Big Data: A Playbook to pivot for success.

The idea that Big Data is about people was one of the salient themes highlighted during the panel discussion at the 2012 Big Data summit in Sydney, Australia. The reality of this Big Data phenomenon is being influenced by a trend in which the world’s ability to generate data (e.g. from humans and machines) is far exceeding our ability to analyse it. How organisations adapt to this trend in the near to long term is a critical factor enabling them to pivot for success . 

The Big Data phenomenon is a condition in which data comes in all scales and shapes encompassing millions of everyday new human interactions that are recorded and millions of old human interactions that are digitised. The phenomenon that follows has been creating massive new sources of data about human contention, collaboration and overall social behaviour. Most organisations recognise they need a resilient playbook that will enable them to pivot to find success. 

The pivot points for success in organisations can be found in how they formulate answers to questions such as:
· What data do we have?
· What data do we need or what data is valuable to the organisation?
· Is data viewed as an asset?
· What tells us that data is an asset?
· How can we extract its true value?
· How can we effectively use data as an asset to differentiate?
· How do we foster a climate for data driven discovery to flourish?

The answers to such questions need to be examined to help organisations shape the right conversations that will unleash the 4V of Big Data - ‘Value’. As shown in Figure A, digitisation is all around us and an organisation’s ability to pivot successfully depends on how they use data. The window of opportunity is rapidly narrowing and will soon leave many organisations with very little time to adapt to this Big Data phenomenon for competitive advantage. Value is much less about technology advancements and is more about how fast data experts enable their entire organisation to infer meaning from data and take action based on that meaning.

This thesis was recently played out in society on the backdrop of the 2012 American presidential election. There is no better case study than what was witnessed. The outcome from this high profile event provides more evidence that Big Data and the science of data are real. In addition, it provides a case study on the successful use and misuse of data at scale. Whilst both candidates attempted to use Big Data as a competitive advantage the playbook that was executed produced different outcomes. In the aftermath of the election lessons learnt from the winning candidate (or organisation) has outlined a playbook that enabled the candidate’s team to pivot for success to unleash the 5V of Big Data – ‘Victory’.

Figure A: This data ecosystem is on the verge of changing the way we live and work.

[1]

Signal validation for Big Data:

The presidential election affirmed that in this era of Big Data an organisation’s ability to harness data at scale as an asset is more than looking at data simply as something that just feeds into a report or dashboard that you would show to an executive once every month or quarter. The winning candidate fostered a mindset that not only looked at data as an asset in itself, but infused in its climate the science of data. As these factors shaped the operating rhythm it ultimately enabled the winning candidate’s team to continuously pivot for success. In addition, the winning candidate amassed data experts who had in-depth understanding of how to effectively use accessible technologies, efficiently collect data from a variety of sources and establish a collaborative data ecosystem or whole system with people and machines working in harmony. The winning candidate’s team of data experts understood that for systems to succeed, especially systems for data analysis, they must be consciously designed to enhance the capabilities and thinking of people, not to replace them. [2] [3] [4]


For instance, the Time article, "Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win" suggests from day one the winning candidate had a priority to attract and retain data experts (e.g. data scientist, researchers, behavioural scientist and so on) that understood the science of data and knew how to use it as a competitive advantage.

The article goes on to suggest the mindset or tone was set at the top to use data as an asset and dissolve data silos that had been stored in many different systems. The team of data experts were empowered to innovate and create as they applied the science of data to establish a collaborative data ecosystem enabling the overall team to compete at its highest potential.

The collaborative data ecosystem enabled computer simulations to run the election 66,000 times every night to predict the likelihood of the candidate’s team winning each swing state. In addition, the system’s ability to scale fostered a climate of data driven decision making that was so accurate it enabled the winning candidate’s team to not only uncover demand potential, but also to proactively pivot for success as they adapted to changes allocating resources to effectively interact with citizens across all channels. [5][6]

The opposing candidate’s team provides lessons learnt on how the misuse of data can quickly degrade its value. Although the opposing candidate’s team had a similar strategic intent, their lack of ability to apply science to data and infer meaning for execution prevented the overall team from competing at its highest potential. Their system was unable to deal with data at scale – another critical factor inhibiting the opposing candidate’s team’s ability to put Big Data and Analytics to work. [7] [8]

Among other lessons learnt (and there are many more), this disadvantage highlighted that in future the candidate with the best data and data experts who understand the science of data will have the competitive advantage.

Is this Big Data playbook to pivot for success new?

No, not really! The winning candidate’s use of data is not unlike what most Born Digital organisations have already embraced and embedded within their business models. Born digital organisations such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Cloudera, FourSquare and many others have well established cultures that understand the value of data and how to apply the science of data to harness data as an asset. In addition, their data experts understand that behavioural and social science provides time-tested methodologies for discerning meaning in data. [9] [10] [11]

As Big Data innovations continue to introduce breakthroughs which establish a more resilient human link to the data being analysed, improvements are evident in reduced time to insight and an organisation’s ability to infer meaning from data at scale and take action based on that meaning. For instance, Cloudera Impala’s distributed query execution engine, Facebook's Corona (Under the Hood: Scheduling MapReduce jobs more efficiently with Corona), or Amazon’s recent announcement to expand its AWS footprint in a new region in Sydney, Australia are just a few of the innovations that will enable data experts to help transform their organisations into data driven powerhouses. [12] [13] [14]

Is Big Data a possible macro growth story?

The Big Data innovations are among the green shoots that have the possibility to influence the macro economic growth story. As governments look for a balance through austerity measures, interventions that focus on policy to accelerate advancements in Big Data may enable the world to emerge faster from this current economic rough patch.

There have been many recent studies that have outlined the economic opportunities that Big Data offers on the backdrop of organisations, entrepreneurs, researchers, and practitioners producing new sustainable products or services. For instance, IDC has estimated Big Data growth to be at US$258.5 million in 2011 to $1.76 billion in 2016. This is on the back of a 46.8% five-year compound annual growth rate. Gartner estimates Big Data will create 4.4 million IT jobs globally to support Big Data by 2015 and in the Asia-Pacific region Gartner suggests 960,000 new IT jobs will be created in the next three years from Big Data. [15] [16] [17]

MarketsandMarkets has estimated Hadoop will grow into a market that will rise at a combined annual growth rate (CAGR) of 54.9% over the next five years from $1.56bn to reach $13.95bn by 2017. [18]  This is not to suggest that meeting these estimates alone will spill over to stabilise global growth. However, a focus on Big Data innovations may be one of the levers that enable’s the world to tip into a much better equilibrium. This has the possibility to accelerate through public and private partnerships with the right focus.

Conclusion:

The science of data, the thinking, and the methods when brought together in a humanistic way are beautiful and breathtaking at the same time. The strategic intent to use Big Data and Analytics as a competitive advantage is not easy and in the aftermath of the high profile presidential election we learn that the Big Data phenomenon is real and its use can enable all organisations to pivot for success. In addition, managing data at scale to influence disruptions in markets or political systems is not isolated to America; it is within reach of every organisation, industry or sector that truly believes that data is an asset.

As organisations continue to evolve away from just looking at data as numbers on a report towards being a true asset in itself that needs to be leveraged in new ways, they too will pivot for success.

References:

[1]. Martinez, K. (2011). The NSF Perspective on HEC-FSIO (as seen from CNS). (slidefinder). NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering.http://www.slidefinder.net/k/keith_marzullo_director_division_computer/32919200
[2]. Harris, D. (2011). Obama seeks data scientists for election edge. GigaOM.http://gigaom.com/cloud/obama-seeks-data-scientists-for-election-edge/
[3]. Harris, D. (2012). How Obama’s tech team helped deliver the 2012 election. GigaOM.http://gigaom.com/cloud/how-obamas-tech-team-helped-deliver-the-2012-election/
[4]. Cramer, R. (2012). Messina: Obama Won On The Small Stuff ( Romney aide admits: “We thought the game would be one thing, and it ended up being another.”). BuzzFeed. http://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/messina-obama-won-on-the-small-stuff-4xvn
[5]. Scherer, M. (2012). Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win. Time Magazine.http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/07/inside-the-secret-world-of-quants-and-data-crunchers-who-helped-obama-win/#ixzz2CVerEtAo
[6]. Martinez, J. (2012). Data drove Obama’s ground game. The Hill. http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/266987-data-drove-obamas-ground-game
[7]. Gallagher, S. (2012). Inside Team Romney's whale of an IT meltdown. Ars Technica. Technology Lab / Information Technology.http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/inside-team-romneys-whale-of-an-it-meltdown/
[8]. Burns, A., & Haberman, M. (2012). Romney's fail whale: ORCA the vote-tracker left team 'flying blind'. Politico. http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/11/romneys-fail-whale-orca-the-votetracker-149098.html
[9]. Freda, A. (2012). The Promise of Big Data. Harvard School of Public Healthhttp://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/files/big_data.pdf
[10]. Mayberry, T. (2012). Big Data: The Hidden Asset in Born Digital Organisations. Torrance Mayberry’s Blog. http://torrance-mayberry.blogspot.co.nz/2012/06/big-data-hidden-asset-in-born-digital.html
[11]. Shiffman, G. (2012). Big Data Analytics and the Economics of Organized Violence. The Diplomatic Courier.http://www.diplomaticourier.com/news/topics/economy/1263-big-data-analytics-and-the-economics-of-organized-violence
[12].  Robinson, H. (2012). Cloudera Impala. Paper Trail. http://the-paper-trail.org/blog/cloudera-impala/ 　
[13]. Facebook Engineering. (2012). Under the Hood: Scheduling MapReduce jobs more efficiently with Corona. Facebook Engineering Notes. https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/under-the-hood-scheduling-mapreduce-jobs-more-efficiently-with-corona/10151142560538920　
[14]. Amazon. (2012). New Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region in Australia - EC2, DynamoDB, S3, and Much More. Amazon Web Services Blog.http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2012/11/asia-pacific-sydney-region-open.html
[15]. Stires, C., Jimenez, D., Chung, D., Tan, D., Sehgal, V., & Rajnish, A. (2012). APEJ Big Data Technology and Services 2012–2016 Forecast and Analysis. IDC. http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=AP2670106X　
[16]. Pettey, C. (2012). Big Data Creates Big Jobs: 4.4 Million IT Jobs Globally to Support Big Data By 2015. The Gartner Group. http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=2207915
[17]. Barwick, H. (2012). Big data to create 960K new IT jobs in APAC by 2015: Gartner. ComputerWorld Techworld. http://www.techworld.com.au/article/441840/big_data_create_960k_new_it_jobs_apac_by_2015_gartner/　
[18]. Marketsandmarkets (2012). Hadoop & Big Data Analytics Market - Trends, Geographical Analysis & Worldwide Market Forecasts (2012 – 2017). Top Market Reports. http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/hadoop-market-766.html

Big Data: The Hidden Asset in Born Digital Organisations.

This examines one of the critical factors that will enable born digital organisations to propel the trajectory of their competitive advantage. The world is changing fast and born digitals (those shaping the digitally social future) continue to innovate game changing technology based on a hidden asset helping shape the digital future. Born digital organisations have been using Big Data successfully in their businesses enabling them to change the face of technology and society.

Born digital organisations like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, FourSquare, and many others, have embodied and embedded social sciences into core business models ensuring they are better positioned to thrive irrespective of economic uncertainty. They understand that social sciences play a significant role in disrupting markets in a digitally social world. It is this hidden asset that will become increasingly important as it gives them a solid foundation to ethically harness social data to help advance the human condition.

On the backdrop of the world becoming increasingly interconnected, a phenomenon inherent in this Big Data era is the vast amount of social data that is digitally produced as humans go about their daily lives. The circulation of social data throughout the wider social-ecosystem will virtually have no limit as technology innovations introduce all kinds of everyday things in society that can be connected and context aware.

For instance, Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, suggests that virtually everything human beings own in society will have its own internet address and, as the momentum continues, "home appliances, keys, wine cellars, the dog's collar - everything" has the possibility to be affected[1]. The significance of the phenomenon has also influenced traditional organisations. Ford recently opened a Big Data lab in the Silicon Valley highlighting what they now envisage is an integral part of the automotive future [2].

Researchers and entrepreneurs around the world have been developing systems that will optimise digital interactions. Researchers at the University of Virginia have demonstrated the commercial possibilities that can be achieved through sensors to track typical objects for household environments. This has the possibility to provide household environments with an enhanced ability to keep track of the locations of everyday household objects such as keys, remotes, kids toys and so on. Households empowered with access to such capabilities will find it much easier to keep track of all type of physical objects in their daily lives [3][4][5].

There is also greater availability of autonomous sensors used to monitor everything from weather to human digestive tracts. This produces a diversity of social data unseen until now and it has the ability to usher in the digitally social world.

Organisations that apply social sciences will be better positioned to understand what this new data is telling them in order to shape the digital future and develop products and services that can help change the lives of people for the better. Most born digital organisations already have a head start and most have successfully infused social sciences, imagination, creativity and, of course, computational thinking within their organisations. Big Data, combined with the hidden asset of social sciences, is enabling them to quickly introduce innovations to compute their way to a socially and ecologically sustainable future.

Born digitals will break away from much of the competition as they have recognised the importance of moving beyond the fields of hard science and business to truly combine the fields of social sciences into their working practices. They have established the necessary bench strength to compete in this new era. For instance, researchers at Twitter, Facebook and Google have been applying social sciences to shape the digital future through actively creating new knowledge for the field. This will become an increasingly valuable asset as digital interactions will require an understanding of human behaviours [6][7][8][9].

This advantage will not only help them to discover new types of research data about human behaviour, but it will also enable them to adopt feedback learnings into their core business models to disrupt markets [10]. Infusing and applying social sciences within their business models enables them to investigate human and social dynamics at all levels of analysis, including cognition, decision making, behaviour, groups, organisations, societies, and the digital world.

The many discussions I've had with information technology researchers and analysts about the role social data plays in shaping the digital future, prompted me to reflect on a past experience I had as a technologist in the 90's.

At that time social science researchers, practitioners, and policy makers recognised and seized upon an opportunity that enabled many with a technologist background to apply computational thinking to develop applications and instruments for the human services field (Sociology, Psychology, Social Work, Psychiatry).

A critical aspect of technology innovations back then focussed on the ability to provide the human services field with richer information on human related behaviours, perceptions, intentions, desires, concerns, and beliefs. An aim was to ensure insights were gleaned from social data to help empower children, families and communities. Although in the early days my experience in social science research was concentrated in the US, collecting, storing, and analysing this data was critical to understanding the mechanisms by which people express themselves worldwide and in diverse situations.

I had the privilege of applying computational thinking to help produce Intervention Services-Activity Based Costing (IS-ABC) as an instrument. It was an automated system of costing intervention services or programs in the human services field. Among other things, it enabled policy makers to evaluate the relative performance of programmes and interventions. In addition, it provided the foundation for Outcome Based Decision Making (ODBM) to ensure optimal and sustainable delivery of services [11].

Although, much of the focus in the Silicon Valley at the time was on technology innovations for business, I was fortunate to experience first hand how the ethical use of social data can help to change outcomes in society.

The collaborative process with the researchers in the field was an important factor that ensured the instruments I helped develop kept people at the centre of service. For instance, time spent with Metis Associates http://www.metisassoc.com/index.html  and the Annie E. Casey Foundation Family-To-Family Initiative http://www.aecf.org/MajorInitiatives/Family%20to%20Family.aspx also helped me to understand the value of social data when there is an ethical intent to use it to advance the human condition. Our analysis method (IS-ABC) was accepted and presented in 1997 at Portland State University Regional Research Institute for human services. http://www.rri.pdx.edu/

There are still many unanswered questions about Big Data and how the social sciences field will be used to help shape the digital future. The issues regarding personal privacy and how people will have the peace of mind that their information is not being used unfairly is still a work in progress. As born digital organisations contribute to social science research through their innovations they will have an advantage  – they will better understand how the rise of Big Data will influence changes as the world becomes more digitally social.

Now back to those discussions with information technology researchers and analysts – it was my experiences in the social sciences field that gave me a solid foundation to combine computational thinking and the social sciences to encode and decode real world social data signals. Moreover, the experience inspired me to innovate applications and instruments in collaboration with social science researchers, practitioners, and policy makers, placing at the epicentre of our innovations the purpose to advance the human condition.

References:

[1] Bort, J. (2012).A Whole New Version Of The Internet Is About To Be Switched On.
Business Insider.
http://www.businessinsider.com/ipv6-new-internet-switched-on-2012-6

[2] King, R. (2012). Ford Opens Silicon Valley Lab to Mine Big Data. The Wall Street Journal.
http://blogs.wsj.com/drivers-seat/2012/06/20/ford-opens-silicon-valley-lab-to-mine-big-data/

[3] Nirjon, S and Stankovic, A., J. (2012). Kinsight: Localizing and Tracking Household Objects using Depth-Camera Sensors. Department of Computer Science University of Virginia.
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~stankovic/psfiles/DCOSS2012.pdf

[4] Living Labs. (2012). Farglory LeftBank Smart Urban in New Taipei City
http://www.youtube.com/user/livinglabsglobal?feature=watch

[5] Esser, B., Schnorr, J. M., Swager, T. M. (2012). Selective Detection of Ethylene Gas Using Carbon Nanotube-based Devices: Utility in Determination of Fruit Ripeness. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 51: 5752–5756. doi: 10.1002/anie.201201042.

[6] Markoff, J. (2012). Troves of Personal Data, Forbidden to Researchers. The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/science/big-data-troves-stay-forbidden-to-social-scientists.html?_r=3&smid=tw-nytimesscience&seid=auto

[7] Lin, J. and Mishne, G. (2012). A Study of "Churn" in Tweets and Real-Time Search Queries (Extended Version). Social and Information Networks (cs.SI), Cornell University.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.6855 

[8] Simonite, T. (2012). What Facebook Knows. Technology Review, MIT.
http://www.technologyreview.com/featured-story/428150/what-facebook-knows/

[9] King, G. (2011). Ensuring the Data-Rich Future of the Social Sciences. Science 331, 719.

[10] Cha, E. A. (2012). ‘Big data’ from social media, elsewhere online redefines trend-watching.
The Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/big-data-from-social-media-elsewhere-online-take-trend-watching-to-new-level/2012/06/06/gJQArWWpJV_story.html

[11] Alford, K., Mayberry, T., Woodard, L. J. (1997). IS-ABC : Intervention services-activity based
costing. Library of Congress, Copyright 1997, TXu000778283.
http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search_Arg=Intervention+Services&Search_Code=TALL&PID=5HdIf9_6UDchwoTxAYmI6uzGe&SEQ=20120518171328&CNT=25&HIST=1

Harnessing Social Data: Understanding IT's Role‎

CIOInsight:  Westpac saw a huge opportunity to use social data as a lens into both the business’ future and the relationship between brand and customer. But, selling this kind of “out there” vision to stakeholders can be more difficult than executing on it.

Read More: http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Business-Intelligence/Harnessing-Social-Data-Understanding-ITs-Role-145382/

Big Data and the supply arbitrage

"Big Data" has reached a tipping point for organisations creating a need for a supply arbitrage of skilled knowledge workers. Many universities around the world, such as Columbia, Northwestern, Yale, Oxford, are working in collaboration with entrepreneurs, investors, and alumni to expand or create curriculum around this supply arbitrage.

As the world becomes more data-intensive, businesses of the future will need to capitalise on knowledge intensive skills that are in tune with how to apply big data processes and techniques right from the start. These actions are inspiring for many entrepreneurs that have pioneered data science innovations to create products and services. Data matters now more than ever and the universities around the world aspiring to diversify national economies and spur job creation in technology-based businesses is exemplary.

The computing landscape has become increasingly data-centric, while big data is also becoming more mission critical across the disciplines of business, technology, medicine and science. For instance Pike Research suggests cities around the world are harnessing big data in new ways with the goal of improving on the quality of living in urban areas http://www.pikeresearch.com/newsroom/global-market-for-energy-efficient-buildings-to-surpass-100-billion-by-2017 . They go on to suggest that in this decade cities around the world will invest $108 billion in smart city infrastructure like smart meters, grids and energy-efficient buildings. The cities around the world (e.g. Helsinki, London, San Franscio, Rio de Janeiro, New York City, Washington, D.C.) highlighted as leading the way in the use of data centric capability, aspire to address the unprecedented challenges and opportunities posed in this new data rich era. Their ability to harness data to reduce crime, congestion and waste is closely linked to why the arbitrage of skilled knowledge workers is necessary.

There is no doubt that universities around the world have recognised they have a vital role to play in capitalising on the big data supply arbitrage. Their participation will provide opportunity on a much wider scale for students to understand how to apply big data techniques and processes pioneered by “born digital” organisations like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Foursquare and others. That said, Linkedin communities such as “Big Data Integration” will continue to play its role in the supply arbitrage by refining and inventing new Big Data techniques that can quickly be leveraged to meet the demands of organisations http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Big-Data-Integration-3981538?home=&gid=3981538&trk=anet_ug_hm .

Lastly, as data scientists employ new tools based on new models of computation, an organisation’s ability to adapt and embed them will ensure they can drive attributes of data centric capability at all levels of integration into business operations. As opposed to being a silo that services one line of business, this integration will make an organisation more productive by providing business users with more time to make more informed decisions driving results.

Big Data – Born Digitals already benefit from it

IDC Asia/Pacific (Excluding Japan) Business Analytics Top 10 Predictions suggest the need for organisational change is fast approaching. Decision makers in Asia/Pacific (APEJ) are taking up the journey of transforming their data poor organisations of the past to ones that are strategic at harnessing data centric capability in this new data rich era. As data volumes have grown and the complexity of data that is collected and analysed is increasing, Business Analytics is entering a new phase.

The significance of Business Analytics (BA) was revealed as becoming the number one priority for organisations in the region. Ten factors outlined in the IDC survey can help sustain an organisation’s competitive advantage beyond 2012 when the aspiration to place Business Analytics at the centre of delivering tangible business value is a strategic intent. http://www.idcresearch.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prSG23165411

The survey purports over 65% of decision makers in APEJ have a greater awareness that organisations are now living in and competing in a new data-rich society. This new reality is fast creating unprecedented challenges and opportunities within their organisations to spur productivity, growth and revenue. A recent Forbes article (Beware The Big Data Hype) outlines another critical factor on the backdrop of a global survey by The Corporate Executive Board (CEB) of Chief Marketing Officers (CMO). The CEB research suggests more than 60% of knowledge workers at large enterprises say their organisations lack the processes and “big data” techniques to use information effectively for decision making. It goes on to suggest if organisations don’t figure this out, Big Data could go the way of CRM back in the 90s – much promised but results a long-time coming. This too is a significant factor influencing how APEJ organisations are able to achieve on their strategic intent. http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickspenner/2011/11/09/beware-the-big-data-hype/

A lack of focus on processes, “big data” techniques and business alignment will undoubtedly stifle the achievement of outcomes outlined in the IDC survey. What to do? An outside-in view of other forward thinking organisations that have already taken the journey in this data rich era can provide them with a greater awareness of outcomes they can also aspire to achieve. Most of the organisations described as ‘born digital’ have been influencing disruptive change through harnessing their data centric capability for competitive advantage. An aspect of its culture is its capability for unique differentiation and its ability to continuously strive to embed ubiquitous measurement into the rhythm of its business ecosystem.

For instance, the link below to the “Anatomy of Facebook” (from the Facebook Data Team ) provides a nice vantage point of the business outcomes such a culture can deliver when the right climate, data centric capability and processes are established to compete in this new era. http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-team/anatomy-of-facebook/10150388519243859

The thinking that underpins a ‘born digital’ culture is best characterised in their focus on the generation and sharing of insights. In addition, an entrepreneur, laboratory approach to development has ensured the generation of new knowledge can expand through new channels across the social web. Their data centric capability draws on the strengths of digitisation to speed innovation creating value for the social consumer. There are many other players such as Linkedin, Amazon, Google, Foursquare, Cloudera and a whole host of others that have made the transformation to compete in this new data rich era.

Organisations in APEJ that aspire to transform, need to ensure their strategic intent is underpinned by data centric capability that fosters a climate in which strategic data use is a core competency of everyone. Their ability to apply similar working practices and process as the ‘born digital’ organisations will ensure they are better positioned to maximise business value in 2012 and beyond.

A cornerstone of a successful change journey outlined by over 65% of the decision makers is the emerging significance of the Chief Data Scientist (described as a critical role to ensure organisations define their “Big Data” strategies and make it relevant to the business). This number one factor identified by the APEJ decision makers is something they have in common with the ‘born digital’ organisations. The role brings a vision and intense curiosity to understand what's behind the data to turn it into useful products and services.

In conclusion, forward thinking organisations in APEJ recognise the world has moved from a data poor era to a new data rich era. This new reality requires creative thinking to ensure these organisations are better positioned to stay on trend, move up the analytics value chain and embed ubiquitous measurement. Although it is still early days in the region, like any change journey the winners in 2012 and beyond will be those organisations that act and execute based on the greater awareness outlined in the survey. The ability to attain the desired outcomes that underpin strategic intent can be improved by taking on board common threads from ‘born digital’ organisations. This, combined with factors identified in the survey results, will ensure organisations in the region create the right climate and data centric capability with processes and skills to harness valuable insights in this new data rich era.

What does leadership mean to me?

I believe leadership is about creatively harnessing innovative ideas and confidently promoting them to have people passionately join the journey for sustained success. This is just as important in the knowledge economy. The rapid adoption of newer technologies and the growing interconnectedness around the world requires a leader who can build a coordinated plan enabling an organisation to evolve alongside social, cultural, political and technological trends influencing change.

Today’s leadership must have passion as a coach and facilitator to harness the creative minds of knowledge workers to enable their organisations to adopt and integrate the newer technological innovations. It is critical that leadership transform vision into action to unlock the collective intelligence within an organisation. I believe this is a mandate that leadership must excel at. This too is part of the fiduciary responsibility of leadership and ensures an organisation becomes adaptive to all trends influencing change.

An organisation’s current and future success, more than ever, hinges on leadership that act less as command and control or authoritative. Instead, leadership who act more creatively and innovatively is what ensures organisations thwart organisational inertia. I believe it creates a disruptive force for organisations when it is combined with customer-oriented business models and a data-centric enterprise. Moreover, as knowledge is the new raw material of business – an economic input almost on a par with capital and labour – leadership that enable organisations to harness its immense insight and unlock its value will capitalise on its true value.

These aspects are examples of critical factors organisations must consider to increase their ability to make radical or incremental changes in strategy and structure in the face of rapid change. It is imperative that leadership are creative and innovative to enable organisations to thrive in a world where the only thing that is certain is change.

Additionally, I believe leadership that is inspiring, authentic, and infused with integrity ensures a vision fosters a climate where the organisations unique capabilities creates a higher degree of differentiation that is not easily imitated by competitors.

I believe leadership that is creative and innovative is no longer a useful accessory, rather it is critical if organisations want to sustain competiveness in the knowledge economy. These aspects will create a disruptive force that is difficult to imitate by competitors when they are combined with a data-centric enterprise and customer-oriented business models. In a world where change is the only thing that is certain it will be this type of leadership that will promote a vision to inspire knowledge workers to join the journey for sustained success.

The recent Ventana Research Leadership Awards recognise individuals, organisations and technology vendors worldwide that demonstrate innovation and leadership to achieve spectacular outcomes. It was an honor to accept this award on behalf of team.

Thanks to Ventana Research for recognising the leadership characteristics shown in the team. Congratulations also to all the other leadership award recipients.

Below is the link to Ventana Research's press release on the awards.

Read more: http://www.ventanaresearch.com/2011awardspr/

The national strategy and competitive advantage of New Zealand:

This paper examines the region's growing importance in commerce written prior to the Obama administration's new partnership with Australia.

Below is a brief overview of the introduciton and a link to the full paper.
"
Introduction:

The Asia-Oceania region, which includes New Zealand, is fast becoming the single largest economic region of the world. In 2020 the region is projected to account for 43.2 percent of world gross domestic product (GDP), compared with 37.5 percent in 2005. Regional foreign direct investments (FDI) is projected to increase from 11.4 percent in 2005 to 20 percent in 2020 and 90 percent of the populations in developing economies within the region are expected to move upward into a middle income status.

It’s also projected that the annual global share of e-Commerce benefits will be $3.8 trillion by 2020. New Zealand is in a position to see, participate in and influence market efficiency in the region as demand from global electronic commerce (e-Commerce) increases in the region’s developing economies. The capacity for the nation to capitalise on long term growth in e-Commerce will depend on its ability to adopt and integrate the newer technological innovations. "

Read more...
http://www.scribd.com/doc/73162810/The-national-strategy-and-competitive-advantage-of-New-Zealand

Secrets of Social Media Revealed 50 Years Ago:

Daivd, this was very insightful. It inspired me to share a question I had – “Why are customers’ behaviours and interests through social media influencing trends (social & cultural) in the market?”

This led me down the path to writing a research paper that examined the adoption of strategic change in organisations to embrace social media and engage with customers. As part of the research undertaken, a change framework was used to help formulate recommendations for organisations to successfully manage the change social media brings and measure its return on investment (ROI). Many organisations are already investing in social media without a clear understanding of the nature of change it brings and how they can determine business value from social media. If organisations are going to commit time, resources, and budget to social media the investments must be justified.

As you suggest, "in order to employ social media effectively a brand needs to deliver extraordinary functional, self-expressive, or social benefits." Today’s organisations have recognised that an offering that is innovative and differentiated is a way that truly resonates with customers. However, since customers’ behaviours and interests have changed, organisations struggle to adapt to customers or prospects that are no longer passive consumers, but active participants in sharing information, insights and opinions about brands, products and services. They are using social media as a conduit to channel commerce.

Read more...
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/06/secrets_of_social_media_reveal.html#comment-230410438

Building An Effective Business Case For MDM:

Agree, nicely summarised. The findings highlight important factors organisations ought to consider and reinforces the point that smart business fundamentals never change.

The aspect that I found of interest was the point raised about nailing the business case on the first try. As I reflected on this point it brought back memories of a past experience where, at the world’s largest hotel company, we nailed the business case on the first try.

Before examining the Return on Investment (ROI) that was achieved let me first take note of an important question we faced. It is a question that most organisations around the world today face. That is, how to outline in a business case the effective use of enterprise data? and not just one’s own data, but all the data that is available and relevant. This was one of the salient questions we had to wrestle with.

To address the question a holistic approach was taken during the construction of the business case. The organisation had to adopt a data centric culture to enable it to focus on the big picture and the big problem.

Read more...
http://blogs.informatica.com/perspectives/index.php/2011/06/15/building-an-effective-business-case-for-mdm/#comment-2938

A Vision Of Data Integration “Beyond Boundaries”:

Acceleration of the vision – Transformative Leadership:

The vision Sohaib Abbasi delivered at Informatica world 2010 outlined the fundamentals of productivity and competitive advantage for organisations to better navigate, adapt and quickly respond to the present economic challenges.

On reflection however, these fundamentals should not be new to us but they are. Why?
Amid the uncertainty in the global economy the urgency to accelerate the vision or bring it to life is more important than ever for organisations.

The competitive field continues to change underfoot. Many organisations are faced with dilemma that has quickly evolved – global competitive pressures, emerging economies, saturated domestic markets and the increasing need to interact with customers through channels of social media.

Read more...
http://blogs.informatica.com/perspectives/index.php/2010/11/04/a-vision-of-data-integration-beyond-boundaries/#comment-1130

“1 + 1 = 3″- Empower The Business While At The Same Time Freeing Up IT Resource:

Today this challenge is common in organisations. The different perspectives about data quality, its value and the relationship between communities of practice continue to be an uphill battle facing IT and business leaders. If we take a look at Peter Ku’s blog March 26, 2010 (The cost of bad data in combating money laundering and terrorist financing) we will see another relevant clue in the context of data quality, albeit it from a business perspective.

“During my conversations with these bankers, I asked why this was the case. Many of them pointed the finger back to IT and the lack of good data!” Which perspective of the data quality dilemma is the right one? Is it the perspective of IT or is it the perspective of the business? Of course, both perspectives are right. If business empowerment and IT collaboration is our aim, we need to solve this dilemma, but it can’t be solved without an organisational culture change. It can’t be resolved using technology alone. It is a change management challenge.

Read more...
http://blogs.informatica.com/perspectives/index.php/2010/04/16/1-1-3-empower-the-business-while-at-the-same-time-freeing-up-it-resource/#comment-409