A Data Scientist You’ve Never Heard of Is Now the Master of Your Domain. Crowdsourcing analysis of big data achieved a 340% improvement over Allstate’s ability to predict claims. Via Andrew Mcafee
“I’d say the idea of controlling information flows is becoming an obsolete notion. To me, the basic point of the 2.0 era is that we can get out of the business of predefining and controlling those information flows. We get out of the business of defining who is entitled to generate information, who’s entitled to share it with whom, who is entitled to talk on different subjects.”
Andrew McAfee on What Sells CEOs on Social Networking,
The Social Business Value Creation Model | Social Media Blog for Business | Michael Brito
Social Business isn’t a theory, buzz word or the “Next Big Thing”. It’s simply a natural business evolution. It’s why companies like Accenture, Deloitte, KPMG and others have been in business and profitable for several decades, and in some cases, over 100 years. They help companies change behavior, improve processes and expand into new markets because the dynamic nature of business is consistently changing. And, many of the traditional management consulting firms are now expanding their service offerings to include “social” (fill in the blank) because organizations are now faced with new & improved challenges.
The sole focus of social business, social enterprise, enterprise 2.0 or whatever it’s going to be called tomorrow isn’t just about making business more social because it’s the “thing to do” or to collaborate for the sake of collaboration. Sameer Patel’s latest post sums it up quite well (referencing Professor McAfee) … “organizations are looking to optimize their 9-5 in the face of market chaos, globalization, and seriously inefficient demand and supply chains, and yes, the changing dynamic of the prospect and customer, thanks to the social web.” I would also add that many organizations are looking to bring order to the internal chaos (and in some cases complete anarchy) that social media has inflicted on business as well.
“If you’re saying that people are important, that businesses are inherently social systems and that social dynamics matter for performance, your insight is about 80 years old. If you’re saying that businesses would be better served by becoming more social, you’re once again decades behind the frontier. Same thing if you’re advocating that leaders be more open and attuned to the cultures and conversations of their organizations and customers. Ditto with emphasizing people, process, and technology. Maybe it’s important to say these things once again and maybe it’s not, but no one should pretend that it’s novel.”
Join transformation.biz | IBM vPanel Webcast
CATCH THE INTERACTIVE REPLAY NOW
Topic: Companies increasingly need to transform functions from operations to customer care via new digital techniques and technologies. But can they do this fast enough, and far enough, to keep pace with the growing power of their connected customers?
Panelists:
- Ragna Bell - (moderator) IBM Institute for Business Value, Strategy & Transformation Leader
- Robin Carey - CEO, Social Media Today
- Saul Berman - IBM Global Business Services, Global Innovation & Growth Strategy Leader
- Andrew McAfee - a principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business in the MIT Sloan School of Management
- Paul Papas - IBM Global Business Services, Global Leader, Smarter Commerce
Customer Service in the Digital Age: The Eternal Lament
I wrote a couple weeks ago HBR.org that lots of big financial services companies are alienating their customers because their interactions with them are so lousy. Their customer-facing business processes don’t seem to take into account that we now live in a global and digitally-connected world, and that we’ve got ‘always on, always on you’ technologies.
My recent experience with credit-card giant Capital One showed me, unfortunately, just how accurate that post was.
I was in India last week speaking at the EmTech conference and meeting with some of the country’s largest technology companies. I had one large-ish charge refused by Capital One while I was there, and then started getting notices this week from Netflix, TiVo, and others that they were no longer able to charge my Capital One card. Faced with all this evidence that my primary personal card no longer worked, I called them up.
The first step of the call, of course, was to enter my card number and last four digits of my SSN using my phone’s keypad. The second step, of course, was to repeat them aloud to the person who came on the line. I’m so used to this lack of integration and implied low-level contempt for my time that I hardly even notice it any more.
Do’s and Don’ts for Your Work’s Social Platforms - Andrew McAfee - Harvard Business Review
Enterprise 2.0 is not Web 2.0; corporate technologies are different than personal ones, even if they look and feel the same. They’re there to support the work of the organization, not to let individuals do and say whatever they want. As I’ve argued for some time, though, there’s no deep incompatibility between these two use cases. The autonomous and personalized actions and interactions of people, facilitated by technology, can be a great benefit to the enterprise, because this work creates new knowledge and fosters novel connections.
