IBM set up first social business center in Singapore

SINGAPORE–IBM signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the National University of Singapore’s Institute of Systems Science (NUS-ISS) to set up its first ever Center of Excellence (CoE) for enterprise social business here. This would help bring up Asia’s level of social business adoption to match that of Europe and the United States, one executive says.

Lim Swee Cheang, director of NUS-ISS, said the CoE will be operational in May this year, and will target local senior business executives to educate them on the benefits of tapping on social technologies within their organizations.

The Center’s goal will be to help companies here evolve into social businesses by advising them on the roadmap and strategy, as well as conduct research on the topic, added Christopher Chia, chairman of the NUS-ISS management board. Both executives spoke during a press briefing held in conjunction with IBM’s Business Gets Social 2012 event on Wednesday.

Both parties declined to reveal how much was invested to establish the CoE, though.

In terms of content, the CoE will offer two courses initially, said Lim. These include a half-day seminar on the benefits of social business, as well as a two-day course meant for companies interested in implementing social technologies. The longer course can also be customized for specific businesses as each organization would have its particular needs, he added.

The director said the “cautious” initial estimate for enrolment is between 100 and 300 participants for the first year. However, the Center may open up free courses to provide for more participants if the need arises, he said.

Lum Seow Khun, business unit executive of ISV (independent software vendor) and developer relations at IBM Singapore, added the company plans to conduct one session per quarter in the beginning and increase the frequency based on take-up rate. She added both parties would co-conduct the lectures, and IBM will provide free software and course ware.

Asia “ripe” for social business
Sandy Carter, vice president of social business sales and evangelism at IBM, pointed out that with social media expected to create more jobs than the Internet did, it is good for those in Singapore to be trained early in social business.

The executive, who was a keynote speaker at the event, also said that while the region’s adoption of social business is slightly behind that of Europe, which leads the pack, and the United States, companies here are “ripe to catch up” due to the high personal social media usage. This is because users will look to bring social technologies they use frequently into the enterprise arena, she explained.

Indonesian restaurant chain Bumbu Desa, for one, has adopted Big Blue’s SmartCloud Connections collaboration tools to enable franchise holder to discuss store strategies on a single platform, noted Christopher Blake, Asean regional executive for collaboration solutions at IBM, during the briefing. Besides internal collaboration, the platform can also be opened to external parties such as food critics to join in the conversation, he added.

Zooming in on Singapore, Carter cited a 2011 study conducted by a GlobalWebIndex that ranked the city-state’s social network penetration higher than the global average.

Additionally, users here have moved beyond using social media for personal communication and on to creating online communities. These factors mark Singapore out as having the potential to be a proponent for social business, she said.

What advice are you looking for on becoming a Social Business? Leave a message or feel free to reach on Twittter or LinkedIn

More on IBM Social Business here

Category: IBM, Social Business, Social Media | No Comments »

YouTube Infographic – Some Mind Numbing Facts

 

Social

The rise of Facebook, Twitter and other social networks has accelerated the growth of YouTube as it enables discovery and sharing of online video.

  • 500 years of YouTube video are watched every day on Facebook
  • Over 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter each minute
  • 100 million people take a social action on YouTube (likes, shares, comments, etc) every week
  • An auto-shared tweet results in 6 new youtube.com sessions on average
  • There are 500 tweets per minute containing a YouTube link
  • Millions of subscriptions to YouTube happen each day. (Subscriptions allow you to connect with someone you’re interested in — whether it’s a friend, or the NBA — and keep up on their activity on the site)
  • More than 50% of videos on YouTube have been rated or include comments from the community
  • Millions of videos are favorited every day

What about you?

How do you use YouTube and video in your marketing?

Has social media opened up global opportunities for you? What is the most exciting and inspiring business or personal event or connection that has been instigated by social media?

Look forward to hearing your stories.

Category: Social Media, YouTube | No Comments »

Inside the Brain of a CEO [Infographic]

In these difficult times, CEOs are turning to partnerships and technology to help them overcome the challenges their organisations are facing. CEOs that drive their organisations to innovate, collaborate and understand their customers better will be well-placed to achieve success, both now and in the long-term.

UK lags behind in organisational ‘openness’, holding businesses back from collaboration, finds CEO study. FULL ARTICLE

Collaboration is key to employee success FULL ARTICLE

Category: CEO, IBM, Social Business, Technology | No Comments »

FaceBook comparison with Google

Facebook IPO: Can it Beat Google?

All eyes are on FaceBook after its recent IPO, just how are they going to generate more money to please their new shareholders? In quarter one of 2012 it is reported advertising rates increased by 40% while clickthroughs fell 8%. What does this mean for the the B2C market do they need to think before investing in ads with Facebook. Do they need to come up with a new ad model?  Just consider clickthrough rates decline by about half after they have been released for a day or two.

Category: Social Media, Twitter | No Comments »

Which Social Network Should You Use — and When? [INFOGRAPHIC]

With such a varied choice of social media platforms to choose from, its sometimes difficult to know where to make the most of social media. It’s more complicated than just posting status updates at random and seeing what sticks.

When is Facebook most effective? When are you better off using Twitter, or LinkedIn? And what exactly is Google+ good for, anyway?

The business consultant network Zintro recently pulled research from more than a dozen sources including Mashable, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google and Quantcast to put together this nifty infographic, which will help you develop your social strategy. Check it out below for the full report.

Do you use different social networks for different purposes? Let us know in the comments.

Category: LinkedIn, Social Media, Twitter | No Comments »

SocialBro – A Brief Review

I was introduced to this new Twitter tool yesterday “SocialBro” and to be honest stil playing with it. First impressions WOW, NICE, COOL.

So far the only things missing for me are (and perhaps I havent stumbled on them): URL Shortner, Scheduler.

But what you do get are some really cool features:

TimeZones of your followers: This is really important as will help you decide the best time to tweet with maximum exposure.

With just this information you can really understand when you can get the biggest impact for your message.

Then there are these tools:

Real-time: Will show you who is active right now and the language and apps they use to convey their messages.

Sync Influence Data: You can sort/view your friends by influence. Powered by PeerIndex

Best time to tweet: Demonstrated above, my favourite part so far.

Insights: Language, avatars (who has a photo who has an egg), profiles with URL’s

Monitor a Hashtag: Shows how many users in this hashtag community with Who you follow and who follows you

Analyise lists: Total members, who follows you, who you follow, topic cloud

 

So far so good, will it be my default tweet from application? No. Will become the tool of choice to understand my network.Yes

Let me know, what your thoughts are in the comments below

Category: Social Media, Twitter | 7 Comments »

The Big Apple (Infographic)

Its been many years since my first experience. The excitement the family had in casting off the packaging on our shiney new ZX81

With its, now laughable, 1k(64k max) of RAM, it was our first step into the digital age!

Over the coming  years we moved to the Spectrum 48, with great games such as Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy (you had to be there, I suppose!)

The ZX81 sold 20,000 units in just 9 months and 100,000 units in eighteen months. The Spectrum range was among the first mainstream audience home computers in the UK, similar in significance to the Commodore 64 in the USA. The introduction of the ZX Spectrum led to a boom in companies producing software and hardware for the machine,the effects of which are still seen today.

We then cycled through various manufacturers like BBC, Commodore and then main stream manufacturers that still exist today.

Now I am Apple infused, Mac’s, iPad’s, iPods, iPhones I am an apple fan. Why? They are all connected and provide a seamless experince between devices. They are also cool and great looking!

Apple is annually selling almost as many devices (including computers, iPads and iPhones) as cars worldwide. Unsurprisingly, they are also one of the most successful businesses in the world.

But how do Apple’s eye-popping statistics translate to the real world?

The sum of their total sales in 2011 was an incredible $128 billion. To put it in perspective, their 2011 sales amounted to more than the GDP of 160 nations worldwide.

Apple’s current market capitalization is $508 billion making it the largest company in the world.

Apple’s release of its latest iPad was massive: the company sold 3 million devices in the first 72 hours of release.

695 iPads are sold every minute. 11 iPads are sold every second.

Apple projects to sell 56.4 million iPads in 2012. Laid end-to-end those iPads would stretch from Cupertino, California to New York City and back and nearly halfway back to the Big Apple.

Since 2008, almost as many devices with Apple’s IOS operating system were sold as cars worldwide. Does that mean that in today’s world we consider Apple products as important as vehicles?

While the iPad has been a huge success, the iPhone is still Apple’s franchise player selling over 72 million devices in 2011. That’s nearly equal to the weight of the Eiffel Tower.

40% of Apple’s revenue is credited to the iPhone alone.

For more information on Apple’s sales and growth refer to the infographic below. [Via]

Category: Other Stuff, Smarter Planet | No Comments »

Ten Helpful Points in Using Twitter for Business

I came across these great points in a recent article from inBlurbs.com. Take a look as the infographic they have is very good, demonstrating the impact social media is having on business’s.

As the use of social networking tools rocket you are missing a huge trick if you are not already engaging with your clients in this space.

Take a look at these steps to consider, what else would you add?

  • 1st Register with Twitter and complete your profile and customize it.
  • 2nd Start to observe the conversation related to your industry. To do this you should download and install HootSuite or  TweetDeck. Set your brand name and look if it is mentioned. If mentioned, respond in real time if necessary.
  • 3rd Go to Google Alerts and set Alerts for your name, your company brand, your products, your best customers and your top ten competitors. These alert will be delivered directly to you email box as news appear. This keeps you updated and by the way you monitor your brand name mentions, which offer you the opportunity to respond in real time if necessary.
  • 4th Lookout for your competition and invite their followers to your Twitter.
  • 5th Connect with your audience on Twitter and start the conversation.
  • 6th Share interesting and helpful content. Not only yours but other content from other sources as well.
  • 7th When you publish your own content include a call to action which directs your reader to dedicated landing pages.
  • 8th Do Twitter exclusive specific promotions for your Twitter followers. Direct them to landing pages for lead generation.
  • 9th Promote your Press Release on Twitter. To learn how take a look at HubSpot how they have published a PR on Twitter with its 140 characters.
  • 10th Incorporate effective landing page for lead generation. This will ensure a steady flow of fresh business leads for your sales team.

Incorporate the above for your Twitter marketing, test, measure and refine and then test, measure and refine. Repeat

 

Full article here

Category: Social Media, Twitter | No Comments »

Capitalising on the Crowd – Collective Intelligence

Social technologies are increasing the ability of companies to tap into the distributed knowledge and expertise of individuals located inside and outside the formal boundaries of the enterprise. Applying this knowledge can deliver tangible benefits in developing new products and services, sharing best practices,
distributing work in new, innovative ways and predicting future events. In a recent study by IBM, Collective Intelligence, they highlight a number of approaches for applying Collective Intelligence, how organizations can determine and select the appropriate audiences for these efforts, and how they can address the common risks and challenges of this emerging capability.

We live in an increasingly social world, where advancements in technology are changing how we buy, how we work and how we connect with others. Expanding and overlapping social networks are enabling individuals to express opinions, share expertise with a greater audience and shape decision-making processes on a global scale. Can an organization that chooses to ignore the insights of employees, customers and business partners expect to thrive?

1. Collective Intelligence can enhance business outcomes by improving how organizations access the untapped knowledge and experience of their networks to:
• Discover and share new ideas
• Augment skills and distribute workload
• Improve forecasting effectiveness.
2. Central to the success of Collective Intelligence initiatives is the ability to target and motivate the right participants, considering the need for:
• Knowledge – contextual awareness of the problem to be solved
• Diversity – sufficient breadth of experience to bring a range of
perspectives and views
• Disruption – willingness to challenge current thinking.
3. Key study findings indicate that successful Collective Intelligence efforts need to:
• Address sources of resistance, including operational challenges, conflict with existing charters, perceived loss of control, and shifting roles and responsibilities
• Integrate Collective Intelligence into the work environment, both technologically, and culturally
• Act on what is discovered, communicating value and outcomes to both the organization and the individual.

Collective Intelligence is a powerful resource for creating top-line growth, driving efficiency, improving quality and excellence, and building a better employee climate. Organizations considering adding Collective Intelligence as a business capability need to ask themselves the following questions:
• What are our strategic business objectives, and what types of insight can help us compete or differentiate ourselves in the market?
• Considering the audiences we may want to involve in a Collective Intelligence project, how can we motivate them to share their insights with the organization?
• How do we capture knowledge and connect individuals in new and cost-effective ways?
• What technology tools do we need to support this capability, and who is best positioned to help us take advantage of these tools?

Regardless of the approach taken to infusing Collective Intelligence into the fabric of an organization, it represents a new approach and opportunity for companies to create value using the experiences and insights of vast numbers of people around the world.

For the full report please Click Here

Category: Smarter Planet, Social Media | 6 Comments »