Social Media – Making Comments and Controlling Comments to Generate Business

You may remember the term “Web 2.0” which meant so many things that it became meaningless jargon. But at it’s core was the idea that the internet was originally developed as a collaboration tool, where people could exchange information, ideas and questions. Social Media is a key part of that vision, especially for businesses to move forward from providing just a static, broadcast website.

Using social media tools to comment on the web, and encourage comments from people is a great way of building a presence and relationships to generate business. However you also need to be wary of what others are writing about your business on these services, and take action accordingly.

COMMENTING

You don’t need to do much to get involved with social media. Registering some basic details with services like Blogger, Facebook and Twitter lets you take part by submitting comments to the system, thus raising your profile in the particular community:

• By commenting on blogs
• By getting involved in on-line forums, especially in helpfully answering other people’s questions
• By bringing yourself and your business to a site manager’s attention, and to other followers of that site. This can be done for example by commenting on someone’s Facebook wall, sending a Twitter tweet to someone, or simply following someone on Twitter.

Everything in moderation, with aggressive selling likely to be counter-productive.

CONTROLLING COMMENTS

Operators of commercial social media sites are keen to gain followers, and to hear from those people to generate relationships and business.

However there are three categories of comments that are not welcome:

• Overt sales messages, especially by competitors. With music acts for example, there is a distinct line between one band complementing another publicly, and another using the platform as a way to also sell their own gigs or download.
• Unpleasant comments, which may be unsavoury photos, soundtracks, videos or links to other web pages
• Derogatory comments, especially if unfounded

In the latter case, this can be on sites over which you have no direct control, such as TripAdvisor and FourSquare. Sadly there are a number of cases coming through of businesses going bust due to scathing, unsubstantiated comments.

So what can you do to leverage the benefits of social media tools, without suffering the downsides? To take a few examples to set the principles:

Blogs

This article has been written in Google’s blogging tool “Blogger”. It provides three key facilities:

• Option whether to allow comments or not
• If allowed, whether you want to “moderate” comments before they appear on your blog
• Opportunity to remove offending comments that already appear on your blog

Other popular blogging tools such as Wordpress will have their own set of facilitites.

Facebook

Firstly you need to decide whether to have a standard wall or use the “Pages” facility designed to be used by businesses. Pages look very similar to personal profiles, but amongst other things allows posts to the wall to be clearly separated between those made by the business and by visitors. To compare the two approaches, with a mixture of text, photos, videos and soundtracks, here are two bands:

• Theory of Six Degrees (as personal profile)
• Turisas (using  business pages)

For Pages, you have the choice:

• Allow/stop postings to the wall
• Allow/stop photos to be added
• Allow/stop videos to be added

For personal profiles (within “Customise Settings” within “Privacy Setings”), you can:

• Allow/stop friends from posting to your wall
• Allow/stop friends from commenting on your own posts
• Block specific people from making posts

You cannot moderate other people’s posts on your wall before they happen, but you can remove anything you don’t want.

Twitter

Twitter is a public system, without the concepts in blogs or Facebook. You have little if any control on what people post about you or your business. However you can:

• Block people from using your Twitter @username in tweets, firstly so they cannot address a tweet to you, and secondly so others can’t see any further tweets with your @username in it. However this doesn’t stop the username without the @ being used
• Monitor tweets featuring your username, and where necessary counter.

Remember that libel laws are applicable to Twitter and other social media systems, which you can leverage should there be any untruths tweeted about you or your business.

Foursquare and other public systems that allow comments

I was sitting in a hotel bar and decided to see what others had recommended about the place on FourSquare. All I could find was a derogatory comment about the bedrooms. The staff on duty had no idea about this, nor did the comment appear at all reasonable to them. As comments now appear in services like Bing maps, the so-called “tips” can spread far and wide without readers needing to be on the premises.

Valid complaints can be dealt with on the relevant service. The way you do this can actually have a positive affect not only on the person involved, but also those people who can see what you let be seen.

But what if you want to remove a derogatory comment or incorrect tip? It depends on the specific service. In the case of Foursquare, the first step is simply to send an email to Foursquare

IN CONCLUSION

There are a variety of ways that you can take part in social media to further your business, whether on other people’s sites or by setting up your own.

But be aware that not everyone plays ball fairly. You need to keep an eye on what people are saying about your business on each platform, and take appropriate action where necessary.

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Avoiding Excel Hell – Developing Better Spreadsheet Models

There are various ways you can suffer in spreadsheet hell, as these real-life examples illustrate.

With Excel now the dominant spreadsheet system, we’ve already looked at how to escape Excel Hell in the articles on these subjects where understanding the limitations of Excel means there are better alternatives:

• For business processes
• For reporting
• For planning and forecasting

But what about for financial modelling? For this, Excel has a real and valid role. But how can models be developed that give real and valid answers?

Best practice has been developed, and there are three leading initiatives. These overlap, but between them offer a sensible practical approach:

(1) European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group (EuSpRIG)

The advice from IBM and ICAEW is still relevant and useful, although dating back to 1999. This approaches spreadsheets as for any software development, recommending that :

• Should be easy to use, through good design
• Focused on the important issues
• Easy to understand
• Reliable, through being tested

Testing is key, especially as a spreadsheet model evolves and develops. Getting someone independent to test it with a fresh eye is far better than just trying to do it yourself

Here are some tips on how to minimise the risk of errors in a spreadsheet model. and other tips for best practice

(2) The FAST Methodology:

The idea here is to make a spreadsheet model “Flexible, Accurate, Structured and Transparent".

Appendix C of the FAST modeling standard summarises all the “rules” they suggest: for

• Workbook Design, being a collection of worksheets
• Worksheet Design
• Line Items, including use of formulae
• Functions and Formatting

(3) Spreadsheet Standards Review Board

The SSRB's Standards cover each of 16 aspects:

1. General Concepts
2. Workbook Structure
3. Sheet Structure
4. Formats & Styles
5. Assumption Entry Interfaces
6. Sensitivity Analysis
7. Outputs & Presentations
8. Calculation Formulae
9. Naming Principles
10. Time Series Analysis
11. Error Checks
12. Printing & Viewing
13. Multiple Workbooks
14. Security & Protection
15. Visual Basic Programming
16. Miscellaneous

So if you are keen to avoid Excel Hell with your financial models, these standards and tips will certainly help!

If you require any further advice or assistance, then do contact us.

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Performance Management - Mind The Gap!

In the last few days it would be understandable to ask the question “How much do Irish customers owe us?”. Back comes the answer £10 million.

Then someone does an analysis by country and discovers that there is £10m for “Ireland” but another £5m for “Eire”.  It turns out the validation has been changed, and new customers are now Eire, old customers are still Ireland.

Or perhaps the field isn’t validated, and there’s another £2m for variations like “Ierland”. In addition there’s a whole host of records where the country field is blank, of which £1m relates to Ireland. So actually it’s £18m in total, nearly double the first figure.

They say “Garbage in, Garbage Out”. If data will be relied upon for decisions, it must be sufficiently accurate. If data is pulled into a data warehouse or spreadsheet, or just sitting in the master system, then if only 5 countries are involved, it’s worth checking. An exception report that lists anything other than those 5 values can be run off the system, or as part of the data load process, or both. Incorrect data can then be repaired.

Simple variations such as Northern_Ireland and Northern-Ireland may not be apparent to the naked eye, but will be handled completely differently by a computer system.

As an analyst, if you are asked a question like this, shouldn’t you do a complete analysis to check? Or as the FD or manager asking the question, should you be asking for the answer to be accompanied by a complete analysis, so you can be confident nothing major has been overlooked?

Key Performance Indicators

Similar issues arise with Key Performance Indicators. Each KPI may have been set up as a formula in a spreadsheet or BI system, which in some way is dependent on the accuracy of the underlying transactions.

There is also an additional issue. With some of the popular databases, it is possible to “nest” or “layer” selections, so that you can select from a subset of a subset of a subset of the total database.

I reviewed the monthly KPIs from one system that was using layered queries. It was effectively impossible to understand whether each KPI figure was based on a complete set of relevant data, and therefore what each KPI actually meant. The figures weren’t being tracked in any form of trend, other than by comparison to previous month, so it was difficult to judge if each month’s figures were realistic. The monthly explanations of movements were clearly nothing but guesswork. 

It’s therefore worth ensuring that the calculation of KPIs are clearly defined in the system. Where they represent an exception, or other subset of data, then it’s worth periodically checking the nature of the remaining data so no relevant data is accidentally excluded.

Commercial Advantage

Monitoring the analysis of data can also produce a direct cash advantage.

One system I managed was for the collection of overdue debts, including where a direct debit had been unpaid. Overdue transactions were pulled into this separate system, which was used to drive telephone calls and other communication with debtors. During the handover I asked about how direct debits were handled, and was left unconvinced by the answers.

The system ignored any records that stated that they were collected by direct debit – a simple Y in one of the fields. Within a few days of a direct debit being unpaid, this Y would be removed so the debt could be collected. So I ran a simple exception report of Y records that were more than 5 days overdue. 80,000 euros of debt was identified, where the removal process hadn’t been done properly at various times. This money could now be chased.  The exception report was thereafter run daily, so action could be taken promptly.

Exception reports in other places tightened up the process, and made sure other transactions were identified for collection, and didn’t fall through the “gap”.

Next Steps

So there a variety of simple techniques that can be used to improve the accuracy of management reporting, and produce direct cash advantages.

Much you can do yourself. But if you’d like a review of any of your systems, then do give me a call.

Launch of “Code of Practice” by Cloud Industry Forum

10 years ago I started using what is now termed a cloud system. This was to sell, amongst other things, tickets for 30 events in the Internet Business Forum series that I organised and chaired.

At these events, we looked at how the internet could be used for business purposes. A wide variety of applications (apps) and facilities were appearing, leveraging the rapid improvements that had just been made in datacomms speeds with the availability of "broadband".

Given the cost, remote access and other benefits of cloud computing, it might have been predicted that cloud services would have become the norm by now. But they haven’t. Why?

Internet Access Speeds

Back then, internet access by larger organisations was already well established, using dedicated datacomms lines. The advent of “broadband” had made internet access by consumers, homeworkers, satellite premises and smaller businesses practical and affordable. Access speeds have since improved, which has tended to overcome “world wide wait” that is due in part to the shared (“contented”) nature of both consumer and the better business broadband offerings.

“Mobile broadband” appeared with 3G services running only slightly slower than fixed line broadband. Speeds too have improved dramatically with the introduction of newer 3G technologies, comparable with many people's fixed line broadband, but still slower than the best fixed line options. Nonetheless these are fast enough to run a whole range of apps now becoming available on the latest smartphones.

In many places, the availability of broadband based on BT’s infrastructure, Virgin’s cable network and 3G services means it is now possible to have at least two alternative means of fast internet access at each location. As this is essential for business reliance, business use has recently become more practical.

The problem remains that some rural areas either have slower offerings or are without some or all of these services. Even so, the vast majority of businesses do have at least two forms of adequately fast internet at all key locations. 

So businesses are now poised to take much more advantage of cloud computing in 2011. But will they?

Trust and Other Concerns

Smaller businesses and apps like CRM (customer relationship management) have become very popular. This is because the benefits vastly outweigh any concerns, especially when the users are not aware of the pitfalls and risks.

Larger businesses take a more balanced view, and have often remained unconvinced for anything that can be regarded as business critical. Concerns about security of operation, reliability of operations, capability and processes, transparency of vendor identity and financial strength, and service level reporting need to be addressed by cloud service providers. The delegates at the recent ICAEW seminar placed “loss of control” as the number one concern after all the talks and discussions.

It all actually comes down to one thing - can the provider be trusted? Whilst many in-house systems do not have adequate backup and disaster recovery arrangements, over which cloud computing should be a distinct improvement, many systems in larger businesses do. Is the provider providing adequate facilities for access control, backup and resilience? How well are they going to sustain them? And there’s a whole host of other questions.

The cloud is effectively “outsourcing for all”. Traditional outsourcing involves the customer and provider in detailed talks, up-front audits and negotiated service agreements that are closely monitored. Conversely many cloud services are bought off the page on a “take it or leave it” basis, or otherwise via a reseller of some kind. What does a buyer need to know before committing to a provider?

Overcoming These Concerns - the Launch of the "Code of Practice"

In the absence of any existing standards for cloud computing, the Cloud Industry Forum has been formed to champion the use of cloud services. This is initially by defining the type of information that providers ought to disclose to potential buyers in a Code of Practice. Advice for providers on best practice within each category will also develop, as will best practice of what end-users need to do in addition.

The Code was officially launched yesterday, Monday 22 November. Providers can now download the Assessment Pack and register to certify they are complying with the Code. This is either on a self-certified basis, subject to audit, or certified by an independent body. Two different styles of logo can then be displayed by the provider on their website and other materials.

The Code of Practice is in three main parts:

A)   TRANSPARENCY

• A1: Information for Public Disclosure on website, such as identity, company details and any existing certifications such as ISO9001
• A2: Information for Disclosure in connection with Proposals/Contracts, possibly under non-disclosure agreement, such as security and continuity provisions, and what happens on renewal and termination

B)   CAPABILITY
Availability of auditable documented management systems, similar to ISO9001, for aspects such as Information Security Management and Service Continuity Management

C)   ACCOUNTABILITY

• C1: Agreement to CIF withdrawing Certification if appropriate, subject to a defined process
• C2: Procedures for complaint resolution, internally and via arbitration

A reasonable number of providers have already committed to becoming certified. Over the next few weeks we should see these names appearing in a certified list.

This should certainly make it easier for buyers to assess providers. It should also drive up standards across the industry, especially for the use of business-critical apps.

In support of these aims, I have agreed to join the 12-person Governance Board for the Cloud Industry Forum. I look forward to helping to develop the Code and accompanying best practice.

The combination of improved datacomms with improved provider offerings should then unlock the benefits of cloud computing for organisations large and small, across a wider range of apps.

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News Update - Monday 22/11/10

Here's the pick of the last week's news stories that are likely to impact your business:

Cloud Industry Forum launches Code of Practice today: This is an important step to help end-users see how cloud providers can deliver a robust and secure high quality service. I have joined the Governance Board to support this initiative, and to continue to develop the Code and associated best practice.

Social Media Archiving: There are now services to archive what an organisation is posting to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, for archive and compliance purposes.

4G Mobile Services: In the UK, Ofcom have announced a timetable that will mean 4G services will be available from around 2014. This means that mobile coverage will be based on 3G for another few years.

Facebook Marches On: There have been two major announcements this last week, for a new communication mechanism, and a "mashup" with MySpace

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