“We have seen a clear evolution in demands from our customers. They are better informed and far more sophisticated in their expectations and requirements.”- Mark Redgrave of Hapax.

True!! With the advent of social media they now have their own platform to express their views and opinions. The main intention behind social media monitoring is to track these conversations as I have mentioned earlier. Determining if these conversations are positive or negative is called Sentiment Analysis.

Listening to the sentiments behind a customer’s voice is very important for any company that wishes to act upon these opinions. According to me, sentiment analysis is very important to any social media monitoring initiative. It is vital to analyze whether good or bad conversations are driving your brand in the social media space. In fact, tracking sentiments is one of the real reasons why businesses enter social media. At iridium, we use several tools to do this.

Automated sentimental analysis tools are generally used to give numbers to these customer sentiments. It is good if you dig deeper than the statistics to get a clearer picture. Also you will need to compare sentiments across several brands over a time period.

If the consumers have positive sentiments with a brand, its all good, but when there is negative sentiment it makes the analysis interesting when you have to uncover the reasons behind this particular sentiment. Sentiment analysis coupled with social monitoring tools make this study even more interesting. It is more like stepping into your consumer’s mind and understanding what drives their thinking about your company.

I would not like to confuse you further, so I conclude by stating that sentiment analysis is nothing but social media monitoring with a qualitative twist.

Here are some free Social media monitoring tools that you can use to assess all social media metrics.

1. How Sociable: it is a free tool that defines simplicity. Just punch in the brand you want to measure metrics for and you will get the visibility score for it across 32 social networks. http://www.howsociable.com/

2. Addict-o-matic: This tool provides you with a comprehensive view of discussions on a topic across the most popular social networks. In just one view you can see all the discussions on all popular social networks and blogs. http://addictomatic.com/

3. Technorati- This tool is used to find top blogs and posts on any searched item. http://technorati.com/

4. Google Blogsearch- This is also a blog oriented tool that generates top discussions happening in blogs on a topic you want to search for. http://blogsearch.google.com/

5. Googletrends- Shows the worldwide traffic/searches of this particular keyword. http://google.com/trends

6. Twitterstats-  This is one tool that serves all my twitter purposes. It shows all the relevant twitter stats for the Iridium account and allows comparisons with other accounts too. One stop for all twitter analytics is what this tool is all about. Check it out on http://www.twitterstats.com/

7. Quantcast- This tool is apt for tracking traffic to a particular website and gives Graphical display and demographics wise data segregation. http://www.quantcast.com/

There are numerous free tools available but its your requirements that defines your choice. After my stint in social media monitoring, these are the top 7 tools I frequently use.

Follow us on @iridiuminter or my personal twitter @sbharatam.

Here I am sharing with you a truly wonderful experience

The Livelihood School is an academic institution promoted by BASIX group, a modern livelihood promotion institution. The objective of this education program was to build perspective and skill relevant for effective livelihood promotion. There are various idealistic, utilitarian and plain self-interest based arguments ranging from providing equal opportunity, to promoting economic growth, to ensuring social and political stability for promoting livelihood.

These learning institutions are not very different from those that exist in conventional educational settings. They are, however, different in the way they emerge, and cultivate themselves. Many of these learning environments are the result of a team effort, which bridges a wide range of expertise including subject matter experts, web developers, graphic artists, and instructional designers to produce one or more courses. Not always the most successful approach, the team approach has been widely used especially by distance education institutions.

It is now widely accepted today that promotion of large number of livelihoods, especially for the rural poor and women has emerged as the most significant development challenge of the century. The Livelihood School was set up to address this need. The School is involved in knowledge building, in areas relevant, for supporting large number of livelihoods and disseminating the knowledge to enhance implementation capabilities of individuals and organizations affecting the livelihoods of the poor. This task of promoting livelihoods ideally is that a livelihood should keep a person meaningfully occupied in a sustainable manner with dignity.

The Case Study

Livelihood promotion is very complex. However, many development organizations have attempted to extend a wide variety of services; there are few, which have attempted to address it in its full range. The Livelihood School is an academic institution promoted by BASIX group, a modern livelihood promotion institution. The objective of this education program is to build perspective and skill relevant for effective livelihood promotion. It is now widely accepted today that promotion of large number of livelihoods, especially for the rural poor and women has emerged as the most significant development challenge of the century.

The mandate of the school is to build up a scientific knowledge base on livelihoods & disseminate the same to livelihood practitioners for enhancing their understanding and implementation capabilities, who in turn will promote large number of livelihoods. The solution should address the livelihood challenges of millions of people & focus on livelihood promotion education and build the knowledge base of livelihood promotion. All economic activities are bound by some institutional context.

The challenge was to encourage the participants expected to help them – Acquire a broad perspective on different models of livelihood promotion. Aid them in understanding the process of livelihood support adopted by different intervention agencies. Finally, get them to appreciate that livelihoods can be promoted or supported in many different ways and that there is no one way of going about promoting livelihoods.

An Intervening Agency has to chart the path of promoting livelihoods and needs a framework for analyzing livelihood intervention choices in understanding the process with the choices offered. The livelihood school approached us to provide a framework for analyzing various design elements of a livelihood intervention and also lay out the choices available to an intervention agency on design parameters.

Solution

Our team @ ii closely worked with The Livelihood School to develop a comprehensive training solution. We have developed a courseware that utilizes full audio narration, animations, high-quality graphics, advanced simulations and tests to deliver a comprehensive and interactive training solution. This e-Learning course will lead to more effective & consistent learning and knowledge transfer through out the learning sessions at the livelihood school. We have raised some assessments towards the end of each topic/section, which might help bring out key issues that may arise from making some choices (right & wrong).

This module on Promoting Livelihoods introduced a variety of livelihood intervention models and strategies/approaches in promoting or supporting livelihoods. An understanding of these strategies and models helped draw on experiences of livelihood promotion in India and open our minds to the different choices. This module also covered twelve cases describing the livelihood intervention efforts of different agencies including Non-Government development organizations, state and private/corporate organizations. Being self paced or learner centric, the learner will be able to learn on his/her own pace, this will enable 100% learning. This course incepts motivation that helps the learner to drive towards the concepts with more urge and enthusiasm.

The course is targeted to entice anyone and everyone be a Doctor, Engineer, Government official, Volunteer, Banker, etc. – all whom have direct or indirect exposure to Livelihood. We need to understand that there could be different objectives of a livelihood intervention. As most livelihood interventions evolve around some economic activities, there is also an element of design of the livelihood activity. This course was designed to make learner understand and feel that they are a part of creating livelihoods and the course has been distributed into three modules: The first module describes what livelihoods are; the second module addresses how Livelihoods can be promoted, and the third module explains the framework for analyzing livelihood intervention choices.

The Impact

This course proposed clarity to a ambiguous training framework that helped think analytically and systematically about the choices and help design a livelihood strategy. It helped understand the essential right of all human being to equal opportunity (further educating that livelihood promotion is not only based on the principles of economic growth, but also on equity and human rights).

• Noticeable increase in the Training volume
  • More Revenue & More Reach Effect
  • e-Learning was used as a standalone training
  • e-Learning was used as a supplement to the classroom training
• Faculty could focus more on R&D
  • Qualitative improvement in curriculum
• Consistency of Training
  • Maintained across the geographies
  • This strategy helped cut down on any incurred costs

Most of the course participants are now producing interactive training volume. Preliminary feedback from the faculty and target audience suggests that they enjoy using the e-Learning course and find it extremely helpful. While this case study is based on enhancing livelihoods we suggest that if other countries have similar attitudes and experiences of e-Learning, the Flash based approach solution may well work elsewhere where livelihood institutions have similar requirements. We strongly believe that, the ease of use on self-learning does not guarantee that effective or engaging content will be created or that the students will appreciate it. Only the appreciation and commitment to best practices can do that.

In keeping with this, an eponymous portal for the differently abled community has been launched in India – developed by iridium Interactive, on behalf of Media Lab Asia, a unit of the Indian Department of Information Technology, and the Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI), a federal body dealing with rehabilitation of the disabled.

The first phase of the portal, http://www.punarbhava was launched in March 2008 by Smt. Meira Kumar Hon’ble Union Minister for Social Justice & Empowerment and Dr. Shakeel Ahmed Hon’ble Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology.

Punarbhava is an excellent example of the efficient use of ICT and the web medium for the betterment of the differently-abled.

The aim of Punarbhava is to create and run a comprehensive Internet Portal, which collects specialised information and useful services for all the people involved in the disability issue as an information database, sources of daily updated news and media for the development of the disability and rehabilitation sector in India.

There will be an array of resources like films documentaries, list of publications and institutions for users to download a repository of books in text, audio and multimedia mode. Not only that in schools where computer based printing system is available the text in language script or Braille script can be printed locally. Users could also access a complete database on NGOs working in the field of disability in India and network with sponsors for financing projects for the welfare of the disabled.. The user can view and even download all government orders, laws, circulars related to disability and disability certificate form. Not just this, the disabled-friendly texts in audio, video and multimedia mode will be cataloged and stored in web format for easy download.Besides, a dedicated section will be available for information on professional personnel and students being trained as specialists to deal with disability related issues. Currently there are 30000 such professionals in the country and an estimated 5,000 persons register themselves for fresh training every year. A closed user group would be launched to unite them and other stakeholders.

Punarbhava is a Pali word for “renewed becoming”. It refers to the process of rebirth after death and is synonymous with samsara. Rebirth in Buddhism does not mean reincarnation, in the sense of an eternal, separate soul transferring to a new body. Rather it is the continuation of the psyche with its conditioning and habits. Each rebirth is a new life.

Punarbhava is an excellent example of the efficient use of ICT and the web medium for the betterment of the differently-abled. The aim of Punarbhava is to create and run a comprehensive Internet Portal, which collects specialized information and useful services for all the people involved in the disability issue as an information database, sources of daily updated news and media for the development of the disability and rehabilitation sector in India. – added Pratap T. P., Chief Marketing Officer, iridium Interactive.

There will be an array of resources like films documentaries, list of publications and institutions for users to download a repository of books in text, audio and multimedia mode. Not only that in schools where computer based printing system is available the text in language script or Braille script can be printed locally. Users could also access a complete database on NGOs working in the field of disability in India and network with sponsors for financing projects for the welfare of the disabled” – added Manish Kumar, Practice Head, iridium Interactive.

The user can view and even download all government orders, laws, circulars related to disability and disability certificate form. Not just this, the disabled-friendly texts in audio, video and multimedia mode will be cataloged and stored in web format for easy download.Besides, a dedicated section will be available for information on professional personnel and students being trained as specialists to deal with disability related issues. Currently there are 30000 such professionals in the country and an estimated 5,000 persons register themselves for fresh training every year. A closed user group would be launched to unite them and other stakeholders. iridium Interactive has been actively involved in ensuring web accessibility and inclusion of the differently abled – and this was the main reason for leading organisations like Media Lab Asia & Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI) to have selected iridium Interactive for this important assignment. It is a chance through the power of the Internet to unite on a global scale and influence matters in local, regional and international attitudes and thinking” – said Sriram Bharatam, CEO, iridium Interactive.

iridium Interactive would like to thank Prateek, Dr.Sangeetha, Dr. Sanyal (Dean Academics) and one of the senior Alumni- MDI Alumni president Mr. Aunrag Batra (CEO- exchange4media.com). Without their support and confidence in iridium Interactive team, it would not have been possible to meet the project deadline. MDI Alumni site was launched on “National Alumni Meet ‘08” and the sheer joy of rejoining the MDI Alumni through this site was quite overwhelming. Comments: It has already started giving positive responses in terms of getting certain referrals..!!

The Management Development Institute (MDI) is the country’s premier business school. It is located in Gurgaon and offers a range of academic programs.

Objective
MDI was looking at creating and developing appropriate tools and outlets to disseminate knowledge. MDI’s existing website had to be reoriented to make it a learning and interactive tool which reaches out to all its stakeholders. A second criterion was to highlight the research orientation of the institution. And finally, MDI wanted to create a large online community, with the website acting as the driver for this. in short, what MDI was actually looking for was a virtual campus.

Solution
To revamp MDI’s website, iridium Interactive (ii) adopted a step-by-step approach. It designed and implemented an exhaustive Academic Programs section, which furnished course details and fee information. Also incorporated on the site was a Research and Publication section, with synopsis of writings by faculty, and information on their availability. ii used cutting-edge technology to create an e-library, and tools to provide access to all electronic resources across the campus network. Users would also be able to access the latest in business and management information.
A separate placements section was developed for corporate recruiters and placement agencies to view student profiles. Other sections included a Faculty recruitment section, and a distinct Alumni section, linking to its own separate portal. To give the visitors a flavor of life at MDI, flash movies were incorporated into the site.

Results
iridium conceived, designed and implemented a website for MDI that includes and caters to all the stakeholders. The strategic goal of making the MDI website an all-inclusive, fully interactive virtual campus is exemplified by the various informative and useful highly useful sections. The result is a virtual MDI community.
The whole process of selecting and hiring students and faculty has been simplified. The creation of this portal enables MDI to carry out its core competence of ‘building leaders for tomorrow’ in a much better way. Finally, ii web-enabled much of the routine query and administrative work, resulting in cost savings for MDI.

About ii
iridium Interactive Limited (ii) specializes in providing online business solutions. With a presence across three continents, it has been at the forefront in integrating strategy, design and technology to build unique and robust user-centric e-business solutions. At ii, a holistic approach is adopted towards complex business problems to arrive at a complete solution. ii’s talented team has worked on a variety of disciplines for a multitude of clients drawn from various industries, and has a number of award-winning works to its credit. ii offers it services in the areas of interactive marketing, web marketing, e-learning, enterprise consulting and web accessibility initiatives.

Objective
Amity wanted a website that reflected their international standards. They sought to have an innovative concept and design to showcase information on Amity. They were especially keen on providing an online hi-tech learning environment with an effortless navigation structure.
Amity assigned iridium Interactive (ii) the task of creating a website to reflect the reputation and excellence one associates Amity with.

Solution
To commence the task, ii first studied in depth how exactly Amity wanted its website to look, the features they was most keen on, and their priorities for an online presence. Based on these insights, ii used a combination of flash-based links and micro-sites to concentrate all the information and create a hi-tech, interactive and learning environment. The look, feel and the architecture of the site was designed to be uncluttered and visually attractive.
Since the majority of visitors to the site would be students, prominence was given to the presentation of the Programs and Admissions sections. The Schools under the Amity banner, Campuses and Higher Education sections, were placed centrally on the home page to enable direct and easy access. Since the site would have a number of micro-sites, ii had to collate and organize a vast amount of content, information and data. The micro-sites were designed with a consistent navigation format, and the information was focused and relevant to each micro-site. ii also built in a one-on-one online counseling module to provide students and counselors easy, comfortable and confidential access to each other.

Result
Since the revamping of Amity’s website, traffic to the site has increased, with an increase in the number of information-seeking hits. Also, navigation has been simplified to ensure a pleasant and user-friendly experience to visitors. The site has become a leading source of information on Amity. A testament to the usefulness and power of the site is the fact that most of the admissions to Amity’s several institutes are now chiefly done online. Not only students, but recruiters as well find it a key source of information. This has led to a massive reduction of costs, and has increased the operating efficiencies of Amity’s establishments.

About ii
iridium Interactive Limited (ii) specializes in providing online business solutions. With a presence across three continents, it has been at the forefront in integrating strategy, design and technology to build unique and robust user-centric e-business solutions. At ii, a holistic approach is adopted towards complex business problems to arrive at a complete solution. ii’s talented team has worked on a variety of disciplines for a multitude of clients drawn from various industries, and has a number of award-winning works to its credit. ii offers it services in the areas of interactive marketing, web marketing, e-learning, enterprise consulting and web accessibility initiatives.

The Indian School of Business (ISB), located in Hyderabad, is a world-class business school. ISB creates education excellence through its innovative programmes, outstanding faculty and thought leadership. It has a diverse mix of students from different industries and countries and international faculty, and offers experiential and holistic learning, and strong corporate involvement.

Objective ISB, an institution of global repute, was keen on showcasing itself through its website. It wanted to create a world-class education portal, reflecting the institution’s brand image, and in line with that of its affiliates. The website had to reflect ISB’s quality of education, range of facilities and services. It would also be used as a tool to attract students for the Executive Education and Post Graduate programs.

Solution iridium Interactive (ii) carefully studied the ISB brand and the client’s requirements before beginning the engagement. Accordingly, the sections on alumni, governing and executive bodies were prominently placed to exhibit and leverage the patronage and support the institution enjoys. ii also developed sophisticated yet accessible systems for recruitment, resumé posting and online job applications, including job notices. Sections about course details and top-flight teaching, library and residential facilities also figured on the site. All this presented in an understated and classy manner. Finally, updated and latest research materials were made easily accessible online.

Results ii created a world class education portal for ISB which serves as a window to the internal functioning of the school. ISB’s branding online reflects the quality of it’s education, the vast spectrum of facilities it offers, and it’s standing in the educational domain.

About ii
iridium Interactive Limited (ii) specializes in providing online business solutions. With a presence across three continents, it has been at the forefront in integrating strategy, design and technology to build unique and robust user-centric e-business solutions. At ii, a holistic approach is adopted towards complex business problems to arrive at a complete solution. ii’s talented team has worked on a variety of disciplines for a multitude of clients drawn from various industries, and has a number of award-winning works to its credit. ii offers it services in the areas of interactive marketing, web marketing, e-learning, enterprise consulting and web accessibility initiatives.

India is the place of origin of Scholars, Vedas, Puranas and Sanskrit. Yet there are very few children in India who choose to keep up the cultural value of our land. As a part of our focus on providing Education to Children of the weaker sections, we have pledged to support such children who are from a very economically weak background. These children come from different parts of Andhra Pradesh and are children of either daily wage labourers or of parents who struggle to make ends meet. But undeterred by their family conditions these children, when provided with little financial support, are already shining in their academics.

What is even more admirable is that these children undertake Sanskrit education apart from their normal education. These children are from Class V to Class X. A couple of these Class X students are expected to be rank holders in this year’s Board Exams.

As a part of Causeaneffect’s Support Education program, we distributed crucial and necessary items to these needy and worthy students. The articles included Schoolbags, Uniforms, Text Book, and other essential items for their day to day needs.

The Causeaneffect Team was amazed to see the attitude and the excitement of these children when they were provided books and other stuff. These children are the recipients of sacred and precious values imparted by their teachers.

Education is the basis through which their character is formed, strength of mind and knowledge increased and making them independent. We at Causeaneffect have committed continued support to these values.