The power of big data technology is being successfully applied to understanding such complex unknowns as consumer sentiment and even intent. And that understanding then vastly improves how retailers and myriad service providers manage their users' experiences -- increasingly in real time.

Fortunately, today's consumers are quite willing to share their intents and sentiments via social media, if you can gather and process the information. Hence the rapidly developing field of social customer relationship management, or Social CRM.

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Part of the equation for making Social CRM effective comes from properly capturing the natural language knowledge delivered through the many social channels available to users. But even that is but a first step to being able to gain ever-deeper analysis, and rapidly and securely making those insights available where they pay off best.

And so the next BriefingsDirect thought leader discussion brings together customer analytics services provider Attensity, with its natural-language processing (NLP) technology, and HP Vertica, with big data analytics capabilities, to explain how to effectively listen to the social web and rapidly gain valuable insights and actionable intelligence.

Our guests are Howard Lau, Chairman and CEO of Attensity, and Chris Selland, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at HP Vertica. The discussion is moderated by me, Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

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