Today marks the culmination of the IBM SmartCamp global entrepreneur competition. Nine startups from around the globe have spent the past three days in San Francisco learning from venture capital and business leaders, honing their VC pitches, getting feedback from mentors and networking with one another. Today, at the Bently Reserve, they made their final pitches and listened to speeches by government and business leaders.
The winner is….
Profitero, from Ireland (by way of Ukraine and Belarus), is the winner of the IBM Global Enterpreneur of the Year award.
Congratulations Profitero!
The People’s Vote Award Winner is….
IDXP, from Brazil, won the popular vote with 845 votes of a total of 2537 votes cast. Profitero came in second, and C-B4 came in third.
Congrats IDXP!
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John Squire is IBM’s director of Digital Marketing and Analytics.
Updated Post
AN UPSET IN THE MAKING
3 February 2012, 11:30 AM Eastern
Just like on the field, Eli Manning is riding a late surge to overtake Tom Brady in the IBM and USC analysis of Super Bowl XLVI social media sentiment. Overnight results of Super Bowl Twitter buzz drove Giants quarterback Eli Manning’s ‘T score’ for positive sentiment ahead of Tom Brady. Manning now leads with 66% vs. Brady’s 61%, which represents an 8-point shift compared to the previous day. In another interesting development positive sentiment for Giants head coach jumped dramatically with his score rating increasing to 76% positive. That places Coach Coughlin above all of the players and coaches on both teams.
This day-to-day shift in Super Bowl fan sentiment illustrates the speed at which consumer sentiments can shift online — a factor that businesses are watching closely due to the potential impact on their brand equity and sales.
By applying analytics in social media settings we can identify nuances – positive, negative, irony, snarky vs. sincerity, in real-time. That’s enough time to help an organization, or in this case professional athletes, adjust their comments and actions to dramatically (and positively) impact their brands.
Original Post
SUPER BOWL ANALYSIS TAKES US BEYOND THE TWEETS
2 February 2012
One of the most dramatic NFL games ever played was Super Bowl XLII pitting the undefeated (18–0) New England Patriots led by record-setting quarterback Tom Brady against the surprising NY Giants with young, unproven Eli Manning at the helm. A thrilling, some say shocking victory for the Giants ended the Patriots bid to be the only 19–0 undefeated champion in league history. And now Super Bowl XLVI – The Rematch — anticipated to be the most watched American television show in history, promises to take social media to a whole new level.
As my colleague, and former NFL player Kevin Nosbusch posted on Wednesday, IBM and the University of Southern California Annenberg Innovation Lab are conducting the first sentiment analysis of the two Super Bowl quarterbacks to illustrate how new analytics technologies make it possible to quickly assess the positive, negative and neutral sentiments shared by fans.
Why is this sentiment analysis important to IBM? In addition to being a longtime partner of the NFL, IBM recognizes that its clients, just like football players, are closely connected to their brand presence.
Using advances in analytics companies, academics, journalists can gain new insights into consumer perceptions via social media on endless topics from football and baseball to movies and retailing. Technologies can even distinguish irony and figure out which tweets are just background noise and those that are truly important.
Branding Upset on the Digital Playing Field
The Super Bowl analysis shows us that today the two quarterbacks, Tom Brady and Eli Manning are in statistical dead heat: Brady earning 65% positive sentiment and Eli Manning earning 62% positive sentiment. That actually represents a big branding upset on the digital playing field. Most sports and marketing followers would assume that Brady should be far ahead given his lofty status as an elite QB for many years and three championship rings.
Other noteworthy findings show that wide receivers have upstaged the quarterbacks, who are being positioned in the news media as the chief protagonists — Wes Welker is #1 in positive sentiment and Victor Cruz is a close 2nd. Interestingly Brady leads by 3% points, exactly the point spread Las Vegas oddsmakers have favored the Patriots.
So while it looks like Tom Brady is going into the game as the Social MVP, now is not the time to get cocky. Eli Manning is holding his own against the more experienced Brady in terms of positive sentiment.
The IBM USC analysis illustrates the potential insight and benefits that social media analytics can deliver to a brand — whether you’re an professional football player or a global enterprise. Businesses that ignore the impact of social media will be stuck on the sidelines.
Learn more about IBM and USC AIL social media analysis projects.
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Kevin Nosbusch is an IBM senior technology consultant based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1973 he played for the Fighting Irish during Notre Dame’s National Championship season, and went on to play for the San Diego Chargers.
When I played football at the University of Notre Dame and for the San Diego Chargers, broadcast television and radio were the primary ways fans enjoyed the game. There was no ESPN, no sports talk radio, the Internet was only known by DARPA scientists and social media didn’t exist.
Gosh, I sound pretty old. But in just 30 years the media and sports industries have been completely transformed by technology. Today, fans are not only Tweeting about their favorite players and teams, but just last week at the Pro Bowl athletes were participating in the virtual conversation on the field at Twitter stations.
This week, IBM and the University of Southern California Annenberg Innovation Lab (AIL) are conducting an analysis of social media trends related to Super Bowl Quarterbacks Tom Brady and Eli Manning. By analyzing hundreds of thousands of public tweets they’ll determine the fans’ sentimental favorite – the people’s champion if you will.
14:55
Bill Reichert, managing director, Garage Technology Ventures
Fundraising in a New Ear of Venture Capital
“The good news is given where you are now your odds of raising capital have been raised dramatically. Being in SmartCamp raises your profile. The bad news is it’s a very very hard environment for raising capital.”
13:12
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Gerry Mooney, General Manager, IBM Global Smarter Cities
Smarter Cities 2.0: The Next Wave.
Much of the growth in new markets comes from the entrepreneurial companies who are building the new applications.
IBM is an integrator. In the Smarter Planet sphere, the integrator can take new technologies and services to market more quickly than the startups can. So IBM has a strategy of forming partnerships with innovative startups, and, in some cases, buying them.
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By Vol Pigrukh
Co-founder and CEO of Profitero,
IBM SmartCamp UK and Ireland winner
Editor’s note: Vol Pirrukh leads one of the contestants in the IBM SmartCamp competition world finals this week (Jan. 31, Feb. 1 and 2) in San Francisco. Nine startups from around the world will compete for fame and expert advice. To follow the event virtually, return to A Smarter Planet for liveblogging, view livestreaming video and follow the Twitter hashtags #IBM SmartCamp and #startups.
Yes, it’s true; our company name did come from those delicious little cakes – profiteroles. When we were brainstorming the name of our start-up we all liked “profiteroles” because it has “profit” and “the cherry on top” – i.e. sweetness – in it. But it was a bit too long and the domain Profiteroles.com was taken. So we sent a survey to over 100 friends to pick their favorite name from a few alternatives and “Profitero” got the most votes. Continue Reading »
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By Martin Kelly
Partner, IBM Venture Capital Group
Editor’s note: Startup entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and business leaders will gather in San Francisco for the IBM SmartCamp competition world finals next week (Jan. 31, Feb. 1 and 2.) To follow the event virtually, return to A Smarter Planet for liveblogging, view livestreaming video and follow the Twitter hashtags #IBM SmartCamp and #startups.
How do you create something from nothing? It seems like magic to take an idea and turn it into a growing enterprise. Yet this is what entrepreneurs do every day. And that’s also what we did when we created IBM SmartCamp. Continue Reading »
Click on the images for a larger view
As the systems that run the way we work and live become smarter, the way people connect and com
municate, find and share information, and perform everyday business tasks is changing in dramatic and dynamic ways.
Everywhere you look, new devices combined with social collaboration tools are transforming how work is done today — how information is shared, relationships are built, and decisions are made.
Thanks to clever social software tools that make collaboration happen easily and naturally, new delivery models such as cloud and mobile computing, and new ways of finding and sharing information, businesses are becoming social businesses — ones that are connected in a variety of ways, both inwardly and out.
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By now, just about any city with a progressive outlook has conducted an open data apps contest–inviting hackers to create applications that make life better there. But Dublin, Ireland, is putting other places to shame. Next year, its HACK THE CITY exhibition and festival will present a slew of events, workshops, installations, and mass-participation experiments aimed at exploring ways to make cities work better. “We want to leave an imprint that inspires people to think differently about how we could an should live in cities,” says Teresa Dillon, curator for the festival at Science Gallery, an initiative of Trinity College Dublin.
The Galley has been gathering applications from software hackers, artists, community activists, engineers and urban planners who want to participate by producing installations, performances, workshops, apps, etc. The call for proposals closes January 20, but Dillon says it’s not too late to get started on a proposal and urges people with innovative ideas to bring them forward. Find out more here.
