Nashville Technology Council

Nashville Tech Story (12/10/09)

Analytics teach us so much.  We can track the profitability of our products, use predictive analysis to help us understand the direction of the marketplace, and use dashboards to keep it in front of us at all times.  One area I have always been interested in is how people use the ubiquitous search box.  It is important to know which pages people visit when they have a link presented to them, but it is even more important to see what they are typing in that they can’t find through the navigation tree.   This is free market research.  In general, technologycouncil.com visitors are most interested in the following links from our navigation as presented to them on their visit (in rank order):

Most Popular Search Terms in rank order – Nashville Technology Council – November 2009
Calendar
Board of Directors
Jobs
Events
Membership
Member Directory

However, when we analyze the terms, repeatedly search for by our visitors, a different list emerges.  In this case, people are searching for the following terms from our site.  

Most Popular Search Terms in rank order – Nashville Technology Council – November 2009
membership breakfast
InfoSEC
awards
Ballmer
EDS
emma
feel the beat
HP
member notes
membership breakfast speakers
omnia
4d medical
Accenture
Analytics Lunch
Andy Flatt
bass
calendar
career pathways
Chip Hayner

So what does this mean?  I analyze each week how many search results we have for each term, to make sure our content is delivering on the visitor’s request.  Based on our search results, we know our Members’ Services is one area that gets lots of searches.  Last month we delivered 17,000+ referral views from our member directory. Technology Products and Services was the top category searched.  People searching for vendors and contacts at companies is one of the quickest ways to make a connection with prospective buyers.

According to the latest study by Roger Bond and Charles Strong published this week, “Americans consumed information in 2008 for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totaled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day. A zettabyte is 10 to the 21st power bytes, a million million gigabytes. Information at work is not included.”

So if search and analytics are not in your strategy, maybe it is time to revisit your strategy for 2010.

Below is a link to an Analytics Survey.  We would like your input on the subject.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=FyR9HBw9xaiOZXI8i4566Q_3d_3d

Nashville Tech Story (11/4/09)

The business of analytics is growing dramatically as we expand our informational needs for an organization.  Analytics can be thought with regard to intelligence for the business, information, content management (structure and unstructured), and predictive (statistical).  There are a plethora of products in each of these four quadrants of analytical tools.

A new global study of more than 2,500 Chief Information Officers (CIOs), released by IBM in September, reveals that leveraging analytics to gain a competitive advantage and improve business decision-making is now the top priority for CIOs. More than four out of five (83 percent) survey respondents identified business intelligence and analytics – the ability to see patterns in vast amounts of data and extract actionable insights – as the way they will enhance their organizations’ competitiveness.

These results and other insights are detailed in the just-released Global CIO Study 2009, which is the largest face-to-face survey of CIOs ever conducted. The study, titled “The New Voice of the CIO,” represents the insights and vision of CIOs from 78 countries, 19 industries, and organizations of every size. The study reinforces the increasingly strategic role that CIOs are playing as visionary leaders and as drivers of innovation and financial growth.

With an increased focus on data analytics, the survey also revealed that data reliability and security have emerged as increasingly urgent concerns, with 71 percent of CIOs planning to make additional investments in risk management and compliance.

As a result of analytics, the CIO’s role is changing to include the following:

• Making innovation real
• Raising the ROI on IT
• Expanding the business impact.

Sign up today to join us for lunch on November 12, 2009, for the launch of the Analytics Group.