“Social Media Analytics Expert Interview Series: Part 2” is conducted by the Chief Editor of Text Analytics news, Ezra Steinberg. The interview panel includes: Meta Brown, General Manager of Analytics at LinguaSys; Christine Campbell, Director of Marketing at Socialware; and Pirouz Nilforoush, President & Co-Founder of NetShelter Technology Media. All three interviewees will be speaking at the Social Media Analytics Summit in San Francisco in April. The interview sheds some light on customer interaction; some helpful questions and responses from the interview follow:

 “USM:  What do you believe the average consumer thinks about companies’ social media listening initiatives?

Nilforoush (Netshelter): I think the average consumer is confused as to why different brands are initiating conversations with them online that can resemble advertising or spam. Brands need to focus their efforts around engaging their top influencers, rather than trying to engage with every single person that has something to say about their brand. It is not a scalable model for the brands and can be annoying for the end user. Instead, brands should focus their efforts on the people that have the biggest impact on their brand. These influencers will do the work for brands on their own and impact the masses.

USM:  What would you tell someone who is thinking about employing social media analytics for their company?

Brown (LinguaSys): Start with just one narrow project tied to a specific business problem. Choose something where you feel confident that quick improvement is possible. Plan carefully – what’s the path from data collection to analytics to action to returns? Give yourself the best opportunity to succeed – don’t begin until you have made a plan that gives you a way to demonstrate measurable value for your investment in social analytics!

The interview focuses on planning for implementation of social media analytics and consumer’s thoughts on the topic. Many organizations would benefit by considering the opinions and thoughts provided by these leaders in social media. The full interview can be found here and can give insight on building relationships via social media and what to anticipate during the process.

Andrea Hayden, February 02, 2012

[ZyLAB] was founded in 1983 in Chicago, now with offices worldwide with 120 employees and was the first company to develop full-text search on the PC platform.   It is a leader in information access, e-discovery and records management.  It’s international presence is enormous with more than 9,000 installations and 1.7 million users world-wide, with offices in the U.S., Europe and the Asia Pacific.

Other featured descriptions prove enlightening, demonstrating ZyLAB’s focus and point of view. For example, “The 5 Myths of E-Disclosure” details how to approach that complex subject wisely. Also, the session on IT functionality shows the company is cognizant of the nuts and bolts behind what they do. See the article for more insights. As vendors jump into conferences, we wonder if this is a core competency, a way to send a message without competitors in the room, or just a way to sidestep the costs of the flagship international events?

Cynthia Murrell, February 1, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

I was invited to Info360? The name did not resonate, so I browsed the spam message, a portion of which is included in this blog post.

So what’s an Info360? On the surface, it seems to be mostly about an azure chip (maybe a very pale azure?) consulting firm and a gaggle of jargon. Here’s an example of what’s on tap in June, which the spam assures me is amazing:

• Big data and analytics
• Cloud infrastructure.
• Content management basics, records management, and Web content management (presumably different from “basic” content management and not a subset of content management)
• Data capture
• Enterprise collaboration
• Mobile business
• SharePoint
• Social business

In short, this is an umbrella conferences covering a multitude of topics. The Info360 program is, I believe, the Association of Image and Information Management’s event.

These “one size fit all” conferences contrast with more focused start up showcase events or focused technical events such as the Lucid Imagination Lucene Revolution program.

More and more umbrella conferences are “pay to play” talks. Programs are often little more than product and marketing pitches.

What should a person do who is seeking information about a specific topic in the laundry list in the spam message sent to me? My suggestion is to look for a specialty conference close to home.

Email marketing, at least for me, spam is a turn off. When the spam uses words like “amazing” and “real”, I tune out. I may be taking steps toward a certain blindness by ignoring spam about conferences, so your mileage may differ. Search is not on the program. That’s probably a plus because search is certainly no buzzword like “big data” or “mobile business”, whatever that means.

Stephen E Arnold, January 30, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

Where should a taxonomist go to learn about the latest implementations of controlled vocabulary strategies? The meetings we have attended for years are dying on the vine. The SLA Expo was sparse, the Information Today meetings are smaller, Online Information (formerly International Online) was nearly empty, and NFAIS remains the same size each year.

The Internet has made many things possible. We can convene a meeting electronically in a very short time. People have turned increasingly to webinars and web searching. We follow blogs to read opinions and discussions. If we go to a meeting, we are expecting something else. We want to find community.

Selling of the speaking slots has had a deleterious effect on the quality of the meetings. The costs have reached a point where they no longer provide a good return on investment. But more than that, the challenge remains: how do you get a sense of community?
There are several budding online communities, which seem to be flourishing. Taxonomy Community of practice is one; the Taxonomy Division of SLA is another. The rest are in user groups. Access Innovation’s Data Harmony User Group meeting will be held in Albuquerque February 7-9 2012. Come join the community!

Marjorie Hlava. January 26, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

The Eighth Annual Data Harmony Users Group (DHUG) meeting, scheduled February 7 to 9, 2012, in Albuquerque, New Mexico will focus on helping users get the most from their investment in the knowledge management software suite, which helps users organize information resources based on a well-built and systematically applied taxonomy or thesaurus.

We learned:

This meeting is an exciting opportunity to learn how to fully utilize the power of Data Harmony software to maximize the effectiveness and profitability of your organization for your members, customers and staff,” said Marjorie M.K. Hlava, president of Access Innovations.

You can get complete details from Access Innovations. The widely read Web log Taxodiary  is encouraging anyone who wishes to share their story at the meeting to contact Data Harmony at this link. Registrations are also now being accepted. For more information about the Eighth Annual Data Harmony Users Group meeting, click here or call (505)998-0800 or 1-800-926-8328. We hope that Access Innovations captures their knowledge in a monograph. Too many amateur taxonomists and knowledge mavens pumping out inaccurate or incomplete information. In our experience, the go-to experts gravitate to the performances by the Mozarts of mark up.

Sounds excellent to us.

Stephen E Arnold, January 10, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

The panel brings together Bill Touhig of J.D. Power & Associates, Robin Seidner of Radian6, and Beyond the Arc’s Steven J. Ramirez. The social media analytics experts share their insights in the 55 minute podcast. The description describes the discussion content:

• Analytic technologies and techniques being used to make business sense of the flood of user-generated content
• The cutting edges of social media and sentiment analysis – what works, where improvements are being made, and which platforms are leading the way
• The comparison between proprietary and do-it-yourself tools for social media analysis
• Effective ways for leveraging social media information to get a leg up on your competition

The most memorable points from this podcast for me hinge on the unexpected. Social media is still a very new field that continues to supply surprises. For example, Touhig shared a discovery his company made for a major cosmetics company: trying to stay ahead of the curve, generation Y women were using skin care products made for older women. The company then had to find a way to communicate that using products for their skin type will actually be more effective for these customers.

Another surprise—Ramirez pointed out that, with social media data, more is not better. This may seem obvious to some, but it is not the case with other data types, where more volume produces more accurate results. Instead, analysts find that they need to narrow the data to exclude the vast amounts of irrelevant input that social media provides. As Ramirez commented, “people will say anything!”

It may be no surprise that text analytics is experiencing a talent gap. As Ramirez quipped, if you know young people just starting out, advise them to go into this young field. Yes, general business users are usually capable of analyzing data, but they need a leg-up. It is best to develop a program and invest in tools and training before expecting results from non-specialized employees.

There is much more to this podcast than I can fit here, so be sure to check it out for yourself. Then, plan to attend the Social Media Analytics Summit next spring.

Cynthia Murrell, January 9, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

The Social Media Analytics Summit offers unmatchable networking and knowledge sharing opportunities for social media and analytics professionals. The Summit will be a true forum for vendors, end users, and consultants alike to develop long-lasting business relationships. The conference agenda has been designed based on meticulous research with industry experts and is well-rounded with presentations, panels, case studies, and workshops, giving you deep insights into the social analytics industry from many angles.

Social media analytics is only going to keep growing; learning about this key field now is a wise investment. Here’s an inside tip: register with discount code BSEARCHSMA to save $150.

Text Analytics News’ Chief Editor Erza Steinberg also has a podcast available called the “Social Media Analytics Perspectives Panel,” which he recently recorded with professionals from Social Media Today, Radian6, J.D. Power & Associates, and Beyond The Arc. The podcast explores:

• Effective ways for leveraging social media information to gain a competitive advantage
• The cutting edges of social media analytics and sentiment analysis technology
• How to make business sense out of the flood of user-generated content across social media channels

Two sources of important information from Text Analytics News. Here’s hoping you can take advantage of both.

Cynthia Murrell, December 28, 2011

Sponsored by Pandia.com

 …it is the fact that the PLM world is changing from databases towards networks. It is not about capturing all data inside one single system, but to be able to find the right information through a network of information carriers.  This suits also very well with the new generation of workers (generation-Y) who also learned to live in this type of environments and collect information through their social networks.

Catherine Lamsfuss, December 12, 2011

As most conference organizers try to increase paid attendance, the Google is taking action to reduce the number of attendees and make sure that only “real” Googley people attend. Google marketing professionals and okay partners are, of course, exempted from the conference attendance admissions test. Silicon Filter reported that prospective attendees to the 2012 Google I/O conference have to take a test. Point your browser to “Google I/O Moved to June and Extended to 3 Days, Developers Will Have to Code for Tickets.”

According to Monica Tran from the I/O team, the search giant received a unique opportunity to extend the conference to three days so it will be postponing the conference by two months. The new dates are June 27 to 29 at the Moscone Center West In San Francisco.

In addition to the date and length change, Google has also found a unique way of controlling the event size.

The article states:

Tran also hinted at a new application process for I/O. The last event famously sold out in less than an hour. This time around, it looks like developers will have to compete for spots at I/O. Tran tells potential attendees to use the two extra months to “brush up on [their] coding skills,” as this will “come in handy when the new application process opens in February.

Google is always on the cutting edge, it only makes sense that it’s I/O conference application process would be as well. Interesting idea. How many other conference organizers will adopt the admission’s test? As Jack Benny allegedly said, “I’m thinking. I’m thinking.”

Jasmine Ashton, December 9, 2011

Sponsored by Pandia.com

In October 2011, I had a chance to talk informally with Dr. Jerry Lucas, an expert in telecommunications and the owner of the Telestrategies conference series. I was quite interested in his views about content processing. His interest spans text and the large volumes of information that accrue in modern telecommunications systems. One theme which threaded thought his observations was the large volume of data that is now available in digital form. I don’t want to denigrate the commercial services who chit chat about “big data” for figuring out which soap detergent is perceived as having a “smiley face” on the brand. I do want to point out that the Telestrategies’ conferences are designed for law enforcement agencies, intelligence professionals, and practitioners who either work as advisors to agencies or as product developers. Put that your AtomicPR water balloon, insert XML tags, and spam the connected world.

The full text of the interview with him appears as part of the Search Wizards Speak series, which is the largest, free collection of first person narratives about information retrieval. The full text of my conversation with him is at this link. The master index for the series is available on the Beyond Search Web site at Wizards Index.

I wanted to highlight two points Dr. Lucas made in our discussion.

First, I asked him, “What is your view of the challenges flows of digital information pose to government professionals working in law enforcement or the intelligence community?” He told me:

First and foremost are the lack of updated laws creating new lawful interception mandates. In the US the last technical mandate law passed by Congress was the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. CALEA was passed in 1994 and enacted in 1995. The key players providing today’s communication services used by bad guys—specifically, Apple, Facebook, Google, Second Life, Skype, etc.–are not covered by CALEA mandates nor any other interception assistance laws. These companies have to respond to court orders but these companies don’t have to deploy any infrastructure features to assist law enforcement. I think this is a challenge which must be resolved. A second big challenge law enforcement and intelligence professionals is the lack of educational and budget support by their senior management. As you know, today’s senior management developed professionally in their careers depending on voice calls and e-mail messaging as their prime electronic communications tools. Today many senior managers still make phone calls and send e-mails during working hours and likely watch TV during off hours. So here is my point. To understand what’s needed to police a community you have to live in that community. I call this Policing 101. But Today’s senior managers usually don’t live in the Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Second Life and other cyber space environments as part of their every day activities.

Second, I asked Dr. Lucas, “You have a unique vantage point on some quite interesting technologies. If you were to advise a developer at a large firm specializing in digital information analysis, what would be the three most important features the company should include in their next product release?”

I know you are aware of the phenomenal requirements regarding data privacy or who can access data in a law enforcement agency. Privacy policies and safeguards for open source search in an enterprise can be very lax with regard to a law enforcement agency. Data gathered on a bad guy from a communications service provides under a court order is not fair game for searching over time by law enforcement professional. Those data may have to be erased over time and more. So compliance is an essential characteristic of many products and service. Second, product feature to consider is interoperability with legacy lawful intercept and intelligence gathering products. Interoperability is very important. So called “fork lifts” are rare events in this space and no one in this space wants to see an additional screen introduced in the central monitoring center. I want to emphasize that the user interface must be simple and shouldn’t require the user to be highly computer literate.

I found that the Apple influence is extending beyond the iPhone and iPad crowd. For more of Dr. Lucas’ insights and views, point your browser to the Dr. Jerry Lucas Interview. Information about Telestrategies is located at www.ISSWorldTraining.com.

Stephen E Arnold, November 14, 2011

Sponsored by Pandia.com