I have a hypothesis that social media and analytics are the two trends in business to bank on in 2013. They will impact every aspect of business, from IT to HR, sales, marketing, finance and operations; from the executive suite to the proverbial factory floor. In some areas the impact is already obvious (sales, marketing, customer support) but I think that we have yet to see the full impact of social media and analytics (and where they intersect) on most departments in most businesses. So it follows that anyone interested in leading or having influence in a company should be on top of these two trends.
Social Media
Being able to waste an infinite amount of time on Facebook or Twitter is nothing to be proud of, but being able to communicate a coherent and authentic message to a varied audience certainly is. The table stakes are knowing how to use the tools. The really valuable skills are the ability to convey trust, transparency and focus; being able to foster engagement and connection rather than simply collecting “followers” or “friends”. It will be important to know when social media activity does not add value or worse, becomes detrimental to business goals, for example, when trying too hard to boost the number of Facebook “Likes”. Likewise for matching the right social network to the business goals at hand. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are the big three today, but they will not be the holy trinity of social media forever. Some other clever social network is probably gaining popularity as I type this sentence. And of course, there are thousands of niche social networks and discussion forums that have huge audiences participating and connecting. The next generation of senior executives will not only be at ease with social media, but it will be increasingly rare to find anyone of influence who hasn’t built a meaningful and authentic on-line presence.
Building Social Media Skills
Writing a blog might seem a bit 2005, but I am betting my time that it is the best way to enhance this social media skills. It is not a one week or a one month project: the best blogs out there took a long time to build. Writing a personal blog is like stringing together a book a few hundred words at a time. Once the blog is going, my plan is to start using Twitter and LinkedIn more effectively. This isn’t a new idea for me and I started down this path a few times before. In the past my challenges in making any progress blogging have been three-fold:
- Making the time for such an non-urgent activity, where the benefits are neither immediate nor obvious
- Not being inspired to write when the opportunity does presents itself
- Fear of looking silly and wasting my time which really is the manifestation of a general malaise with putting myself out there
Big Data and Analytics
The big trend I see in data and analytics is a move away from horizontal solutions, as touted by business intelligence and database vendors, to more industry and business specific software packages. There will be an infinite variety of niche solutions coming to market as stand-alone products and as embedded solutions in other applications. This will also drive demand for employees and consultants who possess both an aptitude for business and an understanding of the technology. In the past decade or so, software vendors have promoted “business analytics” or perhaps industry specific solutions such as “analytics for retail”. The large vendors will continue to do so, and layer on the advantages of leveraging “big data”, but emerging companies will come forth with solutions for industry niches (for example, woman’s apparel retailing) and for specific business problems (identify the characteristics of the fastest selling items across all stores, and present this data in a visually appealing way on the smartphone of all regional managers).
Analytics and Big Data Skills
I have been working in the business intelligence space since 1999 but this year I want to broaden my skill set beyond SQL and the enterprise business intelligence tools from IBM and Microsoft that I know so well. I like the tutorials and getting started competitions Kaggle, as they teach the technology as well as how to think like a data scientist. I have no illusions about quickly becoming an expert in R and Hadoop, as these are complex technologies. However, I am discovering how they complement traditional relational databases and BI tools, and how all of these technologies working together can benefit so many different types of organizations. While the terms “big data” and “analytics” are well on there way to becoming meaningless buzzwords in 2013, the underlying trend is for real: businesses, governments and institutions of all sizes can find a competitive edge by using the data that they collect.