How Dell Powers Its Social Side With Analytic

social listening tools to monitor conversations and mentions across numerous networks, including blogs and forums. “Depending on the nature of an issue, we can have a corporate response prepared in a matter of hours and can reach out to an individual to resolve an issue within minutes,” says Melinat. In addition to offering immediate, actionable data, listening tools let Dell gather more in-depth information than its scorecards provide, giving the social team a well-rounded picture of social performance.
Like many big businesses, Dell also deals with customer service issues on social. “Providing customer support and issue resolution over social media helps reduce response time and increase our resolution rate,” says Melinat. “These listening tools help us proactively spot hot issues that may be growing organically in the conversation based on volume, reach, and sentiment. Depending on the type of issue, our team will then reach out to the appropriate Dell teams to respond.” For smaller — or individual — customer support problems, there’s a dedicated Social Outreach Services (SOS) team that monitors the Dell Facebook Page and @DellCares account on Twitter. The SOS team fields an average of 3,500 issues in 14 different languages every week — and has a 97% resolution rate.
Using Social Analytics for Market Research
twitter-chats-businessWith so much effort put into gathering and analyzing social data, it’s no surprise that Dell uses social insights beyond its social networks. “So many people express their opinions and needs on social media today that there is a wealth of valuable customer information available,” explains Melinat. “To tap into that data, we primarily use our social media listening tools to pull the conversations that relate to a specific topic we are researching.”
Social data goes to research analysts who review and summarize it for product feedback, competitive comparisons, or general insights into market trends. This research may be in addition to, or a complete replacement for primary research methods like surveys or focus groups. “It can usually be turned around faster and for less money,” says Melinat. “And social media research adds another perspective.”

Fortunately, your business doesn’t have to be as large as Dell to take away lessons on how it manages its social media properties. No matter how large or small, keeping a close watch on your social metrics will help you respond to customer issues and build on social success — a sure path to social media victory in the long-run.

battlefield losses and lower oil income

The US-led coalition has targeted Islamic State's financial infrastructure, using air strikes to reduce its ability to extract, refine and transport oil and so forcing fighters to reportedly take significant pay cuts.Yet the militants, who seized a third of Iraq's territory and declared a caliphate in 2014, seem to be adapting again to this latest set of constraints, in some cases reviving previous profit-turning ventures like farming.


Islamic State earns millions of dollars a month running car dealerships and fish farms in Iraq, making up for lower oil income after its battlefield losses, Iraqi judicial authorities said on Thursday.
Security experts once estimated the ultra-radical Islamist group's annual income at $2.9 billion, much of it coming from oil and gas installations in Iraq and Syria.
The US-led coalition has targeted Islamic State's financial infrastructure, using air strikes to reduce its ability to extract, refine and transport oil and so forcing fighters to reportedly take significant pay cuts.
Yet the militants, who seized a third of Iraq's territory and declared a caliphate in 2014, seem to be adapting again to this latest set of constraints, in some cases reviving previous profit-turning ventures like farming.
"The terrorists' current financing mechanism has changed from what it was before the announcement of the caliphate nearly two years ago," a report by Iraq's central court of investigation said, quoting Judge Jabbar Abid al-Huchaimi.
"After the armed forces took control of several oil fields Daesh was using to finance its operations, the organisation devised non-traditional ways of paying its fighters and financing its activities," the report added, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
Fishing in hundreds of lakes north of Baghdad generates millions of dollars a month, according to the report. Some owners fleeing the area abandoned their farms while others agreed to cooperate with Islamic State to avoid being attacked.
"Daesh treats its northern Baghdad province as a financial centre; it is its primary source of financing in the capital in particular," Huchaimi said. Islamic State carries out frequent bombings in Baghdad against security forces and Shi'ite residents.
SELLING CARS, RUNNING FACTORIES
Fish farms have supplied militants with income since 2007 when Islamic State's al Qaeda predecessor fought U.S. occupation forces but the mechanism only came to the authorities' attention this year, the report said.
The militants also tax agricultural land and impose a 10 percent levy on poultry and other duties on a range of imports into their territory, it added.
"Recently there has been reliance on agricultural lands in areas outside the control of the (Iraqi) security forces through taxes imposed on farmers."
New revenues are also being generated from car dealerships and factories once run by the Iraqi government in areas seized by the militants.
Those have helped offset the losses from lower oil income, though perhaps only partially. The U.S.-based analysis firm IHS said last week that Islamic State revenues had fallen by around a third since last summer to around $56 million a month.
"In the recent period, Daesh has gone back to using government factories in the areas it controls - like Mosul - for financial returns," Huchaimi said, but added that oil smuggling from Syrian refineries remains the group's primary source of international financing.
The Iraqi report, based in part on the confessions of captured Islamic State suspects, described how funds were funnelled to Bayt al-Mal, the group's finance ministry, in the northern city of Mosul and then distributed to its provinces.
"The organisation distributes money to areas outside its control through hawala (transfer) offices first in Erbil and from there to Iraq's other provinces," Huchaimi said.
The report said that in addition to salaries, Islamic State fighters may receive rent allowances, financial rewards for up to four children and occasional bonuses like one worth $1,000 distributed after the militants captured Mosul in 2014.

GET YOUR PROPERTY VALUATION of your property

Anyone who wants to sell a house has the following question on his or her mind: What is my house worth?
　If you’re in that boat, we’ve put together a list of three ways you can get your property valued.
Online valuations
These are the easiest to do, both in terms of money and effort. Generally, you enter the details of your property – such as bedrooms, section size, number of bedrooms etc – into an online portal, and the magic calculator sitting at the back crunches the numbers and spits out a value for your house. This calculation takes into account sales data for properties like yours in your area and gives you an estimate.
The advantage of using an online valuation is that you get an immediate ballpark without having to spend money. Most valuation portals today are free. The disadvantage is that your property’s unique features will not be taken into account. Maybe your house has a built-in air-conditioning system and ventilation system. The other disadvantage is that market conditions are not taken into account: if you try selling in the middle of a housing bust, you will get less than what the calculator says, and if you try selling in the middle of a boom, you will get more.




Real Estate Agent valuations
Many Real Estate agents offer a free ‘service’ whereby they pay you a visit and give you an appraisal. The theory is that since they have insight on and experience in the market, and since they have a finger on the ‘buyer’s pulse’, they know what range of price buyers are willing to pay for a property like yours. Since they pay you a personal visit, they can also take into account your property’s unique features that won’t show up on an online valuation.
The advantage of this is that it’s most often free. But the main thing to be wary of is that Real Estate agents have a tendency to give you a high price appraisal in the hope that you will be tempted to sell the house. If you take this route, make sure you trust your Real Estate agent.
Independent valuations
This is perhaps the most unbiased way to get your house valued. There are council-approved valuers assigned to every suburb in the country who will provide an appraisal of your house based on a variety of factors, both unique and general. These valuations generally cost in the region of $250 apiece, but what you get in return is an unbiased estimate for how much you can hope to sell your property. The disadvantage of this is that like in the first method, an independent valuer is not very well-versed in things such as market sentiment.
　So if you’re planning to sell your house, make sure you adopt at least two of the three above methods before you take the plunge. Good luck!

4 Unsolved Mysteries of India

India is the land of mysticism and ancient culture. It is one of the few ancient civilisations that are still surviving into the modern era. What we know as Indian culture today is an amalgamation of many regions and beliefs, such as Europe, Mesopotamia, Islam and Hinduism. But the foundational bedrocks were laid as many as 5000 years ago, on the banks of the Indus, where a civilisation flourished.

Today we’re looking at some of the mysteries in India that remain unsolved to this day.

1. The ruins of Kuldhara

There once was a village called Kuldhara, about fifteen kilometres west of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan. It is a well-planned settlement, with a good, grid-like street layout and uniform orientation of homes. Both aesthetics and functionality have been taken into account in its design, suggesting that the people who lived there were sophisticated in their cultural development. Established in 1291, this little village vanished one night – at least it seems that way – and has remained abandoned since. It is said that the villagers left Kuldhara unable to bear the atrocities of an evil dacoit, and placed a curse on it. As a result, everyone who tries to occupy the village dies a brutal death.

2. How did Lal Bahadur Shastri die?

In 1966, Lal Bahadur Shastri, free India’s second Prime Minister, died of a cardiac arrest, which was reportedly his fourth. After his death, his wife, Lalita Shastri, alleged that the Prime Minister was poisoned, and demanded an enquiry. According to reports, no post mortem was done on the body of Shastri. He was a man of extreme simplicity, and was one of the very few politicians in India who made no money for himself and his family. Similar questions abound over the deaths of two other leaders, Subhash Chandra Bose and Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel.

3. The Illuminati of Asoka

Move over, Opus Dei, India has its own millennia-old secret society. Formed in the year 273 BC by the Emperor Asoka, after conquering Kalinga, this team of nine men is said to be assigned the task of keeping the secrets of nature that will harm humanity if they fell into the wrong hands. Among other things that this team of nine men is believed to know, they know where the ruins of the Rama empire lie, along with the knowledge of what weapons were used to destroy it 15000 years ago.

4. Taj Mahal or Tejomahalaya?

For many, the Taj Mahal is a symbol of love, a monument constructed by Mughal king Shah Jahan as an ode to the memory of his beloved queen, Mumtaz Mahal. But in a book written by P. N. Oak, he claims that the Taj Mahal was a Hindu construction called Tejo Mahalaya, which Shah Jahan usurped and modified to reflect Persian and Islamic architectural styles. According to Oak, much of the folklore surrounding the Taj’s construction – from the materials to the number of people that gave their lives – was invented by the Mughals just to rewrite history.