By Jack Miles
Somerset House in London is currently playing host to the Big Bang Data exhibition. This collection of data artefacts, visualisations and demonstrations has been curated to represent the proliferation of data into society, its meaning, our relationship with data and the role it has within our future.
Throughout the exhibition, visitors are exposed to a number of key messages among the various displays. To visitors of Big Bang Data, these are meant to serve as a means to navigate the exhibition and explain the rationale behind displays. However, for those working in research and insight, they have a different, educational meaning.
Living in a Data Universe
The statement that 90% of the world’s data has been generated in the last 2 years is now a staple of all good big data articles and presentations. The immediate reaction to this is, as researchers, we simply must obtain this ‘new’ data and use it to add value. However, the reality is that to do this we must understand what big data truly is, where it can be used and how it is best handled in order to understand where it can be best applied. This is going to involve some degree of abandoning our traditional academic partners within the social sciences and looking to the less familiar field of computer science for support.
Data Is Beautiful
Data as a design source and inspiration is now becoming a mainstream offering. But what does this really tell us? The skillsets historically aligned with data and artistry are significantly distanced: science vs. art, structure vs. fluidity and rigidity vs. flexibility to name a few. What the rise of data-based-art means for research is that we can no longer be scientific or creative – we need to be both in order to provide meaningful data based narratives. Long gone are the days where marketing sciences and designers sat at opposing ends of the spectrum, they are now required to work in unison to understand and narrate the cluttered world we live in.
Data For The Common Good
Increased sharing of data is commonly believed to enhance wider understanding. The modern insight reality is that we operate in a space where data is departmentalised. CRM has their data. E-Commerce own the retail information. PR possess media buzz. It is only by the removal of these borders that business units within the same commercial enterprise can build a more collaborative data sharing culture that we can truly build the wider understanding our data driven society now offers us.
We Are Data: The Quantified-Self
A vast majority of what consumers now do results in data being generated. This has resulted in a marketing culture where often consumers are simply looked at as a quantified data-based-being. This helps us develop personalisation initiatives, segment consumers in a more diverse way and have a better behavioural understanding of what they are doing. That said, we must never forget that while consumers are often quantified entities, they are human. With this we must remember the emotional side of marketing that is often lost in the structured and formulaic trenches of our big data culture.
The Tyranny of Data Centricity
Data driven marketing and data driven decision making have become buzz topics in the wake of the recent data explosion. However, we must not become reliant on data. Great ideas and innovation were here long before big data and we must continue to apply the mechanics of these processes before the current period – whether this be brain storms, gut instinct or experience based decisions – we must remember data, whilst excellent at increasing understanding, doesn’t always have the answer.
In short, in order to truly capitalise on the recent data explosion we need to adapt our academic base, our mindset and our corporate boundaries – but not at the expense of what lies at the heart of marketing and its composite parts.
Jack Miles, Northstar Research, @northstarlondon
