tells Will Smith’s character, “My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.” For those looking at the opportunities within big data, asking the right questions is key.
The important question for big data isn’t, “what is it?,” but rather “what should I do with it?” Big data is no more than lots of bits and bytes from everywhere that mean little in and of themselves, but with expertise and vision big data can offer insights that will help your business grow. These insights might be about your customers, or about your suppliers, or your processes.
If you’re investing in big data, it’s critical for you to have answered the “why” question. At issue is not whether you need big data capabilities—you absolutely do. The important point is to understand early on, before investing, what your goal is with the investment, and how it will help you to grow your business. Only with a clear strategy is it possible to separate actionable insights from useless noise, and big data is mostly noise. Left unanalyzed all those FourSquare check-ins at Dunkin’ Donuts won’t really do you, or anyone else, much good, but sorting through them takes expertise, the right tools and some... Read more
'Opinions' Category 
What You Should Know About Big Data
5 Reasons Not To Ask For Everyone's Creative Input
Have you ever found yourself in a meeting wishing some of the people would take their ideas and go back to their desks? I run a digital creative and social media agency, and I like to think that I take an all-inclusive approach to many of the marketing, creative and business decisions we make within our own company. That’s going to end today.
Social media has taught us that everyone has a voice and many brands, businesses and startups are encouraged to empower their employees to share in the company’s grand vision, participate in defining the voice of the company, create content and even act as the companies' ambassadors.
Here are 5 reasons you don’t want to invite everyone to the party:
1. CREATIVE CHEMISTRY CAN KILL
The wrong mix in a creative meeting can kill that meeting. In a situation where ideas are flying, an errant look of disapproval or a quick interruption can shoot a fledgling idea right out of the air, and I’ve seen it happen.
Look out for the naysayers as well! They believe they’re just pointing out potential flaws in new ideas, but what they’re really doing is casting themselves as the arbiters of good and bad before it’s really time... Read more
Advertising 2020: Quantified Everywhere
Technological change is exponential, NOT linear and the advertising industry has already become a series of ones and zeros. Given the exponential pace of change brought on by technology and big data, the world of advertising is going to look very different in 2020. While storytelling is never going away — as human beings we all connect with narrative formats and compelling messages — the ways in which marketers deliver and tailor these stories to the individual consumer will be dramatically different.
The big story in 2020 is a Quantified Everywhere advertising landscape. We are in the nascent days of this movement today as content targeting delivers digital advertising pegged to browsing and social behaviors. Data-driven advertising newsrooms, like sparks & honey, leverage insights from predictive analytics to drive real-time creative executions and content delivery that is more of the moment, more compelling and more engaging than traditional calendar and media-based advertising.
But this is only the beginning of the data-driven advertising newsroom of the future. The combination of quantified, sensor-based data, social data and transactional data will create a real-time marketing nirvana for the advertising industry. It will also open up new media spaces by turning currently unavailable physical environments into... Read more
Pursue the Passionate, Avoid the Zombies
Whether we like it or not, we become more like the people we spend the most time with -- and most of our time is spent at work. It’s our human nature, helping us adapt to fit in with the social environment.
Who you choose to spend time with in the office can affect your learning curve and, consequently, how prosperous you become. In order to learn everything you can to achieve your vision, you need to surround yourself with colleague, employers and clients who are on fire, people who have a clear vision. This is true of friends and even romantic relationships, but it’s especially true of the people you work with .
The goal is to accelerate learning while making it fun. Being with people you like who are also skilled and prosperous allows you to almost effortlessly develop the same skills that make them successful. The transformation happens through osmosis.
You should admire the people for their determination, for the knowledge they’ve acquired, for the values they live by, and for their efforts to achieve success not only in their job, but in their life. To help you spot those people, look for these six attributes:
The proactive: Those who are... Read more
