ExactTarget reported in their paper, “Subscribers, Fans, and Followers: The Social Break-Up”, Feb 1, 2011, that a top reason (44% of respondants) for unliking a Facebook Brand was “The Company posted too frequently”. Among other reasons: 43% said “My wall was becoming way too crowded with marketing posts and I needed to get rid of some of them”. 38% said “The content became repetitive or boring over time”. 19% said “The content wasn’t relevant to me from the start”, 17% “The company’s posts were too chit-chatty – not focused on real value”. All of these reasons cited go directly to the concept of relevancy. When does content become too much? When it ceases to be relevant. When do you want[…]

One application of social technology to a transportation problem caught my eye today: social flights. There are two civilian air travel economies – the public and the private. Private air travel, on private jets from quasi-public air fields, is a completely different experience. For one, there is no invasive security. Delays are fewer. Service is better. The drawback is the cost. Very few people can afford a private flight. Enter the what if. What if the coordination problems among a large group of people could be reconciled? What then? Why, you’d be able to take a private jet with a number of like minded people, at a coordinated time, without delays and harassment – and probably do it for less[…]

The goal of a forecast is to make an accurate prediction about the future state of a system based on the best available evidence. The goal of target setting is to make a statement about a desired future state – with or without a forecast. Targets are political artifacts. You can read all about such dynamics in public policy here. Forecasts, ideally, are scientific artifacts. The interplay between forecasts and targets is particularly interesting. Those who produce sophisticated forecasts should understand that the motivation of those probing models is to assess whether or not a future state is possible, or, in certain situations, just how probable a given scenario could be. Don’t become trapped into the mindset that a trend[…]

Yesterday I participated in my first TTMM event, and spoke on ROI. Like any first contact situation, you know they have their points of view, value systems, and language. And the least you can do is have knowledge of why you think the way you do, and why. I told the story about how different versions of ROI is rooted well before anybody in the room had been born. And it’s such a contentious issue because it goes directly to one’s being. ROI is the reflection of your own worth to an organization, and naturally, as such, it’s going to be contended. The approach taken in the Syncapse Value of a Fan study was selected for a very specific reason[…]

I started tweeting right around when I started blogging on analytics – between May 8 and May 18, 2008. It kicked off professional public speaking, intensified my contributions to the WAA, and pushed me even more into a weak tie among diverse communities. I knew most of my followers by name, and met with most of them monthly. It was just a coincidence that 95% of them were in analytics. Even though I was living between Toronto, Calgary, Chicago, Vancouver and New York, Twitter was a localized, central hub. I was in 5 places at once. Twitter was a place where conversations happened out loud, in public, and other people who were interested in what we were interested in could[…]

Certain technologies bring about changes in customer behaviour. I’ll state that while not every behaviour-changing technology is profitable (from the beginning or ever), aiming to change a behaviour is more likely to result in a profitable technology. It’s relatively easy for me think of such technologies. Bronze, printing press, and internet are the three that come to mind most easily. The incremental evidence of benefits is what caused them to be adopted. That adoption, for those benefits, resulted in changes in their behaviour. We generally like to believe for the long-term good, though, for every social action there is a reaction. The environment didn’t benefit from bronze wielding humans too much. Certain factions certainly didn’t benefit from the press. And,[…]

The next WAW Toronto will be on July 28. It’s being held on the second floor of Bar Wellington. It’s free to attend and You can sign up to attend here. The invite: “Developers make it possible to measure anything, statisticians and dataminers work models, IAs finesse interfaces, analysts mash and managers action. Effective Analytics takes an orchestra. Lets talk to each other and see whats possible.” Historically, WAW’s attract a strong contingent of web analysts, social analysts (many from Syncapse), IA’s, a few dev’s, recruiters, vendors, and yes, two dataminers. And it’s a great mix. Let’s keep that mix and expand it. Additional invites to business strategists, eScientists, Marketing Scientists, and specialized developers.

There are three major ideas on the brain as of late. Ideas might be a dime a dozen. When I spend several hours thinking about each though, they become worth more. I can’t and won’t talk about the first. (Nod.) The second revolves around frustration with the difference between ‘design strategy’ and ‘business strategy’. Specifically – there being too much rigor in the one, and too little in the other. There are issues with the heuristic-based way of thinking, and with the algorithmic. I’ve finally just understood enough about the problem to be able to articulate it, and now going through that rage-phase where the more I research and the more I learn, the more I become upset about the[…]

I’ve been heads down with the team for awhile pounding out a study examining the value of a Facebook Fan. The results of that study were presented at Internet Week on Friday morning and can be downloaded here. I have hopes. I hope it throws some wind into the sails of people who are doing good social media marketing strategy. Absolution is frequently sought in simple numbers. The importance of activation strategy should be very clear in the charts and text of the paper. The second is for the lack of misquotes. It would be really nice if it wasn’t misquoted. The third is that I hope you’ll find it useful. In sum, take a look, and feed on back.

So just what have I been up to? I’ve been dividing my time between a major initiative and product development. Much of my involvement revolves around Evidence Based Marketing – and it’s literally that deadly. It’s that level of sustainable competitive advantage. It’s like a Philosoraptor armed with an RPG, riding a shark. Yeaaaaaaaaaaah. The most interesting aspect has been the integration of measurement science with information architecture with development with creative with product development. There are continuous collisions between the desire for intuitive simplicity with utility with robust functionality with elegant design with data accuracy – all within budget and a desired launch date of yesterday. The best business models are those which you solve a problem for a[…]