Social Exchange through Social Media

In today’s business world, the companies ought to harness competencies from the customers. In this respect, the markets are viewed as forums for firms and active users to share and combine resources and capabilities of each other in the process of product/ service development. Co-creation and Co-production are used to describe the relationship between firms and consumers. Co-creation is based on the idea that value is solely determined by the consumers and firms serve as either to facilitate value or to co-create by becoming involved in the customer’s value creation process. The Co-production on the other hand refers to the mere involvement of consumers in product and service development. According to Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2000), the morphing of customers’ role in the dynamic business environment from passive to active players demands companies to involve customers around four axes: 1) Engage in dialogue with the customers, 2) mobilize communities, 3) Manage customer diversity and 4) Co-create personalize experience. Today Social Media comes at the heart of mobilizing Social Exchange mechanisms in various forms.

Today, the purview of social media has swept away all the firm boundaries and customer premises. Online forums and tweeter feeds used for marketers and product developers towards discernment of customers desires is now an old story. The world is now at the verge of technological change and there is yet much more to be delivered by social media that will come at the later part of the talk. Looking at social media from Prahalad and Ramaswamy’s pivot points to exploit customer’s knowledge and ideas, we can think of social media providing the following:

•  Engage in Dialogues with Customers: Social media has long been thought to providing a new channel for companies to communicate with their customers but now it has fundamentally challenged to other forms of communication. Today companies are moving towards using social platform and social design mechanics to manage interactions across all communication channels to customers (Social-driven IT, Accenture Technology Vision 2012). This will also add value by insuring value adding communication among customers, employees and enterprises.
• Mobilize Communities: Matt Shaw (2011) reported that 84% of the adult customers feel that they feel more loyal to the brands because of social media and on the other hand, only 9% reported that social media are best to obtaining clear comprehensions about their favorite brands and 85% believe that a brand could not reach out to them over past 3 months. This indicates a clear gap between the potential of social media and the under-utilization of it. Hence social media needs to capitalize on mobilizing the communities in view of potential of social media to do that.
• Customer Diversity: Can be achieved effectively by social media. Social media provides the opportunity to manage various groups and networks and therefore an effective social exchange mechanism can take place by exploiting each fragment managed via independent network.
• Co-create personalize experience: It is very important to understand that Social media is just not about marketing. Social media is among the technologies, that Bingham and Conner in their book “” write as innovations that enable a new kind of knowledge-building ecosystem with people at its core. With examples from Best Buy to Intel and from Deloitte to U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, social media improves the way you recruit talent, engage employees, and build work-force capacities. Social media creates useful learning assets from customer’s experience with respect to your product and customer’s feedback. Hence, interaction between users and developers can establish valuable ties that can result into more customer loyalty and business value. Facebook recently launched the new version of Open Graph. It’s a framework that enables content developers to build applications that allow users to share whatever they are doing without overwhelming their friends.

Opportunities provided by Social Media:

Social media provides new opportunities to capture, measure, analyze and exploit social interactions in new ways.

·      

S   Social Polling which is an effective marketing tool to determine what works and what doesn’t. In this way, firms produce directly usable information which serves as the key to making business decision (Johnny S. John, 2009). 

     F8 event (Facebook event to bring together the developers, entrepreneurs and innovators who are building a more social web), facebook is now involved in exploiting the users activity by adding more verbs in addition to “Like”, such as “Read”, “Watch”, “Listen”, or “Travel”. In this way, if a travel agency learns that a user is planning for travel, they can render lucrative offers and cheap tickets to his desired place to travel. This is an insight that would not have triggered the travel agency had the user clicked “Like” for Madagascar.

    

    The traditional customer-firm relation is blurring away because users are now more actively involved in sharingexperience with each other. Toyota Private Social Network provides an opportunity for Toyota owners, dealers and cars. You can be alerted when your car needs battery recharging and also provides you with tips on maintenance from the dealers.

P    Provision of a social commerce platform like “The Gifts Projects” of eBay.

     Provision of commerce services like Geico’s service to pay bill online on Facebook without even clicking Geico’s own website.

    Better handling of customer’s problems, for example telco’s implementation of lodging complaints over twitter and that result into increasing the customer satisfaction level from 70% to 85%. 

Challenges - What firms need to capitalize on?

·         Companies need to revisit the whole business process and systems that implement them. All the firm boundaries where firm interact with customers need to be integrated with each other and “socially enabled”. This would mean at the very least that customers get the same answer to question whether asked over email, website, call center or face-to-face interaction.

·         Companies need to capitalize on new forms of data generated by those social feeds.

·         Establish an IT team to design and pilot cross-functional social media platforms.

·         Move beyond merely “Social listening” to managing social interactions. This can be done by helping individual business units to position their social strategies on top of enterprise wide strategy of social.

·         Monetize on social interactions.

·         Firms need to identify an effective social medium to interact with the customers so that optimal value could be achieved.

Social media is an effective mechanism for co-creation where various business units will interact with the customer to generate value by getting valuable knowledge from the customer. Companies today must adopt social media otherwise a Social Media legacy will culminate businesses in future as these companies will be lacking the useful insights from the customers that they know about them and their businesses will be lured away by the customers. 

Oct 14, 1990 & 2012

Life is a puzzle and sometimes, it shows its weirdest face. History repeats itself and we humans are perplexed. Today is October 14, 2013 and one year ago, I didn't this day would change my life like that. October 14, 1990, the day when my father had to leave for his trip to his hometown around 1000 KM from where we live. I remember the last time I ever shook hands with him. We bid him goodbye and I kept looking at him while he was leaving until he was out of my sight. We didn't know he was on way to his eternal place and this journey was just start of it. 

December 22, 1990, a day before he had to come back, he had a sudden heart attack which was quite severe and he died within few minutes even before the medical help could reach him. 

Last year until October 14, 2012, my life was so perfect and nice when my mother had a brain stroke that day. Initially it was not diagnosed, in fact I only came to know about the severity of her strokes few weeks after her death by getting access to her reports. Earlier I had "personally diagnosed" her disease through internet search. I thought that she had "Transient Ischemic Attack" meaning only little part of brain damage while it was "Tonic Clonic" means the whole brain was damaged. After her brain strokes, she did survive for 10 months but she was only physically present but not "really" with us. She passed away on August 22, 2013. Both on 22nd! (My mother born on Thursday, died on Thursday). Life is a mystery sometimes......

I actually lost both my parents on October 14, (father in 1990 and mother in 2012, my father physically and my mother mentally). I never saw either of my parent dead. My father passed away in his hometown and they buried him there. I came to know about his death on the third day because I was too little. For my mother, I opt not to go to Pakistan for her funeral. For me they are still alive. May Allah SWT forgive him.

I would relate it to another date, December 14, (1994 and 2012). On December 14, 1994, my mother had a worst heart attack. She was admitted in the hospital on that day for 1 month and 1 day (until January 15, 1995). And December 14, 2012 was the last day she was ever in the hospital. She was released from the hospital on that date. Every year, I would tease her and remind her of her heart attack and say, "mom today is your heart attack anniversary and she would get mad at me". From October 14, 2012 to December 14, 2012, she was admitted in the hospital for 5 times. From December 14 until the day she left us, we were on a roller coaster avoiding the fear of when she needs to be admitted in the hospital again. Her Tonic Clonic seizures could come anytime. But that day never came. She passed away peacefully in her home, in her room on her bed without any obvious sign of a stroke or attack. I saw her one day before her death, me, my friend who was visiting me and Ebrahiem. She was looking like an angel, so much carefree, like a small baby. That is why, when i heard this news from Aurin (same friend), i just could not believe it.

Parents are a shelter. When they are with us, we take them for granted and when they leave, we realize we have lost the biggest worldly support -  no THE ONLY worldly support. I have realized this but its too late. I hope those who have parents realize it before its too late. 

I love you ammi

Today, one week has passed since you are not (physically) around me anymore. Never really thought I will be writing something like that. But if I had to bid you goodbye forever, it would have been the most difficult task of my life. I know I have handed you over to someone Who loves you more than I do, who is "Rahman" and "Raheem". I know that this is only a temporary separation and I will meet you soon inshaAllah. I know whatever I could have done for you would not even tantamount to  one night that you spent taking care of me. I know I had not been the way I should have been. I know how I wasted my time in other stuff rather than valuing those moments by spending them with you, I know I have disobeyed you so many times. But I know you still love me a lot. You love and care is still surrounding me. 

The dilemma is, I lost you just after becoming a mother myself. Motherhood makes you realize so many things that you have been taking for granted throughout your life. I am not an ideal mother like you, that's why I really wished you could take care of my baby. The day when you had to leave this world, I was making this prayer in the morning: "May you get health and may you get all my life and energies and you be taking care of my child because you are much better than me". Then in few hours, I came to know that you met your ultimate destination and you left this world even without kissing my child. 

I know how you had to kill yourself after our father and absorbed all the tears inside your heart and never really showed us your sad face. Did I ever see you crying? No! You dedicated your life for your kids and your plants. And that makes me remind something funny about you. When you had to explain our house address to somebody, you used to refer to your plants; "the place where you see so many plants" :) You learnt me to be strong and look forward to mercy of Allah SWT because in the end, He remains and everything else perishes. 

Mom, do you know Allah SWT had talked to me at the time you were going through the most severe brain stroke in all the strokes that you suffered and when I was reciting Surah Rehman on you, and then I reached this ayah:

"Everyone upon the earth will perish, And there will remain the Face of your Lord, Owner of Majesty and Honor." (Quran 55: 26-27)

I got the message from Allah SWT that your days in this (fake) world are numbered. Yet, I kept praying for you, kept hoping for you because we all needed energies. We all needed strength to make your remaining days as much comfortable for you as possible. Yet, the mercy of Allah SWT is so much that you lived with us for 294 more days, got rid of the most life threatening thing that you had- 'your bedsore' of 4th degree, kept praying for us, getting to see my baby, striving your best to survive. There was even a time when your paralysis was partially gone and I saw you eating with your own hands. You were taken care by your daughters who were breathing with every breath you were taking and so much emotionally motivated by your beloved son. 

Ammi, I didn't really lose you, I lost the praying hands of yours. How can one imagine a person having so many brain strokes would be perfectly reciting the prayers from Quran  (word-by-word from heart) for her daughter who is miles away. That is why you have such an important status in front of Allah: 

"Your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him, and that you be kind to parents. Whether one or more attain old age in thy life, say not to them a word of contempt, nor repel them, but address them in terms of honor. And out of kindness, lower to them the wing of humility, and say, "my Lord! bestow on them Thy Mercy, even as they cherished me in childhood." (Quran: 17:23-24)

Who can imagine a person who, according to the doctor, had all the diseases except cancer would see my sad face on Skype and ask me about it, "Why is Sadaf having a sad face". This reminded me of: 

"We have enjoined on man kindness to his parents; in pain did his mother bear him, and in pain did she give him birth." (Quran 46:15)

You know what was the most demotivating thing for me when you were in serious condition in the Special Care Unit, this narration:

After the death of his mother, Prophet Musa A.S. went again to Koh-e-Toor where he finds Koh-e-toor and its surrounding much more forbidding than they had even been. He arrived at the designated place in a state of fright. Musa A.S. entreated Allah to enlighten him why he was haunted by such nameless fears. He heard this reply: 'In the past whenever you visited Koh-e-toor, your mother started praying for you. She begged that I show My Mercy to you and she invoked My Grace upon you, and she implored that I overlook your oversights and forgive your errors. I do listen to the prayers of a mother for her child. But now she is dead, and her prayers have gone with her. You are therefore no longer being shielded by the prayers of your mother. Therefore take heed and warning lest your err. And this is the reason for your terror'. 

I cried a lot there but later in another difficult moment facing my personal troubles, I prayed to Almighty that I have almost lost the praying hands of my mother. You be my parent and You be by my side. For a parent can die but You never die. That is how I got back my strength and I got back my motivation. 

I know now when I say you "I love you mama", I won't hear this back "I love you too (with a big cute smile)". You even used to reply this when you were really very sick. This all would have killed me if I did not have faith in Almighty that you are in His merciful arms. I know I have to do sabr to get Hasanaat and become your Sadqa Jaria. 

"And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient, 

Who, when disaster strikes them, say, "Indeed we belong to Allah , and indeed to Him we will return.

Those are the ones upon whom are blessings from their Lord and mercy. And it is those who are the [rightly] guided." (Quran 2: 155-157)

I am grateful to Almighty for blessing me with such a great mom for so many years of my life. I am proud of you my ammi. 

"Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest." (Qur'an 13:28) 

And seek help through patience and prayer, and indeed, it is difficult except for the humbly submissive [to Allah ] (Quran 2:45)

That is why I am not at unrest like I used to be when I lost my father and uncle. And when I smile around, its not that I have forgotten you. I know how hard it was for you to see me crying and since now you cannot stop me crying anymore, my tears would be a big burden on you. I want to seek patience from Allah SWT and make as much prayers for you as possible and fulfill all the dreams you wished for me. Bringing up my child according to Quran and Sunnah and instill upon him your love so that even after I am dead, the prayers for you may not discontinue. And my little one will keep calling you "Bari Mama" the word that always brought smile on your face. 

Mama, I need to tell you that I am carrying forward all the good messages I have received from you so that your soul may benefit from it. I will try to continue the good deeds which you were routinely doing. People think that my mother has passed away, but I believe that mothers never die- good mothers never die and no mother is a bad mother. 

I love you mama and I would keep saying it despite the fact that I will never get "I love you too" reply from you :) May Allah SWT keep you in His mercy..... Amen. May you together be with your parents, husband, kids, sibglings, friends and all who you loved in Jannah. Amen

Your youngest child,

Sadaf

Why Information Technology often termed as Information and Communication Technology?

IT and ICT are often used interchangeably but using these terms together have a solid context and implications. This could be regarded as a chicken and egg problem as which one of them comes first: the information or the communication? When searched over internet, there are various nice differences between IT and ICT. In this writing, I am not interested in the differences because of the same reason as these terms can be used interchangeably but why? What had happened during the evolutionary process of both Information and Communication that make these two distinct entities inseparable? It is important to note that prior to 1950’s, the two terms were largely distinctive from each other and fortunately the economics of these two sectors were also separate from one another. 

The exponential increase of well-known specie of planet earth namely “Man” gave rise to mass of information and man became incapable of handling, storing, generating, retrieving that loads of information. This information was growing rapidly. Thankfully, we live in an imperfect world full of capitalists, utilitarian, who have a never-ending desire to bring about out-of-box solutions to maximize their utility. Computer was an invention that later became innovation to tackle with the problem of data and information handling. The restless capitalists were not satiated with the excellent computer architecture of any time and their desire to have more brought them to a dynamic world where Gordon E. Moore, cofounder of Inter was to say 1965 that “the number of transistors that can be placed on a silicon chip doubles every 12-18 months”. 

During the time when information was progressing with a transient phase, communication was already taking giant leaps towards more and more innovative solutions. With the advent of telegraph and telephones, and subsequent network externalities making it more beneficial for the users to join the networks giving rise to further investments and henceforth innovation. 

One way or the other, these communication solutions were fostering the information deep inside. This means that the innovations taking place in the mother “communication” were soon to transform the daughter “information”. The devices in the switches and transmissions equipment of telephone networks could also revamp the computers. From relays to vacuum tubes to transistors, computer started its journey from mainframes to supercomputers to desktops to laptops to iPhone and what not? It was the magical transistors that were originally invented by Bell Laboratories and AT&T; for Telephone Company that transformed the information part completely. Hence, from 1960’s, the segregated terms, Information and Communication were used along. Later, with the advent and adoption of Internet from 1990’s, the two terms becomes further integrated. 

Interest-free Microfinance Project in Pakistan

After starting my career as a Credit Analyst in one of the largest banks of Pakistan and targeting mainly commercial loans (SME), I experienced both bears and bulls in the market and regulatory requirements from very relaxed to very strict. I could love my job if had I seen any value we were contributing towards the society! Financing our clients on as liquid security as possible (meaning financing them against their own money) and charging them heavy sum of interest could only pull the water towards the deeper side was just our case as we were grabbing whatever we could from our clients. And that's what we called "We are doing business with you" and there I learnt the wrong interpretation of business - Give us and only us policy. In the end, while reporting the nasty cases to loan recovery department, more than 95% of irrecoverable loans were coming from our corporate clients and peanuts from the small enterprises while these small and medium size enterprises are the largest contributor to the economy. 

I read and listen a lot bad about Pakistan and which is sometimes also reflected in my writings. This is failure of our society in particular and the world in general to conceive and recongnize the highest value projects from our country. Until recently we were unaware of a giant leap towards the betterment of our micro businesses. Today I read a news about Harvard University inviting Dr. Amjad Saqib today to address students at Harvard for his Microfinancing (Qarz-e-Hasana) Programme. When I read this news, I immediately opened wikipedia to see his name in the prominent contributors towards microfinancing and to my surprise, I couldn't get anything about him or Pakistan while the page says a lot about Grameen Bank's Muhammad Yunus and of course, the western legends. I therefore thought to put a brief account on his project and how he gained such a fame to be invited at Cambridge, Harvard and several other well-reputed institutes and awarded Presidential Award of Pakistan "Sitar-e-Imtiaz" in 2010. 

Ironically, everybody in Pakistan defends the constitution of Pakistan 1973 but its implementation even after 3 decades has never been seriously done or thought. For example, Article 38(f) requires the state to "Eliminate Riba (Interest) as early as possible" and the article 31(2)c requires to secure the proper organization of zakah and ushr (charity obligated on richer to be given to the needy)" so that a truly Islamic State could be established in Pakistan. While our whole banking systems is corrupted with and plunged into all forms of interest and nobody really bothers even to start the elimination of Riba. I don't know what they mean by "As Soon as Possible" may be I misinterpret its meaning.  

In this context and to target the funds to reach masses who actually deserve them, a well-educated development professional initiated a project in 2003. His name is Dr. Muhammad Amjad Saqib. Despite being a graduate from King Edward Medical College Lahore, Pakistan, a Graduate in Public Administration, Hurbert Humphrey Fellowship from American University, DC, and Civil Services DMG, he became prominent by founding Akhuwat Foundation, first ever Interest Free Microfinancing. In order to reach the target audience, the foundation operates from churches and mosques to targeted to poverty alleviation, micro-finance, social mobilization and education management. 

The distinguishing features marked by this foundation are as follows:

1) Giving Interest free loans upto PKR 10,000 and this loan amount is repayable in 10-12 installments

2) Financed and benefited 130,000 families with total amount of PKR 2 Billion

3) No security or loan guarantee required for financing

4) Recorded highest rate of loan recovery in the whole world marking the rate 99,85%

5) Largest foundation of interest-free loan in the whole world

6) The other preeminent microfinancing foundation like Grameen Bank requires up to 40% of interest while Akhuwat is based on zero interest rate. 
7) Transforming borrowers into Donors whereby those who are able to successfully start their business/ project have the opportunity to donate to spread the virtues. 

8) The highest loan recovery rate also establishes the fact that our nation is not a bunch of dishonest and corrupt people - when trust is invested in us, we can mark records for integrity and probity


The link to the official website of Akhuwat is: http://www.akhuwat.org.pk

Today on Pakistan day, March 23, 2012, Dr. Saqib will be addressing the Harvard students the merits of interest-free loans given to the deserving people but I wonder if such people can also earn any "Material" acknowledgement from western society like our Shermeen Obaid Chinoy from Karachi, Pakistan who  received that recognition by getting an Oscar for her movie "Saving Face". She has been making documentaries on the negative faces of our society sometimes a bit exaggerated and in return receives a lot of applause from the world. I hope that they will treat Dr. Saqib equally though he is presenting the other side of the coin showing we Pakistanis to be honest, loyal, honorable, intellectual and  intelligent nation. Let us see if the world can remove the tag from us regarding our nation as Rabble (as shown by Ms. Chinoy) to a Nation (by Dr. Saqib) - Fingers Crossed :)

Five Forms of Government Explained

The video below gives an account on five basic forms of Government which are:

1) Monarchy (Rule by one person)

2) Oligarchy (Rule by a small handful of people)

3) Democracy (Rule by majority of the citizens)

4) Republic (Rule by law)

5) Anarchy (No government)

Please watch this to get a quick overview of these forms of governments. 

Five Basic Forms of Goverment

After watching this video, I have the following opinions or confusions:

My views in context of Pakistan:

When Pakistan was founded, the name given to it was "Islamic Republic of Pakistan". The Pakistani passport I am holding shows the same name. I studied in my high school that the system of Pakistan is based on "Sovereignty of God". This makes it a Republic State means ruling on the basis of Shariah. Now I am in utter confusion. We call Pakistan a democratic country and our leaders bluntly raise the slogans "Sovereignty of People". 

My questions from our leader is "Are you telling me something I am never taught"? Why our syllabus is conflicting with practical aspects of leading the country? 

My views in context of India:

Being the biggest democracy of the world (as they say it), is it not your duty to prove to the world that "Democracy is the best". How can you show that? Just with the recent economic growth? Is there any reduction in the crimes per capita owing to this super form of leadership? When other big nations ruling on Democracy are failing, how are you going to defend this best form of government? How can you show the fruits and merits of Democracy? Is there anything to learn from the failing governments of say Greece, Portugal, Italy, USA etc. 

All insightful views are welcome! 

Mijn eerste blog in nederlands

Dit is mijn eerste blog in nederlands. Ik had beloofd om een blog in nederlands schrijven na het passeren mijn nederlands tentamen. Zo, een goede nieuws is dat ik voor mijn nederlands examen geslaagd ben. De tentamen was niet zo moelijk maar heb ik altijd een bang voor examen. Bovendien, in vergelijken met "Dutch for Beginners", "Dutch Intermediate" is veel verschillend en moelijker. Het niveau van biede boeken is heel verschillend met elkaar. In het begin van Dutch Intermediate, ik vind het heel moelijk. Maar God maakte het makkelijker voor mij. Hij gaf me vrienden die me geholpen veel. Één van mijn vrienden is Boukje. Ze hielp mij met mijn huiswerk, mijn tentamen, en moedigde me aan nederlands te leren. Op mijn verjaardag, gaf ze mij cadeaus die me kon helpen in nederlands te leren. De tijd voor een kopje thee het beste was voor ons te oefenen. Met dank aan haar. Ze is een goede vriend voor mijn en mijn collega. Mijn ander collega Marloes helpt me ook met mijn huiswerk en oefenen. Terwijl het doen een moelijke taak, moet je heel wat aanmoedinging. Ik heb het veel van mijn collega's. Voor meer nederlands te leren, moet ik oefenen meer en meer "doodling". Ik ben doodling veel deze dagen. Terwijl ik naar mijn kantoor, ik doodle altijd. Mischien de mannen onderweg denken dat ik gek ben. Ik geniet van doodling! omdat het helpt bij het leren.

Ik heb een grap te tellen. Toen we nederlands leren, waren we maken veel fouten. Hadden we een veel intelligente dame in onze groep. Een dag, kom ze laat. De leraar vraagt hoe gaat het ermee. Ze zeg dat ik mooie ben. Ze bedoelde te zeggen  "Ik ben Moe (tired)" maar ze zegt "Ik ben Mooie" (Beautiful). De leraar zei dat ja, je mooi bent maar het is raar om te zeggen het zelf. we lachen veel. Dergelijke fouten komen veel in taalcurssen.

Ik weet dat ik veel fouten in mijn blog gemaakt. Ik laat het aan mijn nederlandse lezen om mijn te corrigeren. Dus ik houdt het bewerken van dit blog.

Een mooie dag verder voor jullie allemaal en Tot ziens,