Attensity: Evolving and Repositioning Again
April 29, 2013
I met David Bean years ago. He was explaining “deep extraction” to me at a now defunct search engine conference. I recall that he had a number of US government clients. I noted in my analysis of the company which appeared in my analysis of the company that the firm wanted to break into non government markets.
I made sure that one of my team captured news releases about Attensity. When I checked the my files to update my Attensity profile, I noted that the company had done a merger with a couple of German outfits, was pushing into sentiment analysis, and beating the text analytics drum.
In one sense, Attensity was following the same path of Stratify, which as you probably know was Purple Yogi. Hewlett Packard now owns Stratify and I don’t hear too much about how its journey from government work to the wide world of non government work has worked out. Purple Yogi, now Hewlett Packard Autonomy, Stratify is doing legal stuff … I think. If I understand the write up by a high intellect consultant expert, Attensity is speedboating into customer support.
Can market niches like customer support, eDiscovery, and business intelligence keep some vendors afloat?
Two different markets but one common goal: Diversify in order to generate big revenues.
I read “Attensity Uses Social Media Technology for Smarter Customer Engagement.” On the surface, the story is a good one and it is earnestly told:
Its product Respond uses natural language-based analysis to derive insights from any form of text-based data and among other results can produce analyses of customer sentiment, hot issues, trends and key metrics. The product supports what Attensity calls LARA – listen, analyze, relate, act – which is a form of closed-loop performance management. It begins by extracting data from multiple sources of text-based data, (listening), analyzing the content of the data (analyze), linking this data with other sources of customer data, and producing alerts, workflows and reports to encourage action to be taken based on the insights (act).
Familiar stuff. Text processing, outputs, and payoffs for the licensees.
Attensity, founded in 2000, that’s 13 years ago, is no spring chicken. I learned from the write up:
Attensity has also made some technical improvements to the product. The architecture now supports multitenancy and automatic load balancing, which are especially useful in handling very large volumes of tweets. Reporting has been enhanced to include more visualization options, trend analysis, emerging hot issues, and process and performance analysis.
My thought is that many firms which flourished with the once generous assistance of the US government now have to find a way to generate top line revenue, sustainable growth, and profits.
In the present financial environment, text processing companies are flocking to specific problem areas in organizations. Customer support (a bit of an oxymoron in my opinion), eDiscovery, and business intelligence (not as amusing as military intelligence in my opinion) now are well served sectors.
The companies looking for software and systems to make sense of data, cut costs, gain a competitive advantage, or some other benefit much favored by MBAs have not found a magic carpet ride.
The noise from vendors is increasing. The time required to find and close a deal is increasing. Some customers are looking high and low for a solution which is “good enough”. Management turnover, frequent repositionings, and familiar marketing lingo by themselves may not be enough to keep the many firms competing in these “hot niches” afloat.
Stephen E Arnold, April 29, 2013
Kirsten Bay Replaces Ian Bonner as Attensity President
April 11, 2013
On January 30, a release titled Attensity Appoints Kirsten Bay As New President and CEO, appeared on Attensity. The social media and online communication data analysis and outreach technology provider was founded in 2000 and Cisco, Travelocity and Verizon are just a few of their clients. Kirsten Bay replaces Ian Bonner, who stays on at Attensity as chairman of the board. Bay’s work in the field is outlined in the release,
“Bay brings to Attensity nearly 20 years of strategic process and organizational policy experience derived from the information management, finance and consumer product industries. She is an expert in advising both the public and private sector on the development of econometric policy models. Most recently, as vice president of commercial business with iSIGHT Partners, Bay provided strategic counsel to Fortune 500 companies on managing intelligence requirements and implementing customer and development programs to integrate intelligence into decision programs.”
Ian Bonner stated that Bay is “ideal” for the job, he replaces David Hartford as chairman and Hartford remains on the board. In the same release, Attensity touted its prize products including Attensity Pipeline, the social media data stream made to collect data in real-time, Attensity Analyze, Attensity Command Center and Attensity Respond.
Chelsea Kerwin, April 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Change Comes to Attensity
February 14, 2013
Just as the demand for analytics is ascending, Attensity makes a management change. We learn the company recently named J. Kirsten Bay their head honcho in “Attensity Names New President/CEO,” posted at Destination CRM. The press release stresses the new CEO’s considerable credentials:
“Bay brings to Attensity nearly 20 years of strategic process and organizational policy experience derived from the information management, finance, and consumer product industries. She is an expert in advising both the public and private sector on the development of econometric policy models. Most recently, as vice president of commercial business with iSIGHT Partners, Bay provided strategic counsel to Fortune 500 companies on managing intelligence requirements and implementing customer and development programs to integrate intelligence into decision programs.”
The company’s flagship product Attensity Pipeline collects and semantically annotates data from social media and other online sources. From there, it passes to Attensity Analyze for text analytics and customer engagement suggestions.
Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, folks at Attensity pride themselves on the accuracy of their analytic engines and their intuitive reports. Rooted in their development of tools that serve the intelligence community, the company now provides semantic solutions to many Global 2000 companies and government agencies.
Cynthia Murrell, February 14, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
New Offering from Attensity Poised to Blow Up ROI
December 21, 2012
Analytics tools from social-minded vendors are now using text analytics technology to report on market perception and consumer preferences before the product launch. BtoB reported on this new offering in the article, “Attensity Releases Analytics Tools for Product Introductions.”
Now, businesses will be able to monitor product introductions with this new tool from Attensity. It is only a matter of time before we start seeing specific technology solutions to evaluate and analyze every specific phase of the product development cycle.
Both new insights for further developments and opportunities to avoid risk will be possible with New Product Introduction.
The article states:
“The tool uses text analytics technology to report on market perception and preferences before roll out, uncovering areas of risk and opportunity, according to the company. It then tracks customer reception upon and after the launch to determine the impact of initial marketing efforts. Attensity said the New Product Introduction tool is one in a series of planned social text-analytics applications devoted to customer care, branding, and campaign and competitive analytics.”
Many organizations will be chomping at the bit to utilize this technology since it offers an easy way to improve ROI.
Megan Feil, December 21, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Attensity Sallies into the Insurance Sector
March 30, 2012
Insurance Networking News recently reported on a new application that is designed to enable insurers to analyze unstructured data in the article “Insurance – Specific Social Analytics Software Launched.”
According to the article, Attensity, a provider of social analytics and engagement solutions, is working to help insurance companies make their claims processes more efficient by assisting them with the analysis of data gathered from a variety of sources including: claim forms, adjuster notes, as well as customer feedback from social media, surveys, emails and other sources.
The article states:
The software builds on the company’s text analytics application with out-of-the-box category sets, topics, reports and dashboards tailored specifically for the insurance industry. The new solution enables insurance carriers to spot fraudulent patterns, identify customer pain points early, respond to customer service requests proactively as well as analyze the data of customers that switch providers.
This is just one more example of text analytics software providers helping other industries get a better feel for what their consumers are saying. Will insurance have the same appetite as the intelligence community for Attensity’s system and method of extracting nuggets of information?
Jasmine Ashton, March 30, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Attensity Election Forecasts
March 14, 2012
Is the prediction half right or half wrong? Sci-Tech Today seems to opt for optimism with “Twitter Analysis Gets Elections Half Right.” Attensity attempted to demonstrate its social analytics chops by forecasting Super Tuesday Republican Primary results using Twitter tweets. Their predictions were about 50% accurate; isn’t that about what you’d get flipping coins?
A lack of location data seems to be the reason Attensity’s predictions were less precise than hoped. Writer Scott Martin reveals:
Part of the problem lies in a lack of location-based data about Twitter users’ tweets. Such information is ‘scarce’ on Twitter, says Michael Wu, principal scientist of analytics for Lithium, a social-analytics firm. That’s because Twitter users would have to turn on the ‘location’ feature in their mobile devices. A vast pool of location-based tweets would enable analytics experts to better connect tweets to where they come from across the nation. In the case of Super Tuesday, that would mean more localized information on tweets about candidates.
Another roadblock to accurate prediction lies in identifying when multiple tweets come from the same enthusiastic tweeter, or are spam-like robo-tweets. Furthermore, there is no ready way to correlate the expression of opinions with actions, like actually voting. It seems that this analytic process has a long way to go. It also seems that half right is close enough to spin marketing horseshoes.
Serving several big-name clients, Attensity provides enterprise-class social analytics as well as industry solutions for vertical markets. They pride themselves on the accuracy and ease of use of their tools. My thought is that I will pick horses the old fashioned way.
Cynthia Murrell, March 14, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Craig Norris Leaves Attensity
February 2, 2012
Chiliad has issued the press release, “New CEO Begins Duties at CHILIAD in Herndon, VA.” Craig Norris is leaving Attensity to head that company. Attensity, owned by Aeris Capital, is positioned as a global natural language analytics company. Chiliad seems to be its direct competitor. Interesting.
Chiliad Chairman Patrick Gross noted a couple of challenges his company’s new CEO has already tackled:
The first is the ability to rapidly search data collections at greater scale than any other offering in the market. The second is to allow search formulation and analysis in natural language. This means that no longer is an elite class of analysts required in order to generate meaningful results, thus reducing the personnel training and skills shortages that plague alternative solutions and put timely discovery at risk. The explosion of ‘Big Data’ is real and valuable findings are buried in vast collections for both enterprises and governments. Chiliad has the opportunity to integrate its innovative, massively scalable solutions with emerging open source software to build customized solutions for the largest-scale clients.
It will be interesting to see how the market reacts to this shift.
Cynthia Murrell, February 2, 2012
Attensity: Friday Night Spam Fest
December 10, 2011
Short honk: Here’s an opinion for my one or two readers. I am confused about email marketing from search and content processing companies. Is spam a best practice? Is spam a signal of marketing need or sales desperation? Is spam better than relying on satisfied customers to generate referrals?
ArnoldIT does not do “spam” via email. Whenever I give a talk, I am a veritable Iowa-inspired food production factory of low grade calories. But at age 67, what do you want from a semi retired goose in rural Kentucky?
Here’s the story:
I was at dinner on December 9, 2011, and my wretched mobile device buzzed. I thought I had the gizmo on silent.
Wrong.
A quick look and what do I see, fork paused with a chunk of fried spam half way to my goosely bill. In my opinion, spamming me in Harrod’s Creek during dinner time is the email equivalent of an 800 call from a telemarketer pitching a roof repair deal.
Digital spam. Friday night. Dinner time. Brilliant I suppose.
Here what I received, ruining my appetite for the “real” stuff I was nibbling at the time: “Attensity to Deliver Real Time Audience Analytics on Republican Debate.” Who mailed this missive? sender@attensity.com. Okay, spam mavens, get that email address: sender@attensity.com.
What does Attensity promise me as my real spam cools?
Well, the goose is energized. Here’s the low calorie pitch:
The reports will be driven by Attensity’s real-time social analytics solution, which gives organizations the ability to monitor and analyze over 75 million online and social media sources, as well as internal sources such as emails, surveys and communities, and extract business insights from those conversations. The solution is part of Attensity’s award-winning suite of multi-channel customer analytics and response applications.
Believe it or not, Attensity, one of the “leaders” in understanding the “voice of the customer” or sentiment analysis found to evoke sentiment from me. I don’t think about Attensity as a customer support outfit. Nope. Nope. Nope. I think about Attensity’s roots and its more fascinating line of business. Navigate to LinkedIn and learn this:
Welcome to Attensity Government Systems — the broadest suite of semantic applications and engines to help you realize your agency objectives through the power of text. Attensity’s products and solutions, our dedicated government field engineering team, along with our network of defense, consulting, and solutions integrators are delivering results every day to key government agencies in intelligence, law enforcement, civilian service, and defense. By selecting and implementing Attensity’s solutions, these organizations are better understanding and responding to citizen needs, and connecting the dots to prevent terror and crime. Source: http://www.linkedin.com/company/attensity-government-systems
To put this snippet in context, you may find these links helpful.
- Reading conversations with some “color” at this link
- AGS launch. You can request more information here
- Triple search
- “Attensity offers to listen for governments, law enforcement”
- Attensity Analyze 5.5 Release Provides Large-Scale Data Grid Offering for Voice of the Customer Analytics.
Who funded Attensity? Lots of folks, including an important government agency? Here’s a link which may be of interest.
Now what’s fascinating is that Attensity is into the voice of the customer thing.
In my own algorithmic method, the Attensity marketing effort gets an “unsatisfactory” for email marketing effectiveness. I assume an azure chip consultant, a former middle school teacher, or a failed search engine optimization expert cooked up this campaign.
Here’s a thought.
Check out the non spamming alternatives to Attensity. You can get sentiment methods from folkslike ExpertSystem, ClearCI.com, the French outfit PolySpot, and Infonic Lexalytics operation, among others.
One nagging question for me: Why is Attensity spamming me on Friday night. 8:33 pm?
Brilliance, desperation, a Hail Mary from a football university in Utah?
Stephen E Arnold, December 10, 2011
Freebie, gentle reader, freebie. The goose’s feathers are ruffled.
Attensity Marketing Accelerates
November 17, 2011
In mid November 2011, I attended a conference which Attensity sponsored, spoke at, and shook hands. Since I am a goose, the company wisely ignored me. The firm was describing its technology for running parallel processes within a parallelized database. The phrase I recall was “we have no scaling or performance issues. We have solved that problem.”
Okay.
Attensity’s marketing is accelerating. The firm once focused on the military information sector. After a merger with two firms in Germany, Attensity has shown surprising vigor in a market where pep is as common as PowerPoint.
The company is now borrowing a page from the McKinsey & Co. handbook for big deals. The firm is embracing “thought leadership.” The idea is that software enables a solution. When the company does not know it has a problem, McKinsey & Co. explains the problem senior management does not fully appreciate. Then the McKinsey team descends and helps management solve the hitherto unknown problem. Works like a champ in management consulting. Now Attensity is providing a case example of the method’s efficacy in content processing for sentiment analysis.
The approach is explained in “Attensity Shares Social Customer Thought Leadership Strategies” at Market Watch. According to the write up, the catch phrase refers to “social customer initiatives”. Well, that clears that up.
Attensity seems to have coined both these terms in an effort to promote some of its offerings. According to the press release:
Attensity, the leading provider of text analytics solutions for Customer Experience Management, today announced a series of upcoming events and on-demand resources designed to give enterprise organizations a strategic framework for pursuing their social customer initiatives. The thought leadership initiative draws from best practices and lessons learned in hundreds of implementations with global brands in key industry verticals, delivered in speaking engagements at industry events as well as in sponsored third-party research and a new on-demand eBook authored by Attensity.
With an emphasis on software coupled with strategy, the company has been recognized by CRM Magazine as a “Visionary” in the realm of social content relationship management. From bases in California and in Germany, Attensity helps large companies worldwide analyze and respond to customer feedback.
See the press release for details on its upcoming social customer analytics events. There are also related documents, including their new eBook, available for download from the company’s Web site. We are monitoring the thought leadership situation without too much emotion or sentiment I believe.
Stephen E Arnold, November 17, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Attensity: to Tweet or Not to Tweet, That Is The Question
September 1, 2011
Social media seems to be the solution to everyone’s problems these days. Even if your tweets don’t actually solve any issues, at least you can get something off your chest. Contact Center Solutions Community reported on how companies can take back the upper hand in their article, “Customer Service Trends: Monitoring and Responding to Social Media Conversations.”
While consumers see their status updates as mere complaints or topics of conversation amongst Facebook friends, Attensity sees this as unstructured data that they can help other companies extract insights from and eventually act based on the analysis.
The article taught us the following about the inner-workings of Attensity’s Analyze and Respond Solutions:
This is done through text analytics capable of feats like analyzing the entire Twitter “fire hose” (fed into the Attensity system as an API) in real time. Analyze 6, Attensity’s latest release, includes a feature called ‘hot spotting,’ which identifies trending conversations as they’re happening, tracks “normal” volume, and alerts companies when that volume goes hot or cold.
What happens when negative tweets about the company who is trying to prevent complaints on social media start infiltrating the “firehose”? Our view is that the “fire hose” is looking more and more like a stream that only a handful of companies can make available and process.
Maybe Nathan Wehner knows?
Megan Feil, September 1, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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