Hating Social Media, Loving Divorce in the Amazon

Newsflash: Americans apparently have a love/hate relationship with social media.

According to the results of a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, they regard services such as Facebook to be divisive and a threat to privacy but continue to use them.

Across age groups and political ideologies, adults in the survey said they held a negative view of the effects of social media—even though 70% use such services at least once a day.

The results also suggest Americans are generally optimistic about the benefits that technology will bring to their lives and the economy, but they seem to struggle exactly what it is that policymakers and regulators should do to address some of the grievances people have about social media.

It’s Friday, my head hurts, The Masters starts next week, so I’m just going to think about puppies and golf balls.

But if you want more on the tech front, and the content wars specifically, get this: Apple Music has overtaken Spotify in U.S. paid subscribers.

In February, Apple Music had more than 28 million subscribers in February, while Spotify had 26 million. Does that bode well for Apple’s looming TV content play? I think it’s way too soon to tell, considering that nothingburger of an event last week in Cupertino, but it does at least seem to suggest that the Apple hardware penetration (iPhones, MacBooks, etc.) continues to be a benefit in reaching users with its services play.

The razors have to lift up the Apple razor blades or Apple’s dominance will inevitablye dwindle.

Who’s not dwindling? Ex-wife of Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Bezos, who got 4 percent of the company in a stake worth roughly $36 billion, making her one of the world’s richest women.

Bezos keeps 75 percent of their Amazon stock and voting power over all the voting shares the couple own together.

The Bezos divorce settlement started the way the marriage ended, with a Tweet.

We hate social media until we love it again.

Birdbrained Bird Boxers

Back in the early-to-mid aughts, before we called everything “social media” (back when I had to walk five miles through the snow to get to the office), we often referred to something that came to be known as the “wisdom of the crowd.”

The New Yorker writer James Surowiecki wrote a book on the phenomenon, “The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations.”

The central thesis of the book was the idea that the aggregation of information in groups resulted in decisions are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group. 

As an example, in his opening anecdote for the book, he relayed the surprise that a crowd had when their individual guesses of an ox’s weight were accurate when they were all averaged together.

It was a really cool idea, and it seemed to stick around for awhile.

And then, as if out of nowhere, the wisdom of the crowd seems to have gone the way of the do do bird.

Or, should I say, the way of the “Bird Box.”

Some background: Bird Box is a movie (spoiler alert!) recently released by Netflix starring Sandra Bullock in which the basic premise is that everybody must run around blindfolded lest they see the post-apocalyptic zombies running around which, if seen by the human eye, will turn them into zombies as well.

As Netflix movies go, it was pretty bad, but like an inverse of Surowiecki’s theorem, everybody had to see it because it got so much exposure via social media.  

Call it the “constipation” of the crowd.

Unfortunately, the viral meme of seeing the movie didn’t stop there.

No, lacking the wisdom of crowds from even 13 or 14 years ago, instead the “Bird Box Challenge” was born.

The challenge is simple: People inspired by the film are recreating the basic premise of the movie by going about their daily lives blindfolded.

It’s as silly as that, or even as silly as the Tide Pod challenge (another key piece of evidence of the constipation of the crowd) from last year, where people filmed themselves on YouTube eating Tide Pod laundry detergent pellets. Hey, whatever spins your cycle!

Only the Bird box Challenge has taken the constipation of the crowd to new heights, because, well, you’re blindfolded, which, you know, isn’t exactly conducive to things like driving a car or floating through rapids on a river.

It got so bad that Netflix had to issue a Tweet telling us how dangerous the Bird Box Challenge could be: “Can’t believe I have to say this, but: PLEASE DO NOT HURT YOURSELVES WITH THIS BIRD BOX CHALLENGE.”

I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up, we encouraged this kind of outlier behavior…It helps thin out the herd.

But we didn’t have a bunch of bird brains doing the Bird Box Challenge. 

We just called such phenomena “Darwin Awards.”

Go ahead, Google it.  

Just make sure you step away from the ledge.

Or not.

Dezinformatsiya

If you’ve had any interest in following all those alleged goings on by Russia in the 2016 elections, today was a good day. 

The Washington Post wrote that a new report that was prepared for the U.S. Senate “provides the most sweeping analysis yet of Russia’s disinformation campaign” and “used every major social media platform to deliver words, images, and videos tailored to voters’ interests to help elect President Trump.”

It was the product of a bipartisan effort from the Senate Intelligence Committee, and you can download the full report here.

Me, I’m neither going to wade into or attempt to drown that particular swamp, but I will say one of the revelations was what a significant role Instagram seemed to play in the Russia Internet Research Agency’s efforts (as opposed to the prior focus on Twitter and Facebook).

I guess a picture’s worth a thousand kompromat!

Meanwhile, more political heat on the search and social media front as The Intercept reports that Google was forced to shut down a data analysis system that it had been using to develop a censored search engine for China “after members of the company’s privacy team raised internal complaints that it had been kept secret from them.”

The internal rift over the system has had massive ramifications, effectively ending work on the censored search engine, known as Dragonfly, according to two sources familiar with the plans. The incident represents a major blow to top Google executives, including CEO Sundar Pichai, who have over the last two years made the China project one of their main priorities.

You gotta go deep to get to the bottom of this one, but it does appear that the Grinch may have stolen Google’s Chinese search gift this holiday season. I’ll leave it up.

Queue up Dr. Seuss:

And the more the Grinch thought of this Who Christmas Sing,
The more the Grinch thought, “I must stop this whole thing!”
“Why, for fifty-three years I’ve put up with it now!”
“I MUST stop this Christmas from coming! But HOW?”

Follow Florence

Hurricane Florence has arrived, and while it may have dropped to a Cat 1 storm, it looks like an absolute monster on the TV radar.

Florence made landfall near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina around 7:15 AM EST with estimated maximum winds of 90 mph and a minimum central pressure estimate of 958 mb.

Following are a few resources for following Florence’s wrath via Twitter:

FEMA Region 4: @femaregion4

National Hurricane Center (Atlantic): @NHC_Atlantic

National Hurricane Center: @NWSNHC

National Weather Service: @NWS

The Weather Channel: @weatherchannel

Stephanie Abrams (Weather Channel Meteorologist): @StephanieAbrams

Folks who still have power and Internet can also follow the storm via the National Weather Service website, or the Weather Channel.

The latest Hurricane Florence Advisory (Number 61) was just issued, and here was the lede: 

…FLORENCE JUST INLAND NEAR CAPE FEAR NORTH CAROLINA…
…LIFE-THREATENING STORM SURGES AND HURRICANE-FORCE WIND GUSTS
CONTINUE…
…CATASTROPHIC FRESHWATER FLOODING EXPECTED OVER PORTIONS OF NORTH
AND SOUTH CAROLINA…

SUMMARY OF 1100 AM EDT…1500 UTC…INFORMATION
———————————————–
LOCATION…34.0N 78.0W
ABOUT 20 MI…30 KM SW OF WILMINGTON NORTH CAROLINA
ABOUT 55 MI…90 KM ENE OF MYRTLE BEACH SOUTH CAROLINA
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…80 MPH…130 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT…WSW OR 245 DEGREES AT 3 MPH…6 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…958 MB…28.29 INCHES

And the more specific details:

WATCHES AND WARNINGS
——————–
CHANGES WITH THIS ADVISORY:

The Tropical Storm Warning has been discontinued north of Duck,
North Carolina, including the Chesapeake Bay south of New Point
Comfort.

The Hurricane Warning has been changed to a Tropical Storm Warning
from Duck, North Carolina, south to Bogue Inlet, including the
Albemarle Sound.

SUMMARY OF WATCHES AND WARNINGS IN EFFECT:

A Storm Surge Warning is in effect for…
* South Santee River South Carolina to Duck North Carolina
* Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds, including the Neuse and Pamlico
Rivers

A Storm Surge Watch is in effect for…
* Edisto Beach South Carolina to South Santee River South Carolina

A Hurricane Warning is in effect for…
* South Santee River South Carolina to Bogue Inlet North Carolina
* Pamlico Sound

A Hurricane Watch is in effect for…
* Edisto Beach South Carolina to South Santee River South Carolina

A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for…
* Edisto Beach South Carolina to South Santee River South Carolina
* Bogue Inlet North Carolina to Duck North Carolina
* Albemarle Sound

Interests elsewhere in the southeastern and mid-Atlantic states
should monitor the progress of Florence.

For storm information specific to your area, including possible
inland watches and warnings, please monitor products issued by your
local National Weather Service forecast office.

DISCUSSION AND OUTLOOK
———————-
At 1100 AM EDT (1500 UTC), the center of Hurricane Florence was
located near latitude 34.0 North, longitude 78.0 West. Florence is
moving toward the west-southwest near 3 mph (6 km/h). A slow
westward to west-southwestward motion is expected today through
Saturday. On the forecast track, the center of Florence will move
further inland across extreme southeastern North Carolina and
extreme eastern South Carolina today and Saturday. Florence will
then move generally northward across the western Carolinas and the
central Appalachian Mountains early next week.

Maximum sustained winds are near 80 mph (130 km/h) with higher
gusts. Gradual weakening is forecast later today and tonight.
Significant weakening is expected over the weekend and into early
next week while Florence moves farther inland.

Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 70 miles (110 km) from
the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 195
miles (315 km). A wind gust to 75 mph (120 km/h) was recently
reported at the National Ocean Service station in Wrightsville
Beach, and a 72 mph (116 km/h) was recently reported at a
Weatherflow site just north of Cape Fear at Federal Point.

The estimated minimum central pressure based on surface observations
is 958 mb (28.29 inches).

HAZARDS AFFECTING LAND
———————-
STORM SURGE: The combination of a dangerous storm surge and the
tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by
rising waters moving inland from the shoreline. The water has the
potential to reach the following heights above ground…

Cape Fear NC to Cape Lookout NC…7-11 ft, with locally higher
amounts in the Neuse, Pamlico, Pungo, and Bay Rivers
Cape Lookout NC to Ocracoke Inlet NC…6-9 ft
South Santee River SC to Cape Fear NC…4-6 ft
Ocracoke Inlet NC to Salvo NC…4-6 ft
Salvo NC to Duck NC…2-4 ft
Edisto Beach SC to South Santee River SC…2-4 ft

The deepest water will occur along the immediate coast in areas of
onshore winds, where the surge will be accompanied by large and
destructive waves. Surge-related flooding can vary greatly over
short distances. For information specific to your area, please see
products issued by your local National Weather Service forecast
office.

RAINFALL: Florence is expected to produce heavy and excessive
rainfall in the following areas…

Southeastern coastal North Carolina into far northeastern South
Carolina…an additional 20 to 25 inches, with isolated storm totals
of 30 to 40 inches. This rainfall will produce catastrophic flash
flooding and prolonged significant river flooding.

Remainder of South Carolina and North Carolina into southwest
Virginia…5 to 10 inches, isolated 15 inches. This rainfall will
produce life-threatening flash flooding.

Rainfall totals exceeding 14 inches thus far have been reported at
several locations across southeastern North Carolina.

TORNADOES: A few tornadoes are possible in eastern North Carolina
today.

SURF: Swells generated by Florence are affecting Bermuda, portions
of the U.S. East Coast, and the northwestern and central Bahamas.
These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip
current conditions. Please consult products from your local weather
office.

To all my friends and colleagues in the Carolinas and surrounding environs, be safe and be smart!

A Social Bill on Capitol Hill?

Happy hump day.

Well, I didn’t have the opportunity to watch all of the Senate hearings where our illustrious senators grilled Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

For Google, there was an empty chair, as Larry Page opted not to show or send a representative.

From what I’ve gathered thus far, the two executives told lawmakers they feel they are better prepared to combat foreign interference on their platforms.

The Washington Post reports that Sandberg said "We were too slow to spot this and too slow to act. That’s on us. This interference was completely unacceptable. It violated the values of our company and of the country we love. We are more determined than our opponents and we will keep fighting."

Dorsey, on the other hand, explained that "We found ourselves unprepared and ill-equipped for the immensity of the problems we’ve acknowledged. Abuse, harassment, troll armies, propaganda through bots and human coordination, disinformation campaigns and divisive filter bubbles — that’s not a healthy public square."

One highlight of the hearing occurred when a female protester stood up at the back of the hearing room towards the end of the session.

To overshadow (err, physically shadow ban?) the protester, Rep. Billy Long of Missouri launched into full auctioneer filibuster mode until such time as said protester could be removed fro the hearing room.

God, how I love the U.S. Congress.

We can probably start the countdown on how long it takes for a social media or overall Internets regulation bill to roll down Capitol Hill.

Schoolhouse Rock, everybody….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyeJ55o3El0

Big Tech Regulation

Axios posted some survey results a few hours ago that suggests a majority of Americans are now concerned that the government won’t do enough to regulate How us technology companies operate.

According to the story, across-the-board concern about government in action is up significantly – 15 percentage points – in the past three months. And Axios suggests that it shows how worried Americans are about Russian meddling in the 2016 election, but also a growing anxiety about the potentially addictive nature of some of the tech companies’ products, and the relentless spread of fake news on their platforms.

More highlights:

• More than 8 out of 10 people, including big majorities across party lines, blame the technology companies for not doing more to safeguard their platforms against election interference.

• When asked whether social media does more to help promote democracy and free speech or does more to hurt democracy and free speech, most Americans (55%) now say social media does more to hurt democracy and free speech.

Axios suggests that major tech firms response thus far has been to “tout the fact that consumers love their free, innovative products that have become staples of every day life.” But also that these new numbers suggest more people are trying to square their affinity for those services with the downsides that have reared their heads over the past year.

Still, more than 7 out of 10 Americans still believe that technology has had a positive effect on society.

We’ll just have to wait and see if it stays that way.

The Most Social Batsman

IBM has taken its social analytics capabilities to the subcontinent.

If you’ve ever visited India, you know that the name of the game there is cricket.

So IBM applied its advanced analytics and natural language processing capabilities recently to try and get underneath the “social sentiment” around that country’s leading cricket stars.

With little question, Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar continues to rule the game of cricket, both on the pitch and on social networks, and is followed by captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and opening batsman Murali Vijay.

This all on the even of the last test match in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar cricket series between India and Australia.

Ravinda Jadeja came out on top as India’s most popular bowler for the match, but nonetheless, it was Tendulkar who consistently lead the social conversation during the period.

A whopping 50 percent of the public sentiment revolved around his batting performance, followed by other that topics that include his past records (which are virtually endless), his stature, and his retirement plans, among others.

The index further revealed that negative sentiment towards Captain Dhoni was high at the beginning of the first match.

However, his on field performance is reflective of how public sentiments changed making Dhoni the most positively referenced player in the series. Another interesting highlight was the emergence of Shikhar Dhawan on the social networks after his debut century — within 5 days, there was 200 percent growth in his online conversations.

For the first time, IBM applied advanced analytics software and natural language processing to cricket to build a social score board for the Indian Players based on the intensity of the sentiment and volume of online conversations.

Over 1.2 lakh posts (~ 120,000) on a variety of platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the blogging community were analysed during the first three matches in the current series.

Speaking about IBM’s Social Sentiment Index, Virginia Sharma, Vice President, Marketing & Communication, IBM India/South Asia, said of the effort:

“IBM is changing the game — both in business and in sports. By applying the social sentiment lens to cricket that has a multi-screen experience, we demonstrated how analytics can provide real time exciting insights into public preferences. This can be leveraged by organizations across the media, entertainment and sports industries to better understand their audience, determine endorsement values, and deliver effective marketing campaigns for their businesses”.

About the IBM Social Sentiment Index

The IBM Social Sentiment Index uses advanced analytics and natural language processing technologies to analyze large volumes of social media data in order to assess public opinions.

The Index can identify and measure positive, negative and neutral sentiments shared in public forums such as Twitter, blogs, message boards and other social media, and provide quick insights into consumer conversations about issues, products and services.

Representing a new form of market research, social sentiment analyses offer organizations new insights into Big Data that can help them better understand and respond to consumer trends.

Go here for more information about IBM Social Analytics technology.

Six Keys To Effective Reputational And IT Risk Management

In September of last year, I blogged about the IBM 2012 Global Reputational Risk and IT Study, which I explained was an “investigation of how organizations around the world are managing their reputations in today’s digital era, where IT is an integral part of their operations and where IT failures can result in reputational damage.”

I also wrote “corporate reputations are especially difficult to manage in an era when anyone with a smartphone and Internet connection can file their complaint with a single touch.”

That continues to be the case, but what’s new is that IBM has recently issued another report on further implications of this study and its findings, and more importantly, what organizations can do to get on offense when it comes to better managing their corporate reputation.

The Connection Between Reputational Risk And IT

When the corporate world first began paying attention to the concept of reputational risk in 2005, organizations’ focus tended to be on business issues like compliance and financial misdoings.

Today, the focus has shifted to include the reputational impact of IT risks. Virtually every company is now reliant on technology for its critical business processes and interactions. While it may take 10 minutes or 10 hours to recover from an IT failure, the reputational impact can be felt for months or even years.

Reputational damage caused by IT failures such as data breaches, systems failures and data loss now has a price tag. According to analyses performed by the Ponemon Institute, the economic value of a company’s reputation declines an average of 21 percent as a result of an IT breach of customer data — or the equivalent of an average of US $332 million.

The question now is not whether IT risks affect your corporate reputation, but what you can do to effectively prevent and mitigate these risks.

Six Keys To Effective Reputational And IT Risk Management

An analysis of responses to the IBM study revealed distinct correlations between the initiatives that organizations are undertaking to protect their reputations from the ramifications of IT failures and the overall effectiveness of their reputational and IT risk management efforts.

Based on this analysis, and the pattern it revealed among organizations that are most confident in their ability to prevent and mitigate IT-related reputational risk, there are six key initiatives that IBM recommends as part of every company’s efforts:

1. Put someone in charge. Ultimate responsibility for reputational risk, including IT-related items, should rest with one person.
2. Make the compliance and reputation connection. Measuring reputational and IT risk management strategies against compliance requirements is essential.
3. Reevaluate the impact of social media. In addition to recognizing its potential for negative reputational impact, social media should be leveraged for its positive attributes.
4. Keep an eye on your supply chain. Organizations must require and verify adherence of third-party suppliers to corporate standards.
5. Avoid complacency. Organizations should continually evaluate reputational and IT risk management against strategy to find and eliminate potential gaps.
6. Fund remediation; invest in prevention. For optimal reputational risk mitigation, companies need to fund critical IT systems as part of their core business

How IBM Can Help

When planned and implemented effectively, your organization’s reputational and IT risk strategy can become a vital competitive advantage. When you protect against and mitigate reputational risks successfully, you can enhance brand value in the eyes of customers, partners and analysts. Further, your organization can better attract new customers, retain existing customers and generate greater revenue.

IBM can help you protect your reputation with a robust portfolio of IT security, business continuity and resiliency, and technical support solutions. You can start with an IT security risk assessment, or penetration testing performed by IBM experts.

For business continuity and resiliency, you can begin with a Continuous Operations Risk Evaluation (CORE) Workshop and move on to cloud-based resiliency services. Our technical support solutions range from basic software support to custom technical support.

What makes IBM solutions work is global reach with a local touch. This includes:

• Over 160 business resiliency centers in 70 countries; more than 50 years of experience
• More than 9,000 disaster recovery clients, with IBM providing 100 percent recovery for clients who have declared a disaster
• A global network of 33 security operations, research and solution development centers; 133 monitored countries
• 15,000 researchers, developers and subject matter experts working security initiatives worldwide.

To learn more about the IBM Global Reputational Risk and IT Study go here.

From Liking To Leading: Driving A “Purposeful” Social Business Strategy

At IBM Connect 2013 in Orlando, Florida, IBM announced earlier today new software and cloud-based services to help business leaders, such as chief marketing officers and chief human resource officers, advance their organization’s transformation with the adoption of social business technology.

The new offerings will help business leaders integrate IBM’s industry-leading social networking and analytics technologies into their business processes to empower the 21st Century workforce and transform client experiences.

Leading From The Front (Office)

Just as social networking has flourished in the consumer realm, Forrester has identified social business as an emerging business category, with the social technology industry growing to $6.4 billion by 2016.

Increasingly, front-office leaders, such as chief human resource officers, are looking to form a smarter workforce to unlock human potential and unleash innovation. According to a recent IBM CEO study, 70 percent of companies surveyed cited human capital as the single biggest contributor to sustained economic value.

The new social software offerings will help companies gain deeper insights into big data generated through the use of social networks. Organizations applying analytics to their data for competitive advantage are more likely to substantially outperform their industry peers.

Today, leading organizations, including 61 percent of the Fortune 100, are licensed to use IBM’s social business technologies to transform their front office business operations. This includes connecting employees globally to empower faster decision making and analyzing big data from sources such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs and public forums, to react swiftly to customer trends and outpace competitors.

Using Analytics To Better Understand Social Behavior And Business Opportunity

At the same time, social media and predictive analytics have emerged as indispensable tools for CMOs, who are using technology to make the customer experience more intelligent, intuitive and individualized.

According to the IBM CMO study, 82 percent of CMOs say they plan to increase their use of social media over the next three-to-five years to communicate with their clients.

IBM’s new software and cloud-based services include:

• A new Web-based social networking environment that provides HR leaders with a better way to recruit and onboard new employees, while giving employees access to digital media and data in real-time, enabling faster decision making.
• Software to help marketing teams design sophisticated advertising campaigns and quickly publish those campaigns to leading social networks, resulting in a consistent customer experience through every online channel.
• The next release of IBM’s industry-leading social networking platform will further enable users to access and analyze big data from inside and outside the organization, including Facebook, Twitter, audio and video.
• Already in beta, IBM is also announcing its plans to release the industry’s first truly social email client incorporating file sharing, activity streams and a simplified user interface. This will be the first major release of Notes and Domino in five years.

“IBM is revolutionizing front-office processes with the application of cognitive computing and advanced analytics,” said Alistair Rennie, general manager, social business, IBM. “Social business has transitioned from being an emerging idea to a fundamental platform that clients everywhere are using to change the way they empower their employees and engage their customers.”

Enabling the 21st Century Workforce

Following its $1.3B acquisition of Kenexa in December 2012, IBM today announced a new Web-based social networking environment that is expected to integrate IBM’s industry-leading enterprise social networking platform with Kenexa’s recruiting, on-boarding, learning and performance management solutions.

The IBM Employee Experience Suite will help HR leaders attract, empower and motivate talent to address skill and resource gaps while enabling their workforce to deliver better results for their clients.

For example, employees can use social networking, e-meeting and instant messaging capabilities to access applications and interactive rich media such as videos, resulting in improved collaboration and greater teaming across globally distributed teams.

The Suite intends to integrate with Kenexa’s Applicant Tracking System allowing HR leaders to more swiftly educate existing employees and identify prospective talent. HR leaders will be able to set up a recruiting site, use it to onboard employees, present training options, administer surveys to employees and manage performance. Prospective employees can view the HR data on the broadest range of mobile devices, helping HR departments reach an increasingly social-savvy and mobile workforce.

Transforming The Client Experience

The rise of the social-savvy, empowered consumer has prompted organizations around the globe to use social business and analytics capabilities to improve the customer experience. IBM today announced new capabilities that allow marketing teams to easily design, test and optimize sophisticated advertising campaigns.

For example, a new Social Media Publisher capability in IBM’s web experience software allows CMOs to push content, such as ad campaigns or promotions, to leading social networks with one simple click and without involving already resource strapped specialized IT teams.

Social Software for the Enterprise

With today’s news, IBM is introducing the next version of its social networking platform, IBM Connections. The new software will further enable users to access and analyze big data from inside and outside the organization, including Facebook, Twitter, audio and video.

Available in March 2013, IBM Connections 4.5 will include embedded document management capabilities so that members of a network can access, analyze and act on wide ranges of data types in the context of their work to improve decision-making and business results. IBM Connections’ Content Manager feature will allow teams and communities to harness an organization’s collective intelligence to solve business problems, increase productivity, and drive profit.

IBM Connections clients have access to new social features in the cloud, including blogging and ideation in Communities and access to information. In addition, IBM Connections will include enhanced integration of social capabilities in the Microsoft Outlook client, allowing users to access their social data such as profiles, files, and communities directly in Microsoft Outlook.

In December, IBM expanded its social business platform to include social document editing on-premises and in the cloud. The recently released IBM Docs, available on-premises and as part of the IBM SmartCloud for Social Business, allows browser users to simultaneously collaborate on word processing, spreadsheet and presentation documents to improve productivity.

IBM also announced that it expects to ship IBM Notes and Domino Social Edition 9 in March 2013. IBM Notes and Domino 9 will be the industry’s first truly social email client and delivers a social experience to users, whether using a browser or on the broadest range of mobile devices.

IBM Notes and Domino are used by more than half of the Fortune 500. IBM mobile capabilities manage and support a variety of platforms, including Apple (iOS 6), Android, Microsoft Windows operating system, including Windows and Blackberry smartphones (including BlackBerry 10).

Go here for more information about IBM’s social business initiative and creating a smarter workforce.

You can also follow #IBMSocialBiz and #IBMConnect on Twitter.

Alister Rennie, General Manager, Social Business @ IBM, addresses how organizations everywhere can move “from liking to leading” and build “purposeful” social business strategies.

Planes, Trains, And Twitter

When I lived in NYC, I used to start most of my Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays at Laguardia, JFK, or Newark airports.

That was just part of the deal every holiday season if I wanted to get home and see my friends and family back here in Texas.

But this was long before there was a Twitter or a Facebook where I could vociferously complain to the public at large about the cheapstake airline giving me an ancient, small package of peanuts while seating me next to Chucky the whining infant.

Flash forward…as in, to the present day. Despite the looming snowstorms and crowded skies and congested roads and expensive airfares, IBM conducted a recent analysis of social media sentiment which suggests that Americans are increasingly optimistic about traveling.

I know, it’s difficult to believe, but there it is.

In particular, the “Desire Ratio” — the proportion of positive versus negative comments — indicates that people are “looking forward” to holiday travel by a factor of 26 to one (well, everyone except for those who are hitchhiking).  To which I can only comment most of these respondents must not have any in-laws.

This delta represents a spike in positive sentiment nearly 12 times greater in 2012 versus 2011.

According to the IBM Social Sentiment analysis, there was also an increase in the volume of positive conversations about flying, driving and spending time with family and friends, among others.

For example, the IBM “Desire Ratio” for flying indicated that comments are roughly 2.5 times more positive about travel in the 2012 holiday season. This increase could possibly be attributed to the Cyber Monday deals that airlines ran this year (“Sit In The Baggage Compartment And YOUR BAGS FLY FREE!”)

Positive sentiment associated with driving also increased 13 percent.  That one, I completely don’t understand.  I don’t like driving.  I’d rather sit next to Chucky the whining infant on an airplane than have to drive anywhere

Why, you ask?  Let me demonstrate via some basic math: 500 MPH versus 75 MPH.  Does that clear things up?

So by now, you’re probably wondering to yourself “why measure all this in the first place?”

Because, we have a bunch of really smart people inside IBM who need something productive to do as we get closer to the holidays.

But, we also recognize that measuring public sentiment can help travel industry chief marketing officers customize incentives and services to be more in tune with what customers are asking for, using what they learn from social data to tailor their offerings to address fast-moving trends and real time customer needs.

“Measuring social sentiment has the potential to enable the travel industry to literally design travel offers and services tailored to what travelers are telling us,” said Raul Arce, vice president, travel & transportation, IBM. “Big data has the power to transform the travel industry for the airlines, hotels and other travel providers that can translate customer desires into irresistible offers that they will welcome.”

About The IBM Social Sentiment Index 

The IBM Social Sentiment Index combines sophisticated analytics and natural language processing technologies to gauge consumer public opinions from Twitter, blogs, message boards and other social media.

In this instance, the Index was used to measure and understand consumer views around the holiday travel season in the United States from the period of December 1 – December 10 in 2012 and 2011.

The volume of conversation about flying as the holidays approach is up 10 percent in comparison to last year (38 percent in 2012 vs. 28 percent in 2011).

This enthusiasm is not limited to those who have confirmed travel plans. A possible window of opportunity exists for businesses to influence last-minute customer travel-related decisions. Anecdotally, around one quarter of online holiday travel conversations suggested that an itinerary had not been finalized.

The analysis also surfaced insight into trends and topics related to flying this holiday season. Top of mind for travelers are airline loyalty programs and best ways to convert miles, possible fuel surcharges likely related to the price of fuel, and what to do with pets while on vacation.

While it might seem like “noise” that there is a cluster of social conversation around potential travelers and their animals, it could signal an emerging trend — or niche demographic — that pet-friendly hotels or airlines could capitalize on through additional promotional activities or special offers directly tied to the holiday season for pet owners.

Additional insights from the IBM Social Sentiment Index for holiday travel include:

• Negative sentiment related to gas prices is on a downward trend, which will likely contribute to the number of people traveling. 
• While only a small sample size, sentiment around travel providers’ mobile experiences such as smartphone apps and websites is on an upward trend. The amount of those conversations increased 40 percent year over year.
• Conversations about the word “travel” during the studied time period increased 75 percent
• Measurement of sentiment suggested that fewer people are canceling their plans for the 2012 holidays with a decrease of 19 percent in negative sentiment this year.
• The Index recorded a decrease in conversation volume from 2011 to 2012, possibly attributable to the additional weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Early holiday social chatter in December also suggested people were more focused on holiday preparation than travel plans.  

The wealth of online content around travel — from traveler review sites to public conversations on Twitter and Facebook — has become very influential in how people determine their travel plans.

Understanding the positive, neutral and negative nuances of their conversations and who is influential can help airlines, hoteliers and other travel service providers market better products and services to their customers.

It might also someday earn you a bump up to first class…just don’t hold your breath.