Today I was the futurist keynote speaker at Gartner's Business Intelligence Summit in Sydney, and I spoke to the audience about IT's and data's role in the future. One of the key insights from this forum that is relevant "cross-contextually" is that the future is about context, not necessarily content.
This is an insight that is highly relevant to all industries, and it's the reason why you should keep reading.
A data deluge is swamping us right now. In fact, we are living in information-obese times, and we need to have a serious look at what kind of information diet we are consuming. We don't need to subscribe to another data RSS feed, we need a system for being able to digest the information.
If you can offer that system by curating a context for your customers, you will be miles ahead of your competition.
A number of different converging factors makes this more critical now than ever before. Let me deal with 4 of them right now.
Cisco projects that by 2014, 90% of all data on the internet will be video. Gartner suggests that 25% of all business communications will be in images, video and audio by 2013, and YouTube is the world's second largest search engine. Video and webconferencing is experiencing growth rates of 20% for the next few years. Every organisation needs to nurture rockstar thoughtleaders who can translate the organisation's intellectual capital, data, information and knowledge and put it all into a context for the recipient - and do so elegantly via video. If words were forgiving, video is not. Because we are all in media now, we all need to upgrade the way we communicate the context to our audience.
Facebook is becoming more professional, and LinkedIn is becoming more social. Because of mobile devices, we are hyperlinked and potentially productive 24/7/365. Our best ideas sometimes happen while we sleep. The CIA regularly subpoena Facebook for data on its members because its members willingly provide it to this trusted source. Our on- and offline personalities are starting to blend, and more and more we are embracing a mindset of transparency triumph (a privacy concern perhaps?) where technology forces us to become more honest and transparent in the personal brand that we choose to curate and illustrate at work and in social environments. We share our contexts and personality traits online, willingly take MBTI personality tests on Facebook, and we connect with friends and colleagues via social media. The lines are blurring, and we are expecting more tailored communications as a result. In fact, we have all been influenced by the Australian comedians Kath and Kim's mantra 'look at me, look at me, look at me' It's all about me, and I want to be communicated with in a way that appeals only to me. We don't care about content, unless it's contextual within my context. Data wants to be social, and it's less about 1s and 0s today, than it is about story. Tell a story that curates a context - both in business and social settings.
Social media is killing demographics (think gender and age stereotypes). It's far more interesting and useful to know whether a customer likes The Xs, wears Nike high-tops, smokes Ganja, dances Zumba, enjoys an occasional bout of bridge, and has high tea with his transvestite friends on weekends, than if he's between 55-65 and male. Social media enables tailored conversations based on a person's unique context, and combined with the hybridisation of social and business, thought leading companies are tuning into context, rather than merely pumping out more content. Context needs to be curated and weaved together, content simply fits within. Data is not interesting, unless it's made beautiful, and placed in an interesting context. It's not interesting unless it's about me, me, me.
Politicians and lobbyists have known for a long time that whoever controls the context, often controls the entire conversation. I don't believe so much in 'control', but I do believe thought leaders curate the context of a conversation. I believe 'Think Different' is one such way of curating the context. Apple as a thoughtleader, with Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive at the helm, have managed to curate the context. PC manufacturers are playing second fiddle and at the beginning of 2011, Apple was the world's 3rd largest company by market capitalisation, after suffering near extinction in 1997. We're now moving into Web 3.0 - the semantic web, where meaning is gleaned by the 'intelligent web'. Gartner predicts that context-enabled computing will be at the forefront of technological trends over the coming years. With social analytics, and Facebook and Twitter data being incorporated into Google search rankings, thoughtleaders who curate the context of conversations will stand out as uniquely future compatible.
Where do you fit?
Do you communicate by curating the context, or are you simply pushing out more content?
Where are you seeing examples of context trumping content?
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