A Chat With Social Media & Text Analytics Guru Seth Grimes

Earlier this week I posted my take on the past, present & future of social media content analytics in the post  The Fall Of Buzzmetrics & Rise Of The New Social Media Analytics MR Firm. In it I mentioned the upcoming The Sentiment Analysis Symposium by Seth Grimes, the Guru (really, he deserves the title) of social media and text analytics. Seth is the premier analyst and consultant in that space and has his finger on the pulse of the sector more than anyone else. Seth occasionally submits to GreenBook Blog and each post is a work of brilliant analysis and “No BS”, practical advice.

I thought it would be interesting to chat with Seth about the state of the industry, what’s coming in the future, how insights organizations are leveraging these technologies for business impact and of course, about his upcoming event. The May 8, 2013 Sentiment Analysis Symposium in New York will be the 6th instance of this premier business-focused conference, the only conference focused exclusively on teaching you about technology and solutions that help you discover business value in opinions, emotions, and attitudes in social media, news, and enterprise feedback.

The interview is below and I think it should be required viewing for insights professionals who aren’t sure about the fit for their organizations or how to implement these solutions.

I rarely do video interviews because my VoIP is wonky (and I have a face for radio, not video); there are two small audio glitches in the beginning and end of this interview, but overall the quality and content is pretty great. Enjoy!

As Seth and I clearly outline in our discussion the convergence of MR and Social Media/Text Analytics is well underway and are working on many of the same objectives (including emotional measurement and uncovering unconscious drivers of behavior) on behalf of clients. New folks are moving into the Insights neighborhood and we have to learn to get along. We’ve taken similar approaches to help make that happen, with  a major piece of our individual strategies being developing events that, as Seth says ‘I’d want to go to.” Seth’s Sentiment Symposium is his approach, and we have  our own Insight Innovation Exchange.

If you can’t attend the Sentiment Symposium, Seth will be presenting at IIeX, so between the two you’ll have ample opportunity to meet and chat with him.

The Insight Innovation Exchange, being held June 17-19, is a client-centric event focused on collaboratively exploring the frontiers of the future of insights and identifying new entrants into the broad space. If you want to get a vision of how new technologies like (but not limited to) social media analytics are reshaping the entire insights value chain, IIeX is the “must attend” event of the year.