Dreamforce turned my head!!

 I don't often have the chance to get out of my academic bubble - so when I was invited to join the Radian6 team them at Dreamforce - I jumped on the opportunity!

I was given the chance - to speak in front of an audience from practice - not students - god forbid! - about how social media listening can transform how universities interact with prospective students, alumni, and fans.

I'll save the content  of the conversations  for another post - because I need to ruminate a bit on those - in this post, I want to focus on what I learned at #DF12...

1. Social CRM is transforming large, medium , and small organizations. Leaders who have used social to communicate with their stakeholders are realizing real competitive advantage from participating in authentic conversations about their products and services.

2. Industry needs workers who are trained to think deeply about strategies for deploying social in organizations.  A skilled "social"workforce will know more than how to use communicate -  it will understand the ecosystem of resources, skills, and analytics neccessary to elicit value from social media and strategies.  To fill the workforce gap, academics need to bridge marketing, communications, and computing disciplines to create the "social worker" of the future.

3. Academics and industry need to interact - to learn more about how to effectively leverage social across public, private, and non-profit organizations.  In many ways, industry is leading academe in developing tools and strategies for deploying social media strategy - however, academic research can contributre insight in many ways - from providing rich explanations for why images evoke more responses from tweets to explanations for why messages go viral across platforms.

I learned more through hanging out and meeting the folks who are shaping the "social ecosystem" in four days than I could have in a year of reading - it was truly an amazing experience!

SMLC powers US Computing Olympiad team learning...

In June, Brian Dean, Associate Professor of Computer Science, brought some of the smartest high school students in the United States to the Social Media Listening Center for a visit.

Our Olympians suffered through this fat old professor pontificating on how social media presents opportunities for computer science - to not only make a few bucks BUT also to extend understanding of the human condition.

The Olympians weathered a rapid fire discussion of how tools like Radian6 enabled analysts to glean meaning from big social data, listened as I rambled on about issues tied to aggregating data across multiple APIs, and feigned interest when I explained what real-time analytics means for business.

Then, I did the demo - and the Olympians really did get excited.  For some reason - the kids really dig cows - maybe more than the US computing olympiad? - we built a search that included terms ranging from moo to bessie to where's the beef... cows ... cows ... and more cows ... I am still trying to figure that one out :) ...

The Olympians left happily chatting about social its connection to computer science.  I was left feeling optimistic about the future of computing in the United States.  Those kids are smart!

Later in the week, the Olympians used data pulled from that Radian6 API to visualize their own conversation cloud around computing - check it out!

Clemson Students are Wicked Smart with Radian6

So, a group of my kids in creative inquiry just rocked my world.  They're beating the snot out of the market using Radian6 to predict Forex.  Here is the abstract from their project!

Kudos to the kids.  I need to turn over my retirement account to them!

Here is their abstract for the project:

Forex, the foreign currency exchange market, is very similar to Wall
Street’s stock market, except instead of measuring the health of
corporations, Forex gauges the welfare of countries and their
respective units of currency. Through the broker, Forex.com, an
American adult (i.e. an 18-year-old college freshman) can run some
day-trading experiments with real money on a 50:1 leverage. By
observing the graphs of the currency value fluctuations, one can
conjecture as to which currency in a pair will dominate in the near
future and attempt to profit on it. After some intense research and
crude experiments in 2011, a practice account was opened with TD
Ameritrade in order to dissect the trend between the Forex market and
Twitter posts. In particular, the fluctuations of the EUR/USD pair
were scrutinized, and models were fabricated in order to turn the
Twitter feed into a consistent profit.

Students' Will to Lead: Emerging Technologies Group Project

Rather than a traditional firm and technology analysis, my students have opted to do an applied group project that examines how to leverage value from new, social technologies.

This agreement was brokered after a) students noting no online buzz around Clemson's "Will to Lead" capital campaign and b) a discussion about authenticity and an online web presence.  Rather than artificially creating a buzz (e.g., hiring a consulting company to orchestrate a campaign), my kids suggested that an emergent, authentic, student-led campaign might generate more attention and excitement amongst young alumni.  Through telling their stories on multiple platforms about how the Clemson experience builds leaders, my students hope to catch the attention of their peers & engage them with the capital campaign.

So, keep an eye on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Youtube, and Amen for a buzz around Clemson students and Leadership ... it'll be interested to see if the kids can create a larger voice around our capital campaign than the experts :)

We plan on using Radian6 to compare the student-driven campaign with the advancement-driven campaign ...

Here is the project:

By now, everyone should have found a team for the group project. I need all y'all to have a team representaitve send me the following by 6 PM on Wednesday:

1. Team roster
2. Platform that you'll be using (facebook, pinterest, etc.)
3. Theme of your piece of the campaign. This can be a couple of sentences. If I require clarification, I'll ask for it.

I'll provide initial feedback on the themes & platforms over Spring Break.

We will come back together the first week of April to discuss progress, challenges and goals.

The final week of the semester, each group will submit inoformation on how to access their project e.g., location on the platform ... such as twitter handle, url etc., you will also present your campaign to the class, discuss its objectives, and explain why itdid/did not realize them. You will provide in the presentation a final assessment of whether the project yielded a deeper understanding of the business value (in terms of Students' Will to Lead) of using Social Media.

Grades will be based on a) peer evaluation (20% - did you do your part?) b) faculty evaluation by moi (40% - did your demonstrate effort, thought, and an understanding of the platform? Did your group innovate? Did your group have fun? and c) class evaluation of your project evaluation (40% they will use similar heuristics as noted in point b).

If you have questions, please ping me ... I'm happy to answer them.

This project is designed to be fun, get you thinking about how to extract business value from these different social media platforms, and to help us all learn a little bit more about Studnets' Will to Lead Clemson.

SMLC featured in the Echo!

The Echo featured the SMLC in its February 29th edition.  The Echo reaches tens of thousands Clemson Alumni around the world!


Our thanks to the folks @ the Echo for getting the word out about the good work that we're doing in partnership with Dell and powered by Radian6!

Jim Bottum & SMLC Featured in InformationWeek

Early, early on a Tuesday morning, I participated in a conference call with Jim Bottum, our CIO, and David F. Carr, of InformationWeek. Carr requested the call to discuss the opportunities created by the SMLC @ Clemson.  His article nicely summarized Bottum's vision, the activities of our Creative Inquiry students, and touched on a few of my research interests.  He gave a great shout to to the folks @ Dell and Radian6 for their work with the SMLC!  Thanks to the folks @ InformationWeek for sharing what we're doing with the world! Read the Article!

SMLC in Hong Kong

The folks at Hong Kong Polytechnic generously sponsored me to visit & work for a week as a visiting scholar.  I'm going to spend the week learning about their research, exchanging ideas, and specc'ing out next steps for how to collaborate on Social Media research.

While there, I'll be presenting our work @ the SMLC in partnership with Dell and powered by Radian6!  I'm looking forward to seeing how my peers in Information Systems, Marketing, and Management view opportunities afforded by examining the implications of listening for organizations in the United States and the greater world.

Thanks to JJ Hsieh and the folks @ HK Poly for letting me share Clemson, Dell, and Radian6's work on powering the social enterprise with a new audience!

Thinking Creatively with Radian6: Individual Projects

@ Clemson, the Creative Inquiry (CI) the program teaches students critical thinking skills.  Each course is customized around different research questions, themes, skillsets, & whatnot.  


My CI is powered by the higher ed program @ Radian6.  The folks @ Radian6 provided access to their insights dashboard, training to individuals & groups on how to effectively conduct searches (Thanks Genevieve Coates!), and a tremendous opportunity for our students to learn about how to analyze & leverage the power of social media. 


So what do kids learn?  How to search a vast dataset pulled from the "Social Web" & extract interesting insight or stories. That there is a potential for their assignments to be seen by the public, raises the stakes of the game ... Thus far, the response has been tremendous!


Here is this semester's individual project assignment: 


Sent on March 3 @ 8:13 AM: 


I have received most of your individual project topics (hint hint). If I haven't, please share it with me (hint hint). Here is the deliverable for the project:

You will write a blog post around your topic for Radian6 that incorporates analysis from the Radian6 Insights dashboard (insights.Radian6.com). Here is the Radian6 blog: http://www.radian6.com/blog/ 

Here are exemplars of blogs from Radian6: 

http://www.radian6.com/blog/2012/02/wanna-trade-nhl-tradecentre-blows-up-social-media/
http://www.radian6.com/blog/2012/03/the-sweet-story-of-crowdsourcing-social-media-baby-names/
http://www.radian6.com/blog/2012/02/putting-a-ring-on-social-media-engagement-a-meme-proposal/

Here is your challenge & potential reward 

The Challenge: the post must be INTERESTING & EXPLAIN what you learned about how to SEARCH & ANALYZE the social web ... it must be written in a way that someone who isn't in school would go - hey - that's pretty cool ... 


So, if you're looking @ Jeremy Lin ... one of the great parts of his story is the support from his family ... so you might want to narrow your search to jeremy lin & family, create a conversation cloud, and compare in a chart what people say about jeremy lin & family to jeremy lin & harvard ... I'm just brainstorming here :)

The Opportunity: once completed, all of the blog posts will be forwarded to Radian6's higher ed program. If they like it, your post (with some tweaks - they are the marketing experts after all) may be published on their website. 

So, here is an opportunity to demonstrate your chops @ social media listening, powered by Radian6, &, if its particularly good, shared with the entire world! 

The assignment is due on April 1. The J-team (Jason, Jim & Julie) will review them & provide feedback by April 10. We'll work on finalizing the projects & getting them to Radian 6 by May 1.

E-mail if you have questions: jason.b.thatcher@hotmail.com

P.S. if you are interested in a longer term project, like the NFL draft ... let's talk b/c it runs past the end of the semester :)

Forbes Website Picks up Story on Clemson's SMLC

Forbes Magazine, a pillar in the literary community, featured the press release about the SMLC on its Website this week. For my students, and me, this has been a story about a quirky little class that has received A LOT of attention.

What's really cool?  Absent the help from Dell, the CyberInstitute, or Radian6, we'd still have been ** talking about ** as opposed to actually ** LISTENING to ** conversations on the Social Web.

Complaints that academe has sold out to industry feel more than a little specious at times like these ... Absent industry support, it would be much harder to teach students the critical thinking and applied skills necessary to survive in our changing economy ... with government stepping off the bus ... and underfunding higher ed ... it's as natural as a duck swimming in water ... to turn to industry for resources necessary to teach those skills ... and realize Thomas Green Clemson's vision of equipping our students to become leaders for South Carolina's next 100 years.

Greenville News Features the SMLC

Anna Simon of the The Greenville News featured the SMLC on Sunday, February 25th.  Her article emphasized that the CyberInstitute created the SMLC to be an interdisciplinary workspace for students and faculty to search and visualize over 200 million real-time social media powered conversations.

If the many visitors to the lab are predictors of future use, the vision of students using the lab to study and research the Social Web will be realized.  We've had folks from the College of Engineering and Science, the College of Architecture, Art, and the Humanities, the College of Business and Behavioral Science, Advancement, Campus Security, the Board of Trustees, and many other parts of campus attend demonstrations of the Center's capabilities.  To a person, they are blown away by the reach of Radian6's social dataset.  We amplify this reach with our ability to simultaneously project up to seven different real time visualizations of social conversations on six 42 inch monitors and two HD quality projectors.

Why is this important?  Because understanding how to leverage the Social Web requires developing a curriculum and research agenda that helps folks not only to talk, but also to visualize, listen,  and engage in meaningful "social" conversations.  When we build a better understanding of how data moves across platforms (e.g., twitter, facebook, linkedin etc.) and are able to convert that into meaningful information, then we will achieve a deeper understanding of how to the online meets the offline and shapes the economic future of South Carolina. 

Clemson students "get creative" with Radian6!

Recognizing the power of social media, our students have quickly embraced the importance of learning to use cutting edge software in order to better understand the world around them.  Student-driven team projects are examining:

• links between the social web and the stock market,
• myths and reality of Clemson athletics,
• patterns in "social conversations" around Fortune 100 companies, 
• and how to support law enforcement in South Carolina.  

Our student projects are powered by enterprise level access to Radian6, which lets them learn how to search, analyze, and interpret the Social Web.

Our student projects are part of Clemson's broader Creative Inquiry initiative, that helps them build research skills that they apply in the real world AND contribute to the FUTURE of South Carolina!

Stay tuned for more on individual projects in the coming weeks ...

Salesforce.com Foundation & the Social Enterprise

Rodney Patterson of the salesforce.com foundation attended the opening of the SMLC.  We're looking forward to partnering with Rodney to learn about how we can partner with salesforce.com to teach our students about the social enterprise!  We're looking forward to building classes that integrate tools like Radian6 & Chatter into a broader social media curriculum!

SMLC opening video: #ClemsonListens

Eddie Bennett and Dave Dryden of Creative Services @ Clemson produced this short video for the SMLC opening.  The video celebrates Clemson's partnership with Dell and Radian6.  

Eddie did a great job composing the video, snagging screenshots, and responding to questions/queries.  Another example of how student's creativity powers #ClemsonListens!

Fox Carolina Visits Clemson's SMLC!

Dana Wachter, a reporter for Fox Carolina, visited Clemson's SMLC on February 23rd.  She spent an hour with the project leads, Barbara Weaver & me, discussing our Center's capabilities, what it means for students, and what it means for realizing Thomas Green Clemson's vision of Clemson as "a high seminary of learning in which the graduate of the common schools can commence, pursue and finish the course of studies terminating in thorough theoretic and practical instruction.”

Dana watched us use the Radian6 dashboard to check out the "social" conversation about her!

Dana put together a great story that captured the essence of our visit that aired on the 10 PM news!

Click here for story

Radian6 gets social @ Clemson!

Radian6 powers the SMLC.  We use their Command Center and Listening/Engagement platforms to teach and conduct research on the social web.  Dell introduced our team to the folks @ Radian6.

Radian6's contributions go beyond simply offering software, they have also enhanced our student's Clemson experience.  During Sara, Dan, Billy, and Ed's four days on campus, they were generous enough to meet with our students, faculty, and staff to offer tips on how to manage our online presence, and to help us think through our business model in the SMLC.


During their visit, Radian6 put together a great piece about the Social Media Listening Center! They also managed to squeeze in visits to the Smoking Pig & Howard's Rock!

We're looking forward to our next visit from folks @ Radian6!

Clemson's Social Media Listening Center is Open for Business!

The Social Media Listening Center @ Clemson opened on February 23rd.

President Jim Barker opens the SMLC!

President Jim Barker welcomed students, faculty, and the Clemson family to the new Social Media Listening Center at Clemson University.  He was joined by Jim Bottum, Clemson's CIO, Ed Sullivan, VP of Strategic Alliances for Radian6, and Allison Dew, Executive Director of Dell in cutting the ribbon!

Built on a unique partnership between Dell, Radian6, and Clemson's CyberInstitute, the SMLC is a state-of-the-art research and teaching facility for Clemson students to learn about, and do research on, social media in real-time. It affords Clemson students the opportunity to use the same tools as Fortune 100 companies to engage with the social web!

Thanks to Dell and Radian6 for help make this unique learning opportunity possible for our students!

For more information, visit the SMLC's page @ the CyberInstitute!