If you take the big theme in corporate boardrooms- ROI, add onto it the possibility of brilliant data viz and then think about the iPad as the device of choice for high flying CMOs, with this you have to think that the Excel spreadsheet is going the way of the dodo as a measurement tool and interface,
Instead you are going to have a real-time live feed that looks glorious and tells you everything you need to to know at a touch of a button. There will be no need to wait for this week's numbers, the hourly numbers will be right in front of you and not only that, they will be correlated and comparable with your media investments, your daily brand performance and your social media stats.
Data is the new gold and those who find ways to make it more user-friendly and relevant are going to be onto something big.
Everyone knows the social media measurement industry has expanded to the point where there are now a variety of options and choice, further evidence of the maturity of this business is that we are now seeing services develop for specific verticals.
One nice example, comes from Next Big Sound, you can see their key dashboard visuals at the top of this post.
They describe what they do as follows:
We believe in the power of data to transform the music industry.
The listening, discovery, and purchase decisions of millions of consumers has moved online and the pace of this transition is only accelerating.
Next Big Sound provides a centralized place to monitor all the behavior and activity happening for artists both online and off.
This is just an example that shows one piece of the puzzle heading down a very vertical avenue. We are likely to see more of this because industries will want to benchmark their performance against category rivals.
We are still a long ways from the single real-time dashboard, but when this arrives, it's going to be very interesting to see what happens. Marketing teams are going to have the data to make informed decisions like never before and this new future offers both promise and peril for those in the communication business, depending on how clients to choose to use it.
There's going to be a real broad need for disciplined data teaching, learning and transfer of best practices with clients and inside communication agencies.
Data Analytics will have to move from the back office to the front of the house.
Posted by Ed Cotton
Taking a look at the technology list and its surprising to see Google Wave topping the list and the Palm Pre come in at no6.
While both these products generated conversation, they can hardly be called massive successes. It goes to show that although we are trying to get our brands talked about and that's the goal of communication, that alone is no guarantee of success.
Google Wave has the potential to be very interesting, but it has a number of hurdles to overcome. People don't really know how to use it and there don't seem to be many folks with accounts. Perhaps if it becomes integrated into Gmail, it will have more success. When the team demoed the product it looked very exciting, but people were let down by the real experience because they didn't know how to use it and none of their friends had accounts.
The Palm Pre got out of the gate fast, but never built on the early momentum. This was mainly due to the stiff competition from Apple and more recently various Android offerings.
Net- Volume of conversation isn't a bad thing, it's just no guarantee of success. The product has to transcend the hype and deliver something that is highly competitive and differentiating. It suggests there's a need for finesse and nuance when planning these resulting conversations.
What do you want people to talk about? How you encouraging them to do that? Where are they doing it? How can you learn and refine as you go-making sure you guide the conversation.
Posted by Ed Cotton
(1) Created by an enterprising design company in the UK, Wattson and Holmes (the Brits are good with naming puns) are an elegant solution to measuring your home's energy consumption.
Wattson is the sensor unit and Holmes is the software that allows you to see snazzy graphs and data.
Utility companies have some of the worst brand reputations in the world, they get no respect because people feel they are being gouged, a tool like this could help repair their broken reputations and image.
The beauty of the device is that it makes people personally accountable for their consumption and gives them data in an easy to use and understandable format.
We need more tools like this to show people how their individual actions can make a difference.
All Wattson and Holmes now need to do is to hook themselves up to a networked community so the cumulative impact of users energy savings can be measured.
Posted by Ed Cotton