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.

Read a full transcript or download a copy. 

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.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: HP.


The next BriefingsDirect case study interview explores the new face of customer engagement and procurement modernization by examining how MSC Industrial Supply is improving how they define and relate to their customers in the manufacturing sector.

MSC has been using the Ariba Network to innovatively bolster customer engagements, and to provide new solutions to their customers based on increased collaboration, information flow and buying trends analysis.

Read a full transcript or download a copy. 

BriefingsDirect had an opportunity to uncover more about about such new, agile business services at the recent 2014 Ariba LIVE Conference in Las Vegas when we spoke to Erik Gershwind, President and CEO of MSC Industrial Supply in Melville, New York. The discussion is moderated by Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: Ariba, an SAP company.


The next BriefingsDirect panel discussion defines new business values from the massive Platform 3.0 shift that combines the impacts and benefits of big data, cloud, Internet of things, mobile and social.

Our discussion comes to you from The Open Group Conference on May 13, 2014 in Amsterdam, where the focus is on enabling boundaryless information flow. Follow the ongoing discussion on Twitter at #ogchat.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: The Open Group.

To learn more about making Platform 3.0 a business benefit in an architected fashion, please join moderator Stuart Boardman, a Senior Business Consultant at KPN and Open Platform 3.0 Forum co-chairman; Dr. Chris Harding, Director for Interoperability at The Open Group, and Open Platform 3.0 Forum Director; Lydia Duijvestijn, Executive Architect at IBM Global Business Services in The Netherlands; Andy Jones, Technical Director for EMEA at SOA Software; TJ Virdi, Computing Architect in the Systems Architecture Group at Boeing and also a co-chair of the Open Platform 3.0 Forum; Louis Dietvorst, Enterprise Architect at Enexis in The Netherlands; Sjoerd Hulzinga, Charter Lead at KPN Consulting, and Frans van der Reep, Professor at the Inholland University of Applied Sciences.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: The Open Group.


Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Read a full transcript or download a copy. 

The next BriefingsDirect panel discussion explores one of the most broadly deployed collaboration platforms, Microsoft SharePoint, to determine how it's rapidly evolving from local network portal roots into the new cloud and mobile era.

Delivering information as an actionable asset in a widely collaborative and increasingly mobile environment has clearly become a top business priority. Business architects need the agility enabled by such unshackled information sharing and contextual collaboration to keep pace with distributed services and a boundaryless enterprise approach to their operations and commerce. 

This is why IT leaders worldwide recognize that they must better manage knowledge, share information more safely, and yet rapidly and securely enable mobility among workers and their activity.

We’ve assembled a group of recently selected top SharePoint influencers to learn where they think Microsoft SharePoint is headed, along with newer services like Office 365, to gauge how companies can best exploit and extend such productivity services.

To better understand how enterprise collaboration and document management are being transformed by new cloud and mobile requirements, the expert panel consists of Christian Buckley, Director and Chief Evangelist at Metalogix Software in Redmond, Washington; Yaacov Cohen, Co-founder and CEO of harmon.i.e; Joel Oleson, Director of Marketing and Technology Evangelism at ViewDo Labs in Salt Lake City, and Laura Rogers, Manager of SharePoint Consultants at Rackspace Hosting.

The discussion is moderated by Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: harmon.ie.


Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Read a full transcript or download a copy. 

The next BriefingsDirect case study interview explores how American Electric Power improves their financial processes and operations using Ariba Dynamic Discounting.

It turns out that a real-time business-process approach to billing, ordering and settlement terms between buyers and sellers benefits both American Electric Power, one of the largest investor-owned electric utilities in the U.S., and its many vendors.

BriefingsDirect had an opportunity to uncover more about about such new, agile business services at the recent 2014 Ariba LIVE Conference in Las Vegas when we spoke to Rick Gray, Senior Treasury Specialist at American Electric Power in Columbus, Ohio, and Drew Hofler, Manage Cash Solution Marketing Director at Ariba, an SAP company. The discussion is moderated by Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: Ariba, an SAP company.