ROI of Twitter

Interesting study for B2B and B2C clients on the value of Twitter. Granted Twitter commissioned the study but the numbers are interesting none the less. Thanks for posting #TwitterforBrands.

Evolution of Curation and the rise of Brand as Publisher

Here is a good video from Disrupt 2013 conference in NYC on how Flipboard is adding users and changing the way people curate and consume content.  If you can't watch all 20 minutes, here is a link to the summary from Techcrunch. They give some good pointers to publishers and eager brands on how to think about content development as well as content access.

I think this is something brands should take note of as it delivers value beyond the products and services they sell. This is important in terms of content curation and original content development. This is no doubt the next evolution of digital however, will clients commit and stay the course to build and nurture a community or will they defer in favor of short term sales goals. 

This content marketing approach aligns with themes surfaced in books written by Lester Wunderman and Joseph Jaffe. Choosing to focus on relationship marketing to drive acquisition goals is a mental operational shift but can strengthen customer relationship and reduce attrition.

Problem Solving

Einstein is quoted as having said that if he had one hour to save the world he would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and only five minutes finding the solution.

Good context for us all as we think about our day to day work. Good post I found about how to think about solving problems big or small (or should I say understanding them). Not only is identification/understanding the problem important but also exposing and challenging assumptions. 

Here is a useful post I found that gives a framework for how to improve problem solving.

Einstein’s Secret to Amazing Problem Solving (and 10 Specific Ways You Can Use It)

The Data Imperative

"The most important [thing] is cultural change about how to use data."
An interesting cultural shift in business? Seems intuitive but perhaps not. 
How 'big data' yields productivity and profits -  This video is excerpted from the interactive "Competing through data: Three experts offer their game plans" on McKinseyQuarterly.com http://bit.ly/olLwDg

Love Data

To follow up on my "For those that love infographics" post, I wanted to share a TEDx talk from Jer Thorp.   It's called "The Weight of Data". Beyond his enthusiasm for data and technology it is a very real and human way to show how data can be valuable in storytelling.

Collusion tracking visualization add-in from Firefox

First, I am a digital marketing professional and proponent of personalization and the value that cookies can provide to enhance user experiences (in both professional and personal life). With the news that Internet Explorer 10 will be released with web tracking defaulted to off and watching this latest TED video from CEO Gary Kovacs it gave me pause to see how people are gaming the system and how data collection on the web is still very much a nascent space.



I used the the Firefox add-in called Collusion to show the number of people that are tracking me as I migrate the web. I visited five sites and found 25 companies tracking.  This is a really interesting tool and one that brings up valid privacy concerns. Beyond ad exchanges, and ad servers who are all these other companies and how are they getting tags placed?

For those that love Infographics

Infographics are the new hot thing these days and you see them everywhere. I personally believe they are valuable tools in providing context and storytelling. If you have data and looking to roll your own, below are some emerging applications that make it easier to bring your story (and the data) to life. Also as inspiration, included are a couple of links to sites that aggregate infographics. 

Information is Beautiful - from David McCandless
Infographics from Good.Is Magazine
Infographics from Mashable.com
Cool Infographics
Daily Infographic - organized by topic

For those who want to geek out...
DataVisualization.ch
Flowing Data



Easel.ly is my personal favorite lately. More functional than most of the rest and more customizable.


Visual.ly is interesting as well but it's really about tapping existing data sets to tell a story. Not as customizable.