As information thunders through the digital economy, it’s easy to miss valuable
“weak signals” often hidden amid the noise. Arising primarily from social media,
they represent snippets—not streams—of information and can help companies to figure out what customers want
and to spot looming industry and market
disruptions before competitors do. Sometimes, companies notice them during data-analytics number-crunching exercises. Or employees who apply methods more akin to art than to science
might spot them and then do some further number crunching to test anom-
alies they’re seeing or hypotheses the signals suggest. In any case, companies are just beginning to recognize and capture their value. Here are a few prin-
ciples that companies can follow to grasp
and harness the power of weak signals.
Engaging at the top
For starters, given the fluid nature of
the insights that surface, it’s often useful to get senior leaders actively involved with the social-media sources that give rise to weak signals. Executives who are curious and attuned to the themes emerging from social media are more likely to spot such insights.1 For example, a global manufacturer whose high
quality and low prices were the topic of
one customer’s recent social-media post almost certainly would not have examined it but for a senior executive who was a sensitive social “listener” and found its implications intriguing. Did the company have an opportunity, the executive wondered, to increase prices or perhaps to seek market share more aggressively at the current prices?
To find out, the executive commissioned research to quantify what had started out as a qualitative hunch. Ultimately, the low-price perception turned out to be
an anomaly, but the outsize perception of the product’s quality was widely held. In response, the company has started funneling marketing resources to the prod-
uct in hopes of building its market share by capitalizing on its quality and differentiating it further from the
offerings of competitors.
As information thunders through the digital economy, it’s easy to miss valuable
“weak signals” often hidden amid the noise. Arising primarily from social media,
they represent snippets—not streams—of information and can help companies to figure out what customers want
and to spot looming industry and market
disruptions before competitors do. Sometimes, companies notice them during data-analytics number-crunching exercises. Or employees who apply methods more akin to art than to science
might spot them and then do some further number crunching to test anom-
alies they’re seeing or hypotheses the signals suggest. In any case, companies are just beginning to recognize and capture their value. Here are a few prin-
ciples that companies can follow to grasp
and harness the power of weak signals.
Engaging at the top
For starters, given the fluid nature of
the insights that surface, it’s often useful to get senior leaders actively involved with the social-media sources that give rise to weak signals. Executives who are curious and attuned to the themes emerging from social media are more likely to spot such insights.1 For example, a global manufacturer whose high
quality and low prices were the topic of
one customer’s recent social-media post almost certainly would not have examined it but for a senior executive who was a sensitive social “listener” and found its implications intriguing. Did the company have an opportunity, the executive wondered, to increase prices or perhaps to seek market share more aggressively at the current prices?
To find out, the executive commissioned research to quantify what had started out as a qualitative hunch. Ultimately, the low-price perception turned out to be
an anomaly, but the outsize perception of the product’s quality was widely held. In response, the company has started funneling marketing resources to the prod-
uct in hopes of building its market share by capitalizing on its quality and differentiating it further from the
offerings of competitors.
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