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Archive for December, 2011

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope all of you are spending time with loved ones.
I’m fortunate enough to be spending Christmas with my extended family up at Snoqualmie Pass, watching snow falling while warm in front of a fire. I’ll be up on the slopes later today. Tonight, we’ll be enjoying a big Christmas feast for dinner.
It’s been wonderful catching up with relatives who are spread throughout the US. We’ve reflected on individual challenges of the past year, as well as the successes. We provide encouragements and support for each other over our favorite foods, drinks or just relaxing in the hot tub. I feel so energized and grounded with them. They give me strength.
I believe we humans are interconnected, and our families provide the closest connections.
Keeping that in mind, if you are not with your family for any reason, be sure to reach out to them today. Let the past be the past and the future the future. Today, connect with them and provide unconditional support. They need you as much as you need them.

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Forrester CEO George Colony predicts the end of the web and the emergence of “post social”. What do you think?

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I’m a big believer in the Social Media Listening space. I started a company in July, 2009 to provide reports and insights using social data and it has since changed its name three times through a merger and two acquisitions. Yet, the opportunities are just beginning. If you are an entrepreneur or an investor interested in the Social Listening Space, start by segmenting the opportunities into five overlapping but distinctive segments: Social Monitoring, Integrated Campaigns, Social Analytics, Social Consulting and Social CRM.

  • Social Monitoring is how it all began. It started mostly with those within the PR function tracking brand mentions that eventually evolved into customer engagement strategies and technological extensions. Currently, there are more than 400 Social Listening and Monitoring tools in the market that range from free (hopeless business plan) to enterprise pricing models. These tools will need to integrate with one or more of the other segments or become much more vertically focused to remain relevant in the future.
  • As always, brands will spend a lot of money on campaigns/ads. Social is fast being accepted as not only a legitimate but an effective platform for ad spends. Marketers must now think about an integrated campaign that includes social as part of the strategy. With all the “purchase intents” being tweeted and focused “segments” that are available on social platforms (Facebook, Linkedin), there will be a lot more opportunities moving ahead.
  • Social Analytics will disrupt some very large existing markets, such as market research and business intelligence. The more complex and useful application of the social data set to derive insights will change these worlds as we know it. The reason that insights have always been so expensive is because access to relevant data was so limited and difficult. Now, social platforms provide access to an authentic and abundant data set at very low cost in near real-time.  Think about that. The biggest application of social data won’t really be for the current “social” buyers (PR). It will be for those who are focused on answering critical business questions. It just so happens that the social data set will provide the best and most cost-effective insights, if applied correctly. At Alterian Social , we provide predictive analytics.
  • Social Consulting will be one of the fastest growing segments for years to come. With the incredible speed and impact of Social to all brands, they will look outside the traditional agencies for specialized help. Thus, there will be great growth of companies like Dachis Group, Altimeter, among many others that are about to take advantage of this growing service demand. For entrepreneurs, this may be the safest startup idea given the relatively low start-up costs and easy path to positive cashflow of service companies. Whatever brands spend on technology platforms in Social Listening, they will eventually spend twice as much on services if not more.
  • Social CRM should be the biggest bet and the most exciting. Salesforce.com’s acquisition of Radian6 (at a high premium) was with the vision of Social CRM. The problem is that Social CRM means different things to different people. The trust is, however, the idea of a 360 degree view of customers including their social activities may just be too ambitious. The path to Social CRM will start with baby steps and the market will settle for something much less the ideal promise. Take your chances at your own risk here.

As an entrepeneur, follow your passion and your tolerance for risk. As an investor, I would recommend picking 3-5, or 5-7 startups within one of these segments rather than investing across the segments. That should offer the best chance at success in this crazy, disruptive force called Social Listening.

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A stalled, incomplete architectural structure is a true eye sore in my opinion. These unfinished buildings connote poor planning — of failure. In today’s difficult environment, we’re seeing a bit more of this.
In a way, this is also how I see company building. We live in an era where most of our jobs are basically a sequence of projects. I believe we naturally are turned off by things that are not complete. Unfinished buildings (projects) have a lot of negative nuances to us all.
Therefore, as I’ve developed ideas as an entrepreneur or a business vision as an executive of a public company, I stay focused on completing critical path projects. I’ve seen plenty of really good ideas stall because of poor planning and execution, ending up as the burnt of inside jokes. No one looks back at an unfinished project with fondness. It’s always what could have or should have been. Execution means being able to finish.
This means aligning the available resources appropriately, setting proper expectations, properly communicating the priorities, and remembering how unsightly an unfinished building is as time passes.

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SDL To Take Over Alterian

Today, it was announced that SDL will acquire Alterian. Therefore soon,  a social media business that started as Lift9 will be getting its fourth company name within the last two-and-a half years.

I started Lift9 in July, 2009 to offer social reports to large brands. On April, 2010 we merged with a boutique market research company Intrepid to provide deeper insights from the social data set. Shortly thereafter we were acquired by Alterian in September, 2010 to compliment its social monitoring and listening tool SM2.

Social is a hot space. Four transactions in two-and-a half years may not be the norm, but there certainly are a lot of activities within the Social market. I believe we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg of what will happen as the Social space matures further. The social data set has disruptive elements that will attract many innovative minds who will build considerable values in this space.

For me, this acquisition is very positive. We will have greater resources to execute on our vision of providing social insights and foresight in compelling ways. SDL has language and statistical capabilities that can really improve our tools and solutions. I expect immediate impact in extending our social offerings.

My goal today remains the same as when I started Lift9. I want to answer critical business questions faster, cheaper and more accurately than anything in the market by using social data. I believe SDL provides a conducive platform for us to execute on this goal in even a bigger way.

So, how do I personally feel about all the changes — going from a two-person startup to now being a part of a Fortune 1000 company in two-and-a half years? I consider where we are now in such a short period of time as success. Being a part of large organization offers greater opportunities as well as additional challenges. I can live with that.

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