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Sentiment isn’t just for Sympathy Cards! 

5/15/2013

18 Comments

 
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Guest Post by Ian Gee from The Illusion of Work

We now live in a world with so much data readily available that I sometimes think it is hard to know where to start! Little Data can be intimidating let alone what do we now do with Big Data! My last blog post ‘Making the Soft Stuff Hard’ was an exploration of the challenges this places on our practice. Your comments have really stimulated my thinking. I want to take this exploration a bit further and look at how the web and social media might offer us some new opportunities and possibilities as well as raise some challenges, in terms of data gathering and its use.
In particular, I want to explore the use of sentiment analysis in OD and how it can potentially help us to understand what is going on inside and outside the organisation. Sentiment analysis can be best described as ‘opinion mining’. It’s a software driven process that analyses text and identifies feelings, reflections, likes and dislikes. At its most sophisticated it can give you a very good temperature reading and a good sense of what peoples attitudes are to particular issues. It provides you with an understanding of the judgements people are making, their inclinations, passions and opinions.

Sentiment analysis in OD is nothing new. As practitioners we have always done it through reviewing the data we gather from interviews, observations, focus groups and surveys. Trying to make sense of the data, above and beyond the literal content we search for opinions, similarities and differences. We then make, what we hope, are skilful understandings and interpretations. These ‘data bubbles’ as I like to think of them, have been of immense benefit to me in my career and I hope to my clients as well. Now though, with the proliferation of social media and the web, data is everywhere and not just what we choose to focus on and systematically gather.

Most company intranets have the facility for employees to comment and contribute. In progressive companies, discussion and even dissent are actively encouraged. This generates masses of data and information. But what do we do with it other than watch it pass by like a news ticker? As an OD practitioner, challenged with developing large company interventions, my question is how can we make best use of this rich source of what is on the surface can seem to be random data or chitchat? I don’t believe we can simply ignore it and carry on as we have; we do this at our peril. At the same time, the sheer volume of data can be daunting. It is usually made up of long threads of comments covering multiple issues and usually across numerous platforms. To start to analyse it manually can seem to be bit like trying to read the Internet! This is where I think sentiment analysis provides an answer.

Here is a personal example of where I used a sentiment analysis tool to good effect. I was recently working on a global project where I was not at all sure whether or not some of the key players were truly supporting the changes or not. I am sure you recognise this as a classic issue of stakeholder alignment. Most of us have faced this at some time in a transformation project. As an experiment, I used a very simple and free web tool to analyse a large number of emails I had received from the team and was very interested in the results. By looking at the words and strings of sentences the tool highlighted the fact that the majority of the statements were indicative of people sitting on the fence and waiting. My intuition told me we had alignment issues, the sentiment analysis gave me the data I needed to have conversations with the team and find out what was needed to get them fully on board. Now you could argue I might just as well have trusted my intuition and ‘held up the mirror’ based on what I was feeling. However in a ‘High Tech’ environment, being able to share the results of the sentiment analysis made for a much more fruitful, useful and interesting discussion.

Apparently there are even more sophisticated tools that will analyse anything from tweets, blog posts and discussions both on the company intranet and also the web generally. I think for my own practice, when I am next asked to get involved with a company wide change programme, I am going to recommend that we use both internal and external sentiment analysis as part of the initial diagnosis and continue to use it, at given periods, to see how sentiment shifts (hopefully I a positive way!) as the transformation progresses.

On a final note I am assuming you are all familiar with http://www.glassdoor.com and other similar ‘trip advisor’ type-sites for business? Have you ever used these sites to help you build a case for change?

I would be very interested to get your thoughts on the use of tools like sentiment analysis as a support to change and transformation. I am wondering if this is this one of the ways in which our practice of OD can be advanced and made more relevant and interesting? If you have any websites demonstrating tools to share that would be great. See below, for a couple of them from my friends Tim and Matthew. Over to you all now!

http://www.sentiment140.com/

http://www.tweetfeel.com/

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/50-great-examples-of-data-visualization/

18 Comments
REd
5/15/2013 03:28:40 pm

Hi. I came to this post through a friend. I think it is important and interesting, but since I am not involved in your arena, I have no idea what "OD" is. To me, OD = overdose!

But that aside, I am actually amazed you were able to identify alignment issues by analyzing the contents of emails.

Is it possible to detect sarcasm versus outright dissent? I wonder how intent can be ascertained when inflection can yield such different meanings.

Reply
Ian Gee link
5/16/2013 05:04:05 am

Thanks REd for your kind comments on my post. I think Sentiment analysis is in its early days for OD but I am sure it will prove interesting the more we experiment with it! If you want to find out more about OD the have a look at my website Best Ian
http://www.edgelandsconsultancy.com

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Digistar
5/15/2013 03:38:13 pm

Hello REd! OD stands for Organisational Development. So in the context of enterprise!

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Donald Patnaude link
5/15/2013 05:17:16 pm

This is really beautifully written. You ask some good questions. You give to great examples of websites. I will be checking back in the future on your post.

Reply
Ian Gee link
5/16/2013 05:07:49 am

Hi Donald and thank you for your comments! I will look forward to reading your comments on my future posts. My next one will be up in early June. In the meantime do have a look at the others on our Bog and let me know what you think, They are on my friend Matthew Hanwell and I take turns in writing them. Best Ian http://theillusionofwork.wordpress.com

Reply
Mary-Margaret Walker
5/15/2013 09:24:14 pm

This is a brilliant article. It's so stimulating to look at the changes that can be made within a company from a completely different angle with the help of this particular analysis.

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Ian Gee
5/16/2013 05:14:27 am

Thank you Mary Margaret. I feel its time that OD reinvented itself and truly started to think of how the changes we are seeing being brought about by social media and the like can be embraced and lead to new developments the practice Ian

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Tim
5/16/2013 02:15:43 pm

Like the idea of using glassdoor.com reviews for making a case for change!

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Ian Gee
5/17/2013 07:18:14 am

Do let me know how it goes. Will be interested to hear about the difference it makes. ALso be great if you could cross post to the original blog post at http://theillusionofwork.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/sentiment-isnt-just-for-sympathy-cards/#comments Thank you Ian

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Barry
5/16/2013 05:49:06 pm

Great Ideas here thanks so much

Reply
Ian Gee
5/17/2013 07:19:21 am

Your welcome Barry. You may also like our other blog posts at http://theillusionofwork.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/sentiment-isnt-just-for-sympathy-cards/#comments Best Ian

Reply
mithuhassan link
5/16/2013 07:15:06 pm

Great article !! Thanks to share the inside. I specially like very much the personal examples !!

Reply
Ian Gee
5/17/2013 07:21:18 am

Thank you Ian

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Joan Stewart link
5/16/2013 07:48:29 pm

Insightful article, tested all the links and found some interesting ideas to put to use in marketing. Thanks!

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Ian Gee
5/17/2013 07:16:08 am

Thank you, do let us know how you go on. if you could cross post your findings to http://theillusionofwork.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/sentiment-isnt-just-for-sympathy-cards/#comments that would be great Thank you Ian

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7a link
5/16/2013 10:33:37 pm

Webdesigndepot's article is beautiful :) #data #visualization

Reply
Ian Gee
5/17/2013 07:20:10 am

Thank You! Ian

Reply
hunter robert hailey
10/17/2013 08:03:29 am

really great article, very thoughtful

Reply



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