Classic BI includes collecting information from different information and operation systems (CRM, ERP…), integrating and processing the information and re-presenting it as a set of organizational indicators supporting the organization's decision making. Social BI is wider and utilizes, beside the classic information sources, also "social" organizational information sources: the organizational social network (such as Yammer or SharePoint MySite), the organizational twitter and other WEB 2.0 tools (communities, blogs, forums, responses, tags etc.).
Click here for an expansive definition of Social BI.
In Social BI, the social indicators are predefined and information is collected, integrated, processed and re-presented as a set of "social" indicators. All of these, together with other organizational indicators, support the organization's decision making.
What's new in Social BI?
Social BI can serve the organization's decision making system also according to the behavior surrounding it. For instance, it is possible to detect social trends followed by customers and unaffiliated interested parties and review mention of the company and its products in worldwide social networks.
The social BI challenge
The social BI presents a new challenge to the system's establishers and its characterizers: how do you quantify and measure social information? Unlike business information, which is retrieved from formal systems already structured and catalogued, the social information is retrieved from numerous factors in numerous ways (each social network user can use his/her words) and from various social platforms (a Like from Facebook, Retweeting on Twitter). The Social BI system's properties must define the method by which social indicators are calculated in order to create a uniform consistent language and enable an evaluation comparable over time.
What is happening nowadays in Israel?
Although Social BI is frequently discussed, it is rarely implemented by organizations. This is because the social media tools are not widespread yet. The more social tools are used in organizations, so will the importance of Social BI be assimilated.
Conclusion
It is my opinion that in the near future we will witness more organizations increasing their use of social media tools, especially social networks, which will (among others) result with a increased use of Social BI.
References:
Social BI (published here)
Wikipedia (here)
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