Yesterday I tweeted (@carlfrappaolo) about a Boston Globe articleEndeca. I was going to let it go at that; congratulations Endeca for getting the attention of the Sunday Globe and for having the popular press cover the fact that search is more than just findability and Google, that search can be used as a form of business intelligence (BI).
But then this morning, serendipitously I heard a story on NPR about the dramatically changing world of television watching and the impact that is having on the services provided by Nielsen. For decades Nielsen has had a monopoly on this market; reporting on the “popularity” of television programs based on eyeballs on TV sets at a particular time. This data is extremely valuable because it provides potential advertisers with insight on how much a spot on a given program is worth, and to which audience.
But television watching just isn’t what it used to be (echo newspapers and magazines). Television content consumers have alternative ways to access content (e.g.TiVo and Hulu) via alternative viewing devices that include smart phones and laptops, to name just a few. (I know my kids are forever watching TV without the TV on.) The viewing audience, including the way they view is changing. Nielsen customers (i.e. advertisers) are demanding that Nielsen keep pace and monitor these viewing habits. The television ad market is not dying - it is morphing and as a result is potentially more valuable. Through ECM-based technologies, it is possible to compile BI on multiple consumer habits, at unprecedented levels of granularity. In the case of television viewing, for example, not only what viewers are watching, but also when, where, what was skipped, re-played and shared. As Nielsen's president Steve Hasker put it. ""We'll be able to tell what type of video they watch, what type of sites they go to, how they interact on those sites, what they buy on those sites, what types of news articles they're reading." That is BI at a far lower and wider level of granularity than Nielson provides today.
Now think this new proposition through. Advertisers, using more ECM-based technology (e.g. e-publishing and DAM) advertisers can deliver more personalized and granular messages, in a timely manner – ads in context. Yes, once again, CONTEXT is king, and BI is the keys to the kingdom. ECM is at the foundation of great new opportunities and challenges for organizations. I recently completed an article for Ron Miller in which I focus on the circle between ECM, KM and Innovation Management. This triumvirate will soon become a requisite to remaining competitive in virtually any market. The article discusses this concept in some detail, more than here. Here, I draw attention to the tie between Innovation Management and ECM (in that order). In a phrase: get innovative with ECM. As highlighted in this blog post, the integration of new content types and new means of content distribution and consumption, coupled with new approaches to BI creates amazing opportunities; truly personalized real-time publishing, contextual publishing and a constant loop of feed back (including web 2.0 emergence) that allows the content provider to continuously fine-tune the presentation and make-up of content. The future for advertising and marketing is ripe with positive change, and ECM is at the foundation of this.
