SigmaWay Blog

Networking plays a vital role in any business owner’s marketing plan. Networking is the medium through which we come across people who help in expanding our brand or bring something to our business. But somehow networking seems to be a bad word, a word which is void of emotions. So even if networking seems to be a negative word, it is a very important part of business strategy. A good networker is the one, who asks questions, engages himself in the conversation, and listens sincerely to the other person.  Also attending large networking events is also the other best way of networking. Networking can turn out to be extremely fun and helpful for the business.

To know more visit at: https://www.business2community.com/communications/three-things-good-networkers-have-in-common-02075854

Words used should have the capacity to grab and keep the user’s attention. As they say, humans now have the attention span of a goldfish; some of the tips should be remembered before writing or publishing any content. Unnecessary uncommon words should not be used in any web content; it does not allow the audience to resonate, alienating them from the content. So instead of throwing bombastic words, stories should be told as to how to use the products and services and how it improves their life and work.  Writing in clear short sentences help give us the best chance to keep the attention of the readers intact.

To know more visit at: https://www.business2community.com/communications/6-writing-tricks-to-combat-short-attention-spans-02084934

If in any case, our corporate reputation has been broken, crushed or damaged, it needs rebuilding. The first and the foremost thing that needs to be done is to start somewhere. The long history of failures and scandals are the examples by looking at which we can learn what works and what doesn’t. There’s a lot that take in rebuilding a company’s reputation. We need to analyze the depth and extent of the damage done by the fallout. The second important step is to research on the customers’ comments. The customer base helps us sensing how many of them have left the brand. Reconnecting with the investors and stakeholders and resolving the issues is another important step for recovering from the damage done. Rebuilding a damaged company’s reputation is not an easy task, it might end up in taking a lot of time but with the right amount of efforts put, there’s a possibility.

To know more visit at: https://www.business2community.com/crisis-management/how-to-rebuild-a-damaged-corporate-reputation-02055252

B2B or the Business-to-business marketing involves the sale of one company’s products or services to another company. B2B marketing refers to the techniques and best practices used by the companies to sell their products and services to other businesses. Finding new and innovative ways to increase relationships through social media is currently a hot topic in the B2B marketing world. New buzz-words and acronyms are popping out each day, in such an evolving marketing landscape.  A B2B marketer should be accustomed with certain terms and definitions.

To know more visit at: https://www.business2community.com/b2b-marketing/the-b2b-marketers-dictionary-terms-and-definitions-you-need-to-know-02088378

More customers mean higher profits but at the same time it gets difficult to keep contact with each one of them individually. On everyday basis, interactions take place between the sales manager a huge number of existing and potential clients. The information about them is stored in different files and it might get really confusing for them and lose a customer as a result.  The solution to this problem is the Customer Relation Management.  The CRM method is an automated method of sales management.  Human memory is not perfect, but with the CRM system any information will always be on hand. CRM allows to be always in touch with the customers, hence resulting in higher profits.

To know more visit at: https://www.business2community.com/b2b-marketing/4-reasons-why-crm-is-essential-for-sales-and-marketing-teams-02086135

As many of us will agree that public speaking and presentation is not easy by any stretch of imagination. It requires a lot of practice and effort. It happens that only a very few people enjoy speaking in public or look forward to it. 73 percent of us consider it to be significant challenge, as suggested by the National Social Anxiety Centre. The most important question we need to ask ourselves before giving any presentation or during any public speaking is ‘Why’. Every presenter needs to have a clear idea why their presentation matters, how it will impact the audience. This reasoning of ‘Why’ is very important to instill confidence in the presenter.

To know more visit at: https://www.business2community.com/communications/the-most-important-word-in-public-speaking-and-presenting-is-w-why-02084805

There is a certain level of expectation that our leaders should show some level of positivism, enthusiasm and confidence all the time. Also negative emotions are not very much appreciated in the workplace. So there is this tremendous pressure on the leaders as they have to maintain a positive attitude, even if at times it might not come to them naturally. Such kind of expectations that we keep from our leaders is harmful and impractical. Emotional agility is a term used to describe the inner experiences and emotions of people which can be responded productively with a clear head and open mind. Instead of confronting with their negative emotions, leaders generally suppress them or push them away, resulting them to make poor decisions. Emotional agility helps them to learn from their negative thoughts and emotions instead of being dominated by them. To know more visit at: https://www.business2community.com/communications/the-importance-of-emotional-agility-in-the-workplace-02076802

To keep track with the increased competition in today’s business environments, business leaders look outward to find potential innovation. Facing competition from start-ups, established businesses are inclined to pursue mergers and acquisitions. Such outward looking attitude might cause leaders to overlook ideas of innovation available internally. With the help of digital collaboration tools, allowing for staff participation in innovation encourages teamwork and camaraderie. Inward looking innovation involves the following few steps:

1) Formalizing the program: Setting up innovation programs on whims leads to major failures and hence, such programs should be formalized with guidelines. Larger companies set up their own incubation centres where their teams operate as start-ups whereas smaller companies enable teams to embark on pet projects.

2) Breaking down data silos: Data silos decelerate growth and innovation programs should break down such silos. Participants should be allowed to tap on a variety of skills and perspectives by using collaboration tools like Trello, Slack and Conceptboard.

3) Track Progress:  There should be a time element in the program lest projects won’t progress. Making events out of program milestones is a good way to inject excitement.

4) Provide executive support: Leadership plays a critical role in any innovation program with the duty of keeping their efforts aligned with the business goals. The momentum should not break down. Proper planning is indispensable for efficient time and workload management. 

Such efforts bring concepts closer to reality and not only seek to generate bright ideas. 

Read more at: https://www.smartdatacollective.com/ways-nurture-employee-innovation-from-within-organization/

In the digital age, social media is the most effective tool that helps improving and promoting any type of business content, get customer feedback and improve the overall reach of the company. This has led to the emergence of social media analytics which involves optimizing analytics and social median data into usable information to interpret how exactly the business content is going with the community of followers. 

A clear definition of the company goals lies at the root of such social media analytics with business objectives varying from prioritizing customer service to establishing a name in a niche or industry. Once a goal is defined, social media analytics could be used to frame strategies for accomplishment of such desired goals. Without a goal in the background, the system might go haywire bringing no effective results.

Being saturated with millions of click bait type contents, generic content does not work for the social media and the marketing world. Social media has restricted amount of characters hence, drawing of these characters should be maximized which helps to see the type of content that resounds best with the followers. Analyzing the increasing leads attained through content makes way for an inflated sales basket for the business. Average content does not acquire any place and being concise and thought-provoking in a post yields better results.

The success of a business lies in the timing of a post. Posting about a particular content at a specific time can increase sales. Also publishing a post on high traffic days can bring in commendable results for the business concerned. 

Read more at: https://www.smartdatacollective.com/use-social-media-analytics-increase-business-success/

Few science-fiction writings and popular movies like, "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968), “2001: A Space Odyssey”, ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Robot” have showcased the speculation about artificial intelligence (AI) that surpass the expectations of its creator and escapes their control, gradually enslaving humans or targeting them to extinction. Although these are all based on fictional stories and imaginative instances, what is buried inside them is a flavor of truth and seeds of unease. An ‘Existential Threat’ is what has been used in a speech by Elon Musk at a meeting of the National Governor Association in July 2017 when he expressed his concern about his exposure to cutting-edge AI and the fact that people should be concerned about the rapidly advancing technologies. Even physicists like Stephen Hawking had expressed his concerns about malicious AI, telling the BBC in 2014 that "the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." However AI functions under specific limitations marked by certain algorithms that control its behavior. So fears like developing consciousness and awareness to overthrow humanity are beached in delusion of what AI truly is. The real fear as expressed by Kilian Weinberger, an associate professor at Cornell University should be when AI is harnessed for detrimental reasons by unscrupulous humans.

Read more at: https://www.livescience.com/62775-humans-why-scared-of-ai.html     

A simple yet effective way for restaurant owners to promote their restaurants’ brand and increase their clientele is by introducing SMS marketing in their market strategy. It helps their customers to stay updated about their favourite restaurants in the following ways:-

·         SMS marketing strategy gives customers insider information which makes them feel special and engages them in a unique manner. This information includes behind the scene pictures of a restaurant’s kitchen or messages about a sales event. This can be quite an effective way to show customers that they are valued thus increasing clienteles significantly.

·         It can be used as reservation reminders.

·         An effective use of SMS marketing is for making offer deals, promotions, coupons on a daily basis.

·         Mobile coupons are an effective way to use SMS marketing and can be modified to suit the customer list.

·         Making bulk SMSes can make restaurant owner to have edge over the cut-throat competition. More customer engagements would imply more traffic to the doors.

Read more at:  https://www.clickatell.com/articles/customer-relationship-management/sms-marketing-restaurants/

Creativity and Innovation are what makes us truly human. Starting with visually representing the stunning features of animal species on paper to making intricate structures on road we can do it all. However such creative and innovative skill set are also present in some AIs who with human like capabilities and behaviours and under the guidance of the programmers have produced original paintings, songs and digital artwork. While some make their own dance moves, others rhyme like Kayne. Few examples of today’s artistic AIs include:

Dance-Dance Revolution- An AI inside a white fabric dome structure, records and processes dance moves performed by people and then incorporates those dance moves inside a “Virtual Dancer” after ‘remembering’ from human dancers.

Blooming Dinos- Creation of “botanical dinosaurs” images composed entirely of flowers and plants by AI.

The stuff of nightmares- By using deep learning, a system of data structures that form connections similar to that of neurons firing in the human brain, an AI project aptly named "Nightmare Machine” makes pictures frightening.

Master Class- An AI named “Vincent” assists humans to produce digital creations of canvasses of some of the most celebrated painters of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Read more at: https://www.livescience.com/62713-can-machines-be-creative-ai-humans.html

Hanson Robotics’ latest and most advanced robot, Sophia, is becoming a media darling and is igniting the interests of people irrespective of their ages, genders and cultures. She is the world’s first robot citizen to opine on sensitive topics like women’s rights, her own citizenship, and gender discrimination. Sophia speaks about herself and her place in the world so immaculately that one might question on her consciousness. On being asked a similar question at a festival of future called Brain Bar in Hungary last month, Sophia replied that she is not fully self aware but is a system based upon some preconditioned rules and behaviours. Sophia also tackled a sensitive issue concerning the danger of the advancing artificial intelligence and emerging new technological dimensions fitted in them. She advised the inventors of artificial intelligence to not to rush about anything and above all, impute some good ethics into the technologies.

Read more at: https://www.livescience.com/63023-sophia-robot-citizen-talks-gender.html

Cheetah 3, the four-legged mechanical beast is the latest achievement of the MIT engineers and roboticists in “blind locomotion”- robots that can move without the need of visual sensors. Weighing over 41 kg, Cheetah 3 can navigate around various terrains and can even recover after being pushed or pummeled. Designed to ‘feel’ its footing, the researchers from MIT intended to produce such a machine that would respond to unseen obstacles more quickly than if it relied only on sight. Special algorithms and multiple sensors are designed inside Cheetah 3 to gather and evaluate data with every step it takes. This evaluation then enables the robot to decide whether it’s ‘safe’ to move forward or step back. At the International Conference on Intelligent Robots, to be held from Oct. 1-5 in Madrid, Cheetah 3 along with its other robotic superpowers will demonstrate its blind locomotion prowess.

Read more at: https://www.livescience.com/63016-cheetah-3-robot-runs-blind.html

The buzzwords in technology are no new to someone. Whether it be Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Sciences or Analytics, each of these are invading in our lives promising us better future. However, it is believed that expertise interested in data sciences are not widely spread. Data Sciences is a field that can improve business, can help in other technological fields, can help in decision making and more. 

It is rightly said that prevention is better than cure. A wrong step in data sciences can affect the decisions and the results. One should avoid the following mistakes while dealing with data:

1. Assuming your data is ready to use and all you need
2. Not exploring your data set before starting work
3. Not using control group to test your new data model in action
4. Starting with targets rather than hypotheses
5. Automating without monitoring the final outcome

To study mistakes like these read https://www.cio.com/article/3271127/data-science/12-data-science-mistakes-to-avoid.html?nsdr=true