This was in my inbox today, and sure it’s a sign to tell me “do it now”.
When it comes to research, a topic close to my heart; it seems these days the majority of us focus on “the activity of getting information about a subject”, where it really should be “careful study that is done to find and report new knowledge about something”
Given my profession, I have been preaching this for as long as I can remember; and even in today’s world we don’t say search or research but say “Google it” when really, quite possibly means doing a research and involves the most if not only of it. This is one assumption I can not live by: Google equals internet equals search equals research equals free, voila! You have all the information you need.
I was at Social Media Masters Conference few days ago here in Toronto and so glad I attended this top notch social media conference, summary of the conference with links to presentations are available here; you can follow #smm2011 on twitter for conversation and more insights.
One particular session had me wowed and wooed was “The Future of Social Intelligence” by Scott Briggs, who is Sr. Director, Social Strategies and Insights at Alterian. To me, social intelligence is no difference than business intelligence, it is essentially the management and analysis of customer data from social / business sources, used to activate and recalibrate marketing and business programs, to move business forward.
More and more businesses have come to realize that, having access to the tools or platforms is simply not the answer of it, the goal is to use the insights they discover from dashboards (tracking) and act on it to reports ( updates) to improve offerings (customer segmentation, product development, potential market), and none of the task can be done via automated systems, or through technology along.
My wise dear friend, Judith Samuels sums up well in 140 characters above.
Few companies start to understand the power and really keen on gathering and forming the intelligence, but until they see it as an ongoing process, not just a stage and are willing to commit to the investment in the resources (talent and time), we still have a long way to go.
Just like search = research.
