How Valuable is Your #BIGData?

From "Spinning Straw Into Gold" by John Miglautsch @JRMigs

I don’t know much about straw so I called my friend at the local feed mill (like the miller). “The first thing you must know about straw” he told me, “straw is NOT hay.” Hay is made from the green grass that they cut through the summer. “Hay goes into an animal, nourishes it, feeds it. Straw is what goes under the animal and catches what comes out of the animal.”

Straw is a byproduct of wheat, you cut the grain off the top and the stalk that is left is almost worthless. It is used as a cleaning product.

You have to understand that like straw, most of your precious data is worthless - straw.

This is fundamental.

If you get nothing else out of this, understand this.

Your data is mostly worthless.

If you can face that, you are far ahead of your competition in turning data into money.

The continuation of this point is available on a new post on MigMar.com @JRMigs

Sherwin-Williams Integrated Marketing

http://ow.ly/c8Znd Sherwin-Williams is implementing B-B #IntegratedMarketing to reach out to body shops in a variety of ways.

Web Analytics, the OTHER dismal science

Amazing article on the futility of consumer behavior #prediction with #BigData. Will voice of sanity be heard before we #drownInData ? http://ow.ly/c7brh If you like this you might also like http://bit.ly/McLWsp @jrmigs <><

One Month In

After just a month (or so) of trying to figure out Social Media, I have received one international speaking invitation, sold an unexpected book in New Zealand, re-connected with a half-dozen long-time friends in the Direct Marketing community. The hard numbers are: followers:6->53, Klout 5->21 Most importantly, new vigor for connecting with the #BigData industry - lost without a compass. :)

Is this what I signed up for?

You've read that I've been trying to increase my "Platform" with #SocialMedia (note the cool #hashtag). I've tried thinking of all the cool things I've ever said... maybe I can remember some... then again, I'm at my best in an extemporaneous context. This makes my blog - at least at this point a bit less than #pithy.

To learn the ropes, I've been following my friends - I must admit my admiration for their continuous blog effluence has increased exponentially. (I'm wondering if euphuism is rewarded in twitter Klout rankings?)

Does this kind of 'communication' advance civilization? My #followers have increased 383% so it must be making some kind of #contribution. (I haven't studied hashtags yet, except to know I should put some in.) So, if you're looking for serious posts to move you to the next level - check out my #TwitterLists cause I do have some super wonderful friends.

Platform by Michael Hyatt

I attended a very practical teleconference yesterday with @MichaelHyatt. I also purchased his book, Platform. It landed in my Kindle, complete with live links to tons of sites, full of information on tools and suggestions. There is a special offer for the book on http://michaelhyatt.com.

#RFM in Social Media

I've been taking classes in Social Media (believe it or not) and they suggest that I should find a search term that others might be looking into. Since I've had major wins in catalog circulation I tried that. Well both terms are a bit too general I think. I use predictive modeling but I find tweets by super models. If I use quotes to combine the terms I find people in financial analysis which I really know nothing about. In the shower this morning I thought about #RFM. It stands for Recency, Frequency, Monetary. It is the foundation of almost all customer scoring. Unfortunately, with most formulas, RFM masks the potential of the best customers and also smudges the the worst into one big glop. We virtually always beat #RFM by working a lot harder, creating a host of additional variables. So, I'm going with #RFM (or e-RFM) and we'll keep exploring with Social Media.