Below is an excerpt from Jesse Berst's article on how social media analytics can help city leaders use their resources most effectively. The original article, which you can read in its entirety here, appears in the Innovation Insights section of Wired. It highlights some of the work in this area being done by Council Lead Partner IBM and Associate Partner BehaviorMatrix. If someone sends an email message written in all caps, or a text message with winking punctuation, you can tell instantly how they really feel. But what can you glean from ordinary emails or millions of average tweets? It turns out those messages contain a wealth of information about the author’s emotional state as well. And smart cities -- cities that use information and communications technologies to improve livability -- are analyzing them to uncover otherwise hidden clues that allow them to judge the effectiveness of programs, set budget priorities and deploy emergency relief the moment disaster strikes. Click to read the rest of the article >>
