News Analysis: Infosys One-Year After Vishal Sikka

R "Ray" Wang

Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

R “Ray” Wang is the CEO of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and blogs at www.raywang.org. His ground-breaking best-selling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ray's new book about Digital Giants and the future of business, titled, Everybody Wants to Rule The World was released in July 2021. Wang is well-quoted and frequently interviewed by media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, and Bloomberg. Short Bio R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley-based Constellation…...

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With heavy contributions from Sachin Gosavi, VP of South Asia

Infosys Makes Strides In Its Own Digital Transformation Journey

On June 12th, 2014, Infosys announced the August 1, 2014 appointment of Dr. Vishal Sikka to the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director (CEO & MD) role.  At the time, Constellation believed this appointment marked a significant industry development and gave Infosys an opportunity to embark on a much needed transformational journey.

Constellation’s analysis of Sikka and his executive team’s first year shows significant progress in not only the structural transformation, but also the market perception of Infosys.  By all accounts Vishal Sikka and his team have succeeded in:

• Revitalizing the sagging employee morale.  Employee morale had tanked to an all time low prior to Sikka’s arrival.  In fact, the annual numbers indicate a sizable drop in attrition rate (from Annualized Consolidated 26.4% in June 2014 to Annualized Consolidated 19.2% in June 2015).  .
  
  Point of View (POV): Turning around the sagging employee morale and readying them for a product and platform thinking is no doubt the highlight of the new CEO’s first year at Infosys.   Measures such as massive-scale design thinking training, internal crowd-sourcing of ideas through Murmuration, dress code relaxation and a shift in self-directed management style have already made an impact.  Improved performance has also mitigated most nay-sayers who now see a clearer direction for not only their own careers, but also the future of Infosys.  Constellation expects the organization to fully change the internal culture from a command and control structure to one where employees are empowered to make more impactful self directed decisions.

• Focusing on IP creation and platforms.  A renewed focus on software and platforms included the creation of Infosys Information Platform (IIP) and Infosys Automation Platform (IAP) to complement existing Edge products and platforms.  The arrival of Silicon Valley software expertise complements the brain trust in Bangalore and around the world.  On the inorganic front, the acquisitions of Panaya and Skava (*subject to statutory approvals) in quick succession showed vision in automating through software.
  
  (POV): Constellation believes that the focus on IP investment is much needed and also required to compete in the shift to digital.  The IIP platform is one of many more to come where software provides economies of scale over hours.  The other big area is how Infosys competes.  It now goes into the market more unafraid to reach for more strategic deals and also more of the technology budget.   Going forward, Constellation believes that creation of successful platform architectures, continued acquisition and integration of IP assets, and a customer focus on continuous innovation will help Vishal achieve the scale required to achieve the escape velocity required to stand out.  While Infosys still has a lot of work to transform itself into a true product & latforms player, Vishal and his team have solidly placed the required foundational blocks in place to change the narrative from time and materials shop to IP creators.

• Revitalizing the brand.  Often seen as a “has-been” success story, Infosys faced a crisis of client confidence with a series of high-profile departures prior to Sikka’s arrival.   The new Infosys has changed the tenor of client conversations with a focus on innovation, board room and CXO level issues, and the impact of technology on business.
  
  (POV): Vishal’s impact was immediate.  CEO’s of major Global 2000 companies who never met with past CEOs were eager to meet with Sikka about deals.  A series of successful Infosys Confluence customer events, high profile wins, and shift in customer engagement, have helped transform the brand perception.  While much has to be accomplished to compete for the time and attention of CXO’s, the current trajectory is promising for clients, employees, and shareholders.

The Bottom Line: Clients Have A Credible Option For A Technology Partner

For clients, the year has cleared the uncertainty emanated from multiple exits at the top prior to June 2014.  When organizations are in transition, they need strong leaders who can show what is possible and how one can get there.  Sikka's arrival brought hope that Infosys could make the transition into the digital age and move from has been to relevant player.

More importantly, steering a large, T&M-model IT Services shop on an IP and Product driven path while transforming culture and brand takes time.  Infosys is making the move from advisor to innovator (see Figure 1).  While the transition will take 18 to 24 months to complete, this transition reflects a 3 to 5 year journey.   While the outside world has seen the improvement in morale, the move to design thinking, the shift to innovation, and the push towards IP over services, what’s to come remains the long term structural changes required to build a future in a services company.

As with all big changes, it’s hard to tell what’s changing when you are in the midst of it.  Constellation beleives most Infosys employees will realize that they had gone through the biggest transformation the company has ever seen by the end of 2017

Existing clients and prospects should:

1.  Take advantage of the Design Thinking workshops Infosys is hosting and start the discussions around newer areas of engagement. “Start small and scale as per the success metrics” is the appropriate approach for them as of now.
2. Use this opportunity to find a partner to co-create and co-innovate with.
3. Determine opportunities to achieve scale in optimizing costs to fund innovation

Figure 1: Creators and Innovators Trump “Trusted Advisor” in Next-gen IT services

Your POV.

Have you changed your view of Infosys? Do you agree with our assessment?  Let us know your experiences.  Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR(dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) com.

Will Instagram’s Advertising Platform Hurt Its Popularity?

Partner, Sensei Marketing
Partner, Sensei Marketing

Sales & marketing veteran with almost 30 years’ experience and now 1800 digital projects to his credit for clients including Morgan Stanley, AOL, Hyatt Gaming Management, Snyder's of Hanover, Hitachi, the Home Depot, Kraft Foods, Drees Homes, American Idol, and hundreds more, including leading agencies around the North America.     ...

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Instagram announced this week that it will open up the advertising flood gates to businesses seeking access to its 300 million monthly users.

The illusive Instagram ad, which previously required personal contact with an Instagram sales person, lots of advance planning, and large budgets will soon be less, well, illusive. Using 3rd party advertising apps, marketers and adverting agents will soon be buying and managing advertising in the same manner they do on Facebook, Instagram’s sister network.  Further, they will be able to do so through a single interface instead of being forced to flip through different devices. It’s this cross-platform integration that makes this news all that much more interesting for marketers.

As reported by Business Insider, the Instagram Ads API is the latest in a series of moves the platform has made to start opening up the money jets. Back in June, alongside announcing the API test, Instagram announced that all of Facebook’s ad-targeting tools will be opened up to Instagram advertisers. In the same month it also launched “Shop Now” buttons and other messages for advertisers to link outside the app. And earlier this year Instagram introduced “carousel ads,” allowing marketers to fit more images into one single ad.

This is truly major news; Instagram’s users share over 70 million photos and videos each day. Further, the majority of users are 16 and 24 years old (41%), the mecca of target audiences for advertisers (35% of users are between the ages of 25 and 35).  The value of Instagram’s audience is undeniable, a fact that was not lost on Facebook, which purchased the social media network in the spring of 2012 in a deal valued at over a billion dollars.

Marketers Ruin Everything

Reaction has been swift; “marketers ruin everything” seems to be the most common sentiment among users and pundits. The new advertising rules on Facebook have been drawing similar criticisms, both for the increasing number of paid posts showing up in peoples’ news feeds and its inaccurate targeting.

Facebook has also been under attack for its “double-dipping” advertising policy when it comes to business pages. The social network asks businesses to increase follower counts by purchasing Facebook ads but then throttles the business’s posts so that less than 5% of the followers earned organically or through paid advertising actually see the business’s posts. You want to get your message to those followers you paid to acquire? No problem, give Facebook even more money and they’ll gladly oblige.

Few consumers will condemn a social network that is offered free of charge to users for attempting to make money through inline advertising, yet most will jump to criticise marketers for doing a poor job executing those campaigns or the networks for intrusive and irrelevant ad placement.  Consumers accept advertising as a necessary evil in their social engagements but are also quick to ignore campaigns and ads that become too intrusive. In fact, a study by Adobe and PageFair found that the number of people using blocking software, for example, rose 70 per cent last year in reaction to the increasing number of ads being shoveled at us online.

Will Instagram’s Advertising Platform Hurt Its Popularity?

Consumer opinions may not matter; analysts predict Instagram’s new advertising API to be a windfall for the social network.  EMarketer suggests that Instagram will earn almost $600 million from advertising in the next year.

To Instagram’s credit, they have found a way to make their ads less obtrusive than those found on other digital platforms including news sites, YouTube, and Facebook. There are no “page take over” ads (yet), no forced viewing of advertising video content (yet) as seen on Google, and no auto-play of videos from paid posts (yet) as seen on Facebook.  Yet.

Instagram’s “swipe to view” posts are effective ads in that the user does not see any additional content or calls to action (CTAs) until they choose to swipe left or right on an image.

The key for Instagram and marketers alike will be to ensure that their targeting algorithm and content mix is bang on. For example, my Instagram posts (and those of the people I tend to follow on that network) are predominately cigars, single malt whiskey, and Liverpool football club. If sporadic advertising within my Instagram stream introduced me to Cigar Aficionado’s latest article or Laphroigh’s latest whisky, I’d would most likely welcome the posts.

If, on the other hand, the network follows Facebook’s lead and presents advertisements for cheap rum or Middle East travel destinations (yes, that happened), Instagram and I may have a short term future.   Worse, if they co-mingle usage data among social networks and present ads on Instagram based on my usage pattern on Facebook or other networks, Instagram and I (and I suspect many others) will plan a “conscious uncoupling” with the social media giant.

I’m not optimistic.

Sensei Debates

What are your thoughts? Will the increased advertising soon to be seen on Instagram hurt its popularity?

Sam Fiorella
Feed Your Community, Not Your Eg0

The post Will Instagram’s Advertising Platform Hurt Its Popularity? appeared first on Sensei Marketing.

SuperNova Award 2015 Deadline Extended

New deadline August 14, 2015

You now have a few more days to complete your SuperNova Award application! The new deadline to apply for the only awards to honor leaders in disruptive technology is August 14, 2015.

All finalists of the SuperNova Awards are awarded one complimentary ticket to Constellation's Connected Enterprise executive innovation summit.* The application takes only about five minutes to complete. Gather all the information about your disruptive technology project, and submit your application now!

Revised timeline

• August 7, 2015 August 14, 2015 last day for submissions.
• September 2, 2015 finalists announced and invited to Connected Enterprise.
• September 14, 2015 voting opens to the public
• October 2, 2015 polls close
• November 4, 2015 Winners announced, SuperNova Awards Gala Dinner at Connected Enterprise 
•  

We're searching for the rebels, catalysts, and innovators that are shaping the future of technology! If you led the implementation of a disruptive technology for your organization, we want to hear your story!

Complete the SuperNova Award application in 3 steps

*limit one per finalist. Transportation and lodging not included. 

Best Selling Author and Executive Coach Ram Charan Speaking at Constellation's Connected Enterprise

Constellation is pleased to announce world renowned business advisor and best selling author, Ram Charan, is speaking at Connected Enterprise. 

Ram Charan will teach you The Attacker's Advantage, skills needed to identify and disable disruptive forces. 

About Ram Charan

Ram Charan is advisor to the business world's elite.  He has spent the past 35 years serving as coach and advisor to executives such as Jack Welch, Jeffrey Immelt, and John C. Hodgeson. He is known for his pragmatic approach to solving the modern era's complex business problems. His solutions to business problems are praised as actionable and widely applicable.

Charan's work takes him around the globe and gives him an up-to-date, insider view of how economies and leading companies operate. Through keen observation and analysis, he forms powerful insights that help business leaders face their toughest challenges in the areas of growth, talent development, corporate governance, and profitability. His timely concrete advice is a powerful tool in navigating today’s uncertain business climate. Former Chairman of GE Jack Welch says Charan “has the rare ability to distill meaningful from meaningless and transfer it in a quiet, effective way without destroying confidences,” while Ivan Seidenberg, the former CEO of Verizon, calls Charan his “secret weapon.”

Charan is a best selling author of 15 books. Execution, which he coauthored with former Honeywell CEO Larry Bossidy in 2002, was a #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller and spent more than 150 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. He also has written for publications including Harvard Business Review, Fortune, BusinessWeek, Time, Chief Executive and USA TODAY.

Charan holds MBA and doctorate degrees from Harvard Business School, where he graduated with high distinction and was a Baker Scholar. Charan served on the faculties of Harvard Business School and Northwestern University before pursuing consulting full time.

Session Information

November 5, 2015 1:30 - 2:30 p.m.

Insights From The Attackers Advantage And Lessons In Leadership
Ram Charan will teach attendees The Attacker’s Advantage, the ability to anticipate and deal with the biggest threats facing business
 

Is the Future of BlackBerry in Secure IoT? Notes from BlackBerry Security Summit 2015

Steve Wilson

Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Steve Wilson is former VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, leading the business theme Digital Safety and Privacy. His coverage includes digital identity, data protection, data privacy, cryptography, and trust. His advisory services to CIOs, CISOs, CPOs and IT architects include identity product strategy, security practice benchmarking, Privacy by Design (PbD), privacy engineering and Privacy [or Data Protection] Impact Assessments (PIA, DPIA). Coverage Areas: -  Identity management, frameworks & governance-  Digital identity technologies-  Privacy by Design -  Big Data; “Big Privacy”-  Identity & privacy innovation Previous experience: Wilson has worked in ICT innovation, research, development and analysis for over 25 years. With double…...

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On July 23, BlackBerry hosted its second annual Security Summit, once again in New York City. As with last year's event, this was a relatively intimate gathering of analysts and IT journalists, brought together for the lowdown on BlackBerry's security and privacy vision.

By his own account, CEO John Chen has met plenty of scepticism over his diverse and, some say, chaotic product and services portfolio. And yet it's beginning to make sense. There is a strong credible thread running through Chen's initiatives. It all has to do with the Internet of Things.

Disclosure: I traveled to the Blackberry Security Summit as a guest of Blackberry, which covered my transport and accommodation.

The Growth Continues

In 2014, John Chen opened the show with the announcement he was buying the German voice encryption firm Secusmart. That acquisition appears to have gone well for all concerned; they say nobody has left the new organisation in the 12 months since. News of BlackBerry's latest purchase - of crisis communications platform AtHoc - broke a few days before this year's Summit, and it was only the most recent addition to the family. In the past 12 months, BlackBerry has been busy spending $150M on inorganic growth, picking up:

• Secusmart - voice & message encryption (announced at the inaugural Security Summit 2014)
• Movirtu - innovative virtual SIM solutions for holding multiple cell phone numbers on one chip
• Watchdox - document security and rights management, for "data centric privacy", and
• Athoc (announced but not yet complete; see more details below).

Chen has also overseen an additional $100M expenditure in the same timeframe on organic security expansion (over and above baseline product development). Amongst other things BlackBerry has:

• Rekindled Certicom, a specialist cryptography outfit acquired back in 2009 for its unique IP in elliptic curve encryption, and spun out a a new managed PKI service.
• And it has created its own Enterprise Identity-as-a-Service (IDaas) solution. From what I saw at the Summit, BlackBerry is playing catch-up in cloud based IDAM but they do have an edge in mobility over the specialist identity vendors in what is now a crowded identity services marketplace.

The Growth Explained - Secure Mobile Communications

Executives from different business units and different technology horizontals all organised their presentations around a now comprehensive product and services matrix. It looks like this (before adding AtHoc assuming that deal closes):

And so the BlackBerry theme makes good sense: they're striving to lead in Secure Mobile Communications. In that context, for me, the highlights of the Security Summit were as follows.

The Internet of Things

BlackBerry's special play is in the Internet of Things. It's the consistent theme that runs through all their security investments, because as COO Marty Beard says, IoT involves a lot more than machine-to-machine communications. It's more about how to extract meaningful data from unbelievable numbers of devices, with security and privacy. That is, IoT for BlackBerry is really a security-as-a-service play.

Chief Security Officer David Kleidermacher repeatedly stressed the looming challenge of "how to patch and upgrade devices at scale".

MyPOV: Functional upgrades for smart devices will of course be part and parcel of IoT, but at the same time, we need to work much harder to significantly reduce the need for reactive security patches. I foresee an angry consumer revolt if things that never were computers start to behave and fail like computers. A radically higher standard of quality and reliability is required. Just look at the Jeep Uconnect debacle, where it appears Chrysler eventually thought better of foisting a patch on car owners and instead opted for a much more expensive vehicle recall. It was BlackBerry's commitment to ultra high reliability software that really caught my attention at the 2014 Security Summit, and it convinces me they grasp what's going to be required to make ubiquitous computing properly seamless.

Notably, COO Beard preferred to talk about economic value rather than the bazillions of devices we are all getting so jaded about. He said the IoT would bring about $4 trillion of required technology within a decade, and that the global economic impact could be $11 trillion.

BlackBerry's real time operating system QNX is in 50 million cars today.

AtHoc

AtHoc is a secure crisis communications service, with its roots in the first responder environment. It's used by three million U.S. government workers today, and the company is now pushing into healthcare.

Founder and CEO Guy Miasnik explained that emergency communications involves more than just outbound alerts to people dealing with disasters. Critical to crisis management is the secure inbound collection of info from remote users. AtHoc is also not just about data transmission (as important as that is) but it works also at the application layer, enabling sophisticated workflow management. This allows procedures for example to be defined for certain events, guiding sets of users and devices through expected responses, escalating issues if things don't get done as expected.

"CHACE"

We heard more about BlackBerry's collaboration with Oxford University on the Centre for High Assurance Computing Excellence, first announced in April at the RSA Conference. CHACE is concerned with a range of fundamental topics, including formal methods for verifying program correctness (an objective that resonates with BlackBerry's secure operating system division QNX) and new security certification methodologies, with technical approaches based on the Common Criteria of ISO 15408 but with more agile administration to reduce that standard's overhead and infamous rigidity.

CSO Kleidermacher announced that CHACE will work with the Diabetes Technology Society on a new healthcare security standards initiative.
The need for improved medical device security was brought home vividly by an enthralling live demonstration of hacking a hospital drug infusion pump. These vulnerabilities have been exposed before at hacker conferences but BlackBerry's demo was especially clear and informative, and crafted for a non-technical executive audience.

MyPOV: The message needs to be broadcast loud and clear: there are life-critical machines in widespread use, built on commercial computing platforms, without any careful thought for security. It's a shameful and intolerable situation.

Wither the handset?

There was an elephant in the room for most of the day, and that was handsets. Several hours passed before anyone from BlackBerry even mentioned a handset. In the media Q&A session over lunch, the question on many minds was eventually given voice: should BlackBerry get out of handsets altogether?

The answers at first were stilted and unconvincing. They said the corporate strategy was all about profitability not product; they said the Summit was focused on security platforms not cell phone features. But John Chen later gave what was to my mind the most credible explanation. He plainly insists that BlackBerry continues to support the things that have been sold to customers, and that includes an ongoing commitment to the handset product line.

Privacy

I was impressed by BlackBerry's privacy line. It's broader and more sophisticated than most security companies, going way beyond the obvious matters of encryption and VPNs. In particular, the firm champions identity plurality. WorkLife by BlackBerry, powered by Movirtu technology, realizes multiple identities on a single phone. BlackBerry is promoting this capability in the health sector especially, where there is rarely a clean separation of work and life for professionals. Chen said he wants to "separate work and private life".

The health sector in general is one of the company's two biggest business development priorities (the other being automotive). In addition to sophisticated telephony like virtual SIMs, they plan to extend extend AtHoc into healthcare messaging, and have tasked the CHACE think-tank with medical device security. These actions complement BlackBerry's fine words about privacy.

Conclusion

So BlackBerry's acquisition plan appears to have gelled. It now has perhaps the best secure real time OS for smart devices, a hardened device-independent Mobile Device Management backbone, new data-centric privacy and rights management technology, remote certificate management, and multilayered emergency communications services that can be diffused into mission critical rules based M2M messaging. It's a powerful portfolio that makes strong sense in the Internet of Things.

BlackBerry says IoT is 'much more than device-to-device'. It's more important to be able to manage secure data being ejected from ubiquitous devices in enormous volumes, and to service those things - and their users - seamlessly. For BlackBerry, the Internet of Things is really all about the service.

Periscope Captures from the ADMA Global Forum

Gavin Heaton

Founder
Disruptors Co

Gavin is the Founder of Disruptors Co, one of Australia’s leading independent strategy and innovation companies. Gavin advises firms on strategy, marketing, product development and innovation. He is also a member of the Orbits program, the influencer network of  award winning analyst and advisory firm, Constellation Research. Gavin advises boards and leadership on innovation strategy, marketing, data-driven product development and corporate venturing. Gavin is on the board of Vibewire, a youth-led social enterprise based in Sydney, Australia and on the Technology Advisory Group for Good2Give – the workplace giving platform. ...

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Live streaming using apps like Periscope and Meerkat have revolutionised conferences of all kinds. No matter whether you are hosting a small lunchtime gathering of friends, colleagues or experts, or attending a massive conference, these easy-to-use apps allow you to share what you are seeing with the wider world. Or at least those who follow you on social media.

With this in mind, I thought I’d put both Meerkat and Periscope through their paces at the ADMA Global Forum. The ADMA Global Forum brings the world’s leading data driven marketers together to share insights, best and emerging practices, case studies and strategies. This year, there is strong representation from technology firms with good stories to tell. Oracle, IBM and Marketo are represented. Facebook is too. I also dropped by the stands of IVE, Minfo, and others. This year is an improvement on last, but there’s more work to be done on their exhibition stands and their ability to talk to marketers on their own terms. If you have a tech brand needing to talk “marketing”, then maybe we should talk too.

I live streamed and recorded a number of sessions and embedded them below. Tomorrow I will go deeper. Do some interviews. Chat with the teams on the exhibition stands and some of the audience. Let me know what you’re interested in and I will see who I can talk to.

@AndyVen from TheOutNet

Marketing Automation with @Missguided

Case study from @Missguided

Case study from Bosch

Case study from Regions Bank

Content Strategy from @TheOutNet

Case study from Getty Images

Personalisation strategy from Sitecore ANZ

Avoid Mixed Messages Around Dynamic Pricing

Russell Scibetti

Founding Editor, The Business of Sports
The Business of Sports

My name is Russell Scibetti and I have an extensive background in sports business, including CRM and database marketing, interactive and digital marketing, social media, corporate sponsorships and activation, and applied market research. From 2007 to 2014, I worked for Arizona State Athletics, Comcast-Spectacor (Philadelphia Flyers) and the New York Jets to manage and implement CRM, database marketing, market research and other technology-based sales and marketing initiatives. In 2014, I joined KORE Software as their VP of Product Strategy, where I am responsible for the strategic vision, planning and development of the KORE ProSports Ticketing, Sponsorship and Suites/Premium software products. I earned my MBA in Sports Business from the W.P. Carey…...

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On Friday, July 31st, I received an email from a particular college athletic department (left anonymous below) encouraging me to buy season tickets. The value proposition highlighted in the subject line as to why I should buy immediately was:

“Beat Dynamic Pricing- Purchase XXX Season Tickets Today” (XXX = the school’s name)

When I saw this, I tweeted that it felt like they are marketing against themselves, making dynamic pricing sound scary.

.@nyillini311 Bothers me that teams try to espouse the benefits of dynamic pricing and then undercut it with a message like that.

— Russell Scibetti (@rscibetti) July 27, 2015

So what happened this morning? This school put their single game tickets on sale, with the following subject and image as part of their email:

“XXX Individual Football Tickets on sale NOW!!!”

So on Friday, dynamic pricing was a tactic to push me towards season tickets, and now they want me to buy single game tickets via that same dynamic pricing. Isn’t this a bit of a mixed message?

Dynamic pricing is an overall change in approach to keep primary ticket pricing more in line with how the market values the product. As such, there are some benefits to fans that want to attend multiple games and not be subject to the ups and downs of buying single games tickets. So talk about the benefits of a locked in location at the best price possible for the full season, not trying to “beat” the system. For single game buyers, there is still value in predictability of buying directly from the school, and the chance to find games and locations for every budget.

I understand that dynamic pricing is still somewhat new, especially in football where the volume of games is so much smaller, and probably even more so in the world of college athletics. But because it’s new, it’s even more important to explain it properly. It’s good that they’re transparent with the potential single game buyer that they’ve moved to a dynamic pricing model, but they need to educate fans so it doesn’t feel negative in one situation and positive in another. Tactics like creating a video or FAQ to explain what’s different when considering various ticket options will help the customer see all the benefits and make an informed purchase decision.

Five Insights into the Psychology of Twitter

Gavin Heaton

Founder
Disruptors Co

Gavin is the Founder of Disruptors Co, one of Australia’s leading independent strategy and innovation companies. Gavin advises firms on strategy, marketing, product development and innovation. He is also a member of the Orbits program, the influencer network of  award winning analyst and advisory firm, Constellation Research. Gavin advises boards and leadership on innovation strategy, marketing, data-driven product development and corporate venturing. Gavin is on the board of Vibewire, a youth-led social enterprise based in Sydney, Australia and on the Technology Advisory Group for Good2Give – the workplace giving platform. ...

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Sampling allows data scientists, predictive modelers and other data analysts to work with a small, manageable amount of data in order to build and run analytical models more quickly, while still producing accurate findings. Sampling can be particularly useful with data sets that are too large to efficiently analyze in full — for example, in big data analytics applications.

And it is sampling that makes Twitter one of the more fascinating social networks and big data stores of our time. While Facebook grows its membership into the billions, its underlying data store, its connection and interaction architecture and its focus on first tier networks also limits its capacity to operate efficiently as a news source and distribution network. Twitter on the other hand, with its 200+ million members, provides a different and more expansive member engagement model.

During our recent forum presentations on the voice of the customer, Twitter’s Fred Funke explained the view that Twitter was “the pulse of the planet”. Using tools as simple as Twitter search or Trending Topics, Twitter users can quickly identify topics that important to them – or to the broader local, regional and global communities. And, of course, with the new IBM-Twitter partnership, there are a raft of tools that allow businesses to go much deeper into these trends and topics.

In doing so, however, we have to ask. What are we looking for? What information will create a new insight? Which data points will reveal a behaviour? And how can this be framed in a way that is useful?

Five Buyer Insights that Drive Engagement

Just because interactions are taking place online doesn’t mean that they occur in isolation. In fact, our online and offline personalities are intricately linked. And as the majority of our digital interactions take place via text, linguistic analysis will reveal not only the meaning of our words but also our intention. Some things to look out for and understand include:

1. Buying is an impulse: As much as the economists would like to believe we act logically, we know that buyers are emotional creatures. We buy on whim. On appeal. On impulse. And there is no greater impulse these days to share an experience (good or bad) via Twitter. Look particularly at the stream for comments tagged with #fail. It is full of opportunity for the responsive marketer keen to pick up a churning customer having a bad customer experience.
2. The customer journey is visible: While we are researching our next purchase, digital consumers leave a trail of digital breadcrumbs that can be spotted using analytics software. For example, we may tweet out links of videos that we are viewing on YouTube, share blog posts related to our pre-purchase research and even ask directly whether a particular product lives up to the hype. Just take a look at the #lazyweb stream around the topic of Windows10.
3. Understand the pain to optimise the opportunity: When engaging via social media, it is important to understand the challenges or “pain points” that your customers (or potential customers) are facing. Rather than spruiking the benefits of your own products, focusing on an empathetic understanding of your customer’s needs more quickly builds trust and is grounded in a sense of reality. The opportunity with social media is to guide the journey, not short cut it.
4. Case studies build vital social proof: No one wants to be the first to try your new product. Showing that the path to customer satisfaction is well worn is vital. Use case studies to pave the way.
5. We buy in herds: Mark Earls was right. Not only do we want social proof, we prefer that proof to reflect on our own sense of belonging to a group or movement. Remember that we go where the other cows go, and structure your social media interactions accordingly.

The folks over at eLearners.com have put together this infographic on the psychology of Twitter. They suggest that we tweet for love, affection and belonging. It may be true, but sometimes we just also want to vent. And every vent is a market opportunity.

Getting (More of) What You Want

Terri Griffith

Professor/Author/Speaker
Simon Fraser University

Terri Griffith holds the Keith Beedie Chair in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business. She spent two decades in the Silicon Valley and, in 2012 was honored as a Woman of Influence by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. Terri helps her students and their organizations accelerate performance and prepare for the futures of work. Through her speaking, writing, teaching, and research, she brings evidence-based leadership and innovation to high-tech, education, and global agribusiness organizations. She inspires and coaches groups on negotiating change and uniquely mixing existing and new capabilities. Her most recent work uses a “bottom-up” approach to automation, including artificial intelligence. Her award-winning book, The…...

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Getting (More of) What You Want: How the Secrets of Economics and Psychology Can Help You Negotiate Anything, in Business and in Life is Margaret Neale and Thomas Lys' valuable new book. I've known Maggie and Tom for decades, but friendship isn't needed to motivate this review. I need this book. I bought both electronic and hardcover versions because this is a book I'll use in my work -- and you should too.

If You Are a Negotiation Novice

You should read this book because is provides an accessible foundation. I cover negotiation as part of my Plugged-In Management workshops and this will be the book I offer (at the end!) of the sessions I teach. The preface gives you a clear perspective on the power of a disciplined approach to negotiation. By the end of Chapter 4 you'll already have the ability to to get more of what you want. If you've been trying out the techniques as you read these chapters, you'll have already paid for the book and the time it took you to read them. Neale and Lys also have done a wonderful job distilling the material from their consulting and courses into clear frameworks and tables to support your preparation.

If You Are A Self-Taught Negotiator

This book will take experienced, self-taught negotiators to the next level. You’ll discover why your good techniques are working and how to improve on your results. I expect that even the most experienced negotiators will be interested in the results from recent research on negotiation and the connections across psychological and economic perspectives. Neale is the Adams Distinguished Professor of Management at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Lys is the Eric L. Kohler Chair in Accounting at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. Have no fear, this isn’t a textbook nor is it heavy statistics. What it is heavy with are solid examples and eye opening results. I've read the foundational research on whether or not to make the first offer -- and the systematic review provided in the book both extended what I knew and put it into actionable terms.

If You’ve Already Had a Great Negotiation Class

I suspect that even Neale & Lys’ students will find significant value in the summaries following each chapter. As soon as my hardcover arrives (this review is based on the Kindle version), I’ll be adding tabs so I can quickly flip to the summaries as preparation for any upcoming negotiation. No doubt you learned in your negotiation course that preparation and high expectations are critical to getting more of what you want. Use these summaries to kick off your preparations and problem solving efforts. Chapter 8, Managing the Negotiation: Supplementing and Verifying What You (Think You) Know will get special attention as it describes how to learn from the responses of the person you're negotiating with - a topic I know I need to give more attention.

If You Don’t Negotiate

Perhaps you don’t negotiate in a traditional sense -- but you do negotiate. Change management, technology implementations, teamwork, and social settings are all full of negotiations. In my book, The Plugged-In Manager, I rely on negotiation to help people leverage their human, technical, and organizational resources. I learned the basics and more from Maggie Neale and our colleague, Greg Northcraft. I recall feeling, and being, far more powerful once I understood the problem-solving nature of their negotiation practices.

Conclusion

Getting (More of) What You Want: How the Secrets of Economics and Psychology Can Help You Negotiate Anything, in Business and in Life is a book you should use, not just read. It’s also the kind of book that you should share with your colleagues. The last practice of a a plugged-in manager is sharing. The idea is that if others understand the same language you do, you’ll find new value in your day to day work. This is a language you want to know.

Nominate your Chief HR Exec for a SuperNova Award

Honor your organization's Chief HR Officer or innovative business leader by nominating them for a SuperNova Award. The SuperNova Awards honor leaders that demonstrate excellence in the application and adoption of new and emerging technologies. 

The application deadline is August 7, 2015. 

Apply for a SuperNova Award by filling out the application here: 

SuperNova Award Winner: Director IT, Social and Collaborative Innovation, UnitedHealth Group

When a company with 137,000 employees and more than $100 billion in annual revenue wants to foster a culture of innovation and begin generating its own innovative solutions organically, how does it engage all of its employees across the U.S. and abroad? Greg Hicks launched a social and collaborative innovation initiative powered by an ideation platform (Spigit Engage) to drive innovation at UnitedHealth Group. 

In 2013, UnitedHealth Group launched the 3rd annual Hemsley Challenge. More than 8,500 employees cast 386,000 votes, helping to narrow 680 employee-generated ideas down to the “Hemsley 16,” a group of innovative concepts slatted to be featured at UnitedHealth Group’s annual Innovation Day. In total, more than 19,000 employees engaged in the Hemsley Challenge by ideating, commenting, voting, and collaborating. 

By 2013, three employee-generated concepts identified by the 2012 Hemsley challenge were developed into projects. In total, those three concepts had the potential to reduce annual operating costs by $30 million, and radically improve the health care experience for millions of consumers and thousands of health care providers.

Greg Hicks won the 2013 SuperNova Award for Future of Work

5 reasons to apply for a SuperNova Award:

• Exposure to the SuperNova Award judges, comprised of the top influencers in enterprise technology
• Case study highlighting the achievements of the winners written by Constellation analysts
• Complimentary admission to the SuperNova Award Gala Dinner and Constellation's Connected Enterprise for all finalists
  (November 4-6, 2015) lodging and travel not included
• One year unlimited access to Constellation's research library
• Winners featured on Constellation's blog and weekly newsletter

Learn more about the SuperNova Awards. 

What to expect when applying for a SuperNova Award. Tips and sample application.