Big Social: Predicting behavior with Big Data – Download the new VINT research report

Posted on October 21, 2012 by Jaap Bloem

Click on the cover to download the PDF

To Be or Not To Be: for centuries, this was our favorite existential question. But in our digital age, Big Existential themes have become Big Social. The flood of ones and zeroes shook up Shakespearean logic: from OR to AND and from Question to Answer.

Yes, we are talking Big Social here: Predicting behavior with Big Data. Our second research report on Big Data bears this title and is available to all as of today [DOWNLOAD]. Learn how To Be AND Not To Be is now holding new answers.

Overly Simple
The new Social Logic is overly simple: gather as many data points as possible, mix and match and study the patterns. Discover, explore and develop fresh insight. More questions than ever can be put to the test. Digitally speaking, To Be and Not To Be are complementary since only together the ones and zeroes from disparate data sources can and will contribute to smarter sensemaking, to better answers and decisions.

Organizational Change
All Big Data development corresponds to organizational change. Just like the emerging roles of Data Scientist and Chief Analytical Officer, Big Social, or hypertargeting with Big Data, underpins the importance of the brand new Chief Customer Officer role. According to the CCO Council, the CCO is “an executive who provides the comprehensive and authoritative view of the customer and creates corporate and customer strategy at the highest levels of the company to maximize customer acquisition, retention, and profitability.” Indeed, we are talking Big Social here: Predicting behavior with Big Data.

Three Things from Here
The Big Social trend is perfectly clear. In terms of predictive power and ambition, the latest developments based on Big Data and algorithms reach much further than traditional Web Analytics supplemented by dashboards to monitor Twitter and Facebook traffic and to give rapid response. It means at least three things:

1 Drawing conclusions from unrelated facts
Seemingly completely unrelated facts increasingly will turn out be predictive in some way. For instance, the moment of the day in which you play a game of Angry Birds could indicate that you will be interested in a more expensive bottle of wine on your supermarket visit. It is not inconceivable that systems themselves will go looking for correlations and correspondingly will present options.

2 From predicting to influencing
Sunbsequently, the following question arises: which minor and major impulses can we feed someone to ensure that this particular person enters a certain mental state, one in which he or she is quite happy, is open to experiment, and ready to spend? Perhaps through the Spotify playlist or by giving a Facebook like. Perhaps by routing our prospect through a tree-lined avenue or to the coffee corner in our store.

3 Really smart organizations
Behavioral prediction already is available as a service, for instance via the Big Data algorithm set of providers like MyBuys. This could be extended from consumer behavior to the optimization of work in organizations: ranging from business processes, work flows, customer services and risk policies to training courses, social recruitment and beyond.

Entering the Age of Prediction
If society, trade & industry and government authorities are all convinced of the importance of Big Data and Big Social, of the importance of searching for patterns and of better predictions about all kinds of topics, we might perhaps be able to look forward a few months ahead with reasonable certainty. Sci-fi? Think again. Dirk Helbing and colleagues already have received 1 billion euros from the European Union for their Living Earth Simulator or Future ICT Knowledge Accelerator and Crisis Relief System. This promising name says it all: we indeed are entering the Age of Prediction.

Download the report using the button below. We would also appreciate it if you used the share buttons: it will send a Twitter or LinkedIn status update (that you can edit if you like) saying you just downloaded Big Social and it also adds a downloadlink for your followers.

Read about and download the first Big Data report ‘Creating Clarity with Big Data’.

Big Social in Dutch
The Dutch edition will be out by November 26, marking the start of Sogeti’s two-day annual Business Intelligence Symposium.

The Future of Big Data: Big Negative or Big Positive?

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Menno van Doorn

Just a couple of days ago PewResearch published a report called “The Future of Big Data”. You can download the report here.

Is it a surprising outcome that almost 40% of the respondents say “Overall, the rise of Big Data is a big negative for society in nearly all respects”? Well, if you take in consideration that “While about half agreed with the statement that Big Data will yield a positive future, many who chose that view observed that this choice is their hope more than their prediction”

I would call the report Big Data: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Quoting Danah Boyd in the report who says that “The Internet magnifies the good, bad, and ugly of everyday life”. Senior analyst of Wolters Kluwer, Marcia Richards Suelzer warns us: “We can now make catastrophic miscalculations in nanoseconds and broadcast them universally. We have lost the balance inherent in lag time.”

Big Data will improve our understanding of ourselves and the world. But whether that understanding turns Big Data into a positive or negative trend? What do you think?

VINTlabs Big Data Bookmarks: @ThomasvanManen

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Thomas van Manen

As researchers we do a lot of reading. Every week one of the researchers shares the most valuable articles he has read. Consider these posts as a curated reading experience. This week: Thomas van Manen

A Very Short History of Big Data
In this article a big data ‘archeology’ is presented deconstructing it’s history back to 1944. This article provides a detailed rearview mirror perspective on some of the major milestones in the history of sizing data volumes plus other observations pertaining to the evolution of the idea of “big data”.

http://whatsthebigdata.com/2012/06/06/a-very-short-history-of-big-data/

Big Ethics for Big Data
Besides the opportunities that big data bring along, I am also interested in the other side of the story. Big Data and notions such as social (media) analytics are raising issues about privacy and ownership of information. In this interview two researchers from O’Reilly Media talk about their upcoming report on the ethics for big data.

http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/06/ethics-big-data-business-decisions.html

How companies learn your secrets
This article by the New York Times shows what happens when big data mining crosses the ’freaky line’. How is a company like Target able to tell if a woman is pregnant before she knows for herself?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html

Creating Clarity with Big Data, or the Blessings of a Deluge [download]

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Jaap Bloem

Download the report (pdf), participate in the discussion and help us create clarity!

Data, data and more data!
Approximately forty years after the beginning of the information era, all eyes are now on its basis: digital data. This may not seem very exciting, but the influx of various data types, plus the speed with which the trend will continue, probably into infinity, is certainly striking. Data, data and more data: we are at the centre of an expanding data universe, full of undiscovered connections. This is not abstract and general, but rather specific and concrete, as each new insight may be the entrance to a gold mine.

In our initial research report on Big Data, the first of four, we give answers to questions concerning what exactly Big Data is, where it differs from existing data classification, how the transformative potential of Big Data can be estimated, and what the current situation is with regard to adoption and planning.

Creating clarity
VINT attempts to create clarity in these developments by presenting experiences and visions in perspective: objectively and laced with examples. But not all answers, not by a long way, are readily available. Indeed, more questions will arise – about the road map, for example, that you wish to use for Big Data. Or about governance. Or about the way you may have to revamp your organization. About the privacy issues that Big Data raises, such as those involving social analytics. And about the structures that new algorithms and systems will probably bring us.

Exchanging thoughts
The new data focus is a quest involving many issues, at the start of and certainly during the entire journey. That is why we will be pleased to exchange thoughts with you: online, at www.sogeti.com/vint/bigdata/questions, and in personal conversations, of course. By actively participating in the discussion, you can help yourself and us to sharpen ideas with respect to Big Data; to come to progressive insights for taking lucid and responsible decisions. In this way, we jointly determine the concrete substantiation of the coming three research reports after this kick-off on the topic of Big Data.

For inspiration, we have included seven questions to which we would very much like to receive a response or, rather, your opinion. You can click on the relevant buttons in the PDF version of this document. You will then be directly transported to the discussion in question.

We also invite you to check out our video on unlocking the predictive power of the web. Big Data might be the next industrial revolution but what would you do if you could know it all?