From Connection to Innovation: Measuring Social Media Technology’s Impact

on Community and Business Well-Being in Techville and Beyond

Part 1: Kate O’Neill

#wearenashville. #wearechatty.

Healthy blogging community in mid-

2000s

Strong representation on

Twitter and in other social channels

Fans, friends, followers of beloved local brands

(Yazoo, Opry, etc.)

#34 city on Tweet Grader

Is our participation productive?

Harnessing Participation for Progress

Boosterism

Innovative Applications

Advancement

A Case for Alternative Measures• Global Peace Index• Happiness economics• Legatum Prosperity Index• Philosophy of happiness• Post-materialism• Psychometrics• Satisfaction with Life Index• Utilitarianism• World Values Survey• Gross National Cool

Gross National Happiness

• Psychological Well-being• Standard of Living and Happiness• Good Governance• Health• Education• Community Vitality• Cultural Diversity and Resilience• Time Use and Happiness• Ecological Diversity and Resilience

Genuine Progress Indicator• + Personal consumption weighted by income distribution index• + Value of household work and parenting• + Value of higher education• + Value of volunteer work• + Services of consumer durables• + Services of highways and streets• - Cost of crime• - Loss of leisure time• - Cost of unemployment• - Cost of consumer durables• - Cost of commuting• - Cost of household pollution abatement• - Cost of automobile accidents• - Cost of water pollution• - Cost of air pollution• - Cost of noise pollution• - Loss of wetlands• - Loss of farmland• -/+ Loss of forest area and damage from logging roads• - Depletion of nonrenewable energy resources• - Carbon dioxide emissions damage• - Cost of ozone depletion• +/- Net capital investment• +/- Net foreign borrowing• = GPI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genuine_Progress_Indicator

Improving Metrics that Matter

• Recruitment of Tech Talent to Nashville• Retention of Tech Talent in Nashville• Tech Sector Development• Tech Entrepreneurship• Overall Livability and Quality of Life

The Health of Techville’s Tech Community

• Talent Availability– Influenced by boosterism?

• Tech grads attrition• Tech talent likelihood to stay• Investment

But we don’t want to be

Silicon Valley.

But we don’t want

to be Atlanta.

But we don’t want

to be Austin.

Of course not. We want to be

• Music City.• Techville.• Nashvegas.• Smashville.• #wearenashville

Not Just About the Joneses• People prefer to live in a world in which they receive an annual

salary of $50,000, when others are pulling in $25,000, than an annual salary of $100,000 when others are making $200,000.

• Social comparison, status and rank more important than the absolute value of our bank accounts or reputations

• How we spend money influences our individual happiness:“Spending money on anything that promotes personal growth -- French lessons, say, or a cooking class -- tends to make us happier, as does spending money on social outings, compared to spending money on solitary endeavors”

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2675

The Happiness of Techville’s Tech Community

• Connectedness• Identity• Integrity• Relative Success

Measuring Community Happiness

• Social Sentiment– Text analysis of the sentiment of social shares and

statuses• Social Connectedness– Analyze networks and connectedness for

indicators• Self-Reporting• Readily quantifiable economic indicators

Social Networks and Health

• Social connectedness relevant to health• “social network transmission may be one

mechanism through which both beneficial and adverse effects are mediated.”

• http://www.bmj.com/content/337/bmj.a2781.short

The Means to Acquire the Metrics

• Integrating service APIs• Alternative views of mundane data• Analyzing and data storytelling

Alternative Views of Mundane Data

The Means to Impact the Metrics

• Guitars and Gamification• Happiness Contagion• Weak Ties + Offline Connectedness = Strong

Ties

We Don’t Do “Weak Ties” in Music City

• Connecting Nashville’s connectors• Online contacts become offline connections

From Connection to Innovation

Part 2: James Soto, Joshua Camp, Joey Strawn

Setting the Stage

1. Share insights as to how Nashville stacks up as a tech community

2. Assess if the current metrics we use to assess tech community health and happiness work

3. Explore how community, corporate and public sector social media connectivity and adoption plays a role

4. Use a few tools of the trade

DIGITAL STALKINGThanks for the Invitation?

FEATURING

THE NASHVILLE TECH GENOMECan We Mind Map Nashville’s Technology Ecosystem

NTC as an Indicator

Nashville Technology Council Membership

Tech MembersSocial Media & Marcom Technology

Growing Tech Community

2011

2012

360370380390400410420430440

NTC Membership

NTC Membership

Tech Entrepreneurship

Exploring ways to Measure Techville’s Progress

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

• Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)

• Social Media Chatter• Social Media Adoption• Mind Map• API’s• Listening

ENTER SOCIAL METRICSFrom Traditional to Technology Measurement

The Chicken and the Egg

Does economic growth lead to happiness or does happiness lead to economic growth?

Where do we really start?

#WeAreDriven

“New firms add an average of 3 million jobs in their first year, while older companies lose 1 million jobs annually”

-2010 Kauffman Foundation Study

Sources, Tools, and Technology

• Startup Genome Project• Angel list• University of Chicago, SM Impact Study• Nashville Technology Council• Aberdeen• US Bureau of Labor Statistics• Radian6 and Our Social Arsenal

Nashville’s Digital Growth

2011NTC member companies - 390Social & Digital Media Members - 63

2012NTC member companies - 431Social & Digital Media - 65

Average Lifespan of a Funded Startup

- Shikhar Gihash; Harvard Business School

• 70-80% Never see an ROI• 30-40% liquidate entirely in the first 3-5 years

Old Data = Tired Results

…yet we continue to measure Key Performance Indicators as though they should still be based on a limited system of compiling the same old tired data that yields erroneous results

The Typical ‘Old School’ Example

GDP includes ‘negative’ expenditures such as burglar alarms, daycare, self-defense and fails to capture social investments into the community.

In other words, welfare takes a back-seat to cash flow, which is where GPI comes back in

Objective Vs. Subjective Social Indicators

• Unemployment• Poverty Rate• Working Hours per Week• Perinatal Mortality Rate

• Life Satisfaction• Job Satisfaction• Perception of Liberty• Personal Areas of Importance• Environmental Concerns

The real problem

• Investing in socioeconomic initiatives based on a perceived benefit, with the only real goal being to improve that very perception or single metric.

• No standard for how to correlate • No standard for what to measure, monitor, or

how to correctly interpret the data

It’s Easy!

• It’s EASY to pull outdated statistics and ignore the CURRENT situation

• It’s EASY to see that unemployment is high and think “we need jobs”

• It’s EASY to see that crime is on the rise and proclaim “We need more police!”

• It’s EASY for the public to see education costs rising and it’s EASY for them to to cry “Debt Forgiveness!”

Social Media to the Rescue?

• Ok, so maybe it’s really just time to re-evaluate our methodology

• What are we measuring in the first place, and how? With what tools?

The REAL question?

• How can we identify, and then act on the present state of our community and implement changes that will give us a true ‘edge’ as a technology hub?

Measuring Startup Attraction Potential

• Entrepreneurship Spirit• Legal Environment• Availability of Talent• Infrastructure• Capital Availability• Community Sentiment and Support

Overhauling the Social Indicators

City Services Quality of Life

Nashville’s ConnectednessBenchmarking Nashville’s 49 Inc. 5000’s

LinkedIn – 88%Facebook - 76% Twitter - 65%Google+ - 20%Youtube - 29%

Stop, Look, and Listen

Benchmarking Greatness

*Austin*Palo Alto*Boston*Raleigh*Tampa

Global Marketing Technology Startup ‘Chatter’

Benchmarking Greatness

Nashville

*Austin*Palo Alto*Boston*Raleigh*Tampa

Vs.

Global Marketing Technology Startup ‘Chatter’

Actionable Intelligence

Nashville Ranked 43/75 in 2011

Benchmarking our Future with new metrics

In a Nutshell

@JoshuaCamp@Joey_Strawn

@JamesSotoISM@ISMSocial

#marketstrong

@JoshuaCamp@Joey_strawn

@JamesSotoISM@ISMSocial

#marketstrong