Medical research has found there is a direct link between good health and living with a sense of community. People with strong social ties tend to have lower healthcare costs, recover faster from illness, and live longer.
Source: utnereader
It Doesn’t Pay For Your Employees to be Workaholics When it comes to the 24/7 working culture in the U.S., employees may be their own worst enemy according to Leslie A. Perlow, the Konosuke Matsushita professor of leadership at Harvard Business School. Perlow conducted some research involving a team of high-powered, workaholic consultants to see if they could disconnect after working hours and also discover the results of their decisions.
The key to her research was committing as a team. With the joint effort to solidify time off, the consultants communicated more, supported one another, and held each other accountable for connecting after working hours.
How do companies really use all the data out there? Most of it seems according to a report from IBM and Saïd Business School (Analytics: The real-world use of big data How innovative enterprises extract value from uncertain data) to be used in order to understand the customers better:
Companies clearly see big data as providing the ability to better understand and predict customer behaviors, and by doing so, improve the customer experience. Transactions, multi-channel interactions, social media, syndicated data through sources like loyalty cards, and other customer-related information have increased the ability of organizations to create a complete picture of customers’ preferences and demands – a goal of marketing, sales and customer service for decades.
This is being interesting and a important signal to companies who isn’t into Big Data yet.
But I think it is important to underline a couple of things put this development in perspective:
- It seems like most of these “innovative” companies still have their focus on their near transaction environment, in this case the customers, and not on the larger picture how the whole business environment is changing. Why is that an issue? With an increasing pace of change and the multiplying effects of several concurrent driving forces this is most likely a far too narrow perspective to really have an impact on the business performance in more than 6 months ahead.
- This current use of Big Data is just a very simple and still immature way of using the available data comparing to what will be possible a couple of years down the road. Companies need to see this use of data, not as an objective to achieve but a small step into a world where the use of big data will be paramount for almost every business transaction which isn’t by definition extremely short term and of a risk taking nature.
(via smarterplanet)
Source: futuramb
Case management: what businesses can learn from detectives and social workers
Excerpts from Enhancing the productivity of an evolving workforce:
In the past two years we have seen a dramatic increase in interest in a new approach for systems that support office workers. Much of the focus for information technology deployment has been on automating or even eliminating less skilled jobs. This has been largely effective, and organizations today are able to much more with fewer people. People today spend less of their time on routine tasks, and more of their time on things that make a difference, than was possible just ten years ago.
An unpredictable process is simply a process that has to be figured out; it emerges as the work is done. That is precisely what knowledge workers do.
Case Management (CM) is an approach which has been used for years in the fields of health care, social care, the courts, and law enforcement but now we are seeing this basic approach being used for all knowledge workers across all industries. We call it case management because all the work is structured around a case, which is simply a place where everything for the job is collected. It is not just a folder, but is also has an implicit or explicit goal.
Sherlock Holmes has the goal to solve the crime, so he keeps all the relevant information in a case folder. The case is considered “closed” when the crime has been solved. Today, that case is not a physical folder, but instead an information system structure that can be access by multiple people from multiple locations simultaneously, but it is the same concept.
Adaptive Case Management Systems automatically keep a record of everything that happened along the way, so that there is a complete history to learn from. The history is helpful in reaching the current goal, but even more valuable when many cases are reviewed to see what patterns are having the most success. Process Mining is a technique that is used to show what patterns of actions have been occurring, even when no process diagram was set up in advance.
Via socialenterprisetoday.com
Organizations are struggling to keep up with new consumer tools and behaviors. To collaborate effectively today they need to realize that the benefit to individual employees is just as important as the overall corporate benefit, if not more so.
Mobile increases the need for CMO and CIO teaming
Excerpts from a blog by IBM’s Yuchun Lee, published in AdAge:
+ Businesses looking to shed old practices and succeed in the era of the multi-channel, empowered consumer will need to get their chief marketing officer and chief information officer to form a team that melds the skills of marketing with IT.
+ The IBM Retail Online Index shows that sales from mobile devices reached 15% in the second quarter of 2012, and we expect that number to reach 20% this coming holiday season. With marketers now clearly looking to improve their mobile-advertising efforts, the teaming with IT becomes even more important.
+ The State of Marketing survey found that within the next 12 months, 34% of marketers intend to deliver mobile ads, a sign that they are prepared to go beyond mobile websites and apps and deliver mobile advertising that reaches each customer on his or her smartphone and tablet.
+ While this mobile growth is certainly exciting, challenges still exist. According to the survey, while 85% agree with the need for an integrated marketing suite, only 21% are running mobile-marketing tactics as part of an integrated campaign. This represents a huge missed opportunity that will ultimately inhibit the effectiveness of marketers.
+ At a time when customers are flocking to their mobile devices and social-media channels, businesses must be prepared to connect with them on all fronts, or lose them to the competition. But to make this happen, it will take a village within the company, or in this instance, a marketing and IT alliance.
Are your business’ marketing and information departments collaborating?
Defusing the corporate social media time bomb. Brand reputation and release of confidential information are among the risks of social media, whether initiated by fans, customers, employees or social media hijackers. A report by the Altimeter Group urges companies “to start taking social media a lot more seriously, even following IBM’s example by making social media a board-level issue. A good place to start is to watch and learn from other companies’ mistakes and successes in dealing with social media crises, and learn from your own company’s past mistakes, as well.”
Big data and the emerging era of engagement
Success in the engagement era requires excellence in collaboration and analytics — and not just any analytics, but a prescriptive form that leverages insight to drive business outcomes…There is a danger in treating Big Data as a separate and distinct entity, as opposed to a step towards the end state. Big data should be viewed as an integral part of the broader transformation journey – the era of engagement depends on it. Via Frank Diana’s blog
Social business by the numbers
Stats in the style of Harper’s Index. For example:
- 48%. Percentage of CEOs who believe social media is important or somewhat important to their business today
- 24%. Percentage of CIOs who believe the same thing.
How recruiters use social networks to screen candidates
A survey of 300 professional recruiters finds that about two-thirds have hired or rejected a candidate based on what they have seen on social networking sites. Gaining a positive impression of the candidate’s personality and organizational fit is the leading reason for hiring. Seeing that they lied about credentials is the leading reason for rejection.
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