experience - including meaningful self service on the web - something which IBMs web experience software helps our customers achieve says Mac, seeing benefits like a 32% decrease in calls to the customer support line.

Here is how IBM help customers improve their organisations social web experience

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Adam then took us through an example of how people could collaborate on organising a downtown carnival (from food, to music to acts etc) - the interactive site allowing people to see an activity stream of what's happening- which is embedded so people can interact in situ and in the context of the application.  Lots of social rendering portlets - such as member directories- are designed by IBM and available out of the box to help our customers get started - all of which are customisable too, as well as their look and feel.

The next tool discussed was the Social Media Publisher and the analytic capabilities associated with this.

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And in closing Mac suggested next steps for the audience

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My last session of the day, and of the conference, was by the ever informative Stuart McRae - Social Business is an Integration Problem - and was a follow on session to the one I attended yesterday (see my day 2 blog).

He talked about how social businesses focus on creating trusted networks as the way the operate. Problems now need to be rethought as interacts between people, rather than a set of processes - people driven works, workflows driven processes won't in the journey to becoming a Social Business.

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He then moved onto mobile - which he said was an absolute must for social. There is no point rolling out social in an organisation and not giving them access on their mobile phones, as they will update on the go rather than when they get back to their desks later, mobile is key to enabling social.

Love this example from Stuart of why its important to tweet and how this could be used in underpinning your business processes

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And that's it from me at XWebX Berlin 2013. I hope you have enjoyed reading my blogs from the last three days and you can keep up with where I am next on Twitter @RSwindell. Till next time.. Stay Social!

XwebX Berlin – Day 1 Highlights and Pictures

11. Juni 2013 Posted by Rebecca Swindell

Here are my highlights from day 1 - mainly in pictures - it's all about rich media after all - although apologies that some are a bit grain!! You can see our tweetwall from the event here http://wiffiti.locamoda.com/boards/12703.

Markus Mueller opened the conference and took the audience through the many exciting sessions from IBMers and Customers who were going to be sharing their experiences with the delegates.

Larry Bowden then took the audience through IBM's vision and strategy, which has been built on the customer feedback we have received - he has been doing this for the last 13 years and is very passionate about helping our customers achieve the best business results through web experiences, including using mobile, cloud and analytics to enhance this. Larry presented how our customers have benefited from using IBM's web experience software. 

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As well as taking the audience through what used to be IBM's Project Northstar and how it looks today:

 

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IBM investments were also discussed, including key acquisitions such as Kenexa, UNICA, Core Metrics, Tealeaf as well as the product the updates of IBM forms and XWEbX 8.x FastTrack this year.

Gary Dolsen then took the stage to show the audience what we have been working on in the last year and what we are working on now. He explored that the relationship between LOB and IT is really important at the moment, they have to work hand in hand and our investments reflect this. He said that customers have  asked for nicely pre integrated suites of functionality and this is part of the version 8 portfolio of digital experience software.

He explained that Content is one of our biggest areas of investment

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There was then a demo from Rob Enright and Nicole Carrier - who talked how IBM Social Software can be used to help analyse the market sentiment about a brand and then use this to generate new revenue through running segmented targeted marketing campaigns - as well as split testing promotions through all strategic online channels. This can all help build tighter relationships with customers around what they care about most.

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Nicole also showed a heat map of the fictional companies site that can then be used to optimise a website. 

 

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Rob talked about Kenexa and Social Recruiting - and how our digital experience software can complement this to achieve exceptional web experiences for candidates interested in joining a new company, including a culture fit quiz!

Peter Bugge Jakobsen from Jyske bank started his session showing a video of ow Social their bank is - and he is clearly very passionate and rightly proud of what they have achieved. He spoke about responsive web design needing to be enhanced progressively and all devices and channels considered at the same time.

I then attended a session from Dan Collins and Jeff Seifert on Delivering Engaging Social Business Solutions with IBM. They spoke about the GBS CMO report and what CMOs are concerned with over the next five years, with Social Media being the second highest market factor effecting the marketing function - just topped by data explosion. Interesting stat was that 62% of Facebook fans "like" a company page just to get the discounts - therefore having communities are key - these people need to be engaged with, as eventually they are going to buy something, this can be done through integrating IBM Web Experience Software.

Why social needs to be part of Portal was the next session I attended given by Mac Guidera. He spoke about CEO priorities including empowering employees through value, engaging customers and individuals, and amplifying innovation with partnerships - all found in the IBM CEO study "Leading Through Connections".

He then showed this slide about the value of a social business platform.

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Sales can improve productivity, customer service can improve customer retention, marketing can reach new audiences and product development can speed time to market - all using IBM's Social Software to improve business processes.  He then showed how different companies all over the world and cross industry have realised these benefits - check out the IBM website for these case studies.

Winning Strategies from Peter Funke and Thomas Bryner was the next session I attended, which began by looking at the Business Value Assessment model.

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He spoke about the importance of Innovation - to improve services, expand into new areas and develop new product. He said simply put its about selling more, with a higher profit margin, to more people and have more effective sales team.

Peter then took over and about the benefits associated tooth social business investments across all industries, including margin and productivity improvements across tasks like reading and answering email, searching and gathering info, communicating and collaborating internally and more role pacific tasks.

My last session of the day was Rob Enright and Latoya Sankey on improving customer engagement with IBM Enterprise Marketing Mgmt and Web Content Mgr. They spoke about IBM's vision to help clients create engaging, exceptional and differential web experiences. Some great stats in this session including Internet connected devices outnumber people in the USA and 80% of the worlds population will have a mobile device in the next five years,10% of adults in the US own a laptops AND tablet AND smartphone. Also by 2014 video is going to account for 90% PF web traffic - rich media has to be incorporate into your website.

Latoya then spoke about the various value realised by customers using the IBM Customer Experience Suite and the Marketing Center, as well as how Smarter Commerce is weaved in.

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Rob then gave a demo of the Marketing Center, including segmentations, a-b split testing, and communication - whether it's a website or an email etc.  This was followed by a really fun dynamic and interactive demo of the software through a site - tracking clicks, conversions etc, and seeing which operating system and device people were using to do this.

Overall, it's been a fantastic day, with some great content and excellent speakers - so very much looking forward to seeing what day 2 will bring! 

You can join in the conversation using #ibmexperience and follow me on @RSwindell. Check back for my day 2 highlights this time tomorrow!

 

 

 

Social Media Leadership Forum – IBM’s Session

2. November 2012 Posted by Rebecca Swindell

On Tuesday I attend my first Social Media Leadership Forum breakfast briefing, run by IT’s Open, in London. I was invited to attend as one of our Social Business experts, Jon Machtynger (@synapticity), was going to be speaking about Collaboration in the workplace. 

I am not a morning person but really glad that I went to the event, there were some great sessions from Virgin, Person, & BUPA (and IBM!). The Q&A hosted by Tom Standage from the Economist, who posed some really insightful questions of his own to the mornings speakers, as well as taking a few from the audience.

Jon’s session started by looking at what Social Collaboration is all about and how IBM has tackled it and the trends influencing our collaboration strategy

-          - Social networks are putting people online as never before - Unified channel for discovery and interaction

-          - Mobile devices are magnifying reach and interaction -Higher frequency of (shorter) transactions Online and reachable more of the time

-          - Content analytics are making knowledge more accessible -More focus on insight rather than just transactions 

Jon spoke about the areas in which early adopters of Social Collaboration are finding value:

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He then talked the audience through the Social Business journey and what organisations should consider, such as what are their strengths and weaknesses, their needs and their culture, where they are going and what they want to achieve. All these considerations mean that Social MUST be embedded in all processes. He showed everyone the integrated capabilities of IBM’s Social offering, and what aspects we use – such as blogs, wikis, files, profiles, communities, forums, activities, blogs, micro-blogs, analytics, bookmarks and mobile!

Jon then gave his view on how to drive adoption of Social Business through the use of social analytics,  which can help draw the attention on things users need to know – such as the below:

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Jon finished this talk by look at the lessons learnt by IBM on our Social Business journey. The main ones being:

-          - Promote a culture of sharing with diverse groups

-          - Adoption is crucial

-           - Appeal to a broad spectrum of communication types

-           - Executives must participate and drive activity

-          - A balance of control and flexibility promotes innovation

As I said there were some great sessions by BUPA, Pearson and Virgin (even if they are using competitive software!). The final session of the day was the panel, and I loved the opening piece by Tom Standage.  He explained his view that the 1600’s coffee houses were the first example of a social platform. People would go to them to do business, to gossip, to receive mail and meet new people from across different warps of life... so basically Facebook and other platforms are just a modern day version of this. I had never thought of it this way and really liked this way of looking at it.  Another idea debated was whether or not we can measure the ROI of Social Media, and all seemed to agree that this was a tricky area. But then someone made the point that years ago we might have been debating the ROI of email, and now that would never be questioned. Jon Machtynger said that it is a question of “what’s in it for me?”  . People will have their own agenda and objectives, and those need to be met. Once they are met, then viral adoption is more likely. The speaker from BUPA also spoke about how their platform is open and transparent, and although it is monitored there are no strict dos and don’ts. He explained that when a topic is going off track, and perhaps moving to something unsuitable for an open platform, it is the community members that bring it back – not someone monitoring all conversations. The speaker from Pearson made a fantastic point about how Social is allowing a “nobody to be a somebody” – everyone is given a voice.  And that’s really how I feel about social, and why I love it so much!

If you want to follow more of my key highlights from the events I attend, then please follow me on Twitter @RSwindell. Next week I am attending an IBM Business Analytics event – so watch out for tweets from there!

Thanks for reading J