A social opportunity was knocking but it was hard to hear, buried under thick layers of social noise and harder to reach by the right people with the right message. Cisco knew customers wanted to engage and were using social media tools to ask questions and share about products and services. But  knowing what people were saying about Cisco and their purpose for saying it, required a strategy that met both needs.

Cisco assembled a team that would listen for and support  a customer from their first social media post through the entire engagement. Members of Social Listening, Global Contact Center and Virtual Sales teams all met to discuss what it meant to develop and nurture a social channel.

The team’s initial instincts were right. Customers do use social media to research products and just as critically they use it to purchase.  Research from the IBM Institute for Business Value analysis – CRM Study 2011 illustrates the potential and possibility of meeting customer expectations.

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Tags: radian6, salesforce, Social CRM, social listening, social media

A whopping 90% of young people use their smartphones to help them face the day …often BEFORE they get out of bed.

Even before a cup of coffee, young people grab their smartphone. They’re checking it for emails, texts and social media updates. The phone has become as much a morning ritual as the toothbrush.

When the recent third annual Cisco Connected World Technology Report surveyed 3,600 young people ages 18-30 from 18 countries about their tech habits, we found that Gen Y’s attachment to phones continues throughout the day:

• 3 in 4 check their phones in bed;
• More than a third check it in the bathroom (not sure which one makes me more
  nervous);
• 46% text, email and check social media during meals;
• 60% say they’re ‘compulsive’ about checking their smartphones and 42% admit to feeling ‘anxious’ when disconnected;
• Two-thirds say they spend the same amount — or more time — with friends online as they do in person.

My Aha! moment from this study?  I may be a Boomer, but I’m not much different.

The gap between my generation and younger ones in how we use technology is getting smaller. (In fact, my smartphone is always the first thing I touch in the morning…because I use it for my alarm clock!)

Interestingly, as we older folks are getting more comfortable with technology (and seeing its value), younger people are getting less starry-eyed. For example, more than a third suspect that people present themselves differently online than in the physical world. This year’s study also found three out of four don’t trust Internet sites to keep their data private, and nearly a third are very concerned about security and identity theft.

This younger generation’s relationship with technology is really maturing. The first year we did this report, many Gen Yers were convinced that the Internet was more important than dating or having a car.

The results from Connected World are truly global. In India, for example, 96% use their smartphone first thing in the morning. Use our interactive map on cisco.com to hover over any country and get its stats. Here’s the snapshot for the U.S.

Another of the report’s interactive graphs is discovering your “data footprint” — or how much YOU are on your devices. Are you an explorer, highly connected or — like me-- a super user?  Go here to do the test!

Here’s another way I see myself reflected in this year’s Connected World report. For many of us, there’s no clear line between work time and personal time. Work is what we do, not where we are. I used to have two phones -- one for work and one personal. Now I have one phone for both. It’s truly an integrated life.

When it comes to shopping during the holidays, many of us mix our physical world with the online world, too. Cisco’s study found 90% of the young people surveyed shop online and 58% rely on customer reviews online. Oftentimes, we go into a store, price compare on our phones (or tablets), and complete a purchase on them before we leave.

We’re in a connected world. Our phones and all our network-connected devices are becoming an intrinsic part of ourselves. Now we just have to decide which side of the bed our phone gets.

Check out all the findings from the study here on the Connected World site. As always, we’d love your comments!

Happy holidays!

Carlos

Tags: Cisco Connected World Technology Report, data in motion, Generation Y, infographic, Smartphones, social media

As the year is drawing to a close, I like to reflect on the friendships and professional relationships I have built and nurtured over the year. There are many people and organizations that come to mind and it would be too long to list them all. Let’s just say, it’s been a wonderful year and I cherish all of these relationships. For my last blog post of the year, I want to spend a few minutes to introduce you all to a friend whom I met 2 years ago in a professional capacity, and our professional relationship has blossomed into a friendship over the course of this year. Natascha Thomson (@nathomson) is a fellow social media practitioner and a fellow yogini (an added benefit in my book ). How do I know Natascha? Well, we met on Twitter…

Natascha has started several social media groups in the Silicon Valley and you may have seen her passionately giving social media tips in this video collage. Just last month, she published her first book, 42 Rules for B2B Social Media Marketing, she co-authored with other social media practitioners. This book is a collection of hands-on social media marketing tips and real-life examples you can act upon right away.  I had a chance to (virtually) sit down with Natascha to learn more about this new book. Read More »

Tags: book, social media

Mary Meeker’s “2012 Internet Trends Report put just about every industry on alert: her persuasive argument urged leaders to re-imagine nearly everything about their businesses in no uncertain terms--from advertising, to mobile to media consumption.” – Forbes, August

When Mary Meeker speaks, people listen. When she releases her annual report, people really listen. Count me on that list. Meeker, a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, recently released the updated version of her report. In it she covers the high points on the trend front, including:

• The dominance of Windows in the operating system world is diminishing (covered in a previous post)
• The number of people using the internet now includes 34% of the global population.
• Worldwide smartphone subscriptions of 42% promises to increase penetration beyond its current 17% of the mobile market.
• Global shipments of Android phones have grown nearly six times as fast as iPhones since their respective launches.
• 29% of adults in the United States own tablets or e-readers compared to 2% in mid-2009.
• Global mobile data traffic is increasing while fixed network traffic is decreasing.

I have a good left-brain, right-brain thing going. I like graphs, charts, and data. But I also like to look at how trends translate into what we do and how we do it. Meeker calls it a “re-imagination of nearly everything.” Essentially, devices, connectivity, and user experience are creating change in how we do – well — nearly everything.

Meeker quotes Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg on a similar angle: Read More »

Tags: collaboration, Mary Meeker, social media, TelePresence, WebEX, WebEx Social, Wikipedia

According to a Nielsen study, social media is no longer in its infancy.  No kidding.

During the November military confrontation between Israel and Hamas, social media played a very grown-up role.  What distinguished it from past politically-charged social media exchanges was the participation of state and pseudo-state spokespersons.  Official announcements were issued by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigade via Twitter and Facebook in near real-time.

• The IDF announced the initiation of the military campaign via Twitter, and tweeted in caps that it had “ELIMINATED” Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari in an airstrike.
• The Brigade responded with threats of retaliation; both sides posted minute-by-minute updates as the fighting unfolded.

The evolution of social media into an official communications venue should come as no surprise.  It follows a time-honored pattern of disruptive ideas and technologies gaining acceptability as they move into the mainstream.  The Nielsen Social Media 2012 study tells us that 30 percent of individuals’ mobile device time is spent accessing social media.  That qualifies as mainstream.

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Tags: Cisco Security, facebook, geopolitics and social media, Google, iran, Israel, nielsen study, social media, syria, twitter