When you work on a product or service that’s primarily aimed at businesses, it’s easy to get accustomed to the well-traveled language of B2B.
eContext’s text classification, we’re used to saying, delivers insights. It empowers organizations to expedite their initiatives and adds value to big data by mapping assets to a hierarchical structure.
To be clear, all of these things are true. But a glut of buzzword-laden value statements–and let’s be honest, some have more meaning than others–can sometimes de-emphasize what makes an offering truly necessary or unique.
So this week, we decided to refresh our appreciation for eContext by looking at it from a different perspective. We asked a few staff members around the office: what if eContext were actually a consumer product? What if, instead of enriching data for large businesses, you were able to take advantage of topic classification in your day to day life?
The responses were great–a few people envisioned eContext as a kind of mobile app, while others wished for a browser extension or plugin to automatically classify content.
All-in-all, it was a fun exercise that reminded us how helpful it can be to have access to topic classification on a day to day basis.
Check out some of our favorite responses below.
Managing social media with better text classification
“I’m sick of apps, but what I’m even more sick of is social media. I’ve deleted or abandoned most of my accounts, aside from Facebook, and that’s mostly to keep in touch with out-of-town friends and relatives, and to find out about local events. I know there are ways to block a certain person’s content, but sometimes I don’t mind seeing cute pics of their new puppy, I just don’t wish to read their 82nd political post of the day. Anecdotally, I’ve heard others complain that social media makes them “feel like crap” because it makes people’s lives look so much better than theirs. For example, if someone just went through a break-up, they might not want to read about their college friend’s awesome spouse. It would be useful to have an app that could filter out posts with certain keywords or topics, rather than filtering out people completely, and the app could include posts from various social networking sites, so there would be no need to log in to five of them.” — Allison, Taxonomist
Keeping recommendations in order
“I wish I had a better way to keep track of all the recommendations my friends and family pass along. TV shows, articles, book suggestions, that kind of thing. Usually, I try to make notes for myself on my phone or scrap paper, but it would be cool to have an app that could sort all that content by subject matter and keep it organized for when I have the time. Say I was between books and felt like reading a western, I could go into my app and see if my friends had given me any corresponding recommendations. Basically, I wish I had an eContext app to keep me more organized and account for my forgetfulness.” — Patrick, Administrative
Better networking
“I’m always looking for ways to connect. I have a small business and I rely on networking for most of the work that I get. I’d love to be able to pull my Twitter feed and find out what people are saying about manufacturing or technology, two topics I work with frequently, so I could connect with them on a more effective level. Right now, it’s difficult to do this efficiently on Twitter, where you can’t get much deeper than a hashtag. I’d be interested to find ways to pull all of my friends who just happen to be interested in a topic like manufacturing and think of new ways to connect with them.
It’s also interesting to me to know the tangential things that people are interested in and finding unlikely associations. It’s simple enough to think of the obvious – a person who works at a manufacturing firm is also interested in manufacturing technology. I think it’s more fun to find unlikely associations, or things you wouldn’t necessarily think of, and eContext’s text classificaiton is a great way to visualize data and look for patterns that emerge. I would use this kind of information to find off-the-beaten path ways to reach out to potential new customers. If I can find marketing managers at manufacturing firms I suppose I could reach out to them with a message about marketing and manufacturing. But if I can find all the marketing managers at manufacturing firms who like the Cleveland Indians, I have a much better chance at getting their attention if I can wedge my Cleveland connection (and love of the underdog team) into my introduction. It’s very effective, but it takes time to do that kind of research. eContext could make it easier.
Go Tribe.” — Miriam, Marketing