One of the reads I look forward to every week is Neil Perkin’s curated list of posts from across the web. And unfailingly, I get at least a couple of articles that offer me food for thought, and in general, giving me much better fare than the two kinds of automated services I am familiar with – one based on my interests, and the other based on my social connections’ shares.
A fortnight back, two related articles caught my attention – the automation of online advertising and the client side data revolution, both of which point to how user data is going to be harnessed by increasingly efficient tools built by technology companies. Data that goes beyond the cliched demographic criteria and moves towards personalised marketing that encompasses evolving factors like real-time and social.
This actually made me think of the joys of serendipitous discovery-the kind that happens when I go book shopping (in a real bookstore) and find a book that I had never heard of but am likely to cherish-and its future in a world of ubiquitous and easily manageable data.
And guess what I found in Neil Perkin’s list last week – this amazing post at HBR about AmEx’s Nextpedition – a travel service that doesn’t have an itinerary and instead is full of surprises. Towards the end of the article is a clue on how the future could create a well crafted mix of the two – to deliver randomness we will have to be on better terms with randomness. Powered by massive amounts of data, an experience that will be exactly the right measure of customised randomness.
until next time, a cliched appendage – serendipity 2.0. 🙂
Sometime back, Vedant shared a video on Reader – a Punjab village in 1925. It reminded me of how little of documentation we have as we go further back in time. I could see two factors in this – documentation itself didn’t happen because it was not an easy process, and storage mechanisms that were used then haven’t really endured.
These days, we do a lot of documentation, on the web and offline – pictures, videos, text, creating a lifestream that at this point, looks to be durable, because as each technology gets replaced by another, we are also building means to transfer the data captured. My own lifestreaming experiments have been on for quite a while now. New tools like foursquare only add to it, and I find that I can actually recollect a lot from this information.
I’m inclined to believe that data capture itself will only get better with time, though the reactions to it will definitely be varied. But it did set me thinking. In the enterprise, the more the data, the more we are able to glean information and knowledge about things, people, behaviour, preferences and so on. Do you think, even at a theory level, that if we actually had data of all humans over a really long period of time, we will be able to crack the profound questions that we haven’t found an answer for – why do things/people exist the way they do, the complete effects of one’s action/inaction, the purpose of life itself? Will this data help us unlock dimensions that have been closed to us thus far? Like I’ve asked before, how would that affect our God constructs?
In the last post, I’d written about the massive amounts of data that is already being generated and will grow, whether or not organisations track/capture/use it. The question then becomes one of ‘ownership’, within the organisation’s structure.
The consumer, irrespective of his touch point, will expect a consistent and probably even a customised experience, basis preferences communicated earlier, and transactions which can only happen if the functions talk to each other. And it is in that context that I found this (slightly dated) post by Dave Gray very interesting.
He cites a talk by John Hagel, in which it was mentioned that “the average life expectancy of a company in the S&P 500 has dropped precipitously, from 75 years (in 1937) to 15 years in a more recent study.” In this context, he then goes on to dissect the design of companies – from a machine like structure with focus on control, maintenance and leading to eventual wearing out… to a design based on organisms or complex structures built by humans, like cities where there exist flexible ecosystems, a shared identity and an early seizing of opportunities to grow.
Within the same analogy, he also then shows how a ‘machine’ design also brings in a “design by division”, resulting ultimately in function based silos. The alternative is “design by connection” which goes on to the Social Business Design concept and includes crucial elements like culture, starting small and scaling and so on.
There is another interesting angle to this – the way much of this data (I have only social platforms to rely on now) seems to be flowing, it does not necessarily have to be the organisation that uses it best. It could be any of the middlemen – from retailers armed with sensors to a platform like Facebook/Foursquare/Twitter/Groupon (the last entity is talking to cash register manufacturers to have their button pre-installed at retail cash registers!) to super users. So perhaps it is time for brands to take a more structured view of data and its custodians. I have a feeling that it will have to be a hybrid model of design by division and connection.
A couple of weeks back, when I wrote about location based interactions, I’d said that the limits of my imagination prevent me from thinking of anything beyond brand ‘controlled’ interactive sensors in individual products as a way for non-retail brands to directly connect with their consumers – at the point of consumption.
Thanks to RWW, I found this extremely interesting presentation which gives perspectives on the future of social media analysis and how brands will capture and use the data to increase business value – for itself and hopefully consumers too. I also remembered a McKinsey “Internet of things’ report from last year in this context.
“social media is still viewed by many as just a tool rather than as an immersive environment.” Must admit I hadn’t thought about it that way. Meanwhile, there is indeed a lot of focus on the data we can get from social networks. But that’s only one source of data. There are many others too, including those which don’t even involve a consumer’s active communication. One look at the RFID wiki page will give you a perspective on the possibilities.
If brands can take cognizance of the rapid advancements in technology, and work on how they can capture, analyse and apply data, then the contexts and ways they can interact with their consumers will substantially increase. Perhaps their dependency on existing communication platforms will decrease too, especially if they consciously build their own platforms. One old but still relevant example, which I have used earlier too, is Nike+, which uses popular social tools to augment the fundamental data capture.
There was an article recently at PSFK, which, in addition to the impending data explosion, also talks of the need for brands to invest in technology to mine, analyse and identify changing consumer needs and opportunities. Though probably, at a later stage, the automatic ‘sensors’ mentioned in the article would beat the self-expression media services as the largest data source, at this stage, the latter seem to be the biggest contributors.
So what is the data that’s getting generated? As social networks evolve, the role that they play in the individual’s life is also evolving. While flow of information, and communication seem to find social networks as natural conduits, the networks are also now sources of entertainment for many. (study by Edelman) What does this entail for brands, their communication and the content they generate?
Amidst the social network revolution, brands have been trying hard to eke out a place for themselves – to slide in easily into the conversations, and lives of individual users. Some have been successful, and some have not, the latter mostly when they try to use these as distribution channels for other media content alone. I read a few days back that the two official sponsors for the World Cup – Adidas and Coke, had been trumped by their competitors – Nike, and Pepsi, as far as WOM goes. Not surprising, both tell excellent stories. It makes us feel.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idLG6jh23yE
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQmu48sZohc
There’s this excellent presentation by Rory Sutherland about intangible, and perceived value that brands create. A bit dated, but I happened to see it recently. It made me think about Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs and the tangibility of various levels.
As civilisation advances and scarcities and abundance are rapidly traded, and as brands progress, don’t the lower levels of Maslow’s needs hierarchy become hygiene? So, would users prefer brands that help them in the esteem and self actualisation areas? It perhaps might be an example of ‘seeing the subtext you want to see’, but the Nike ad – ‘Write the Future’ seemed to be all about self actualisation and the Pepsi’s ‘Oh Africa’ seemed to be all about an ever-changing crowd that seems to be impossible to keep pace with. To quote Clay Shirky, “The category of ‘consumer’ is now a temporary behavior rather than a permanent identity.”
Which brings me back to the data explosion. The challenge, I guess, is an old one. Finding motivations, sensing patterns out of all the data to understand why we ‘Like’, why we ‘share’, and so on, and then give us a value proposition. With rapidly evolving technologies, even the value needs to adapt much faster than before, because if the brand is late, there’ll be another that delivers. But then again, at higher need levels, when the individuality/uniqueness quotient increases, will the manifestation of needs show a collective pattern? Or will the individual’s behaviour pattern become more important for brands? Multiple data sets, multiple patterns, multiple challenges. Interesting times indeed 🙂
Meanwhile, here’s one closer home. (via Gaurav) A very interesting project by Tithiya Sharma – The 100 Heroes Project. I’m sure it’ll be a wonderful story and if I were an airline brand or even a MakeMyTrip/Cleartrip or anything to do with travel, I’d take a look at the project.
