The big news today from the IBM IOD Global Conference and Business Analytics forum is the unveiling of Cognos 10.

The most common feature brought up on news sites and blogs is the ability Cognos 10 opens up to access business intelligence on a mobile device: be it a Blackberry, iPad or iPhone. Bloomberg picks up on a case study from the car rental industry:

"Hertz Global Holdings Inc., the largest car-rental company, will gather survey data from customers via text messages, and use IBM’s software to analyze responses. Employees can then receive real-time information on potential problems, such as wait times at car-rental locations, and adjust accordingly. Office Depot Inc. also is using the software to gather, analyze and report store-performance data."

Meanwhile, Dr Dobbs focuses on the move away from charts and graphs to "broader analysis tools supported by built-in images and user help videos". They also highlight advances in predictive analytics and 'what if' scenario evaluations.

Over on PC World, there is coverage of the tie-up with other parts of the IBM portfolio. Linkage with Lotus Connections, IBM's social networking platform, will "allow users to engage in conversations about business information and get more value out of the software". Cognos 10 also includes a statistics engine from the SPSS suite.

ITBusinessEdge points out the importance of business intelligence in the current economic climate: "business executives are looking for simplified access to more relevant information they can trust".

More information on Cognos 10
More information on the IBM Business Analytics Forum
#baforum

As the Business Analytics Forum gets underway in Las Vegas, eWEEK feature an article on how IBM's analytic software is helping Clark County Family Services Department in Nevada improve the delivery of social services. Prior to using IBM analytics, spreadsheets were used to monitor care workers and the level of service provided. Due to population increase and the need to conform to state legislation and policies, the department needed a solution that would make reporting easier, help the department comply with new regulations, and measure business performance.

According to Eboni Washington, a IT supervisor in the Family Services Department,
 
“Before this we had a lot of children not being seen each month. And now we have an automated system, rather than some workers keeping a hand count of who they have seen and what they have done each month.”

For more information, read the full article in eWEEK.

#baforum

Welcome to this new IBM Business Analytics blog to coincide with the major IBM business analytics event about to kick off in Vegas.

Whether or not you are attending, here are some useful links where you can get more information on the event:

• Business Analytics Forum website
• All things social at IOD
• Official Twitter handle
• More on IBM Business Analytics software
• Cognos on developerWorks

Keep posted for more updates as this event unfolds.

#baforum

Got caught up on a discussion around what screen resolutions most people use these days to view blogs. Made me dig into the trusty Google Analytics to see if I could discover anything for this very blog.

This is what I found:

Less than 10% of the audience use 1024×768 or less. Given that the majority of visitors are using around 1280, I’d suggest you can happily design a template at 1,000px with the sound knowledge that practically none of your audience will have a horizontal scroll. This is slightly wider than the advice from BloggingPro earlier this year.

Looking at some of the top blogs out there, Mashable weighs in at around 970px wide. Politico is a royal 1,000px and Robert Scoble’s blog sits at around 960px.

Any web designers out there know how this compares with regular websites?

According to recent research by Toolbox.com, IT professionals consume more social media content at a higher rate than either editorial or vendor content (question to Toolbox: is there a blurry line between these classifications?). Toolbox states: 'Respondents consumed social media at a rate of 5.86 hours per week, versus 3.81 for editorial content and 3.41 for vendor content.'

Key takeaway from this data would be if you are not currently using blogs and other social media to interact with this audience, it might not be a bad time to start. As an example, if you put out press releases to announce new products and iterations, you can back this up with more detailed insight on 'how' and 'why' these changes occurred. Google is a master of this and in fact use blogs as the primary vehicle for external communications. Another example that came up this week is using social media to uncover the stories buried in typical marketing case studies. In this case it may be going into some depth on the technical implementation, technologies and steps involved in reaching those headline ROI figures that are often called out.

The study also suggests that 'More than 55% of IT professionals use social media to make better decisions based on insights from like-minded professionals.' If you are a social media practitioner in the B2B space, you are probably accustomed to the struggle of getting IT professionals to participate. This statistic could help you convince management on the development side of the business that it's worth incentivizing participation in social media: you may see a profound impact on your bottom line.

Read more on the Toolbox.com study

Bob Leah, over on the Social Strategist blog, brought up the excellent point of how you can improve the SEO of your developerWorks blog by displaying the right title in your browser when people look at individual posts (the <title> tag, for all you HTML geeks out there).

His approach used Javascript, which can cause problems for some search engines and can throw up some accessibility issues. I’d like to propose a different approach proposed by Dan Lowen from the IBM Interactive team. For this, the title is written onto the page by the server, not client-side.

Here’s the approach:

Open the _header template and locate this code:

<title>$utils.escapeHTML($model.weblog.name)</title>

Replace with this:

  <title>
              #if($model.permalink)
                #set($firstEntry=$model.weblogEntriesPager.entries.get(0))
                $utils.removeHTML($firstEntry.title) ($utils.escapeHTML($model.weblog.name))
             #else
                $utils.escapeHTML($model.weblog.name)
            #end
  </title>

The other main change from Bob’s example is placing the name of the blog after the post title. There are two reasons for this. If you have a long blog title, the post title gets truncated out on Google search results and on your browser tab. Secondly, Google gives prominence to the words that appear first in the title string, so adding the post title first means you have a better chance of this ranking over the name of your blog.

I hope this helps and I’m interested in your feedback.

Did you know that @developerWorks is IBM's biggest Twitter profile?

With over 33,000 followers, this syndication channel has some serious clout:



While we're talking numbers, let's just say this channel drives over 200,000 clickthroughs a month to the developerWorks site - surely not something to be sniffed at! I recently caught up with Frank Carlos, the man behind the profile, to get some tips on building a strong Twitter network.

Read more about developing IBM's largest Twitter profile

I recently had the opportunity to catch up with Frank Carlos, a grassroots marketing expert on the IBM developerWorks team. Among his many accomplishments has been the development of the @developerWorks Twitter profile which has amassed a princely 33,000 followers.

In my mind, this makes Frank something close to the Ashton Kutcher of the B2B tech world.

So, how did he do it? A few lessons came out of the conversation with Frank.

Curation is the key

The @developerWorks twitter account works as a syndication channel: posting links to content from across the developerWorks site. However, rather than just automatically spewing out the contents of an RSS feed, Frank takes the role of editor, curating the content and only posting the pieces he thinks make most sense. This resonates with Paul Gillin’s claim in B2B Magazine that curation is the new creation and as the amount of information out there on the web grows exponentially, we find real value from those who can pick through the haystack and just hand us the needles.

Let’s be clear though, the role of curator involves some serious graft. Frank points out that he posts over 20 tweets a day. Every day. Obviously, in order to do this you need a large network of content to pick from.

Focus on the audience

developerWorks is an IBM resource for developers and IT professionals, allowing them to build skills around the gamut of technologies that IBM solutions touch. It covers IBM’s own platforms and tools such as WebSphere, Rational, Tivoli and Information Management. There is also a mass of content on popular programming languages and applications, including PHP, Java, Ruby, Android and HTML5, and it is in these areas where the @developerWorks account is focused. (As an aside, a recent developerWorks study shows just how important these technologies are to the developerWorks audience).

Going after popular topics is a shrewd play that has obviously paid off for the @developerWorks account. Just picking a random selection from today:

Here you can see posts covering Cloud, JavaServer, Ubuntu, RedHat, Scala.

Sure, many of the tweets are related to IBM solutions, but the relationship is made with popular tech topics of the day. The message here is if you know there is a popular theme related to your offerings, exploit that relationship!

Let folks know you’re out there

There are a few attention-grabbing tactics that have been employed to publicize the @developerWorks account: none of which have cost a dime to implement (well, beyond the internal resource).

The first, is the choice of a somewhat unusual URL shortener to post links: StumbleUpon. The advantage of this service over other shorteners such as bit.ly or the newer goo.gl is that the links are automatically added to the StumbleUpon network and Frank points out that his links receive a good chunk of traffic directly from the StumbleUpon channel.

Another technique used by @developerWorks is that of following people in the networks where you want prominence. Using the Android example, you can search on people using the ‘#android’ hashtag and follow those that appear to be tweeting on-topic. Following them also puts you on their radar. If you’re putting out quality content in that area, there’s a good chance they will follow you back.

The use of hashtags in tweets is a great way of associating your content with topics/subjects. How do you find the right hashtag? One way is just a simple search on Twitter, such as this one for ‘#android‘. What you are looking for is a hashtag with a hive of existing conversation around it. And, yep, the mighty Mashable has a primer if you want to know more on making the most of hashtags.

Prove the results of your work

Syndication is the core objective of the @developerWorks account. Frank keeps detailed records on each tweet and how many clicks it receives. As well as knowing that he drives 200,000 clickthroughs a month, he also can break that down by topic and IBM technology. All through the clever use of spreadsheets!

Much is talked about the ROI of social media. For syndication you can go beyond counting clicks and approximate the value of the channel by looking at how much it costs you to attract visitors using other channels. For instance, you can take your hashtags and find out how much it would cost you to get traffic for those terms through paid search on Google. You can take this a step further if you have a good connection between your web analytics and your CRM and calculate how many of these clicks have turned into customers.

Although I bring this up last, tracking the value of your work can be the most important piece. As you’re probably aware, if you can’t find a way to express the value of your efforts, you may find your management pulling the rug from under your campaign.

I should come clean and point out that one of the motivating factors in my decision to move to the developerWorks organization was wanting to be a part of a team that is making excellent use of social media in innovative and effective ways. Frank’s use of Twitter to build the @developerWorks profile is an excellent example of this.