“The Big Data Boom Is the Innovation Story of Our Time” trumpeted a recent article by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, co-authors of the book Race Against the Machine. The authors remind us of the innovation potential that arises when businesses are able to measure their activities and customer behaviour with unprecedented precision, particularly in the digital economy where clickstream data provides targeted and real-time insights into consumer activity.
But first businesses require a mindset change; more than just capturing and analysing data, every part of the organisation must first be able to access and understand it. The challenge for organisations now awash with data is how to leverage it.
The fact is the sheer weight of data can be daunting. Many businesses are still not mining their transactional and contact data, so the idea of then layering on behavioural, implicit, semantic angles is daunting. This hurdle risks creating more frustration in marketing’s ability to turn promise into reality.
Conceptually the opportunity posed by data is exciting, but unless systems become a lot more intuitive, scalable and inexpensive, it is just a big headache. At Mason Zimbler we talk about the blending of Art and Science in our own skills and processes within the agency. Here we have a need for data manipulation and presentation to exhibit the same dual characteristics: science to interpret the data, art to present and understand it. As ever, leveraging data is about making the complicated simple: to make it accessible, understandable and usable. Admittedly a system is only as good as its operator, yet some solutions inspire more ideas, questions and engagements than others. Industry experts like Trillium are developing solutions for the complete life-cycle of data discovery and data quality, implementing a methodology of ‘discover, develop, deploy and manage’ to enable data stewards to visualise and validate data more easily.
That visualisation is a crucial ingredient in communicating data trends and getting organisational buy-in. If you’re looking for an example of effective visualisations of data, look no further than the humble infographic. The infographic has the ability to turn a bunch of daunting numbers on a spreadsheet into a ‘pretty picture’ where the value of bar charts and Venn diagrams really is worth a thousand words (Joe Chernov, VP of Content Marketing at automation specialists Eloqua has created a great little Slideshare on Infographics). Create an infographic in the right way and you can really see the power of data to change hearts and minds.
So in order to make the most of the opportunity posed by the data revolution, first acknowledge the task ahead. Change your organisational mindset. Do not leave it in your R&D department but get the whole organisation fired up by how it can be used as a game-changer for your business. To do that, you need to translate the data into a user-friendly language, to use the right systems and technology to make it accessible and understandable. So don’t drown in data; if you need help, talk to the experts to make sure you can use it as an effective tool.
