Posted by
Virginie Maillet in
What makes a smarter social media city? At its best, it is:
Engaging
It promotes citizen involvement and builds a new sense of
ownership with scope for collaboration in every aspect of city life.
Transparent
It lifts the bonnet on how the city works – processes are visible,
dialogue is open, feedback is swift.
Nimble
It delivers services in real time with an enhanced ability to adjust
to citizens’ fast-changing needs.
Secure
It respects privacy, protects data and leverages technology to
enhance the physical security of citizens.
Posted by
Steve Hamm in
Sometimes, when Volodymyr Pigrukh, CEO of Profitero, wants to grab the attention of a retailer he sees as a potential customer, he shows them just how well his pricing analysis software works with a shocking demonstration. He runs an analysis of the retailer’s prices compared to the most aggressive of its competitors, grabs a screen shot of the comparison and sends it to the company’s executives via e-mail. Those retailers whose prices stack up poorly against the competition understand viscerally the value that Profitero’s software can bring them. “I hope nobody got fired in the process,” he says.
Profitero has only 13 employees–divided between Ireland and Belarus–but that didn’t stop the one-year-old startup from winning the IBM Entrepreneur of the Year award last night in San Francisco. The company bested eight other young outfits from around the world who competed in the finals of the annual IBM SmartCamp competition–a program targeting companies whose products and services align with the Smarter Planet strategy. The finalists were the winners of nine regional contests held in Barcelona, New York, Austin, Shanghai, Bangalore, London, Tel Aviv, Rio de Janeiro and Istanbul.
Almost all of the finalists offer analytics software or services–demonstrating that there’s a role for startups in the huge and fast growing global analytics software market.
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!
Posted by
Guest in
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.
Back in 1992, when I was the technology editor at the San Jose Mercury News, I wrote in a note attached to the annual Silicon Valley 100 report that Silicon Valley was “a state of mind” rather than a narrow geography. I was thinking that it was a San Francisco Bay Area thing rather than exclusively a Santa Clara Valley thing. Well, today, it’s a global thing.
That reality hit home with me today at the IBM SmartCamp Finals in San Francisco. The winners of nine regional contests conducted last year have gathered here to compete this week to be the global winner of the contest, which offers participants loads of advice from venture capital and business experts and a shot at media attention. These companies came from all over: India, Romania, Israel, Ireland, Spain, China, Brazil, and, yes, the United States–including an outfit, SecureWaters, from Soddy Daisy, Tennessee. Which helps prove my point. These days, a Silicon Valley experience can happen practically anywhere. (Oh, by the way. The “Irish” company is led by a guy from the Ukraine and two guys from Belarus.)
Some of last year's winners
Posted by
Lia P Davis in
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.
The way IBM SmartCamp works is the startup entrepreneurs make their pitches to venture capitalists, get feedback on the pitches, get deep advice on their business plans, and pitch again. The best pitch wins.
Today, the entrepreneurs took turn giving their first round of pitches. So, lots of PowerPoint presentations. Some nervous CEOs. Others sounding calm and collected. Here’s Ronald Zhang, president of Palmap, a Shanghai startup focusing on collecting and integrating data for indoor mobility mapping apps–for use in shopping malls, airports, schools and the like. He spoke before making his pitch to the VCs.
