August 10, 2012

By Gillian Tett of Financial Times

Information from mobile devices is not just changing the way the western world lives

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/97cffaf0-e1b5-11e1-92f5-00144feab49a.html#ixzz23AbD04g0

During the past few years, there has been one constant in my life. Wherever I have travelled, in America or anywhere else, I have carried a mobile phone. Usually, the device is so ubiquitous, I do not think about this habit at all (except when I lose my phone and panic).

But last week, I took part in a seminar organised by America’s Brookings Institution and Blum Center to discuss development and global economics. And now I am looking at that mobile phone with fresh eyes. For what became clear in discussions with aid workers, healthcare officials and US diplomats is that those oft-ignored mobile devices are not just changing the way the western world lives – but changing the lives of poor societies, too. This, in turn, has some intriguing potential to reshape parts of how the global development business is done.

These days, there are about 2.5 billion people in emerging markets countries who own a mobile phone. In places such as the Philippines, Mexico and South Africa, mobile phone coverage is nearly 100 per cent of the population, while in Uganda it is 85 per cent. That has not only left people better connected than before – which has big political and commercial implications – it has also made their movements, habits and ideas far more transparent. And that is significant, given that it has often been extremely hard to monitor poor societies in the past, particularly when they are scattered over large regions.

Consider what happened two-and-a-half years ago when the Haitian earthquake struck. The population scattered when the tremors hit, leaving aid agencies scrambling to work out where to send help. Traditionally, they could only have done this by flying over the affected areas, or travelling on the ground. But some researchers at Columbia University and the Karolinska Institute took a different tack: they started tracking the Sim cards inside mobile phones owned by Haitians, to work out where their owners were located or moving. That helped them to “accurately analyse the destination of more than 600,000 people who were displaced from Port au Prince”, as a UN report says. Then, when a cholera epidemic hit Haiti later, the same researchers tracked the Sim cards again, to put medicine in the correct locations – and prevent the disease from spreading.

Aid groups are not just tracking those physical phones; they are also starting to watch levels of mobile phone usage and patterns of bill payment, too. If this suddenly changes, it can indicate rising levels of economic distress, far more accurately than, say, GDP data. Inside the UN, the secretary general is now launching a project called Global Pulse to screen some of the 2.5 quintillion bytes of so-called “big data” being generated each day around the world, including on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. These sites are strikingly popular in parts of the emerging markets world; Indonesia, for example, has one of the most Twitter-addicted populations on the planet. Thus if the UN (or anyone else) spots a sudden increase in certain keywords, this can also provide an early warning of distress. References to food or ethnic strife, for example, may indicate the onset of famine or civil unrest. Similarly, medical researchers have learnt in the past couple of years that social media references to infection area are powerful early warning signal of epidemics – and more timely than official alerts from government doctors.

Such developments are – unsurprisingly – controversial. For just as the spread of social media has sparked a blizzard of concern about privacy in the west, some observers worry about the dark side of this technological revolution in the emerging markets as well. Not everyone who may want to track these data is benign. Facebook might allow activists to express opposition to governments (as in the Arab spring), but social media data could also help repressive governments monitor their populations. Companies can use the data, too; there are initiatives under way to use it to develop credit scores for the poor.

. . .

But such concerns are not deterring the UN. On the contrary, Robert Kirkpatrick, a former IT expert who now runs the UN’s Global Pulse unit, argues that we should treat those 2.5 quintillion bytes of big data as an international common good. He dreams of using these data to create the social media equivalent of “metereological stations”, which can test the winds of public debate, spot economic trends and predict looming problems in a beneficial way. Even if this idea sounds far-fetched, economists can already use this information to track how economies are developing in poor regions of the world with much more precision and timeliness than ever before.

That mobile phone in my pocket, in other words, does not just connect me to my friends. It is now part of a shared human experience – and database – that spans the globe, and which is growing in depth and power each day. And that has implications most of us have barely begun to understand. It is both a sobering and exciting thought, whether you are now sitting on a holiday beach, in a humdrum office – or anywhere else in the world.

Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/97cffaf0-e1b5-11e1-92f5-00144feab49a.html#axzz23Aa4kPit

August 9, 2012

By Rohit Arora of Small Business Trends

Increasingly, the power of data is impacting the small business lending marketplace by enabling banks and others providing funding to make more detailed risk assessments of potential borrowers.

Advances in technology and the accessibility of big data enabled underwriters to:

• Spread risk more widely across geography and industries.
• Lower acquisition costs while expanding geographic footprints.
• Reduce the need to open new bank branches.
• Offer paperless loan applications, refine underwriting, and speed up the lending process.
• Develop targeted financial products geared for startup businesses, which have experienced difficulty in securing capital from big banks.
• Lower significantly the cost of capital, particularly from alternative lending sources.

Since the credit crunch began, small companies — particularly businesses that have been operating for less than two years — have often been denied loans by traditional banks. Use of technology provides lenders with more robust information about borrowers and enables them to offer products specifically targeted to the needs of startups.

Because of this, people with credit scores as low as 535 can secure funding, in part because lenders are able to access robust information about their credit history, industry, and even the economic status of the area in which they live.

Today, financial institutions can analyze primary data, such as loan application documents, and information from credit ratings agencies such as Equifax and D&B. Since financial data is so detailed today, lenders can develop financial products especially for startups.

I am seeing this more and more among non-bank lenders, which have become increasingly important in small business finance since 2008 when credit markets tightened.

The so-called “alternative lenders” approve more than 60 percent of funding requests, according to the most recent Biz2Credit Small Business Lending Index.  Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of the integration of technology in small business lending is that it has made it easier for women-owned and minority-owned companies in economically disadvantaged areas to secure capital.

As financial institutions streamline the credit decision-making process, they save entrepreneurs time and frustration that they otherwise might encounter in seeking funding to start and expand their operations. Technology truly is revolutionizing small business finance in the same way that online shopping forever changed retail.

Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/08/data-provides-big-advantages-small-business-lending.html

August 9, 2012

By Lisa Arthur of Forbes

This election year, tailored political advertising is hot. Campaigns and other interest groups across the spectrum are combing through big data to identify and communicate the “right” message to the “right” voters. But, new research indicates that the majority of Americans are overwhelming opposed to mixing tailored advertising and politics. In fact, most said their support for a candidate would decreaseif they found out the candidate’s campaign engaged in it.

Take a look at these (rather convincing) findings from the first national survey on tailored political advertising, conducted by a team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication:

*A whopping 86 percent of those polled said they do not want “political advertising tailored to your interests.”  The number is far higher than the proportions rejecting other forms of tailored advertising. For example, 61 percent don’t want tailored ads for products and services; 56 percent say “no, thanks” to tailored news; 46 percent don’t want tailored discounts.

* Survey participants said their likelihood of voting for a candidate they support would decrease a lot (37 percent ) or at least  somewhat (27 percent) if they learned a candidate’s campaign organization buys information about their online activities and their neighbor’s online activities—and then sends different political messages designed to appeal to them. (As the researchers point out, this activity is common during the 2012 election.)

*Even more said their likelihood of voting for a candidate they support would decrease a lot (50 percent) or at least somewhat (22 percent) if they learned a candidate’s campaign organization uses Facebook to send ads to the friends of a person who “likes” the candidate’s Facebook page. The ads contain someone’s profile photo and proclaim they support the candidate. (This is also happening during the 2012 election.)

* More than three-fourths (77 percent) of those polled agreed (including 35 percent who agreed strongly) that “If I knew a website I visit was sharing information about me with political advertisers, I would not return to the site.” (Many sites, independently or through third parties, do share such data.)

*85 percent agreed (including 47 percent who agreed strongly) that “If I found out that Facebook was sending me ads for political candidates based on my profile information that I had set to private, I would be angry.” (Once again, this is already happening.)

It’s important to note here that the researchers made a distinction betweentargeted and tailored advertising. They described targeting advertising as the analysis of data about a population to determine who should receive a persuasive message, how, when and for what reasons. They described tailored advertising as shaping a persuasive message for a particular individual based on conclusions the targeting process generated about that person’s interests and values.

Interestingly, the results of the study also underscored the importance of asking permission and providing “opt in” features. A full 91 percent of those polled said “no” when asked if it’s OK for a political candidate’s website to sell information they provide to the site. 63 percent said no even when told that the site’s privacy policy would inform them it was selling the information. But, when given the opportunity to “opt in” every time a candidate’s political website wanted to sell information they provided to the site, the proportion who said no dropped to 38 percent.

This election year, the American public will receive unprecedented amounts of online political advertising –that means there will be unprecedented amounts of feedback about online political advertising, as well. Marketers need to pay attention to these results. Granted, political campaigns are different than typical product/service marketing campaigns, but even so, the next few months are going to teach us a quite a bit about consumer sentiment regarding digital marketing practices. Already, it’s clear that we need to remain ever-mindful of the delicate balance between improving the customer experience and intruding in someone’s personal digital ecosystem.

The full 28-page report, titled Americans Roundly Reject Political Advertising At A Time When Political Campaigns Are Embracing It, is available here, and it’s well worth a few minutes of your time.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/lisaarthur/2012/08/09/big-data-pushback-86-percent-of-americans-vote-no-on-tailored-political-ads/

August 7, 2012

By Kelly Liyakasa of Destination CRM

While big data has been linked to everything from supply chain management to logistics, using insights from multiple data sources in order to drive sales growth is still a nascent area.

In “Why Big Data Should be a Big Deal for Sales,” a research report conducted by independent research firm CSO Insights on behalf of Lattice Engines, it’s estimated that 71 percent of companies expect big data to have a significant impact on their sales. However, only 16 percent have big data strategies in place for sales.

“Using big data, you can write the rule that says, ‘Go on the Internet and anytime anybody posts earnings, go take these deals out of the report, run it against this algorithm, and if it fits [certain] criteria, send a message to this rep and tell him exactly what to say,’” explains Jim Dickie, managing partner of CSO Insights. “This [creates] a whole dynamic of, ‘I’m calling somebody at the immediate time when they most likely want to talk to me.’”

Big data, which has been defined by IBM as myriad data that spans sensors and social media sites to purchase transaction records and cellular GPS signals, may confound a salesperson’s efforts because of the sheer volume of information it puts at his fingertips.

The CSO Insights report notes that sales reps may use as many as 15 internal and external data sources, like CRM systems, Facebook, LinkedIn, and search engines, to stay abreast of customers and prospects. Eighty-nine percent of the 218 survey respondents believe their sales reps miss opportunities because they cannot keep up with prospect information. More than half of the companies do not have a technology in place to compile internal and external information for reps in the research phase.

Companies “have focused on giving [reps] insights and information about how to effectively go and engage prospects,” Dickie says, “but I think that’s one of the things that came out of the study—and that’s that companies are beginning to understand that there’s a lot of information you can get on the Internet, it’s too much, it’s not filtered, and [they] don’t want to turn their salespeople into Google search experts.”

Brian Kardon, chief marketing officer of B2B sales intelligence software company Lattice Engines, which sponsored the research, makes note of the “power shift” to the buyer, who can now research a company well in advance of a sales rep making initial contact.

Drawing insights from big data through predictive analytics is one way to rework that equation. “I think we’re seeing big data in marketing automation [through] Web analytics—all the clicks, open rates, lead scoring, or someone downloaded a white paper…now we’re seeing massive amounts of data and I think we’re in the very early adopter phase for big data for sales,” Kardon says.

Source: http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=84217

August 7, 2012

By arrosino of GovWin

Big Data is with us here and now, but what shape is the market taking and where will the growth be in the future?

With Big Data almost constantly in the press nowadays, a lot of questions are arising about what elements of the federal “Big Data market” might be in the years ahead. Understanding where the opportunity lies is critical for vendors hoping to take advantage of the spending that the hype machine says is coming. Readers will forgive the primer when I note that the term Big Data describes little more than the state of exploding unstructured data across the private and public sectors. In this sense, Big Data is in many ways not so much about emerging technology as it is about enabling data management, understanding data usage, and understanding the business need to be fulfilled by analyzing the data.

Data Storage and Management

Mature IT environments are no longer just about providing capabilities to users, they are also about the data being generated by a large and growing number of touch points across networks. Along with their private sector counterparts, federal agencies are faced with the fundamental challenge of managing that data as efficiently as possible. This is not a new challenge, as agencies have in the past responded to their proliferating data by implementing enterprise data warehouses, tagging data, and storing it in metadata registries. The basic infrastructure for managing data already exists, therefore, although in many cases that infrastructure may be inadequate given the volume of data being accumulated and the intended uses of the data.

Providing federal customers with upgraded storage capacity that will enable more efficient access to and manipulation of data is thus anticipated to be an area of growth in the years to come. This demand for storage likely will continue to sustain the storage hardware market, but we should also expect to see strong demand for cloud-based storage.

Identifying Business Need and Data Analysis

Once an agency has chosen a storage solution, the next challenge it faces is understanding what stakeholders want to learn from the stored data and from the incoming torrent of new data. There are two basic components to this challenge that I can see currently. I present these sequentially, but these processes often occur simultaneously. First, agencies will need to clarify the business need served by handling the data. Is the agency seeking to leverage its data for performance reporting, or is it using data to identify cyber threats, or is it trying to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse? Then, once the business need has been identified, the customer will need to develop a structuring strategy to address that need.

Helping agencies understand their business needs and then helping them structure their data accordingly to meet those needs are additional areas of opportunity for vendors. In the first instance agencies may require consulting expertise in order to help them determine a smart data management and analysis strategy. Federal customers will then require the tools necessary to implement the strategy they settle upon. These tools may include servers to ensure that the analytical system performs as efficiently as possible, but buying new servers is not necessarily required if an optimized IT infrastructure is present.

Procuring advanced analytical applications, on the other hand, is absolutely required in order to perform the analysis necessary to achieve the desired business goal, so the purchase of analytics software is a likely growth area.

The question is, how will agencies buy these solutions? Multiple procurement approaches and solutions are available, ranging from one-off data analytics applications and combined hardware/software solutions, to increasingly popular cloud-based SaaS solutions. One thing to consider in this context is the fact that analytics tools are often included as part of enterprise application suites. DISA, for example, recently acquired a BMC/Remedy IT Service Management (ITSM) application suite with analytics capabilities that it is using to facilitate reporting requirements for the Computing Services Division. This suite is a SaaS data analytics capability. Other kinds of systems, including Enterprise Resource Planning systems and Business intelligence programs, also provide analytics capabilities.

So, are these solutions part of the “Big Data” market? Probably not, but I believe this is a question federal customers will be asking industry in years to come. In addition, if a federal customer already has a BI solution in place they may wonder why it is that system needs to be replaced by the latest data analytics program. My point here is that with the confusion surrounding Big Data and with so many analytical capabilities already available as part of enterprise software suites, federal customers are going to want to know why they should replace or upgrade what they already have if that system has been working. This will become an increasingly important question to answer for them as IT budgets shrink.

Big Data is Here and Now

If I have made anything clear in this piece, I hope it is the understanding that Big Data is with us here and now. Most federal agencies are already using analytical tools in at least some capacity, although there is plenty of space for growth. Similarly, agencies are already in the process of consolidating and optimizing their IT infrastructures and adding storage capacity. As migration to the cloud accelerates even more agency customers will be asking cloud service providers for advanced analytical solutions. Potential future opportunities will exist in consulting, data storage, and analytics applications, either inside the cloud or not.

Some of these solutions are being procured today. Then there are agencies like DISA that are adding enterprise analytics capabilities which ease them into the era of Big Data without necessarily calling it Big Data. We are seeing the market evolve before our eyes as the pieces fall into place that can enable more efficient data management and analysis capabilities, so do not be fooled that Big Data is something yet to come. I suspect being successful in the embryonic federal Big Data market will require keeping a close eye on these evolving approaches and not necessarily on waiting for large opportunities advertized as “Big Data” to appear in conference presentations or on Federal Business Opportunities.

Source: http://govwin.com/arossino_blog/federal-big-data-market-is/625187