Big Data and the NBA

In a digital world, data is everywhere. Never has human behavior been more measurable and tools to recognize patterns more accessible. So it should be no surprise that in sports, the figure-fondling arena of commentators and insatiable enthusiasts, big data is changing the way in which we watch.

The best example is the NBA.

In a announcement from the sport organization, best outlined in an article from Fast Company, the NBA has partnered with SAP and STATS LLC to elevate expectations to an free interactive real-time platform that layers specific data points for fans.

The platform works through a six-camera system that tracks the players’ names, numbers, and the ball. The data is stored under three silos: in-game tracking, historical data, and video. So, fans can collect and compare favorite teams or players’ stats and film. According to Michael Gliedman, senior vice president and chief information officer for the NBA, they are aspiring to a database with 4.5 quadrillion permutations.

This investment in measurement by the NBA is an exceptional example of how sports organizations are pushing to deepen engagement with fans and get more use out of their content. And with cutting-edge programs such as these, the idea of fantasy sports no doubt just got a whole lot more fantastic.

Campaigns Worth Noting: Land Rover's #IAMDRIVEN Campaign

Personalization is the honey of the comb that is social media marketing. People buzz and remain around a brand that allows them to be and share who they are.

Land Rover understood that when they joined up with Men's Journal, ESPN and Outside magazine to create the #IAMDRIVEN contest to highlight the launch of the all-new Range Rover Sport.

The contest asks for fans and owners of Land Rover to share on Instagram and Twitter their storyboard/video about how they are "driven to another level." 

The recorded feats will then be evaluated, according to Luxury Daily, by a panel based on creativity, nature of challenge and visual fulfillment of overall theme (aka brand compatibility and usefulness). 

Land Rover will then choose six winners to profile and the overall winner will be treated to a two-night stay at the The Land Rover Experience Driving School at the Quail Lodge in Carmel, CA. The previously listed media partners will then be highlighting a series of videos about daring outdoorsy individuals such as paragliding photographer George Steinmetz and underwater explorer David Lang.

This campaign epitomizes brand contests happening on social media that unify both the consumer and brand's interests. The brand provides the arena for customers to tell their personal stories and have a bit of fun, while the brand profits off the publicity and the excitement of its fans. And then when it comes to recognize a winner, the brand gives a special arena that all participants feel they have a stake in and outsiders can be drawn into, all of which feel rewarded by the success of a single participant.

It's clever, cost-effective, and most importantly engaging. The #IAMDRIVEN campaign has all the makings for great outreach and customer engagement, I just hope selected winner will drive the Range Rover Sport 2014 equally as wild.

The Sol Wave House Leads Twitter Use in the Hospitality Sector

Perhaps precedented by restaurants choosing menus by whatever keyword food items are trending within their followers, hotels have also taken new heights into incorporating social media into their customer experience.

As mentioned in Time Magazine, Spanish hotel Sol Wave House (on the Magaluf Beach of Majorca) has built out a virtual community across their private WiFi network, and Twitter, to enable hotel guests to connect with one another and share their holiday experiences. Seemingly one part hookup network, one part extra convenience, customers can tweet which Bali Bed they're using to what food or drink they would like delivered. The Twitter experience permeates even to events with corresponding hashtags and party suite amenities that match Twitter's branding.

It's unclear how much of this online activity is private versus public, but there is no doubt the Sol Wave House (@SolWaveHouse) would prefer as much as possible to be public. Which, while make some elder generations wary, will seem an extra layer of convenience to a digital generation that would be tweeting, Facebooking or Instagramming their swimsuit selfies anyways.

It will be interesting to see what potential this experience has for others in the hospitality sector, especially more traditional customers that fear the internet and see hotels as incredibly private experiences, but until then -- two mojitos to #BaliBed6 please.

Three Reasons Why Your Tech Startup Will Fail

A tech startup is an excellent way to change the landscape of a particular industry or truly make a name for yourself in the digital sphere. There's never been more resources at our disposal nor people ready to adopt new digital products. However, this is not to say the market for startups is an easy sell. Here are three crucial elements, that if not taken into consideration, can cause any tech startup to fail.

1. It isn't cool.
From the user experience to the market materials, in the competitive world that comprises startup culture your business needs to be cutting edge (not a remake of Pinterest). The idea must connect with a simple need that an audience you can reach will quickly understand. The question of, Why? Should be answered within five seconds.

The branding should be as intuitive as the user experience. It should syndicate seamlessly with other platforms (sign-ins through primary social networks speed up the process of getting started and enable easier cross-network promotion). Special attention to mobile is a must. Responsive website design for both tablet and mobile is a must. Geotargeting should be strongly considered, but may not be applicable for all. You are selling to the top digital decision makers -- people that know what their time and information is worth. They also know what developments exist and every step you miss is another ping of doubt as to whether investing their time in your app will be a complete waste.

Is it worth their time? Is it worth their friends' time?

2. Your profit margins are too far out, and you're not prepared for them.
As any business goes, your startup is only as valuable as the people you have using it. It doesn't matter if you angel investor dropped five million into your project -- if no one uses it, no one gets paid.

With that in mind, who you hire needs to be aware it could be months before they get paid. This doesn't mean you can't recruit top talent, but it does mean you are going to need to pander a bit to land and keep them.

Your leadership must be a top notch relationship builder. They must identify which top talent has potential as brand evangelists. Once talent is hired on, that leadership must come through on every promise made. Running a quality company on a shoestring budget is not cheap, it is paid for by the blood and sweat of leadership meeting the expectations of their employees. These employees are not working for your company because it is a job, it is because they are passionate about what they do and who they work for.

And yes, a few interns aren't a bad idea either. Just please be sure to reimburse them better than the man delivering your company sandwiches.

3. It doesn't make enough money.
We've all seen "The Social Network" and listened to Justin Timberlake, as Sean Parker, spout to Jesse Eisenberg, as Mark Zuckerberg, that trying to make money off the early Facebook was a big mistake. That no one knew what it was yet, and to (I'm paraphrasing here) let it gestate to maturity.

Yes, this is great advice, but on the other side of the coin eventually your investors will come knocking, your staff will want to be fed, and all those promises you made will need to be delivered. Facebook was revolutionary, but we don't need to reinvent the wheel. Tech business models have been developed with real business marketing dollars that users are growing increasingly familiar with. Adopting, or at least considering, a few of these strategies is a great step toward giving your employees and investors a plan.

A plan gives order to chaos and even if it isn't how it probably will work out, it gives people a sense of control so they can get on with their best work and the idea that you all believe in can truly flourish.

Had any experience with a failed or successful startup? Would love to hear about your experience.

3 Reasons Why Social Media Belongs In-House

Agencies are not your best brand evangelists, your company and your customers are.

They are the people whose hours and dollars are invested into your brand vision. Agencies are still great for many things -- outsourcing campaigns, producing company materials -- but running a company's social strategy is not one of them. Here are three reasons why.

1. It's No Longer About Selling

Starbucks's in-house team has made them
 one of the top social business in the world.

Since the golden age of Mad Men, agencies have held a firm position in the marketing industry as the aficionados of how to connect with business demographics. That is, until the dawn of the Internet and the relationship between a business and their customer fundamentally changed. Before, the relationship was about selling -- shooting adverts and testimonials at people in the hopes they would stick and those people would become customers. Expensive focus groups and polls had to be run to procure the insights that drove market spending. Now, along with developed technology and the expectations of the consumer, this selling relationship has turned into a two-way highway of information where customer feedback is faster, at lower cost and (ideally) acted upon in real time. In social, time is the enemy. Any excess communication between agency-company exposes a brand to more human error and more opportunity for competition to act faster.

2. Social Isn't a Silo Department, It's a Business Model

You can't outsource social media because inherently social media is about conversing directly with your customer. Social media, like customer service and CRM, is an investment and should pervade everything your company does. Say your Hoover vacuum cleaner breaks down and you call the customer service hotline. Upon taking your call you immediately hear a voice from another country. Quickly this tells your customer your business chose a lower cost alternative to solve your customer's needs and in turn lowers the value your brand places on that service. This then puts the customer at a further distance from your brand and widens the opportunity for miscommunication.

What could happen instead, in a social environment with a comparable budget, is the entire foreign customer service agency could be replaced with a small dedicated team of internal social specialists. These specialists would work across free social networks to engage and assist customers and build up a relationship with customers before they even get to the point of frustration. Say your Hoover is losing power and you're noticing it is getting worse and worse, you could tweet to Gary @Hoover and within a few hours (the average Twitter user expects a business to respond within four) you will get a follow up of either the corresponding link to said issue or a personal email address to someone within the company to work with. No longer is the customer and their issues kept at a distance, but brought in as part of the company culture and community.

And this isn't just limited to customer service. Social is an element that links each department to their end result: the customer. The greatest resource a business has is their employees, and when they treat them well, they don't only get top quality work but loyal brand evangelists. Connecting these employees/evangelists with customers should be a no brainer. Entire shows are devoted to how consumer products are made. Expensive television commercials constantly use employee testimonials to introduce customers to their people. It all closes that chasm and brings the consumer closer into investing with their brand and its process.

3. Control, Ownership and Risk

Nike, another top performer in the social space,
 brought their social strategy in-house in 2013 to get closer to fans.

Your brand's social media network is your brand voice. It is your company database of previous, current and potential customers as well as a history of interaction of what works and what hasn't. So the question is: Does this feel like the place you should be shying away from responsibility? Don't you want to control who speaks your company's voice and interact with them personally on what you want? There are great agency account executives out there, but very rarely does adding another person to a conversation help with clarity (let alone budget) of content between two parties.

In the end, if the people within a company care about the people that are their customers, they should want to be the people that own those interactions. These interactions are the human fruits of their labor and they should be analyzed, responded to and championed as true KPIs. It is the next generation of business to answer the needs of the next generation consumer -- and the best way for that to happen is to start from within.

The Value of Being Anonymous in an Online World

Since pre-commerce has taken over the e-retail space, customers have turned to public forums to learn what products and services to choose. Smart companies have taken great lengths to own these spaces, facilitating open, unmoderated (or at least seemingly) feedback boards where their customers can not only assist each other but provide the company insight into what the evolving customer's needs are.

Anonymity, if used honestly, can add an extra layer of protection for employees and customers to be more honest and less concerned about consequences of their feedback. Anonymity, if used poorly however, can result in false testimonials by competitors and personal attacks by spurned customers or employees.

The underlying question being, "If someone hides their identity does that make someone more sincere or less accountable?" and "What lines can we draw in the sand to procure the protection while negating the trolls?"

For better insight, let's look at these platforms.

Reddit, and many gaming networks, thrive on anonymity. Whether it's to discuss taboo subjects or not be judged for their interests, these have become places where true identities are almost completely removed - but interestingly enough there is still order. This self-policing by the network happens because you still have an identity, it's just an alternate one, and the more that is invested in these alternate identities, the more someone cares about their good standing with the network. Note that this accountability exists completely removed from their real world existence and has little to no potential to harm that reputation.

Twitter has been criticized for their overt display of number of followers. It is often said it is a popularity contest and that it is not indicative of any real quality user (ex: top influencers include Ashton Kutcher, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga). However, if critics were to be avid Twitter users they would realize how quickly someone's followers drop when they are negative, blatantly promote products or falsely impersonate others (unless they are really, really funny at it). Like almost all networks, if you do not have a profile picture NO ONE will follow you. Twitter's identities are closely tied to an individual's real identity, and while impersonal accounts exist, it often takes a longer time for users to trust/follow if unfamiliar.

The most important network where anonymity is almost irrelevant is LinkedIn. Other than viewing profiles anonymously, LinkedIn thrives because users attempt to appear to be as true to their real selves as possible. Any falsehood is regulated by the networks monitoring of how do you know each person, and two way confirmation connections. This network exists because of its goal to represent and simplify reality.

Going back to the original questions of whether anonymity results in more sincerity or less accountability - the answer seems to be to get users to see the value in the forum and to respect and understand its purpose. Sincerity is power and whether that sincerity is tied to a real or alternate identity, it really doesn't matter. When customers are invested, whether it's their true self or alternate self, they will give honest feedback and disregard those opinions that are not tied to invested in identities.

Doing One Thing and Doing It Right: How EyeEm Is The New Instagram

If there is one takeaway from the insatiable growth of Instagram, SnapChat and Pinterest, it is that there is a lot of potential in photo-sharing. Along with photo-filter options, it's a short yet effective way to communicate a message.

Since Zuckerberg decided to add video to Instagram there is a lot of debate about whether adding more services onto a platform is indeed adding more value. It should be no surprise that the owner of Facebook has taken this route, after his platform has adopted more widgets than Angelina Jolie has foreign family members, but what could he have done to improve Instagram instead of expand it's services? Better filters? Different interface? It's no secret that Instagram is a huge point of contention within the Facebook decisionmakers as since the purchase of Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion, they have done very little to change it or make a profit off of it. It's almost as if they don't understand it. So what do they do? Attempt to appease users while making a stake against Apple's Vine by adding the rising popular service of video.

The issue with this is that Instagram users are not inherently Vine/video users. Video has sound, takes a bit more time to put together and doesn't make our selfies look beautiful in sepia tone. But there is one app that DOES get it.

Behold, EyeEm.

EyeEm not only has better, new and improved filter options but it has improved the user experience so changes in filters and frames are in the inherent swipe of your finger across the image. EyeEm also crops in shapes other than box and puts images together in unique montages across individual's profiles.

The truly revolutionary facet however, is the tagging. Upon posting you are giving an action and a place that uses geo-targeting. The application then guesses upon your location as to what you are doing.

An example is that I was in Edinbergh this weekend taking pictures outside of a cathedral. It then tagged the cathedral I didn't even know the name of yet along with that I was praying. While that wasn't correct, the accuracy of not just predicting the location correctly but a closely corresponding action was impressive. Another example was later that weekend I was in Newcastle taking pictures whilst drinking with friends. I didn't have time to post so I just did them all the next morning on EyeEm. The app used the iPhone's geo-location to remember where they were taken and did the same predictive tags of "Out for drinks," "Dancing," or "Dinner" with each corresponding bar or restaurant by name.

It gets better. Upon using each tag a drop-down function also lets you know which tags are trending and how many pictures are tagged under those categories - a function that could be insanely beneficial for all users across all platforms. And praise Jesus, there is no need for hash signs! EyeEm uses keywords and even spaces for tags so we can do away with the obnoxious in-text, one word translating business of #omgImsosickofthis.

While EyeEm, like Instagram, still hasn't figured out how to pick up a decent profit off its services - it has done loads to improve a service many have left alone, assumably with the UX perfected (or at least 'good enough'). Thankfully, that was not the case for EyeEm and time will tell if it's the case for 100 million Instagrammers.