Opportunities for Data Innovation are All Around Us
I just recently finished reading Sexy Little Numbers by Dmitri Maex. It’s a very timely and interesting look at some of the data trends that anyone can and should be accessing using the customer data and insights they already have around them. What was striking to me was the presence of statistical modeling in the book – the opportunity to yield useful and actionable information in the presence of data-sets that you probably already have in front of you.
The opportunity to use data creatively to yield useful results was absolutely present during our development of Dashter. And its worth thinking about within your business as well… What data do you have – and how can you use it to your advantage?
Here’s a couple examples from within Dashter where we developed greater value by tapping the data that we were already pouring in to.
Trending in Friends
One of the first things that a Dashter user sees on their homepage is the Trending in Friends pane. Within there, we provide 18 “trends” that are collected from a gathering of ~200 tweets from your timeline. So what does it do? Well, basically, it just adds up all the hashtags found in those ~200 tweets, and then shows you the top 18, in rank order from most-used to least-used (of the top results).
Why is this useful? Well – when exploring Twitter, its often hard to get a grip on all the data swirling around you. But there are two assumptions that can be made: 1) You follow people who say things that interest you, and 2) Events of significance often peak within groups. By organizing hashtags among people you follow, it’s easy to develop a personalized trend graph that refreshes every 15 minutes or so. That means instead of having to pour through dozens or hundreds of tweets to see what’s happening – you can merely glance at an ordered list of top-hits.
Translating this to Your Business
You likely have an overwhelming amount of data pouring in on any given day. Continue reading →
I spent the last year building on the Twitter platform. Dashter was my vision to bring blogging and “tweeting” together – and the result is a fun blend between the two platforms. When our team got together, we had grand visions for what each platform could mean: We dreamt of a symbiotic platform experience that blended the depth of blogging with the expediency of tweeting. The data security and independence of self-owned self-hosted long-form content with the network effects of twenty-million twitter users.
As a general rule of thumb, you should be building your brand around a single word or extremely short phrase to create mindshare in your audience. This isn’t a slogan. Slogans might be part of it. But the simple fact of the matter is that your audience is being bombarded on a daily basis by hundreds – if not thousands – of brand and marketing messages. Capturing and solidifying a single word or phrase is crucial. Nike has spent decades building itself in to synonymous with “sports.” Alternatively (and perhaps this is just my own personal connection – and that’s part of the beauty of it), when I think of Adidas – the first thing that comes to mind is “Soccer”. In another direction, the Underarmor brand to me represents “Football clothes”. All of these companies are direct competitors in many fronts – but within my mind – this is the mindshare that they’ve eached achieved.
Building a digital “home” in the social landscape is much like building a physical home – on quicksand. If you don’t believe me – let’s look at some of the trends that have happened over the summer…