nuance intelligence

Why are so many big-company people, in every function, behind the curve in adopting social media and putting it to work in a business context?

Think about who the early adopters were: small businesses. New businesses. Entrepreneurs, consultants, agencies, non-profits, self-published authors, gamers. All these folks were out there experimenting with Twitter, building Facebook pages, blogging away, tinkering with all the new tools that popped up.

Meanwhile, corporate policymakers (yes, that’s YOU, IT and HR and corporate communications and C-suite!) were busy blocking access to social media or setting up their systems to tell internal users accessing those sites that their activity would be monitored.

Big Brother is watching you.

So of course the wise and ambitious stayed away from all that stuff at work. When they went off the clock, they mostly got interested in social media as a toy.

Cut your team some slack, and give them some extra time in their day to experiment, and to investigate the potentially useless as well as the obviously useful. Then remember the social media gap the next time you  think about setting up an annoying, small-minded policy.

It’s been a great summer over at AWhere, where breakthroughs in geo-analysis, location intelligence and busines map mashups have come one right after another.

• CPG Vision lets category managers at consumer package goods companies visualize the entirety of their Retail Link data from WalMart, and correlate it with demographic data from Neilsen as well as weather data that’s updated daily.

• InSite is AWhere’s big foray into web-based applications, which launched last month.  This product completes their primary product line roll-out, and fills the final gap between complex desktop GIS applications and Google Maps.

• The UN Foundation has announced their long-term partnership with AWhere in development of an implementation of InSite that, in the words of UNF’s Senior Malaria Advisor Kevin Starace, “will forever change the game in international aid”.

What’s the nuance?

The power of location intelligence and data visualization is coming on strong.  With projects touching the likes of WalMart and the UN Foundation, AWhere is poised to really take off in the next six months.

We expect that business mapping and next-generation of geo-web applications will become one of the big business process stories of 2009.  Thought leaders are on board.  The system conditions have changed.  Tidal wave to follow.

Inventing a new market category to go with your new business is exhausting and time consuming. This I have learned from experience. Painful experience.

So, when I sit down to talk through messaging and the slow pace of marketplace adoption with John Corbett of AWhere, he can end up a bit exacerbated, which I understand — it’s tough to be able to see a revolutionary shift incredibly clearly while others nod their head and continue along their previous path. (insert more painful experience here)

McKinsey, along with the rest of the top-dollar business analysts recognize that the fastest way to create business value is the management of information. Visualization of information not only speeds analysis, but also provides comprehension of trends that escapes even the most rabid Excel geeks.

Location provides a meaningful signal amidst the noise of business analysis. Customers (and the rest of us, as well) exist in the context of location — your competitors’ location, proximity to transportation, places where it rains, snows and gets very hot. Do these things affect their purchasing? Only all of the time.

AWhere tunes business analysts (and the rest of us, as well) into the signal of location and how it affects their business. Meanwhile, businesses spend millions of dollars generating new information, without adopting some simple tools (in this case, $250 software) that provides them with a clear multiplier of the value of existing data.

Why is it hard for people to see things in a new way? Continue reading

I’m doing a fair bit of research into location intelligence, geo-coding of data, and data visualization for AWhere these days, and found out that Quantcast (competitor of Alexa and comScore) is now including location-based info in their reports.

From their announcement:

We believe geographic and business/organizational data will be a powerful characterization of publishers’ audiences, especially as advertisers begin to evaluate online media opportunities on a more targeted basis.

I thought the localization of advertising started in the ’97 and ’98 not ’07 and ’08, but it’s great to see the trend coming around again through another sales cycle.

Ah, AWhere. If you read this regularly (and who isn’t?), you are going to hear a lot about AWhere. But those posts will be talking at some level about what AWhere does, or some cool new application. Let this serve as the ‘what’ post, which I’ll reference time and again.

AWhere is a mapping software company based in Golden, Colorado. John Corbett is their CEO, and has become a friend, co-conspirator, and is now also a client. AWhere creates a new market segment, allowing any user of Excel to create rich, dynamic geographically accurate maps. Previously, large organizations like Monsanto and the Department of Defense hired PhD specialists in GIS, and bought 5-figure licenses for arcane software that puts information into maps accurately. Now you can do it from your laptop.

The benefit of this are really twofold. There are myriad applications in business intelligence and analysis, and equally many in the building and sharing understanding.

Continue reading