Instrumented Interconnecteds Intelligent
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John Squire, IBM Director of Digital Marketing & AnalyticsJohn 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.
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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.

Super Bowl social sentiment indexOther 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.

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December 13th, 2010
10:00
 

nullEditor’s Note: The following is a guest post from Guru Banavar, Chief Technology Officer, Smarter Cities, IBM

When you think of the world’s smartest cities, London, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney, Kitakyushu and others might come to mind for their innovative projects to reduce traffic, energy and waste.

But if you look deeper, there are hundreds of smaller cities that are getting smarter – and even outpacing big cities — by applying digital tools like analytics and location-based services to improve the way they manage city water, roads, parks, and utilities.

Take Corpus Christi, Texas, population 280,000. Corpus Christi has rolled out an intelligent city-wide system to help the city to quickly evaluate and respond to issues, anticipate and prevent problems and improve the quality of life for the citizens.

Before working with IBM, each city department had its own process for handling incoming work requests and maintenance, mostly tracking those problems on 3”5” index cards. Now with a city-wide call center, city managers can digitally see all the hotspots on a map, prioritize their responses and know who is handling problems across the city in real time. When data analytics showed that a third of the Corpus Christi’s water department’s effort was spent resolving problems at just 1 percent of customer sites, the city shored up those sites, ultimately cutting costs.

I think Steve Klepper of Corpus Christi captures this concept best when he talks about a city as a collection of data points — streets, bridges, parks, buildings, fire hydrants, water mains and storm water ditches. If you manage your data, you can measure it, and improve it continuously. And Mayor Joe Adame is pleased that city departments are coordinating and integrating around the data they all generate and share.

Check out the video to see the ‘street-view’ of this smarter city:YouTube Preview Image

Today another city — Providence, Rhode Island — is taking an innovative step today to address their energy consumption. A public/private partnership called OSCAR (Ocean State Center for Advanced Resources) is aiming to make Providence become greener and more sustainable, focusing first on smarter buildings and better energy consumption. This is just the tip of the iceberg. With help from IBM, Brown University, the University of Rhode Island and more than 30 local organizations, OSCAR aims to tackle healthcare, education, environmental, and economic development across the state. See here: www.Oscarri.org

In addition to Corpus Christi and Providence, IBM is working with 300 cities around the globe to be smarter by rolling out new projects (such as City of Cambridge in Ontario, Chesapeake Va), forging greater public/private partnerships and research projects (such as Dubuque Iowa, Cape Cod)http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/28981.wss, and even issuing philanthropic grants for cities (Smarter City Challenge).

The bottom line is that cities need to be smarter; Cities are stressing the world’s resources. They consume an estimated 75 percent of the world’s energy and emit more than 80 percent of greenhouse gases.

India, where I spent the last 5 years, presents its own issues — rapid urbanization and population growth, as well as a rapidly rising middle class with disposal income is driving growth of cities. In fact, every minute during the next 20 years, 30 Indians will leave rural India for urban areas. At this rate, India will need some 500 new cities in the next two decades.

Many of the world’s emerging countries face similar issues, and I’m currently working with countries like Brazil, Vietnam, and China, in addition to India to address these issues. Countries in the developed world have a different set of problems related to economic slowdowns and changing demographics. Urban revitalization and improved services while cutting costs can also be addressed by developing innovative solutions. In short, if there were ever a time to focus on developing solutions for sustainable cities around the world, that time is now.

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September 13th, 2010
5:41
 

Instrumented, interconnected and intelligent. Most often used to describe systems and technology, these words have echoed loudly through the halls of Lancaster House during the first few days of the IBM Summit at Start.

Imagination, Inspiration, Innovation, and Interactivity. This weekend at IBM Start a new set of “I” words emerged as the debates shifted to the people power that is and will be building a smarter and more sustainable planet.

Throughout the weekend one main idea was prevalent — changing human behaviour is critical to creating a more sustainable planet. On Saturday, business leaders were challenged to think about working with capital markets to change financial models, the need to change customer behaviour and attitudes, the skills needed for the future and how to make the journey to sustainability simpler for everyone. The debates that followed focused on how businesses could make more concrete advances towards sustainability and encourage the ideas and innovation needed to drive that agenda forward.

Then, on Sunday, the business leaders passed the baton to the Start Young participants knowing they could be the ones to win the sustainability race.


The Start Young for a Sustainable Future day at the IBM Summit welcomed more than one hundred and fifty, 16-21 year-olds to join the conversation on sustainability. The goal of the day was to empower youth attendees to grab the proverbial baton and start running fueled by the power of their imagination and ideas. Attendees were challenged to become the “I” generation and start building the planet they want to inherit by taking clear, simple and positive steps to build a more sustainable future.

Perhaps the most compelling directive from the weekend devoted to the people side of the sustainability debate came from Dame Ellen MacArthur who challenged attendees to “assume nothing, question everything and rethink the future.”

Video People & Skill for a Sustainable Future
YouTube Preview Image

Video Recap for Start Young
YouTube Preview Image

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September 10th, 2010
3:29
 

The IBM Summit at Start is honoured to welcome His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. The Prince of Wales gave a special address to attendees on the importance of sustainability.

To watch the speech visit the event live stream: http://www.livestream.com/ibmuk

Video Highlights of Day 3 at the IBM Summit at Start

YouTube Preview Image

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March 23rd, 2010
8:45
 

Peterborough - Environmental Performance

Cities generate the vast bulk of the world’s CO2 emissions, and they account for 60 percent of all water allocated for domestic human use. As urbanization levels increase, how do city leaders ensure continuing water and energy supplies – while also promoting environmental sustainability? If you ask me, a good place to start is by making sure local utilities, government agencies, businesses and citizens alike are looking at the same information when making decisions about collective and individual energy use.

Fifteen years ago Peterborough was made one of four UK Environment Cities by The Department of the Environment and is set to become one of a cluster of IBM “Smarter Cities” being developed around the world. Peterborough’s growth targets to transform the city are ambitious and connecting the city systems is central to increasing quality of life for the proposed extra 20,000 jobs, 25,000 homes and 40,000 people that will be in the city by 2021 compared to 2001.

A new collaboration between the Peterborough City Council, Opportunity Peterobrough, Royal Haskoning, Green Ventures and IBM will help the city visualize energy, water, transport and waste systems to produce a real-time, integrated view of the city’s environmental performance. And citizens will be able to log on to the web portal to make more ecologically-minded decisions about their resource usage.

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Today I am beginning the installation of a solar energy system for my house. The aspect that is different in this system is how I will pay for it. I have thought about solar energy for a long time, however I have never had the appetite to invest the huge up-front cost of the system. When my electricity bill reached a new all-time high this past July here in Los Angeles, I decided to do a little research. With one search of Google using the search terms “solar lease California”, I simply called the first two companies that showed in the search results. I thought that leasing would provide a more attractive financial proposition than purchasing.

After a couple of phone calls to these two companies, I discovered an even more enticing program. I could simply have one of these companies install the system on my house and pay them for the power it generates. I wouldn’t pay for, lease, maintain, nor own the system. They would effectively become another electricity supplier that just happened to reside on my roof. The cash outlay was $1000 to pay for the permits and installation basics. Beyond that I will only pay for the electricity it generates. The cost per unit will be half of what the traditional electric company charges, the price is locked in for eighteen years with them maintaining the equipment, and any extra energy that the system generates that I don’t use, goes back into the grid and I get a refund on my traditional bill. This is a completely turn-key program that I didn’t need to do a thing to participate, including securing the permits, etc. This program sounds pretty good! 

So, today the crew began the installation. It will take a few days to get done and then I will be part of a greener community of people around the world! Be sure to talk to the solar energy provider in your area to see if they will offer a similar program.

Now, I need to to convert my cars to hydrogen and them I will truly be the Smarter Consumer!

Please let us know what you’re doing to be a smarter consumer!

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Adam Christensen and Susanne Dirks talked with me about a question being posed by Dana Blankenhorn.

Dana asks an interesting question: are IBM’s “smarter traffic” ideas an homage to Moses or Jacobs?

He immediately answers his own question with the statement:

“Looking at IBM’s highly-advertised ideas on smarter traffic, much of it is built on the idea Robert Moses called flow.”

To answer simply, IBM’s work in this area is not “built” on Moses’ notions. Our work on helping cities build smarter transportation systems is built on three simple observations on some aspects of how society and technology are changing. Readers of this blog will know them as instrumentation, interconnection and intelligence. The people and systems of the world are becoming increasingly able to be more aware, of many more things, in many more places, much faster, and to analyse and derive timely insight and action from that. That’s it.

We use these observations to build things to help achieve people’s goals. If those goals are Moses-like, or Jacobs-like, that’s fine. The community that sets them is the judge of what they are or should be.

That isn’t to say we don’t have a strong point of view, though, because we do. Our approach is about leveraging technology for the sake of a city’s citizens. We don’t advocate tolls. Or not advocate them. We don’t advocate city centre cameras. Or not advocate them. We do advocate, say, holistic multi-modal solutions for transport, leveraging technology where and when applicable (this is where my son says, Dad, you sound like Dilbert). We want progress through making the overall systems smarter. And that approach has many facets, completely dependent on the community, city or nation in question.

In the end, Dana’s answers his own question with exactly the right answer:

The smartest city will find ways to support both. People and goods have to get around. But they also need destinations. Getting off the freeway and into the crowd is the challenge.

I believe – and many of the people I work with believe – that the Moses vs. Jacob is a false dichotomy. It isn’t about one or the other. The world has moved beyond that – our problems are too complex and interconnected.

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“Zugleich müssten die technologischen Möglichkeiten der Lkw-Maut erweitert werden, kündigte...

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Die intelligente Bushaltestelle… konzipiert vom MIT für ATAF - Betreiber des öffentlichen Nahverkehrs in Florenz…

Liefert interessante relevante Informationen, ist interaktiv, vernetzt und sieht recht schick aus…

Erste Kommentare stellen Ähnlichkeiten zu Star Trek Technologien fest - andere bezweifeln die Alltagstauglichkeit, gerade wegen Vandalismus. Wir werden sehen - es wird auf jeden Fall ein interessantes Experiment…

Florenz auf dem Weg zu einer “smarter city”.

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