The innovation of this SBIR project includes effective and efficient big data analytics and mining techniques to extract social and people related information from massive amount of Internet data. The advanced analysis algorithms in name dis-ambiguity, connection inference, information categorization, etc. can quickly capture and analyze people related information in real time to help organizations to establish, strengthen and accelerate their customer relationships and facilitate business deals. The tool extracts and infers information from a wide spectrum of data from the whole Internet to complement the limited and subjective data volunteered by users themselves in social network websites like Linkedin.
The broader/commercial impact includes enabling business people save valuable time in researching new prospects and identifying the best ways to connect with people, and ultimately close more deals by better understanding their prospects in less time. In other words, it simplifies business functions such as sales, recruiting, etc to be more efficient and effective.
Whova solutions have been designed to enable business professionals to quickly access comprehensive, well-organized background information of people. The solutions automate the process of people research in sub-seconds and help quickly browse hundreds and thousands of piece of information, not just social profiles, but also home pages, bio pages, news, publications, patents, and any other information on Internet. Specifically, the main outcomes from NSF SBIR Phase I project include the Whova Event app running on top of the big data analysis and mining technology we have developed. The app has been designed to make professional networking at events much more productive and efficient. We provide real- time and instant ``people research'' capability on mobile devices for effective networking at business events, trade shows, conferences and private meetings. It goes much beyond existing ``name-based'' keyword search provided by Google, Microsoft Bing, and also it is complementary to social profiles such as LinkedIn, which purely rely on subjective information provided by users themselves. Our technology and our solutions have dramatically transformed professional people's networking from passive to proactive. With our solutions, people can plan ahead who they would like to meet at events, and can be equipped with much deeper insights into their prospects so that they can maximize every opportunity and win more deals quickly. Ever since the event app was released in October, 2013, around 40 events have used or signed up to use the app, including TEDx with 500 attendees, oversea international conference with 1,200 attendees, multi-day conferences with 10 multi-tracks, career fairs, entrepreneurs events, series of events from national associations with many local chapters, corporates business events, festivals, meetups, alumni events, etc. With zero marketing effort and spending, and also no sales force, such market traction purely relied on word of mouth and the "stickiness"; after a positive first-time experience, organizers continued to use our app for their next events and actively recommended it to other organizers. Some of the attendees had their own events to organize, and after their positive experience in using the app as an attendee, they signed up to use the app for their upcoming events without any hesitation. Once we obtain an attendee list including names and optional hints such as affiliations/locations from the event organizers, we automatically identify and generate attendee profiles by leveraging our people search engines and profile database. With a comprehensive profile for each attendee, users can easily check out other attendees’ backgrounds, social profiles, professional bio/home pages, publications, and news, all in one place. Moreover, they can also check out the rich connection/network information with real world context. According to our user behavior analytics from majority of the events we have supported, 50-80% of screen views were made on attendee profiles or attendee lists, yet basic event information such as agenda and direction were viewed much less than that. It indicates that users are highly interested in browsing and using attendee profiles for networking. Such statistics strongly support the competitiveness of our solution. All other event apps are far behind with respect to this functionality, and most of them are merely mobile brochures such as agenda and directions. Besides attendee profiles, Whova Event app also provides other useful features, namely In Common feature that shows what a user has in common with each profile owner, In-app Messaging that allows a user to send a message to others without knowing their emails, Discover feature that enables a user to easily discover other attendees who have similar background, experience, connections, and interests, so that they can plan ahead networking, Exchange feature that syncs up apps to exchange each other’s contact information without the hassle of receiving clutters of business cards and use it to follow up after events. The Bookmark, Search History, Reminder, and Profile Sharing are also provided to help user networking with each other, following up, and managing their connections. Whova solutions also help event organizers have an effective channel to communicate with their attendants. Organizers often need to publish event materials such as presentation slides and documents, and send attendees announcement and reminders. Also, in order to make events successful, they try to actively engage attendees by soliciting questions during presentations and panel sessions, collecting survey feedback, and also encouraging social media sharing. Our app allows organizers to engage attendees much more effectively via features like Slides/Photo sharing, Organizer Announcement with push notification, Q&A Board, Online Forum, Survey, and Twitter posting and sharing.
