Exploit Predictive Analytics or Scenario Analysis #IN E-Discovery Projects

Scenario Analysis and Predictive Analytics offer a low risk, high value means to help eDiscovery project teams deliver less expensive high value results faster compared to usual eDiscovery methods.

Whether your eDiscovery teams employ Predictive Analytics or not, Scenario Analysis will help prioritize the sequence of eDiscovery processes and focus limited resources. Indeed if done properly faster, richer E-Discovery results may allow counsel to shape the legal action or negotiate from a position of knowledge before the eDiscovery teams commence their project.

Scenario Analysis for eDiscovery

Scenario analysis is very straight forward and may be done very quickly in most eDiscovery projects if practitioners are guided by the core concepts of scenarios.

1. A scenario is a cluster of stories or content related to the legal action that requires E-Discovery.
2. Case files may be created before an action is resolved or even before eDiscovery commences.
3. Counsel can generally describe two or three high probability outcomes as an action commences.

Go to our @eDiscovery_ Value Brief for a view of combining Predictive Analytics and Scenario Analysis.

Join us to see how to it is possible to use Scenario Analysis and ‘proxy content’ to accelerate your E-Discovery results.

Cheers,

Nick Trendov @eDiscovery_ nick@scenario2.com @SpeedSynch @ResonantView

Advertisers, Executives and Lawyers look #in to promise of Predictive Analytics

Advertisers, executives and now eDiscovery lawyers attracted to the promise that predictive analytics will help them influence the future would learn much more by studying the link between Chanel No5 and predictive analytics tools.  

Let’s start with Predictive Analytics and get to Chanel later.

Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics is an outcome delivered by the application of tools and techniques that provide insight today to what might happen tomorrow, much like the gypsy in a tent.

The attraction of predictive analytics story to executives is quite high as it promises to ease their struggle to align future products to constantly changing customer needs.  Indeed Predictive Analytics may also be seen as a relief to leaders of E-Discovery teams as they search for numbers and stories embedded in huge data pools to help them prevail in their stewardship of typically high cost, low value eDiscovery projects.

Let’s now look into the core of Predictive Analytics — numbers, stories and scenarios to understand its value.

Shell Scenarios, Stories and Sufi

Pierre Wack, a Shell employee and Sufi, raised the practice of Scenario Analysis honed at Rand for the US military to a high commerical art.  Pierre Wack future-proofed Shell and used Scenario Analysis to help lift Shell from a third tier oil company to a global energy giant.

Numbers & Stories Predict Future Events

As a fully recovered accountant I learned to use stories to magnify the value of analytics as I delivered services with Microsoft, Cognos, Business Objects or other technologies to global corporations.

Currently we use these tools to accelerate or magnify the value of predictive analytics projects; 

A. ‘Story or Perspective Lens’  —  Story | Process | Software or Idea | Brand | Numbers or KPIs

1. A story aligns People, Content & Purpose
2. Tell a story twice and it becomes a Process.
3. Tell a story three times and Software is made.
4. Tell a story four times and you create a Brand value.
5. Tell a story five times and accountants craft KPI measures.

With a little practice, almost anyone can point a Perspective Lens to a corporate value chain and receive some insight to what is happening today and what is likely to happen in the next 6 to 12 months.

Two simple tools to magnify the value of a story lens:

B. Personae–build key personae with a focus on behaviours
C. Scenarios–gather stories at the core of financial forecasts across a corporate value chain

Predictive Analytics, Personae & Scenarios 

1. Identify the Personae across a corporation’s global value chain and use Predictive Analytics to determine how their behaviours may change over the next 6 to 12 months.

2. Target and understand the relationships of key stories embedded in the corporation’s financial forecast.

3. Modify some original stories according to anticipated changes in Persona behaviours or add new stories to reflect unforeseen events such as Barrack Obama being elected as the next US President.

4. Label the first story cluster Scenario1 and the new cluster of stories Scenario2.

5. Use measures to determine which Scenario is active and pre-plan reponses accordingly. 

Scenarios & Future-Proofing 

Future-proofing is a concept that uses scenarios to avoid disaster or exploit opportunities in the future.

Consider how you would manage and align the business if the world unfolds according to the stories in Scenario1 or what might be done if the world unfolds according the Scenario2 Predictive Analytics, Perspective Lenses, Personae and Scenario analysis help us deal with the future now.

Chanel No5, Stories and Numbers

All storytellers intuitively understand that numbers and stories are complementary and as a storyteller I must point out that at one time stories and numbers were one and indeed even today a number evokes many stories–the numbers 7 or 4 in the Chinese culture or even the number 5 in our own.

Africa and Predictive Analytics

In the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria the deity of love, sexuality and finance is OSHUN and her number is 5.

Coco Chanel must have known about the mythical connection or was extremely lucky to have named her iconic scent No5 though either way the connection of stories and numbers is important. 

Numbers, Stories and Behaviours

Studying Jung’s protégé  Marie-Louise von Franz offers researchers more resources in the exploration of the links between numbers and stories though I suggest starting with;

On Divination and Synchronicity: The Psychology of Meaningful Chance.

Originally Presented As Lectures at the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich

(Studies in Jungian Psychology) (Paperback)

by Marie-Louise von Franz

Storytellers

Stories are the core of what we are and what we do, and for those with an unclear understanding of the expertise offered by a storyteller, allow me offer this view—Storytellers perceive by measuring differently and have the ability to magnify any Predictive Analytics effort.  

Five levels of storytellers expertise;

• Hear a story
• Repeat a story
• Tune a story
• Create a story
• Live a story

Join us to explore the application of Predictive Analytics to Advertising or E-Discovery.

Cheers,
Nick
nick@scenario2.com @SpeedSynch @eDiscovery_@ResonantView

SpeedSynch Resonance Rules #IN Managing Supply #Chain Market #Risk

Executives have embraced the World Wide Web to create unique marketing value or cut advertising costs of old Media business models and recently have been surprised to discover that Internet Marketing processes offer opportunities to significantly reduce business risk.

Real-time Internet interactions on web sites, blogs or Social Media platforms provide insights to changing customer need and to adjust products accordingly thereby reducing business risk.

Risk Reduction and Extended Supply Chains

Reducing business risk as products flow along their Supply Chain provides a positive impact on future product values, sales or profits by exploiting insights of changes in; 

• Customer Demand
• Customer Behaviours
• Competitor Product features
• Customer Content preferences
• Customer Media preferences

These and other changes may be mapped by employing the concept of Resonance to determine their impact on product values as products travel across their Supply Chains.

Extended Supply Chains and TransMedia

Web2.0 technologies have enabled innovation and caused distress in Media markets, the implosion of News related business models, the spectacular rise of Social Media platforms and more recently the subtle use of TransMedia, where stories are delivered in segments across multiple media channels or extended supply chains or different places, spaces and times. 

TransMedia techniques offer innovative alternatives to traditional advertising and faster more flexible options to creative marketers to differentiate their customers and their competitors.

The other significant innovation in Internet Marketing is the concept of ‘Resonance’ used to convey how closely two things ‘vibrate’ or their affinity to each other. Resonance has also recently been embraced by Twitter as the core of its Advertising revenue model. 

SpeedSynch Resonance and Content

SpeedSynch Resonance Maps identify and map relationships between people, products and content to guide the delivery of stories across Media and TransMedia channels and platforms to align the resonance of products and content to the people they serve.

Inspired by Twitter’s innovation, SpeedSynch employs semantic algorithms to build SpeedSynch Resonance Maps to measure two other unique content values –

•  Wayfinding or Navigation—help people find content or products
•  Accelerated Learning—help people learn how to extract content or product values 

A SpeedSynch Resonance Map of the SpeedSynch Twitter stream:

 * Please click once or twice to enlarge or alternatively work with the enlarge option on your browser…

 

SpeedSynch Resonance Map of SpeedSynch.com Twitter Stream

Content and Profit Alignment Rules

People create content in the form of conversations and stories to ask questions or look for answers that reflect their changing needs or behaviours and content is used by corporations to express the value of their products to their customers. 

Alignment Rules Content 

• Twitter content changes quickly
• Blog content change is slower
• Corporate web sites are slowest

Content ‘resonance’ helps you understand when your brand or product stories are aligned with your customers or how your customer needs have changed as your products are travelling along their Supply Chain.  Surprises when products arrive are not fun!

SpeedSynch uses content Resonance maps to align multiple customer behaviours to content and products that fit what they need.

Content and Resonance

Twitter Resonance is a critical element in communication today because it offers fast, simple and mobile real-time ability for people to exchange conversations, opinions and information.  Many Tweets or posts in a Twitter streams include external links or ‘backlinks’ to other content on web sites or social media sites.

Over the past five years we have developed SpeedSynch Resonance Maps to help marketers identify and map what is ‘top of mind’ to anticipate and adapt to changes in customer needs and behaviours to reduce business risk or increase revenue and profit opportunities.

Join us to see how Internet Marketing reduces your business and Supply Chain risk.

Cheers,

Nick Trendov nick@scenario2.com @SpeedSynch

Value of Twitter-type Resonance Tools #IN Mobile Advertising and Marketing Models

Twitter-type Resonance advertising tools provide great value to stressed out marketers and advertisers who look to reachout to mobile customers as Social Media, data overload, SEO spam overwhelm traditional advertising and media business models.

What is Resonance?

The simplest way to understand Resonance is to picture someone juggling one or more tennis balls.  They juggle as long as the story or content represented by the tennis ball is meaningful to them and when their focus or perspective changes they drop the balls they don’t need and pick up others.

People and tennis balls (stories or content) must resonante with each other.

Resonance is Juggling Stories or Content that you need

Groups, Resonance and Trust

Since juggling a lot of tennis balls simultaneously may be stressful, busy people rely on people they trust to provide guidance and suggestions as to the tennis balls that may help them in their day and ask someone to toss them a tennis ball that they need and when they are done they drop it.

Resonance Confuses Marketers and Advertisers

Lobbing Advertising Stories into Twitter

SEO may have conditioned marketers and advertisers to serve as much content as possible out via internet web sites, blogs and social media platforms, after all the price was right, pushing content was virtually free.

In late 2008 over half of all searches started in social media platforms rather than search engines as people began to trust other people rather than the search engine spiders and the advertisers that fed them.  Twitter’s use of Resonance in a mobile software platform that includes elements of voting and self-forming groups offers the most unique value to advertisers and marketers. 

Twitter makes It is easy to understand which stories or content resonate with people, groups across different geographies and spam is inconsequential.

Twitter-type Resonance is Spam Free

When the SEO crews that made millions with the Google business model encounters the social media platforms that were islands they incorporated various techniques to get inside, something that the search engine spiders could not do.  The most common technique was ‘The Follower‘ where spammers set up shop and formed groups to overwhelm natural groups and the content they generate inside Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media spaces.

Spammers Fail to Pollute Twiiter

Technology Fails to Overwhelm Twitter Trust

Spammers use every means and technology possible to lob in as many stories as possible, Twitter however has one important difference, if people don’t like stories or content they just drop the ball and if they don’t repeat or Re-Tweet then the content dies unlike a blog or space where spam sits around forever and polutes the perspectives and trust of natural group members.

Predictive Analytics and Mobile Marketing Resonance

SpeedSynch Resonance maps offer tools and techniques to measure the alignment of People, Content, Products or Processes and predict changes in Resonance so that advertisers or marketers can adjust their messages and budget allociations accordingly.

This is the Resonance Map of a mobile marketing entrpreneur and it is possible to see what is top of mind for him and the people that rely on his content via his blog and Twitter stream.

 SpeedSynch.com Resonance Map of Mobile Entrepreneur

Join us to explore SpeedSynch.com Resonance Maps and the value of Twitter-type Resonance tools in mobile advertising and marketing models.

Cheers,

Nick Trendov @SpeedSynch  @ResonantView  nick@scenario2.com

#IN 2011 Great Content Curators will OWN Social Media Networks

In 2011 great content curators will own social media networks as community members will need fast answers to more questions.

Oprah’s OWN

Oprah’s ability to deliver ‘great content’ as a super content curator led to her OWN network partnership with Discovery and immediate access to almost 100 million people.  The OWN ‘wrapping’ of the floundering Discovery Health Channel is innovative and shows the power of a great curator.

A number of trends and patterns have contributed to the value provided by curating content and innovation around aligning people to content and products.

These are some of the things to consider when you look to curate content that resonates and serves current and future customers.

Trust Moves away from SEO

Since late 2008 or early 2009 over half of internet searches now start in Social Media platforms and now people seem to trust other people a little more in finding fast answers to tough questions rather than search engine spiders or the advertisers that feed them.

Mobile May Sink SEO

Very few people that I know have an appetite to look at millions, thousands or even hundreds of Google search results on their mobile phone and as Google Android, RIM, Nokia, Sony, LG, Samsung and Apple interfaces mobile devices become gain as an on-ramp to Social Media platfomrs and the internet, the percieved value of SEO will drop even faster.

Resonance Trumps SEO

It is difficult to impossible for a search engine spider to understand your question and an answer that is suitable to your situation and understanding how to deliver content that ‘resonates’ to questions requires a little work and engagement so that people can declare what is important.

Social Media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook have grown tremendously and there are many good tools to help people find good content or products that resonate with their immediate need — we do this with SpeedSynch Resonance Maps.

Advertisers Live Large

Advertisers have always preferred large deals so that they can minimize costs for their clients and deliver high value but appear to struggle with the content and stories easily created and delivered globally in Social Media platforms like Twitter or focused advertising possible in LinkedIN or other plaftforms.

Huge waves of content are formed by the minute and advertisers or their clients may naturally feel that they must devote very large budgets and spend on advertising programs to be heard above the noise created in internet sites, blogs and Social Media.

Focus Trumps Budget

In our experience the value of a message or content delivery increases if it can be oriented to either a single person or small group and to accomplish this we look to focus on customer behaviour patterns and TransMedia or Cross Media tools.

We let our customers tell us which questions, answers or stories are important to them, and this may be done anonymously, quickly and simply by using NeuroPersona tools.

TransMedia or Cross Media Trend 

The delivery of content or advertising stories has seen considerable innovation in the past 15 years and TransMedia or Cross Media techniques is one of the most promising in a world where answers and content outnumber questions but both are hard to find quickly.

The Matrix was one of the most popular successful deployment of TransMedia storytelling where people might get a good part of the message by viewing one or more of the movies but the whole story was accessible to those that found the comic books and attended the events which completed the picture.

IKEA Cross Media Innovation

Recently a simple IKEA internet banner add shows us another application of advertising delivery, self-configured stories where people put the story together from all the bits they pick up in different places and spaces according to what resonates with them, something no advertiser or marketer would ever know.

Contact Us

Contact us for a conversation about great content curation cases, tools, tips and tricks — especially if content is your business!

Cheers,

Nick Trendov @SpeedSynch  nick@scenario2.com

Titles that Resonate #Top #2010 #Posterous #Blog Posts delivered #IN #TransMedia Format

Titles that Resonate #Top #2010 #TransMedia #Cross #Media Post #IN #SpeedSynch #Content #Stories is meant to attract the attention of ‘machines’ or search spiders first and eyeballs second.

This single Posterous blog post will be automatically ‘pushed’ to Twitter and WordPress sites and later picked up by LinkedIn.

Here we see that the message directs the media flow and is later directed by the media channels to different spaces and groups.

Top 2010 Posterous Blog Posts

#transmedia #speedsynch spaces for internet marketing advertising

SpeedSynch boosts #Transmedia spaces for Internet Marketing Advertisers

#transmedia is new to artists, though well known to storytellers and in this space we will explore the application of our SpeedSynch internet marketing software and internet marketing advertising and promotional techniques to support #transmedia from a commercial perspective…

New TransMedia Marketing Rules

Internet marketing has essentially changed very little since marketers discovered how to successfully use Yahoo 10 years ago which may seem shocking to the Google generation, but is an accurate description of current practices…

Resonance and Prediction Marketing Rules

Success, Risk and Resonance  

Success in business is most often confused with precision, formulas and plans though it appears that after you plan life, life just happens which may be the reason why the concept of risk reduction is important in the business world where a business may not survive if it goes in one direction while its customers go in another.  When this happens we say that the business value didn’t ‘resonate’ with the needs of their customers or simply the business was not successful in serving their market…

 

Content Resonance Rules #IN Legal E-Discovery 2.0

The legal profession is wrestling with data and information overload to meet legal E-Discovery obligations and client expectations and may be able to benefit from significant advances provided by Social Media platforms and Content Resonance… 

 

SEO value decline and privacy toxicity highlights opportunities #IN Mobile Internet Marketing

The apparent decline in the perception of value and privacy toxicity of SEO may be very good for Mobile phone makers and internet marketers as the mobile phone has become the Social Media and internet website interface of choice by billions of people globally…

 

The content is this blog post also resonates and also influences the people that read it across the different media channels which it travels.

 

Cheers,

Nick Trendov @SpeedSynch  nick@scenario2.com

Law Firms carry big Risk #IN Outsourced E-Discovery Supply Chains

Law firms may soon discover the big risks embedded in outsourced E-Discovery supply chains, the ones that promise really cheap E-Discovery, the same risks that clients of IT outsourcers currently suffer from horribly;

•  Project times and risk exposures are increased by an ambitious desire to push higher volumes off-shore.
•  E-Discovery projects that start from ‘atomic’ data  perspectives to create inflexible project specifications that deliver low cost answers to the wrong questions or don’t attain the value promised as client or work requirements or objectives seem to change many times before project completion.
• Global E-Discovery outsourcers’ software ‘lock-in’ processes ill-suited to the work at hand. 
•  Privacy issues linked to documents bound by multiple jurisdictions, contractual or moral charges.

Good News for Smaller E-Discovery Practices

The good news for law firms with smaller E-Discovery practices is that some of the largest law firms have locked in contracts, one recently in excess of $500,000,000.  Long term contracts with global E-Discovery supply chain partners virtually eliminates the benefits of constant innovation with new processes, new software or the ability to exploit positive changes in E-Discovery trends shaped by concepts like Proportionality or Mediation.

E-Discovery focus on Global Economies of Scale

 

Indeed the specific design of E-Discovery ‘factories’ offered by E-Discovery outsourcers include products from database vendors or specialized E-Discovery software to cut costs.  However this ‘factory’ must be feed with high content volumes and associated processes that may actually later add costs to the discovery process but must be executed for the factory to function.

 

Speeding Up E-Discovery

 

We employ proven Semantic technology and Content Resonance innovations to facilitate, enrich or accelerate E-Discovery and uncover hidden value during the discovery process.

 

Contact us about speeding up E-Discovery projects or getting more value from your E-Discovery investments.

 

Cheers,

Nick Trendov @SpeedSynch nick@scenario2.com

Zynga Resonance Map

SpeedSynch Resonance Map of Zynga.com created 2010.11.15

Ask us how Resonance Maps provide insight to changing customer needs and flexibility across extended Supply Chains.

Cheers,

Nick Trendov @SpeedSynch

Faster ROI and Learning

Learning in brutally competitive markets is the difference between spectacular success and grinding failure and here we look at two aspects of learning, a single project and an enterprise wide human capital management perspective.

Learning powers Innovation, aligns your products to changing customer needs and a simple disciplined approach to learning drives profits for small companies and international corporations.

I’ve reviewed about a dozen articles, half suggested by my friend Tony Hunt who knows learning, and then explored Dr. Jac Fitz-enz’s HCM web site.  I did some project work for Dr. Jac in 1993 before he sold the Saratoga Institute and his focus on Human Capital Management adds a broader vision to learning.

Let’s start with the small or learning and then move to Dr. Jac’s big picture.

THE SMALL

There are many definitions of learning and I offer one more to keep in mind as you review the opportunity and ROI check list below;  learning as perspective.  Managers adjust products according to changing customer needs and essentially success in aligning to changing customer needs requires a perspective change first and customer perspectives help us measure and determine how to change.  Once we know where we are going, learning is easy.

“What difference does learning make?” 

• Articulate and create agreement on the value of solving a specific problem
• Determine which skills matter and learning performance objectives based on tangible values for skills taught
• Focus on the work that benefits from the learning, not the training
• Determine people obstacles, major skill gaps and learning deficiencies
• Estimate the ROI of achieving the learning outcomes

While specific success measures and ROI targets are expected in the project approval process, the stories that bridge the investments to benefits and people bring your proposal to life and inspire as you move forward.

THE LARGE

Dr. Jac Fitz-enz is an innovator and thought leader and his latest and perhaps most innovative contribution is focused on Human Capital Management.  Dr. Jac offers a clear, simple and proven way to strategically measure, manage and successfully deploy the most valuable business asset you have–people.  Indeed HCM, in my view, represents a  tipping point in value creation.

We use SpeedSynch intenet marketing software to map Dr. Jac’s Predictive Management paper, it’s worth the read;

Learning and ROI with Dr Jac Fitz Enz HCM21 model and SpeedSynch map for Social Media Marketing

Cheers,

Nick www.speedsynch.com

Precision may get a project approval but perspectives find hidden value in learning.

SAP cloud good for Microsoft

T-Systems appears to lead the charge to moving SAP customers to the cloud and oddly enough this is great news for Microsoft.

Here is a map of T-Systems and below is the why it’s good for Microsoft.

Microsoft benefits by SAP Cloud deployments

• SAP users depend on access to ‘data puddles’ that are by-products of SAP ERP, BW, Business Objects or Sybase
• Taking the reports to the cloud forces the users to use cloud technology
• Excel Services and SharePoint or event Excel2010 and Access will reliably help SAP users today 

There are many users of Excel and Access that can be trained quickly to minimize the expected increase in reporting costs and actually decrease license costs of legacy Business Intelligence and reporting systems without forcing upgrade cost.

Cheers,

Nick