Pinterest Releases New Business Tools, Gets Analytics from HelloInsights

Pinterest has announced that they are improving what the site offers its business users. The content sharing website has released new business centered guides and tools to help these companies promote their brand across the social platform.

Pinterest has been steadily improving their system since moving into the public sphere from an invitation only policy last year. Recently security updates to the system include a  website verification feature and user blocking.

Appealing to the Business Side of Social Media

By adapting a new set of tools Pinterest aims to make the website more appealing to businesses. According to a blog post from Cat Lee, Pinterest’s product manager, the company has instituted some new polices and tools that are geared towards improving their services.

Businesses who wish to use Pinterest merely have to sign up for a business account or convert their current account into a business one. By having a business account, Lee says that content on the website will be optimized to help improve the business customer experience, such as being able to verify their official website and adding key buttons and widgets to an account to improve customer traffic, such has the Pin It Button and the Board Widget.

As way to separate how the site works for the individual persons and businesses, Pinterest has also split their terms of service into one policy for the everyday user and one policy for businesses. Also, as way to ensure that businesses can use Pinterest successfully, the website offers a variety of help guides, which include:

• Case Studies: Users such as AllRecipes and Etsy have provided information, tips and metrics, so that others businesses can learn from their success.
• Best Practices: These guides show users how to properly navigate and engage customers through Pinterest.
• How-to Guides: These guides include the basics of Pinterest, such as a how to use Pin It, to more in depth reports, such as how to properly use Pinterest as a marketing tool.

It’s All About Analytics

The introduction of a more business friendly Pinterest isn't the only business centred news for the content sharing website. Science today has launched HelloInsights, a Pinterest analytics platform that helps users track their company's growth and interactions with customers. This tool joins other Pinterest-centered analytics tools, such as Pinfluencer and Curalate.

A free, leader board based platform, HelloInsights can either be used from Pinterest or the HelloInsights website. Some of the key factors that it tracks for businesses include:

• Tracking the must influential pinners and ranking pinners based on their overall influence on others.
• Moderating pin virality.
• Companies can see their real-time presence through a “Live Pin Stream.”
• Companies can schedule automatized pins.
• Companies can create custom charts to see how their company compares to its competitors.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Consumerization of IT: B2B Buyers Edition

More enterprise IT buyers than ever before expect e-commerce to be more consumer like, a new hybris study reveals, and nearly all large companies surveyed said their suppliers needed to make their websites easier and more compelling to use. 

Buyers Want Better Online Experiences

We want our work email to be as easy to use as our gmail, and we want our shopping experiences to be as easy as buying on Amazon, right? Think of the disruption Amazon has caused so many retailers and it's easy to see why so many IT buyers are expecting a similar experience for their businesses. 

In its 2012 State of B2B E-Commerce report, hybris found that while B2B buyers prefer to buy online, the supplier websites they have access to are woefully in need of an upgrade. Fully 71% of respondents said they still work with suppliers who don't offer any online ordering.

That doesn't mean most of those suppliers are doing catalog only offerings, but there clearly are a few. We have to believe those companies are getting an earful from their customers at this point, but even for those who do have e-commerce sites, the experiences offered are apparently a bit behind the times.

E-Commerce Changing Fast

Hybris is a leader in the e-commerce space, according to Forrester, but the landscape is shifting so quickly even its spot on that list is not assured in the near future. The State of B2B E-Commerce report found three distinct benefits of buying online most often cited by the B2B procurement specialists surveyed. These buyers want to be able to place orders when it's most convenient for them. Normal business hours being the limitation there. Respondents also said it was faster and easier to track those orders online.

One of the biggest problems found with existing supplier websites was they were simply cumbersome to navigate. Furthermore, while customers want to be able to buy and browse at their leisure, the study also found they would still be willing to work with a sales rep. This was especially true for those with budgets over US $1 million. 

As a warning to those IT suppliers who have yet to optimize their websites or upgrade at all, the study found two out of five respondents had switched suppliers because it was too hard to find what they wanted. Let us know in the comments if your suppliers have needlessly hapless websites or if you know of one who has recently updated with a better system or service.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

The Current State of Social CRM [Infographic]

Just as companies are getting more comfortable with social media, they are still learning how to capture and take advantage of all the information they're gleaning from their fans and followers.

This month we'll be exploring the role of Social CRM and how it can impact and improve the customer experience.  Many of us already have customer relations management systems in place, but they aren't necessarily connected to the places customers are. By plugging social media networks into your customer database, companies can begin to add relevant and useful information about their current and prospective customers so they can deliver better customer experiences.

Social + CRM

Now that more brands are using social media to engage with their customers, more and more are learning interesting things about them. How can you effectively manage your customer lifecycle so that you can make sure you can deliver the right information to the right people? Additionally, as users start using social media to ask questions or seek customer support, companies not only need to be actively responding and listening to customers, they need to be documenting these communications within their CRM so they can ensure that all call center agents can know what conversations are taking place and where.

However, just because you have a Social CRM in place, doesn't mean the hard work is over. There is more pressure than ever to convert social media engagement into leads and conversions. It's essential that the right people, from marketing to sales team members are plugged into the Social CRM so they can take advantage of the valuable information being funneled into it.

A Social CRM provides many opportunities to create a full perspective of each customer and prospective customer. What would you do differently if you knew not only where they were and what they were saying, but having it update in your CRM system?

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Forrester Report Finds Enterprise Embracing Open Source WCM

Cloud services provider Acquia has commissioned a Forrester report on open source WCM, and while the results are not overwhelming, it does show more enterprise companies are employing open source systems.

Nearly 60 percent of the 160 companies surveyed said they had at least considered open source for their WCM programs. The report also found that executives who make these kind of decisions are also the ones who are least likely to be very satisfied with their choice. 

Open Source Successes

Acquia certainly has a stake in the findings in this report. As a cloud services provider specifically for the open source Drupal ecosystem, Acquia would love to see more large companies adopt the open source ethos. Forrester found several large vendors who have successfully adopted open source CMSs, and there were a few reasons why those companies enjoyed that success.

Company infighting seems to be what is holding enterprises back when it comes to successful WCM implementation.

Company culture and classic marketing versus IT fighting may be the biggest reasons businesses failed to implement a new Web CMS, but let's look more closely at the number two reason: lack of a company wide strategy. This obviously goes hand in hand with number one, but at least Forrester has some recommendations for how to build that strategy. They are, in order:

• Required a solution that allowed for more customization and flexibility.
• Prioritized integration between WCM and other solutions to support digital customer experiences.
• Focused on more than just cost reduction.
• Made specific plans for supporting the open source WCM deployment.
• Understood the myths and reality surrounding open source security concerns.

First, most companies agreed that open source allowed for more flexibility and customization. One survey respondant, a UK educational institution, told Forrester that when using a proprietary system, it took nine to 10 months to add a new feature. With open source, they were able to add functionality within days.

As for combining systems, the all-in-one solutions often offered by vendors does not seem to fit with those companies who had adopted open source. These companies preferred a best of breed approach, and often realized the power of the developer community to assemble system components.

How to Choose an Open Source Web CMS

If you've been skeptical of open source in the past, you have nothing to fear from what Forrester says:

Open source has by and large achieved a higher level of technology maturity over the past several years and have demonstrated some success in large-scale web deployments."

It's not just entertainment, media and traditional education that are finding success with open source, the report reads. Governments, pharma and retail are having success with it as well, a sure sign it should not be excluded when evaluating Web CMSs.

Because open source allows for downloading entire systems for test driving, this is a decided advantage when doing an evaluation. Be sure to try out those prospective systems and contact the developer community for extra insight and validation.

Open source is not perfect, of course, so areas like support and implementation should be explored carefully. There are developers and system experts out there who have built networks on top of open source software. That way, many IT aspects can be outsourced including core platform support, module support, module creation and enhancement, system upgrades, integrations and 24 x 7 x 365 infrastructure and uptime.

Acquia, of course, offers just these kinds of services for the Drupal-based platform. The company has even begun diving into digital marketing with its latest release, called OpenWEM. Tell us in the comments if you've had reservations about open source in the past or if there are some concrete reasons it simply won't work for your purposes.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

HootSuite Teams Up with Compendium for Added Content Marketing Muscle

Managing social media teams with HootSuite just got a jolt of marketing juice, thanks to the integration of Compendium's content marketing tools.

Compendium helps companies create content for customized distribution, and its partnership with HootSuite now allows for that content to be saved as a HootSuite draft. Once the Compendium material is saved as a draft, it can then be scheduled and sent out to selected social networks.

Both Companies Growing

HootSuite and Compendium are both growing, and the list of their respective new integrations is proof of that. Because they are both involved in sharing the same or similar content to different networks and channels, this partnership is fairly intuitive.

Compendium has recently teamed up with marketing automation big shot Eloqua, and with cross-channel marketer ExactTarget. Both of those partnerships kicked off this summer, but more recently,

On the other side, HootSuite announced  Webtrends analytics integration, a new chat feature and a centralized Command Center tool in October.

Social Media Strategy

Compendium and HootSuite both can help companies build and deploy social media strategies, and Compendium even compiled some specific tactics it gathered from 200 companies into a little how-to infographic. It shows the best times to publish to each channel — Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter — how long the posts should be and a few do's and don'ts we never thought of.

LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook have different peak visit times for B2C and B2B companies.

While this is hardly a controlled, comprehensive study, it does give insight into what many marketers are thinking when it comes to social media. We think the main takeaway here is that reusing original content is extremely valuable.

HootSuite and Compendium are hoping businesses will use their tools to help spread those messages to the right people at the right time. The free integration is available to all HootSutie Enterprise customers and is located in account settings.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Silicon Valley Companies Adjust To A New Norm In Washington

Techies may be heroes in Silicon Valley. But in D.C., they’re just another special interest--and they’re finally coming to accept that.

Illustration by Bigshop Toyworks

When companies set up a lobbying presence in Washington, they tend to stay under the radar. There's much to learn there. But when Google arrived four years ago, it threw itself a debutante's ball at its hip D.C. digs--serving "YouTubes" (vodka cranberry shooters) to Washington's power set. The company was signaling that it planned to handle Washington on its own terms, something then-CEO Eric Schmidt reinforced on the interview circuit. His team would win on the strength of ideas, he said, and not the Rolodexes of Washington lobbyists.

But in a few years' time, Google fell in the sights of a congressional antitrust probe. Soon it was hiring a dozen lobbying firms, running inside-the-Beltway advertising, targeting key lawmakers in their home states, and hiring a former Republican congresswoman to head its lobbying shop--all moves ripped straight from the D.C. playbook. Google had gone native.

This is becoming a common story. Many tech companies were slow to the D.C. market. Partly, that was on purpose. For years, Valley players saw Washington as anathema to innovation, a place they were dragged unwillingly. (See United States v. Microsoft.) But eventually the garage startups that once worried about survival grew into multinational corporations concerned with regulation and taxes. And they grudgingly began making their way east.

Some arrived on the USS Know-It-All and proceeded to hand out their wisdom to the doddering old Luddites on Capitol Hill. The sooner they could explain this crazy Internet thing to the senior citizens who run the government, the sooner they could get back to improving the world with whiz-bang innovation. Or at least, that was the perception among some Washington veterans--on the Hill and K Street alike--who would privately grumble about the new kids' arrogance. To be fair, on tech issues many lawmakers ran closer to dial-up than broadband speed. Still, they had the power to essentially regulate the tech wunderkinds out of existence, and that reality seemed to be lost on many of the Valley kids.

The year 2012 may have begun differently--with a show of force among tech companies that effectively killed the online privacy legislation known as PIPA and SOPA--but the quieter months that followed are what truly define this new relationship. For as much of a watershed as the victory was, it belies an industry still struggling to find its footing in Washington. Companies are learning, as Google did, that everyone plays by Washington's rules, not the other way around. It's a particularly difficult, and frustrating, lesson for innovators accustomed to transforming industries. But now they've accepted the rules of the game. In September, Google, Amazon, eBay, and Facebook officially launched The Internet Association, a trade group aimed at becoming the "voice of the Internet" in Washington. Other companies are mulling over whether to merge their Washington trade associations so they might speak with a stronger, more unified voice. Honing that voice isn't easy: These are companies with disparate and competing interests. And even those tech outfits joining together are seeking lobbyists to represent their corporate interests.

Now policy makers are delving into issues, such as wireless spectrum and privacy, that will profoundly shape the industry's future--and the once-irritating D.C. noobs are getting real. That's why Facebook, for example, recently increased its Washington wattage, hiring former Clinton, Bush, and Obama White House aides and a former spokesman from Senator John McCain's presidential campaign. Earlier this year, Facebook and Google dumped record amounts of cash on their Washington lobbying operations. Between April and June, Facebook spent almost $1 million. And Google bested its second-quarter record by spending $3.9 million--a sum that catapulted it to the top ranks of influence.

Source : fastcompany[dot]com

You Say You Want to be a Media Company

Many companies say they are different because they are a true media company on the Internet or that they aspire to be a true media company. But what does that really mean?

Content Suggestions

• Understand that we are in a 2+ screen world, where people are watching their TV or a Netflix video, while texting with their iPhone (and in some cases, even working with their laptop).
• Relinquish control, which means join your fans on other social networks and platforms (this sounds obvious, but most people still want to bring their fans home to their site).
• Identify your relevant fans and tribes: Where they spend their time? How they speak about your products and your competitors’ products? Who are the leaders? How do they help each other out?
• Know that your work is never done, meaning that once you post something it is part of an ongoing story (you can add more later on).
• Go beyond text and incorporate video, photos and more.
• Wear multiple hats: Curator, Editor, Organizer (inviting guests to participate) and Host (invite your users to contribute to your site and find out what they need for their own site).
• Establish brand, tone, etc. consistency across multiple channels (iPad, Web, etc.)
• Interact face-to-face, such as in Google Hangout’s NFL Fantasy Football forum!
• Turn each commenter into editor by encouraging them to contribute to the discussion.
• Concentrate editorial content on “people” — their stories, their lives, etc.

Questions to Keep in Mind

Paid Content came out with a list of the most successful media companies that included Twitter, Amazon, Gawker, BuzzFeed and the Guardian, but here are some questions I have:

• Is Amazon creating any of its own content or successfully curating third party content (yet)? I know they are working on this.
• Is Twitter doing real “content programming” or generating real ad revenue?
• Is the Guardian turning a profit? (This would be important for a successful company : )

Organizational Requirements

Finally, companies need to have the kind of organization that:

• Makes quick decisions and does not get bogged down in office politics or in over analyzing the right approach (I always liked it when my former boss said, if you are 65 percent sure something is the right decision, then go for it and implement it).
• Scores their decisions and determine how well they make them, how fast they make them and what’s entailed (What resources are involved?).
• Provide clarity on whom they are targeting, what the offer is and why you are offering it (and continue to refine over time).
• Building a learning environment which is one of the key things people are looking for these days. I always believe in the “Learn, Teach, Learn” approach which requires an individual to teach something they recently learned to others.

What does it mean to you to be a media company? What is entailed? Which businesses qualify?

For me, the definition would have to be a company that produces or curates content and distributes that information on two or more screens. It also entails thinking holistically about your content strategy, knowing that it is not just words on a page, but rather the look and feel, the taxonomy of the site, the tone and voice of the site and how all of this is shared via multiple channels and platforms.

Oh yeah, you are probably asking, “OK, Wilder, who is a successful media company?"

One company that comes to mind is Bloomberg LP (and I am not just saying this because I am a native New Yorker : ).  It meets all the criteria I list above. For a great article on Bloomberg, check out what the New York Magazine recently had to say about them.

Editor's Note: Interested in reading more by Scott? Then check out Don't Learn Social Media on the Fly

About the Author

Scott K. Wilder is a founding partner and digital strategist at Human 1.0, a customer focused business consulting firm. Before Human 1.0, he created the award winning Intuit Small Business Community. Scott has been using interactive media since the early 1980s and on the Internet since 1991.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Amazon, iCloud, LinkedIn: Your Most Beloved Businesses Are Backed By Bain

Mitt Romney's private equity firm might be a symbol of corporate greed in a fierce political season, but Bain Capital Ventures invested early and deeply in companies you probably patronize all the time.

Here’s what you probably know about Bain Capital, the private equity company cofounded by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 1984: It buys up shares of companies like KB Toys and Dunkin’ Donuts, offering sweet bonuses to board members and loading the company up with debt in order to finance “dividend recapitalizations.” Maybe you read Rolling Stone's piece in late August about how Bain’s financial moves helped net Romney some of his fortune and left a trail of laid-off long-time employees in its wake. Even the Wall Street Journal in 2009 produced a list of 11 companies affected by dividend recaps, and Bain made the list twice as an investor in KB Toys and Warner Music Group. During tonight’s first presidential debate between Romney and President Barack Obama, you’ll probably hear the name Bain Capital often enough to fuel an energetic drinking game.

Now here’s what you probably don’t know: If you’re a fan of receiving quick shipments from Amazon, use Apple’s iCloud to store your favorite songs, or recently updated your LinkedIn profile, you’ve boosted the bottom line of Bain Capital.

Let’s connect the dots.

How do you think that box from Amazon (a Fast Company Most Innovative Company) gets outside your front door just 48 hours after you place an order--with free shipping, to boot? You’ve got Massachusetts-based Kiva Systems (another Most Innovative Company) to thank for that, and Kiva Systems has Bain Capital Ventures to thank for most of the seed money that got it off the ground. Kiva created a fulfillment model based on burly, but compact, orange robots that shuttle stacks of inventory around massive warehouses.

During tonight’s first presidential debate between Romney and President Barack Obama, you’ll probably hear the name Bain Capital often enough to fuel an energetic drinking game.

If you’ve recently purchased the iPhone 5 or upgraded your legacy device to iOS 6, you’re taking advantage of the software’s cloud-based music management properties developed by Lala, a company backed by BCV that was acquired by Apple (another MIC--you seeing the trend here?) in 2009. BCV led multiple financing pushes, including the Series A round in January 2005, that helped move the company’s business strategy from CD-swapping to cloud-based uploading and licensing of songs. Apple acquired the company for $80 million in December 2009 after bidding against Google.

Over half of the $103 million in venture funding LinkedIn raised from 2003 until its IPO in 2011 came in 2008 when Bain Capital Ventures and three other companies made a Series D investment. That round of funding helped the business networking service expand by nearly a factor of 10--from just over 100 employees to 1,000, and from 17 million members to 100 million.

While Bain Capital Ventures has over 100 companies in its portfolio, and each has its own story, Bain’s work with Kiva Systems from 2004-2012 seems standard enough to be educational. And it resulted in Kiva founder Mick Mountz’s fully formed company being purchased by Amazon in March for $775 million, netting BCV a hefty windfall.

Ajay Agarwal was Bain’s top venture executive on the Kiva Systems project and doesn’t want to ruffle the feathers of other companies in the portfolio, so he hesitates to rank it in the company’s top-5 all-time, saying, “We’ve been involved in a lot of successful companies, it depends on how you measure it” before rattling off BCV connections with LinkedIn, Doubleclick, Liberty Dialysis, and SolarWinds. (There’s Tennis Channel, Vonage, Princeton Review, Minute Clinic, and others, too.)

“But we were investors pre-revenue, and we were the largest shareholder, and … the absolute return on dollars was significant,” he says, unable to reveal specifics. “The limited partners and folks at our firm were thrilled about it, it was a very good outcome and an outstanding outcome for Mick and his team.”

Agarwal is being modest when he says 99% of the credit goes to Mountz and his colleagues, who wrote the code and built robot prototypes that made order fulfillment more efficient for warehouses. In fact, Bain’s long-standing connection with Staples led to an important trial run for Kiva.

“Bain’s venture capital group is a fund inside of the larger Bain Capital, and the private equity portfolio they had included companies like Toys-R-Us, Burlington Coat Factory, Michael’s, and a bunch of others,” says Mountz. “We felt as a small startup, if we were out trying to pitch our idea and get some reviews, their portfolio would serve as a natural backstop because they’d worked with so many businesses that were attractive to Kiva.”

So with funding came customer introductions but also an important vote of confidence that helped the startup allay clients’ concerns about handing over their precious warehouse inventory to robots. Even after hearing Mountz's pitches in 2005 and 2006, Agarwal says, “No one wanted to be the first guy to have this worst-case nightmare of robots running amok in their warehouse--no matter how compelling the value proposition was.” So BCV helped get Mountz an audience with Don Ralph, Staples' top executive for logistics in North America.

Once Kiva Systems proved itself with Staples, more clients like Walgreens and Diapers.com followed.

After a few years, what some potential investors saw as a $100 million risk started generating cash with just a third of that investment. Eventually it became an appealing target for Amazon.

“With a modest investment and long-term patience they were able to create a sizeable business that employs a lot of people,” says Mountz (over 300 in the Boston area), noting that Kiva also makes its robots and ships some of them to European installations. “[Bain’s] been able to create a mini jobs engine in the Boston area and a manufacturing exporter.”

In the final phase of Bain’s involvement with Kiva, it was a key advisor on hiring decisions--COO, CFO and others, something with which Mountz says he was glad to have help. And Agarwal says the Kiva timeline is a fair representation of how Bain Capital Ventures works with most companies.

“We are very active investors on the venture side,” says Agarwal. “Fifty percent of our investments are early stage, first institutional funding or Series A, and 50 percent are more growth-oriented. In both cases we tend to be the largest institutional shareholder, we tend to be the most active member on the board and the lead director on the board.”
Investments from private equity companies like Bain Capital don’t always work out, as some stories have noted and you’re likely to hear tonight. For Mountz a notable list of others, it clearly did.

“It’s another business model, like selling insurance is a business model, they all have their pros and cons,” Mountz says. “Selling hamburgers is another business model that’s killing Americans if you believe that movie [Super Size Me]. But the things private equity guys are doing inside the businesses they buy are the exact same things that good management teams inside any business are doing anyway.”

So if you do play that drinking game tonight, remember that no matter which side of the aisle you support, the shot glass you use might not have made it into your hands without Bain Capital.

Source : fastcompany[dot]com

NewBrandAnalytics Targets Hospitality Industry with Social Monitering Tool nBA 3.0

Social media monitoring has become social listening — which has, in turn, become social market intelligence. There is so much being said online and in the cloud about restaurants and hotels that companies like newBrandAnalytics are sweeping in with digital tools to help businesses make sense (and cents) of it all.

The company's nBA 3.0 social monitoring tool listens to what people are saying (or complaining) about restaurants. The software boils this information down into mission-critical insights that help managers and marketers make decisions to improve the customer experience.

Hospitality Industry Benefits

While newBrandAnalytics nBA 3.0 could be used for any type of business, the company is pushing it as a way to help service industry types get a handle on social media. Making data-driven decisions is hard when your main focus is on the customers sitting at your tables. 

NBA 3.0 lets businesses to see what people are saying on review sites and social media. This lets them figure out what their customers like and — most often — what they're complaining about. (We all know how easy it is for people to go off on Yelp or Twitter about their lunch.) The company says that by using nBA 3.0, restaurant groups and hospitality managers would be able to:

• Uncover and fix product, pricing and value issues
• Measure service effectiveness and identify training opportunities
• Pinpoint trouble spots with equipment, suppliers, internal processes and delivery
• Understand competitive benchmarks and discover ways to win new customers
• Connect directly with reviewers to increase customer loyalty

Now that this level of social media saturation is getting down to the restaurant level, it provides a good opportunity for service establishments not only to connect with their customers — but also to see what the competition is up to.

Track engagement, get feedback, and make decisions based on location or brand.

The Importance of Customer Experience

In the retail and hospitality industries, those companies focused on repeat business need to get busy finding their biggest fans online. Whatever value people may put into online reviews, there's no harm in reaching out to those influencers and connecting with them. It shouldn't be difficult to see what complaints people are posting on Facebook and Twitter, and then measure which areas those complaints are focused on.

Using an nBA 3.0 tool called Instant, companies can set up alerts to notify managers about problems as they come up. That way, the right person can contact that person in real time. NBA Advantage is a tool that can lay out metrics like sentiment for understanding what makes customers happy. Let us know in the comments what businesses have ever contacted you because of something you tweeted or wrote on their Facebook.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Most Marketers Are Curating Content, Whether They Know It Or Not

Many companies are actively sharing content with their customers in an effort to better assert themselves as thought leaders in their industry. Sharing others' content is often referred to as content curation — but Pawan Deshpande, CEO and founder of Curata, says that you won't hear companies describe it that way.

You Say Content Curation …

Recently we spoke with Deshpande, whose company specializes in content curation software, to discuss the benefits and challenges of deploying a content curation strategy and to provide insight on the future of the expanding curation market.

Earlier this year, Matthew Ingram wrote, “It’s called curation if you like it, aggregation if you don’t.” But according to Curata's recent Curation Adoption Survey — which included responses from more than 400 marketing professionals — most people don't know what content curation is.

But many — if not all — of these marketers are engaging in content curation activities. According to the survey, of those marketers who identified themselves as non-content curators, all of them had, in fact, curated content in some way — by finding and sharing "an article, blog post or other content with a prospect in the past six months."

Additionally, these self-identified non-content curators are sharing content for the right reasons: to position themselves as authoritative resources within their industry.

Benefits & Challenges of Content Curation

If the intent is to establish credible thought leadership, is it working? According to the survey, these unknowing content curators are not only recognizing the importance of sharing fresh, relevant content with their audience on a daily basis, they are seeing tangible outcomes as a result. According to Curata’s Curation Habits Report, people who curate content to a website on a daily basis enjoyed 18 percent higher click-thru activity than those who curated content on a weekly basis.

Still, the benefits of sharing content are directly related to the quality of the content you’re sharing. Where are these marketing professionals finding their content? Social media is the preferred channel for finding online content, but email newsletters are also gaining popularity.

• More than three quarters of marketers (79 percent) cited social media as a preferred service for finding third-party content to share.

• Almost two thirds (63 percent) indicated that they also used email newsletters to find third-party content, which represents a 29 percent increase over 2011.

Marketing professionals noted that while they enjoy the benefits of content curation, finding the time to discover the right content is among their biggest challenges. Many are still employing manual strategies to scan online sources to find content — and it’s only getting harder.

The Future of Content Curation

As the number of marketing channels increase, the amount of content to be gleaned also increases. This makes it even harder to find better, more reliable content that's worth sharing.

Deshpande says he is confident that, by making it easier to discover, organize and share content around specific topics, content curation will continue to benefit companies — and also help them work smarter. Curata is continually adding channels through which users can find and share content — as well as supplementing content with rich resources like pictures and quotes — in an effort to provide a more robust experience.

Overall, if companies are sharing content with the intent of promoting their thought leadership, who are we to complain about what they're calling it? But it stands to reason that, with a little more awareness about what content curation is, those who do it could have access to better tools and best practices — which would help them become more efficient.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Weekend Reading: Time to Show Big Data Who's the Boss

We've heard the tales of how quickly companies are amassing data. We've seen the capacity to store and create data increase at a dizzying rate. We've heard the warning tales of big data thrown around so much it's taken on the status of the bogeyman.

Our contributors this week offered some hard-earned wisdom to help calm our fears about the big data deluge. But as soon as our fears were relieved about big data, we were told to fear content marketing and had cause for concern about the future of SharePoint Designer. 

Curious? Read on. 

Taming the Big Data Beast

Three Big Data Rules to Live By

Chelsi Nakano (@chelsi): The Internet walks into a [karaoke] bar: “Every breath you take, every move you make…I’ll be watching you.”

In today’s increasingly connected world, practically everything we do creates an electronic record. Every purchase, every status update, every Like becomes a part of the digital ether — a tiny but permanent speck in the growing collective. And as organizations continue to amass this so-called Big Data, so grows the pressure to prove its intrinsic value. If you’re lost as to how, you’ve got a lot of company.

Is 'Big Data' Marketing's Next Frontier?

Trip Kucera (@tripkucera): Big data is everywhere, both literally and figuratively. On the figurative side, it’s hard to escape the hype about big data, the term appearing in headlines of major national newspapers and business publications (most recently the cover of the "Harvard Business Review"). But the hype is happening for a reason, and that’s the amount of data we’re all collectively generating in our off- and on-line worlds.

Analytics: Tap into Data to Build Real Customer Relationships

Tyrona Heath (@tyrona): With the explosion of big data, most businesses are acutely aware that they are sitting on a mountain of untapped data, struggling to get an in depth view of the customer. Along with the rise of social media, multiple disruptive forces like empowered consumers, shrinking budgets, insanely fast innovation cycles and an ever growing number of channels underscore the importance of making marketing informed by data easier.

Reaching the Empowered Customer with Data-Driven Marketing

Lisa Arthur (@lisaarthur): The average consumer in 2012 is very different than the average consumer 10 years ago. For that matter, consumers today are a lot different than they were 10 months ago. Empowered by technology and with instant access to vast quantities of information, people have new rules for shopping, communicating and even relaxing. The bottom line is that consumers are now data-driven, which means marketers have no choice but to dive even deeper than their customers and competitors into the information goldmine.

Discussion Point: From Data to Decisions -  Real-Time Analytics Support the Customer Experience

Katie Ingram: Every organization captures data — social media analytics, customer interactions, website traffic and other metrics, the list goes on. That the amount of data collected is growing exponentially is no surprise, that technologies are emerging every day to help us capture and analyze this data is also no surprise. But how are these analytics and data support tools changing to help better support the customer experience and what can we expect from these technologies in the next few years? That's the question we asked our esteemed panel in today's Discussion Point.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Should Justin Bieber Invest In Your Enterprise Solution?

In recent years, an increasing number of startups and big-name companies have looked to celebrity backers to boost their brands and street cred. Here, four questions to ask your celebrity investor before taking the plunge.

Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, 50 Cent, Ashton Kutcher: A-list celebs, sure. But they're also members of a Who's Who of new-age venture capitalists and product developers. That is, at least according to public perception.

In recent years, an increasing number of startups and big-name companies have looked to celebrity backers to boost their brands and street cred: investors in Airbnb and Spotify include Hollywood stars and chart-topping artists; Beats Electronics has created headphones for Diddy, David Guetta, and Lebron James; and Justin Bieber recently graced the cover of Forbes under the the headline, "Venture Capitalist." But what they get depends on how much these celebrities are actually involved in their investments. What makes celebrity investment better than a traditional celeb endorsement of, say, McDonald's or Pepsi?

For a number of reasons--the generally sensitive nature of investments, sharp-elbowed celebrity publicists, and so forth--rarely does the public get insight into this area. But certainly the perception, at least in the press, is that certain celebrities have an innate business sense. Speaking with a range of entrepreneurs in the space, we look to see whether this reputation is warranted, or whether it's just Hollywood marketing 2.0. Below, a cheat sheet for you to tell the difference.

Are they Beliebers in your product?

For most entrepreneurs, it all comes to what celebrities represent the right fit for their startups, and whether they are authentically interested in the products themselves. Sure, popular celebrities can bring much attention to a startup, but they have to engage with a startup's products in order for the relationship to be effective. For one entrepreneur, with backing from several A-list celebrities, it's incredibly important that a celebrity actually believe in a product before investing in it. For example, the entrepreneur says, the celebrities interacting with the product, whether on TV or elsewhere in the media, brings an attention that is unrivaled so long as it's genuine. "There's kind of an intangible value to that," the entrepreneur says. "That's something you almost can't put a price on."

Robert Brunner of design firm Ammunition LLC, which has notably developed the Beats by Dre headphones, agrees that authentic involvement is crucial, though acknowledges it varies from celebrity to celebrity. "It always works best when the celebrity is involved for reasons other than economics--where there's an actual passion there. With Dr. Dre, he's been fairly involved with the physical design, and really gets involved in the tuning and the sound. This is personal to Dre; it's a reflection of him," Brunner says. "Some other [celebrities] though, well, I've never met, and only get feedback through three levels of channels."

One startup founder, who has myriad celebrity investors, argues that a celebrity's involvement must be mutually beneficial to both brands. "You don't want someone making an investment just like they're selling some new bottled water," the founder says. "It's not like signing a deal with Pepsi where you have to do three events and a commercial. Are they really emotionally invested--and not just financially invested--in the product?"

In that sense, it doesn't matter how many followers a celebrity has on Twitter or how much engagement they could potentially create. If they're not the right fit for your startup--and your product--then it won't matter. In other words, microloan platform Kiva might not want Charlie Sheen as an investor. Inversely, Lindsay Lohan might not have been the right fit to have invested in enterprise social network Yammer before it was acquired. "[Celebrities] probably shouldn't go investing in productivity tools," the founder jokes.

Are you starstruck?

Talk to entrepreneurs about celebrity backers and you'll inevitably soon be talking about press attention. "If you look across TechCrunch once a day, you're likely to see at least five companies with big-name angel investors," the startup founder says. "But I don't feel it's all that useful to have a name--to just have a vanity investor. It's not just a matter of getting any celebrity X, Y, Z."

Brunner too contends that it works much better when "it's more than just a name play," when it's not just "hollow celebrity branding." He cites doing design reviews with Pharrell and Lady Gaga, who get involved with the product development to provide feedback and inspiration.

"Name recognition hasn't meant anything to us," says the entrepreneur with A-list backers--a celebrity endorsement can't mask a poor product. The product has to be able to stand on its own.

Having celebrity investors is beneficial beyond what headlines their names can generate, most argue. "They're involved in the product itself, the decisions we're making, giving us input on what they think we should be doing across the board," the entrepreneur says. The startup founder agrees, explaining that celebrities are also very "helpful with introductions, with campaign and promotional ideas."

Is Kim Kardashian really the New Reid Hoffman?

Still, as much as celebrities might boost engagement among fans, provide feedback and marketing prowess, as well as generate media buzz, the fact remains that celebrities are not exactly venture capitalists or product gurus, at least in the traditional sense. Sure, Bieber might be slated a new-age VC, but as the startup founder told me, "It's like he understands liquidation preferences or how to structure a term sheet."

So be warned: Don't expect Kim Kardashian to lead your Series B round. But also remember that celebrities entourage--for every Vincent Chase, you're likely going to get an Ari Gold. "They have smart managers, smart lawyers, and smart agents--they're looking to bet on companies and categories that are going to be winners," says the startup founder.

Have you considered the downsides?

One source deeply involved with the celebrity investment community describes the downsides of working with artists and actors: "The problem is most of the higher-level celebrities do not know or understand good design. They kind of know what they think is cool or looks cool, but it doesn't necessarily translate into good products. Another thing dealing with musicians is that in the music industry, you can change a recording until the last second it's published. You really can't do that on a product. So the problem I constantly run into is people wanting to go fuck around with this stuff late in the process which is just catastrophic on a development schedule."

Source : fastcompany[dot]com

Study: In the Enterprise, Tablets Without Training Can Mean Anything But Sales

As an increasing number of tablets make their way into the enterprise, and as companies scramble to establish BYOD policies, there remains an important question:  is anyone making an effort to train the users about the proper use of their devices? The folks at the SAVO Group were also curious about this.

Tablets - Training = Angry Birds (and Bosses)

SAVO Group cites a study conducted by the Sales Management Association (SMA), "Mobility: Where Your Sales Force is Heading (With or Without You)". The study found that among the 26 percent of participants who reported their organizations are providing tablets for sales representatives and the 43 percent who said their organization supported the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend, an overwhelming 67 percent are not being trained on best practices for utilizing the tablet during customer interaction.

The study also revealed that respondents were using tablets for communication, web access and social media applications rather than customer presentations or CRM applications. In the absence of formal training and policies, tablets are quickly becoming a costly investment in email, social networking — and no doubt, Angry Bird tournaments — for sales representatives.

Adopt an Effective Tablet Strategy

What can you do to ensure that some enterprise tablet users don’t disrupt your organization? SAVO Group recommends having a clear adoption strategy, prior to deployment, noting that it should include training those who will using tablets for specific purposes related to sales, inventory or customer service. Not only will this serve to increase adoption, but ultimately, it can also help to drive revenue growth.

Organizations should also consider aligning their applications with a sales process and distributing well-defined usage goals. This is particularly important as 77 percent of those surveyed mentioned their desire to include sales process integration with their iPad adoption. Participants also weighed in on the types of tablet applications that would make them valuable for sales representatives. Most often mentioned were apps that included:

• Access to approved corporate materials (74 percent)
• Virtual white boarding (74 percent)
• Multimedia applications (69 percent)
• Webcast hosting (63 percent)

While there is a strong feeling in the industry that tablets won't be replacing laptops anytime soon, it's clear that they can play a role in the enterprise — provided they don’t compromise your security or complicate tasks. But like any emerging technology, it’s important to educate and promote awareness about how to use it so that it becomes an empowering tool — not a disruptive one.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Document Management Roll-up: Alfresco Hints At New Release, Google Drive Editing For iOS

Now that Labor Day weekend is over, companies are shifting into high gear to prepare for the holiday push. Among the document management products being released in the next two weeks the general release of M-Files v9.0 and something new from Alfresco. This past week, Google Drive editing capabilities for iOS were upgraded, while enterprise content management looks set to grow in the EMEA region.

Alfresco Moves

Alfresco is due to make an announcement early next week about a new product that will offer businesses syncing simplicity between the cloud and on-premise content.

In the meantime, anticipating increased business interest in the US, Alfresco has announced plans to expand both its management team and Atlanta headquarters. The new appointments are focused principally on building the sales team — specifically, by appointing someone to chase federal sales and consulting initiatives, as well as beefing up its sales department generally. More on this next week, when we can take a look at Alfresco’s new release.

Enterprise CMS in EMEA

Even in the current economic circumstances, Enterprise CMS is set to grow, according to new research by TechNavio. In particular, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region is set to grow between now and 2015, which may come as a surprise to some in light of the difficulties in many European economies.

In fact, it won’t just grow. According to the report, Enterprise Content Management Market in the EMEA Region 2011-2015 ,  growth in the enterprise CMS space will be in the region of 13.8% compounded annually between now and the end of 2015.

This period will likely be marked by an increasing number of mergers, of which there is ample evidence already. The report also identifies OpenText, IBM, EMC and Oracle as the big players, but there will still be considerable activity from smaller players like Hyland, Laserfiche and Newgen.

In fact, looking at the brief summary of the report at hand, it looks like a profitable three years with growth expected across the entire EMEA region.

M-Files v9.0

As the end of the month approaches, M-Files is getting ready to offer M-Files v9.0 on general release. At the core of this release, the company says, is advanced support for customer deployments that require multiple document repositories, or vaults.

Multiple repositories can create considerable problems, as we have seen in the past. M-Files president Greg Milliken says that v9.0 offers better interaction and cooperation between these repositories. Using new replication abilities, V9.0 aims to streamline the process of dealing with one of the main problems of multiple repositories — relating data to other relevant data in other repositories.

While an exact date for the general release hasn’t been given, it will be available by the end of the month. More on this then.

Google Drive Improvements

Finally, if you missed it earlier this week, Google has announced that it is expanding the functionality of Google Drive for iOS and Android users.

Already up and running, users of the new iOS Drive app have the same document-editing ability that users of the Android Drive app already possess. They can also create new documents and format text as well as view other people edits.

In fact, there is a whole range of functionality that has just come on line that will make working in Drive on iOS considerably easier.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Bitrix24: Social Intranets Getting Smaller - Average of 4.9 Users Per Network

Social business is a billion-dollar industry, evident with how big companies like Microsoft are willing to acquire startups like Yammer in their quest to dominate the enterprise market. However, there is one factor that service providers seem to miss: small businesses.

12 Users or Less

According to Bitrix24's CEO, Dmitry Valyanov, social intranets are becoming smaller and smaller. "Our own data shows that the average intranet network size in Bitrix24 is 4.9 people, which means small businesses have already embraced the new technology," says Valyanov. However, he expressed disappointment with how vendors seem to focus their solutions on big companies "with hundreds or thousands of employees."

We earlier featured Bitrix24 as a cloud-based social intranet platform for small businesses. The main highlight of Bitrix24 is its integration of various online tools in a lightweight platform. The SaaS offering provides project management, document collaboration, file sharing and CRM. Everything is managed over a rich social layer, which provides an activity stream, collaboration tools and IM.

Valyanov says the fact that Bitrix24 offers its service free for up to 12 users is a good reason for small business to come onboard. Meanwhile, a tiered pricing scheme is likewise provided for bigger organizations.

Mobile Access

Three months since its beta launch, Valyanov says the service is already catering to 10,000 small businesses. However, there is still one area that Bitrix24 needs to address soon: mobile.

With mobility being espoused by bring-your-own-device (BYOD) setups in the workplace, employees and connected professionals are increasingly turning to varied platforms for communication and collaboration needs. Gone are the days when IT managed the corporate Blackberry implementation; users are now toting their iPhones, Android devices and Windows Phones.

In this regard, Bitrix24 admits it has yet to come up with a mobile app, although these will "soon be publicly released," said the company in a statement.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Integrating Back-End Systems to Enhance Enterprise Mobility

It goes without saying that improved enterprise mobility is a good thing for business. Right? Putting enterprise applications into the hands of employees makes companies more productive, more efficient and they get the most out of their staff.

But there’s the rub for some pundits in this space. By enabling access to back-end systems on smart mobile devices, employees are not just able to work anywhere — they’re able to work anytime too. With businesses trying to compete in a challenging economic climate, there’s concern that employers could view enterprise mobility as a way of pressuring staff to work out of hours and on weekends, as they no longer have the excuse of not being connected to essential applications.

To Worry or Not To Worry

Is this a legitimate concern? Perhaps, but for me, this is looking at enterprise mobility and the workforce the wrong way. I firmly believe that connecting people back to their office, wherever they are, can actually improve job satisfaction and help to both retain and attract talent.

Why? One of the biggest frustrations for employees who do the majority of their work on the road is the need to replicate a lot of this work once they’re back at their desktop connection, simply because they haven’t been able to access and communicate in real-time with enterprise systems while they’ve been in the field.

Instead of getting confirmation on a sales order at a customer’s premises, they’ve had to log the details and then re-log them again once they’re back in the office or at home. Only then can they sign the deal off.

The "double-entry blues" is still rife among the mobile workforce. Without mobile apps that integrate with back-end systems in real time, the problems of lag times and poor synchronization between work processes and systems of record continue.

It’s not only an inefficient way of working, but it’s also incredibly frustrating for employees, as often the time they’re spending catching up with orders and jobs is their own, which doesn’t make for a great work/life balance.

Companies simply can’t allow this type of culture to continue. Employees shouldn’t have to waste their time on double-entry and employers need to recognize what a tremendous drain on resources and morale this can be. Sure, they can be pressured to be always on, but managers and work teams can arrive at equilibrium on this issue without shutting themselves off from the benefits of being connected and mobile.

What a Good Enterprise Should Be

The modern enterprise should be about empowering its workforce to do the best job possible — and increasingly this is something that employees will expect and look for when moving to new roles. As a consequence, those companies that aren’t able to offer comprehensive enterprise mobility may find that they’re struggling to retain and attract the best talent, severely impacting their brand as a prospective employer.

Companies that don’t properly mobilize their workforce are endangering both their competitiveness and their reputation, because the simple truth is that satisfied and fulfilled employees make for a better business.

Image courtesy of Diego Cervo (Shutterstock)

About the Author

Christopher P. Willis is chief marketing officer for Verivo Software, Waltham, MA.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Gartner: Enterprises Must Develop Bring-Your-Own-Device (BOYD) Policies

Despite the reluctance of many companies to seriously consider Bring-Your-Own-Device (BOYD) polices, Gartner says that in the coming years the development of such polices will create as big a shift in enterprise computing as PCs did when they first entered the workplace.

While that seems like a fairly dramatic claim, it needs to be understood here that Gartner is not saying that every company will allow employees to bring their own device, but that in terms of enterprise computing companies are going to have to make strategic allowances for it.

Enterprise BOYD Programs

To be clear, BOYD refers to company policies that allow employees, business partners and others use personally selected and purchased client devices, and to access enterprise applications using those devices.

The security implications and threats are clear. So much so that earlier this year we saw IBM decide against allowing workers to bring their own devices despite having started off with a BOYD policy that enabled them do this. IBM stated at the time that it was afraid that sensitive data would find its way outside the workplace and into the hands of competitors.

The result, in this instance, is that device use in IBM enterprises is strictly controlled, and smartphones and other devices that have not been vetted are off limits — including unapproved PCs.

Developing BOYD Policies

While this may appear to go against Gartner’s claim, which is contained in a research paper "Bring Your Own Device: New Opportunities, New Challenges" by David Willis, it actually falls in nicely with what Gartner is saying — that all enterprises in the future will have to develop BOYD policies.

Factors that are necessitating the development of such a policy include mobile innovation that makes even the most powerful smart devices affordable for most employees, as well as making upgrades easier and less expensive.

Rather than entire enterprises trying to keep up with the pace of change that this is encouraging, it will be easier for enterprises to develop a policy that enables their employees do this, while at the same time keeping data and networks safe from outside interference.

A typical BOYD approach would involve permitting users access rights to certain enterprise applications and information on personal devices, subject to enterprise security arrangements, demands and management policies.

Enterprises, for example, may provide a list of acceptable devices that the user can choose from. The IT department may then be able to offer partial, or even full IT support to users, along with full, partial, or no reimbursement to users that sign up to it.

Theoretically, everyone here is happy. The employees gets technology they want and are used to working with and get support for the work applications that they want to use. For enterprises that reimburse there will often be initial economic advantages as employees take up special offers from vendors that are only available to individuals, and enterprise security is guaranteed.

BOYD Drawbacks?

Except that according to Gartner it won’t evolve like this:

Just as we saw with home broadband in the past decade, the expectation that the company will supply full reimbursement for equipment and services will decline over time, and we will see the typical employer favor reimbursing only a portion of the monthly bill. We also expect that as adoption grows and prices decline employers will reduce the amount they reimburse,” Willis says.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Survey Says More Companies Hide from Social Media for Customer Support

It's an interesting dichotomy — as more CIOs embrace social media, more companies are shying away from it for customer service.

More CIOs Embracing Social Media

An article in Public CIO declared that CIOs Flock to Social Media, citing that “a relatively small, but growing, contingent of public CIOs are prolific social media users, fearlessly Facebooking and eagerly contributing to the blogosphere and Twitterverse.” By chronicling the experiences of a handful of CIOs, Jessica Meyer Maria describes how being active across social media has helped them collaborate, network, recruit and gain valuable insights about their industry.

More Companies Hiding Social Media Channels

But as CIOs start recognizing the benefits of being on social media, a report from Genesys showed that many Fortune 500 companies are shying away from listing social media as a means for customers to contact them.

Not only did the survey show that 55 percent of Fortune 500 consumer facing corporations fail to list a Twitter handle on their “Contact Us” page, and 51 percent fail to list a Facebook page, but that similar information is also missing from 27 percent their website home pages.

So why are companies hiding their social media channels?

It’s hard to say for sure, but as more consumers turn to social media to voice their complaints or seek additional information from companies, it’s not inconceivable that some companies may not want the attention. Little do they know that regardless of whether or not they let their customers know where to find them on social media, people are talking about them.

Many companies are still struggling to embrace social media and are not confident in their ability to deal with customer queries and complaints via social media. Try as they might to hide, they’ll soon discover that it will do more damage in the long run.

Bridge Social Across All Touchpoints

Instead of hiding from their fans and followers, companies are behooved to resolve the disconnect by developing a customer service strategy that not only integrates social media channels across every customer touch point, but understands the benefits that it can bring to promoting brand recognition and loyalty.

Hopefully, as more and more CIOs join the ranks of social media users, they’ll help bring their companies out of hiding.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Innovation From Outer Space! Exploring NASA's Mars Effect

When NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars, the world was watching. Here's a look at two companies who received an innovation bump from working on the rover.

When the Curiosity rover successfully landed on Mars, it was the culmination of years of fevered NASA planning. Curiosity was NASA's first large-scale public space exploration mission since the Space Shuttle program ended, and the SUV-sized rover's dramatic landing made headlines around the world. NASA, however, isn't a one-stop shop. Getting Curiosity to Mars and sending pictures back to earth required extensive collaboration with hundreds of private firms. The extensive R&D programs required to get the Curiosity rover going spurred technical development around the world, creating benefits that will return to the consumer goods market.

Curiosity's technological development included world-class power, software engineering, telecommunications, and aerospace technology. Innovations that researchers have worked on for years can also be leveraged for more earth-bound use. Just think of it as the Mars Effect.

Amazon and JPL collaborated on a massive cloud video streaming service that hooked directly into NASA's satellite feed

Siemens PLM, a division of the massive multinational dedicated to product lifecycle management software, helped develop many of the software tools used to develop Curiosity. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) used the company's software suite to simulate the Martian environment in stress tests over the past few years. “Almost ten years ago, JPL engineers needed to meet rigid deadlines and needed a software suite. We put together a high quality, almost unprecedented product for them,” Siemens' Tim Nichols tells Fast Company.

The PLM software gave the space agency the CAD, computer aided manufacturing (CAM), and computer aided engineering (CAE) tools necessary to design Curiosity. Using the software suite, NASA was able to both design Curiosity's mechanical parts and to run it through extensive simulations of Martian conditions.

When Curiosity arrived on Mars, NASA turned to Amazon's cloud to transmit images to Earth. Scientists at JPL used Amazon Web Services (AWS) to store and capture images and metadata from the rover. By using cloud servers, the space agency was able to cope with the massive worldwide demand for images from Mars. In the course of a few weeks leading up to Curiosity's landing, Amazon and JPL collaborated on a massive cloud video streaming service that hooked directly into NASA's satellite feed.

According to Khawaja Shams, a software engineer at the JPL, the laboratory began using cloud services approximately four years ago. Amazon's solution offered the JPL a rapid way of getting video and pictures from Mars to millions of viewers on Earth. NASA procured extra equipment for the big burst in viewing as Curiosity landed on Mars and coordinated closely with Amazon to make sure they'd be able to get video to worldwide audiences. In order to get video off Curiosity, NASA used a variety of backend systems that performed admirably during the global news spectacle.

The JPL has an entire department, the Mars Science Laboratory, that is dedicated to working with the private sector to create innovative technology for Martian exploration. Large aerospace and defense firms such as Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics created parts for Curiosity, as did a host of smaller firms.

NASA already has another Martian mission planned. The InSight lander is scheduled to land in 2016 with high-tech seismic equipment to examine the planet's core. Lockheed Martin has won the contract to build the InSight Lander.

[i]For more stories like this, follow @fastcompany on Twitter. Find Neal Ungerleider, the author of this article, on Twitter and Google+.

Source : fastcompany[dot]com

OpenText: 5 Components Of its New Enterprise Information Strategy

Many companies faced with a growing number of channels and ways to access information just push ahead and hope they will hit on the right formula to stay in the enterprise information management space (EIM). Not OpenText. The changes in the market are so profound, its new CEO Mark J. Barrenechea has redefined the company’s strategy in five key areas.

OpenText’s Strategy

In fairness, there isn’t a huge change in strategy to the one that it has been following over the past couple of years, but the fact that it has been written down and that OpenText is publicizing the strategy does indicate that it is very clear as to where the company is going, at least in the medium term.

Obviously, the announcement is all part of the getting-to-know-you process between Barrenechea and the rest of the information management world after his appointment and the retirement of John Shackleton last January.

But it is also the sign of a confident company in the face of a market that is changing at an incredible rate; a case of “this is where we are, and this is where we’re going”, something many companies are still struggling with at the moment. Summarizing enterprise concerns and where the new strategy comes from, Barrenechea said:

We live in a world where the firewall is no longer the boundary for business…Today, information is mobile and lives everywhere - in the cloud and on premises. Organizations planning for the future require new, more dynamic ways to utilize information across social and mobile applications, manage everything from compliance to security leaks and enhance business processes and information exchange with customers, employees and partners…”.

Cloud, Data, Mobile Strategy

And that’s the key to this strategy. OpenText is building a business that is cloud-based, data-centric, mobile-enabled and agile. While it is not throwing out the old-ways — on premises applications and the like — it is fully embracing the new.

The change process began last year, Barrenechea says, before he came on board, but it is he who will develop and implement the strategy.

Generally speaking, it focuses on the next generation of enterprise software that will enable users to get the best out of their information, while at the same time still offering full governance, compliance and security.

Five EIM Pillars

As yet, there isn’t a huge amount of detail about this strategy, but we will be talking to OpenText over the coming days to fill out the skeleton we do have. In the meantime, these are the five pillars moving forward:

1. Enterprise content management: OpenText says that it will continue to build enterprise content management systems that offer users better insight into their data and provide more impact on their business. It also covers the development of information security solutions, ensuring confidentiality, privacy and access.
2. BPM: Another OpenText favorite and one that it will also continue to build on offering improved business impact, automation and management of business processes. In the OpenText stable it also comes with dynamic case management for multi-step processes as well and business modelling.
3. Customer Experience Management: Barrenechea also says they will be building around customer experience management with a focus on providing users with targeted and optimized information to create better relationships with their customers.
4. Information Exchange: This is one of the real enterprise sore points; how to exchange information between users internally, as well as getting information outside the fire-wall via file transfer, cloud-based file sharing and mobile synchronization.
5. Discovery: OpenText is also focusing on the discovery of information. It probably sounds a little bit more exotic than it actually is, but the basic idea is to be able to find information across enterprise systems. This is achieved through the application of intelligent metadata, as well as linking structured and unstructured information across multiple formats.

As you’ve gathered from this there isn’t a great deal of detail of how it is going to use, or develop, these five different components. In the next few days we will be talking to OpenText and will outline this strategy in greater detail then.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com