DataSift Adds Tools to Help Businesses Make Sense of Social Data

It seems like the vast majority of companies are using some kind of social media in some capacity, whether its promoting new products or services, making connections with other professionals, or simply gathering data to learn more about their customers or network. The limitless amounts of information that can be garnered from these sites can be quite useful, but only if companies can find a way to decipher the huge pool of data and turn it into usable conclusions.

DataSift, an online platform that manages social data, has just introduced some new tools that can help companies more easily decipher social data and incorporate it into existing business and development platforms.

The changes include the option to receive small bursts of data instead of a constant stream, the ability for non-technical managers to perform complex searches, and other features that aim to make the service easier to manage.

DataSift is used by companies to wade through the large amounts of social data from sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and various blogs and forums, finding relevant demographics data, interactions, online influence, and more. Companies can apply complex filters, allowing DataSift to search through all the data in the company's social network, find what is relevant to the search, and then turn that unstructured data into digestible information that could be turned into real results for your company.

For example, users can ask DataSift to show a real-time feed of what certain consumers are saying about a brand, what the most influential people in a network are posting about, or data from a specific geographical region.

For companies that use social media, the large amount of data that can be garnered from network connections and their posts can seem overwhelming. Finding data is one thing, but figuring out what is relevant and what it actually means for your company or brand may require some help.

There are plenty of companies and online tools that claim to help brands sift through social data, but DataSift is unique because of its natural language processing and complex search abilities.

The service has a number of different monthly plans and pricing to choose from, depending on your company's needs. There is also a pay-as-you-go option and a free trial version.

5 Ways To Prepare For Success With Intelligent Forecasting

My company, Journyx, has been around for sixteen years now and during that time, we have weathered one of the biggest economic downturns in history, the emergence of the simultaneously exciting and terrifying social media sphere, and major transitions in how software is purchased and delivered. However, we were not always so hardy.

In the beginning we came close to absolute failure a couple of times. It had nothing to do with our product; customers found it delivered on its promised functionality and then some. It also didn't have to do with our team, or any shoddy internal politics.

The reason I'm telling you this back story is because there's a lesson to be learned here: we did not have a clear vision of our pipeline and cash flow. We had difficulty predicting how much cash we would have in the bank several weeks in the future. It was a serious problem and, unfortunately, a common one. Perhaps even one you've experienced in your company.

It is easy, particularly for small businesses and startups, to focus on the excitement of the here and now. The future is an abstract concept for enterprise-level businesses, until it isn't. You have to focus on growth from the beginning. Success is not a pipe dream, but paradoxically it can destroy you if you aren't prepared for it.

We were not the first company to face periods of growth we were not able to handle and we won't be the last. Fortunately, it is simple to implement a system that allows for intelligent forecasting.

Following are five steps you can take to make sure your business doesn't face the same problems:

1. Track Projects Individually

Tracking employee time spent on projects is great, but you will reap maximum benefit when you track each project separately. This allows you to view each project as a unique element in company profitability. This insight is incredibly valuable when allocating resources because you will know the parameters for each project relative to the current availability of the company.

2. Monitor Employee Tasks and Changes in Productivity

In any organization, the benefits of knowing what your employees are doing at any given point are obvious: you want them working on tasks that are actually beneficial to the company. But it's also important to consider which jobs they are most effective at. Implementing a system that allows employees to track time against specific tasks will allow you to see where they are most useful. Odds are that's what they enjoy doing best. No need to change employee job roles every day, but do consider a change when the evidence suggests that they've honed skills in a new area and could be of more use elsewhere.

3. Build a Database of Prior Projects 

Having a backlog of your projects will be incredibly valuable, though it takes some time to build. With this information, you can determine how many people it normally takes to finish a project; improve accuracy of your budgets based on scope; and perfect timelines based on overall project parameters. Even the least efficient projects become valuable because you can glean just as much information from them. You will know what did not work, what factors caused you to go over budget, and learn from the mistakes.

4. Always Know Your Available Resources

A critical piece of any project plan is creating your team. This task is easier when you know exactly who is available (with the skills you need), and what their schedule will be for the duration of the project. If you have an automated project management system, employee schedules are readily apparent and any requests for leave will be noted. You will also know the tasks that other employees are working on so you can avoid stretching resources too thin or allocating an individual to tasks for which they aren't well suited.

5.  Constantly Monitor Resource Use Relative to Budget and Schedule 

If you compare time and resources spent on a project versus percentage complete, you can see which projects are absorbing too many resources to remain profitable. This allows you to redistribute assets to projects as necessary or even kill projects that are too far gone to benefit your company. It is always better to determine issues early on, and a dynamic tracking system provides that insight. Sometimes it's best to cut your losses and move on; costs can quickly spiral out of control, causing your situation to worsen.

While it is possible to keep track of these systems using basic business programs (we used Excel and QuickBooks early on), automated, programmable systems will greatly reduce cataloguing time and errors.  Whatever method you choose to use, start ASAP if you haven't already. Growth should be a cause of excitement, not concern.

Five Ways to Manage Your Small Business from the Beach

The small business owner never rests, especially in those early days of building a business. But even the overworked business owner needs an occasional rest in order to recharge and prevent burnout. How is it possible to relax, though, when you're always worried about how things are going back home?

Thanks to modern technology, it's possible to relax on the beach while keeping an eye on the office. SurePayroll has compiled a list of five tips to help you manage your small business while still enjoying a relaxing vacation.

• Schedule check-in times. Before you leave, clarify a time each day when you will check in with employees. Whether by phone or video chat, this preset time will allow you to unplug while still being on top of things. Additionally, your workers will feel secure that if they have any questions, they can ask you during your daily call. Try to hold to this time, also using it to check e-mail and tend to other work matters. If you compulsively check e-mail all day, you'll never have time with your family. If once a day isn't enough, consider setting benchmarks throughout the day for your e-mail correspondence and close the laptop the rest of the time.
• Download documents and apps before you leave. Some great file reading/editing apps to use on the go include Documents to Go, Files: Document Reader, and Soonr. These apps are designed to let you read, share, and edit PowerPoint, Word, and Excel documents no matter where you are. So when your employee sends you a report that needs your approval, you can handle it from the comfort of your hotel room or poolside lounge chair.
• Set up document sharing. Services like Dropbox will allow you to view and update files from anywhere. While e-mailing documents back and forth as attachments can serve the same purpose, with Cloud-based file-sharing, your workers can be set up to have documents automatically sync to the provider's server as they are updated. This allows you to check on the progress of all of your ongoing projects at any time.
• Online bill pay. To take some of the stress out of your vacation, make sure all of your bills are set to auto-pay while you're gone. If you choose to do things manually, be sure you have the passwords to all of your business's bank accounts so you can log in remotely and manage your money.
• Automate your payroll. SurePayroll has an app that automates your payroll. Available for the iPhone and Android operating systems, this app lets you manage your direct deposits from anywhere.

While running a small business can be time-consuming and challenging, using these apps, business owners can take a few days off every now and then to relax. Just be sure to schedule things so that you're online as little as possible, allowing you more time with your friends and family.

9 Ways to Offer Live Event Coverage Through Social Media

 

The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world's most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.

1. Customize a Hashtag

We produce a lot of high attendance events like Technori Pitch, where we gather 500 people to watch six startups launch on stage. We ask them to tweet our hashtag for the event, tweet the hashtags of the pitching companies, and to use our Technori Twitter handle in their tweets if possible. Our results are that one event can produce 200-300 tweets under that event hashtag. Very simple and easy.
- Seth Kravitz, Technori

2. Start Streaming Video

If you want to keep people in the loop about the changes happening at your company, live streaming video or live Q&A on video the way to go. It keeps people engaged, shows your personality, and allows people to see behind the scenes at the same time.
- Nathalie Lussier, The Website Checkup Tool

 

3. Live Online Press Events

We've previously set up a live stream of a press event for clients. We invited journalists via email and sent them the transcript beforehand so they could follow along. We also encouraged folks to follow the company-specific hashtag. The great thing about this event is that we were able to record it and make the videos available on the client's press page for future use.
- Heather Huhman, Come Recommended

4. Engage Remote Audiences Online

CoverItLive is a web-based app for liveblogging, has varied pricing models - free with a limited 100 clicks - and has tiers for each number of viewers you need. It allows multimedia embedding such as video and photos to be added along with text. It is available on web, tablet, and smartphones and pushes out to social networks to engage readers.
- Lane Sutton, Social Media from a Teen

 

5. Promote With Photography

For Modify, photography is king in promoting live events. We capture photography of fans engaging with and buying our products, and post both during (on Twitter with hashtags) and after (Facebook albums) the events, and drive attendees and those not lucky enough to be there to view. We also discount on-site at live selling events based on social engagement (e.g. “Like” us for a discount on-site).
- Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches

6. Open a Public Hangout

I've been experimenting with opening public hangouts on Google+ and inviting anyone on who wants to keep up with what we're doing. It offers an interesting back channel for an event, often creating more discussion quickly than other social media tools.
- Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

 

7. View It on Vokle

I've been on a couple live calls using Vokle which seems to work really well. It allows you to chat, tweet, and interact with everyone on the call in a simple to use interface that keeps everyone engaged.
- Sean Ogle, Location 180, LLC

 

8. Offer a Photo Booth

Photo booths are a great idea for company events because everybody loves a photo booth, and these days, they're “smart” and can stream photos directly to Facebook and Twitter with pre-defined hashtags. Having one of these at your event will share great photos through your company's or employees' Twitter or Facebook accounts all night long, without any additional effort needed.
- Jesse Davis, Entrustet

9. Include Attendee Participation

Whenever we do something as a company, we try to think of ways our audience can participate when sharing it via social media. That can be as simple as answering a related question or voting on what we eat as a snack!
- Derek Flanzraich, Greatist

Michael Westgate of Microsoft: Leveraging Participatory Marketing

Social media has opened up many new marketing doors and along with it, new marketing perspectives. Michael Westgate, Sr. Marketing Manager and Social Media Lead at Microsoft, joins Brent Leary to discuss a concept he calls participatory marketing.  Tune in as Michael discusses how to best leverage social media using this concept.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends: Can you tell us a little bit about your background?

Michael Westgate: I'm part of the small and mid-sized business organization and I manage our customer acquisition efforts, which includes social media and digital media.

Small Business Trends: Can you tell us what behavioral marketing is and how social and mobile has impacted that area?

Michael Westgate: I don't think behavioral marketing necessarily is a new term, but maybe a more relevant term for the social media space would be participatory marketing.

How do we not only engage audiences, but allow them to share news, reviews, attitudes and ideas about products and services? How do we get them engaged in not only conversations with us, but activities that might be a value-add. That's what I'm referring to with regards to behavioral.

Small Business Trends: Are we getting to the point where companies look for how social media is translating into long term advocacy from customers as opposed to how many followers they have, etc.?

Michael Westgate: We think about social media and how we can attribute different actions back to either “likes” or engagements. We are looking at easier ways to track things such as “likes.”  We're also trying to dive a bit deeper and segment how different engagements look.

What types of users are engaging? Who is more active? Who might be advocates?

Small Business Trends: What are some of the things Microsoft is doing?

Michael Westgate: Microsoft might be unique in this as we do have a social presence for a lot of different products.  I'm in an audience team. So, Microsoft's SMB team has social profiles on Twitter and Facebook.  We also have a YouTube channel because we believe that is where our community, our target audience, resides and shares ideas.

There's enough proliferation in Facebook and Twitter, where we don't need multiple accounts. But if they're serving a distinct purpose, for instance, specific to Microsoft for small and medium business, it makes sense to have conversations there.  Because we find a lot of small businesses are looking for ideas on technology, listening to thought leaders, following particular conversations and hash tags.  To understand what is the latest and greatest in productivity, networking, and so forth for their business.

Small Business Trends: How do you measure if you are hitting the mark?  If you are using the right channel?  Or if you're using the right kind of content?

Michael Westgate: What we're trying to understand best is not only how can we use the right property, but what is the right way to measure that property? We feel if we have been able to develop a dialogue and solve a customer service issue, answer a product question, or maybe even connect a customer to a local partner that needs technology support and deployment and services, those are the metrics that we're most interested in.

It's an amplification of the rest of our marketing efforts really. To once again engage that customer make sure we're meeting their needs no matter where they find us. If they found us on our website or if they happen to come across us in Facebook, it's a consistent experience.  They're able to either connect to a partner or find answers to the questions that they have.

Small Business Trends: How would you recommend a new company try to figure out how to leverage social media to engage their audience?

Michael Westgate: The most important thing is to identify who your target is and then ask yourself, “Where do they go for information, and reviews, and ideas?” If you can identify in the social space that there are specific locations, conversations and groups, go and participate there.

I think that's a great place to start, whether it's Facebook or it's a LinkedIn group. If you're continually delivering value and creating a strong network with engagement and response, and you're human and relevant, then your community will build in size.  You can continue to liberate even more value there.

We sponsored a service called Brandify.com.  It's basically a free online tool for small businesses to understand their Web presence and search ability, their social media foot print. It will find your Facebook page or your Twitter location. It'll find your Bing local ad business listing and then tell you, based on search engine optimization principles, this is how searchable you are in this category. Here are the sites you have. Here's your score today. Here's some very easy steps to how you might improve it.

It's for those of us with small businesses that are just getting into the game and really want to understand how better to market in the modern age of social media.

Small Business Trends: Klout has recently updated their formula. What role do they play?

Michael Westgate: I think it depends on how Klout scores are viewed. They could be very helpful to a business.  Because it takes you one step deeper into not only understanding how many in aggregate followers you might have, Facebook likes for instance.  But what are the network effects of those particular users? Especially those that are taking action. I also have heard detraction as well.

I heard that in London, Big Ben has a Klout profile and a score higher than everybody else. Because every time you log in, it tweets a tweet giving the time. A lot of people share that and the Klout score is through the roof.

So you have to ask questions and understand, “Now what is this metric?  Is it most relevant to what I'm trying to measure here?”

Small Business Trends: Where can people lean more?

Michael Westgate: Go to Microsoft for SMB on Facebook or on Twitter @MicrosoftSMB.

This interview is part of our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This interview has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click the right arrow on the gray player below. You can also see more interviews in our interview series.

Whether you're growing your business or starting a new venture, BlackBerry solutions provide you with the freedom you want and the control you need. [Series sponsor]

 

Cloud Security Alliance tackles big data security

Businesses are eager to reap the benefits of big data analytics, but the collection of vast amounts of data is leading to growing security concerns. To that end, the Cloud Security Alliance is teaming up with Fujitsu Laboratories of America Inc. to figure out ways to tackle big data security.

Dot Matrix Printer: Please Help

At one of my earlier jobs we had some really old tech. Green on black monitors, mainframes in the back and the gigantic old dot matrix printer that, if you didn't know better, you'd suspect was somehow steam powered.

Everyday it chugged and wheezed and printed purchase orders, checks, and statements galore. And then one day, it stopped.

As much as I'd complained about our ancient tech in the office, I have to admit I was just a little sad when I saw the beige behemoth sitting next to the garbage can. Sad, that is, until this cartoon popped into my head.

I'm sure it's sitting in some landfill somewhere as we speak, but I like to think of this cartoon as a last little joke we shared.

New Cyber Security Challenge stream to test capabilities on spotting insider espionage

Cyber Security Challenge UK has launched a new partnership with Orange that will allow competitors to look at insider espionage and securing a motor racing team.

Developed with Dtex Systems, the competitions will form part of a new stream around policy and risk management and will see candidates look for insider espionage and the theft of commercial IP within a game developer. They will also secure a motor racing team from its rivals in preparation for a big race taking place at Banbury racing track in November.

According to Cyber Security Challenge UK, these competitions will test for the underlying mixture of technical and broader business skills, which are currently in high demand within the cyber security industry.

Mohan Koo, managing director of Dtex Systems, said: “As the monetary and political value of data grows, cyber criminals are becoming more aggressive in their quest to gain access. One of the easiest ways is by targeting employees on the inside and having them create security vulnerabilities or steal information directly.

“Without skilled security analysts who are able to effectively filter through large volumes of data, internal security breaches can often take days, months or even years to detect, rather than minutes or seconds. The ability to find the events which really matter in a timely fashion is a much needed and scarce skill.”

Candidates will act as a external security consultant for a fictitious mobile app development start-up called Online Mobile Gaming (OMG) that is readying a new game but is yet to implement adequate IT controls. A few weeks before the game's release, a rival mobile app company releases a very similar game and OMG's directors suspect insider involvement. The candidate's job is to use their forensic investigation skills to identify the high-risk users carrying out the activities responsible for the leaks.

Stephanie Daman, CEO of Cyber Security Challenge UK, said: “This competition is all about risk analysis â€" how much vulnerability can you allow before you put the team at risk? How secure do you need to be before you run over budget or negatively affect the operation of the team?”

The winners from this virtual competition will be invited to Orange's brand new face-to face competition, developed with Prodrive, the British motorsport and automotive engineering group, and held at the Banbury racing track in November. Here 30 candidates will come up against a real life motorsport set-up, complete with Aston Martin racing car, pit crew, technical team and a complex ICT infrastructure that connects them all.

GhostShell attack sees one million credentials leaked online

Up to a million user credentials have been exposed online by the hacker group GhostShell after it cracked a series of content management systems (CMS).

According to research by Imperva, the attack was "payback for law enforcement arresting hackers", as the victims included government agencies, and also banks and consultancies. Speaking to SC Magazine, Rob Rachwald, director of security strategy at Imperva, said that GhostShell was an affiliate of Anonymous and the attack was most likely done with the SQLmap tool to infiltrate via SQL injection vulnerabilities.

He said: “We did a sample set to see what it looked like, and we checked the data and it was legitimate in terms of this breach. There is no way to check all of the numbers but some of the databases contained more than 30,000 records, and up to one million have been breached.”

Rachwald said that multiple CMSs were attacked because of the flaw, and data and files were taken. He also said that administrator login information was taken, as well as usernames and passwords. In terms of the files and documents, he said that a lot of the stolen content did not include any sensitive information.

Rachwald said that it was hard to know why these specific sectors were targeted so randomly, but that the SQLmap tool may have been used to find out which systems were vulnerable.

Team GhostShell are understood to be operating a hacking campaign titled 'Project HellFire'. Along with the attack and data dump, it published a message where it claimed it was collaborating with Anonymous.

In the message, GhostShell explained that the attack was a form of protest against financial institutions and lawmakers, as well as authorities who arrested hackers this year. The group also announced that more attacks were planned.

The message read: “We are also letting everyone know that more releases, collaborations with Anonymous and others, plus two more projects, are still scheduled for this fall and winter. It's only the beginning.”

Rachwald said that one revelation from the leaked data was that a law firm had implemented an interesting password system where the root password was 'law321' and was prefixed with the user's initials, so in his case the password would be 'rrlaw321' and the law firm did not require users to change the password.

Toyota website attacked by rogue former employee

Toyota has suffered an attack on its intellectual property, which it is blaming on a former contractor.

According to a report by Automotive News, the North American branch of the Toyota Motor company claimed that Ibrahimshah Shahulhameed illegally accessed one of its websites after he was dismissed from the company. It claimed that within hours of his dismissal, Shahulhameed logged into the toyotasupplier.com website without authorisation and downloaded proprietary plans for parts, designs and pricing information for six hours.

Toyota said: “If this information were disseminated to competitors or otherwise made public, it would be highly damaging to Toyota, and its suppliers, causing immediate and irreparable damage.”

Toyota manufacturing spokesman Rick Hesterberg said that Toyota was continuing to investigate the security breach and did not know what had happened with the confidential information, or whether it may have changed hands.

He said: “We currently do not believe that any supplier data or our proprietary company information has been disseminated. It's too early to speculate on what-if's.”

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said: “What isn't clear, at this time, is whether Toyota are claiming that Shahulhameed accessed their computer systems by exploiting a vulnerability or whether they had simply not reset staff passwords that he may have had access to in his position as an IT contractor with the firm.

“The details in the Toyota case are currently unclear. But regardless of that, it's a timely reminder to all businesses to remember the importance of reviewing who has access to your systems, and to underline that changing passwords and resetting access rights is essential when a member of staff leaves the company.”

Excelerate Labs Announces 10 Startup Winners

Startups are hot right now, despite, or maybe because of a tough economy. Organizations like Excelerate Labs based in Chicago give startups a chance to shine and move to the next level. When starting a business, not every entrepreneur needs the same things. Our roundup focuses on the basics, and some ideas every small business startup should know.

The Startup Scene

The top five. Startups participating in the Excelerate Labs Demo Day are not limited to Chicago-based companies. Firms Read More

From Small Business Trends

Excelerate Labs Announces 10 Startup Winners