As I reflect back over the year, this is one conversation that has left some deep impressions on me. The challenges that are there in rewiring our skills, learning from different streams and applying them in our day-to-day working is becoming more and more critical.

Marketing today is on the threshold of change. In the past, marketing as we knew it was largely dominated by 30-second TV spots and other mass media such as print, outdoor, radio and so on. The number-crunching only came into play while deciding which medium to back in the advertising campaign and for what price to buy the media.

But, look around today and there are the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter and others who apply complex algorithms such as Page Rank, Adsense, marketing mix modelling, content marketing and so on along with technology (analytics, digital marketing, search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) to make marketing a lot more data-driven. Similarly, in music the magic of maths plays a huge role.

As a musician, Padma Vibhushan Umayalpuram K Sivaraman has an accomplished career of nearly 71 years – he debuted at the age of 10 and has been seen and played with the best musicians across the years. His son has been one of the earliest adopters of marketing analytics in India. cat.a.lyst brings you a conversation between the legendary mridangam vidwan and his son S Swaminathan, Co-Founder & CEO of Hansa Cequity, a major customer marketing & analytics firm, on the cross-learnings from music, maths and marketing.

Here's the full link to the conversation

I loved this article by Jeff Leek on how the era of data has evolved over time.

1. The era of not much data This is everything prior to about 1995 in my field. The era when we could only collect a few measurements at a time. The whole point of statistics was to try to optimaly squeeze information out of a small number of samples - so you see methods like maximum likelihood and minimum variance unbiased estimators being developed.
2. The era of lots of measurements on a few samples This one hit hard in biology with the development of the microarray and the ability to measure thousands of genes simultaneously. This is the same statistical problem as in the previous era but with a lot more noise added. Here you see the development of methods for multiple testing and regularized regression to separate signals from piles of noise.
3. The era of a few measurements on lots of samples This era is overlapping to some extent with the previous one. Large scale collections of data from EMRs and Medicare are examples where you have a huge number of people (samples) but a relatively modest number of variables measured. Here there is a big focus on statistical methods for knowing how to model different parts of the data with hierarchical models and separating signals of varying strength with model calibration.
4. The era of all the data on everything. This is an era that currently we as civilians don’t get to participate in. But Facebook, Google, Amazon, the NSA and other organizations have thousands or millions of measurements on hundreds of millions of people. Other than just sheer computing I’m speculating that a lot of the problem is in segmentation (like in era 3) coupled with avoiding crazy overfitting (like in era 2).

What is interesting to me is that how this will impact the world of analytics thro' application of new methodologies like AI and Machine Learning is one thing. The other one that I see is that how does this 'mass of data that is being generated' represent the right population that one is developing insights on. There is a lot of potential biases that can happen given the kind of people who have access to the net.

So, the future is about an era of mixing lot of samples offline along with a lot of data that is being generated online. The power of data fusion techniques will be required to build meaningful insights and predictive actions by various industries across the world. 

Recently, I read a very provocative and interesting article in HBR - 'AI may soon replace even the most Elite Consultants'

As I read thro' the article, the key question that came to my mind was- really, how close are we to this reality? Leave alone consulting, there are several industries like legal, medical, design, fashion, movies, media & creative fields where human mind, intelligence & experience plays an important role in discovering, exploring ideas and making decisions.

I felt AI may support and  aid decision making more & more not just replace everything that humans do, mostly replace repetitive tasks that may not need human intervention and improve efficiency but will be used in areas to help people take better & informed decisions. AI will be successful only if there is a strong human collaboration between AI tools & platforms. As I read a little more about this, I came across a lovely interview with MIT Media Lab's Sandy Pentland who talks of complementary relationships between man and machine for higher level results! Here's the video link:

Would love your thoughts & feedback!

Recently, I got a news alert on a topic that I was interested. When I clicked on it, I got this message below:

I was extremely perturbed as I was not expecting a pop-up message like this, as I really wanted to control the choice of ads from my side, to decide whether I wanted to see any ad or not. I really didn't care, I found an alternative source for the same information and got to read it.

What I having been observing is that businesses still follow 20th century marketing models which I strongly believe does not work in the new emerging digital ecosystem.  Also, marketing of yesteryears was about "pushing" messages but marketing of the future is about managing and engaging empowered customers who decide to "pull" and then engage with the message or not.

Information monopolies & interruption marketers really don't work that way. They believe now with digital, they have captive customers looking into their home screens and they can apply the same old world marketing principles. Those principles don't work any more. The TV remote/Set-top boxes changed the way customers started viewing television programs & skipping marketing messages. In the digital world, the quick switch to a new page or clicking a skip button makes marketing messages a blind spot even more. 

The Consumer Decision Journey is changing

In an interesting article, Jack Loechner, Editor of Centre of Media research, writes "Marketing has always sought those moments, or touch points, when consumers are open to influence....Marketers have learned to “push” marketing toward consumers at each stage of the funnel process to influence their behavior. But the qualitative and quantitative research in the automobile, skin care, insurance, consumer electronics, and mobile-telecom industries shows that something quite different now occurs..."  Information Monopolies  & marketers need to learn and adapt to this new paradigm.

Publishers need to look at themselves thro' a new lens

More recently, a leading Privacy advocate Alexander Hanff  led a revolt against publishers which caught the attention of European regulators. And he outlines possible ways in which publishers, of course with the support of marketers, how they need to change their approach.

Information monopolies should work closely with marketers and build a transparent dialog platform to engage with these new informed, empowered customers in the digital economy. They need to move away from "message  & influence" mindset to a "inform & dialog" mindset. It requires not a "Talk down" approach but a "Listen-up" approach.

Last week, we saw Microsoft announcing the acquisition of Linked-In for US $ 26.2 billion. With the acquisition of Linked-In, Microsoft now has access to over 400 million accurate profiles of professionals from Linked-In across the world. Over the last year or two, I have been seeing this trend where large software vendors like Salesforce.com acquiring Jigsaw and Oracle acquiring Blue Kai, who predominantly own data. So, this got me to think, what are the implications one can expect or must see over the next few years with these kind of trends?

Meanwhile, I was also reading an interesting article written by Sangeet Paul Choudhary in his blog, where it is mentioned how Linked-In was trying to get into the enterprise CRM space but lacked the infrastructure & tools( post written by Myk Pono) and Sangeet's view on how Microsoft can take advantage of this acquisition but lacks the understanding of network & data layers.

The key questions that came-up to me was - What does it take for a software vendor to work  & behave like a data vendor or as a platform player? Also, how can all these data seamlessly flow into Microsoft's strategy of leveraging its Enterprise CRM, Windows, Azure, gaming business etc.?

To understand & appreciate this, first we need to look at some of Google's acquisition of DoubleClick, Andriod etc. way back in 2007 & 2004 which made a huge difference to their platform strategy. As Google transformed itself from a search to an online advertising platform, many of these acquisitions made sense - with Android becoming the defacto mobile OS platform while still Microsoft was managing Nokia as a Mobile Phone company and not as a platform.This led to the death of Nokia as a mobile phone brand, as Microsoft thought of it like a licensing business(which is their DNA) more than a mobile computing platform. 

If Microsoft needs to take advantage of Linked-In's acquisition & their data, then - the transformation of Microsoft as a platform company is critical. For example,they need to look at  Office365 as a central platform or a hub is critical. This free & paid subscription based platform must leverage the 400 million Linked-In professional's data for their own personal devices & computing services- Home PCs, mobiles, gaming consoles etc. This then can change the game for Microsoft. However, if we look back at history, neither Hotmail or Nokia was leveraged to its full by Microsoft due its software vendor thinking. Microsoft will have to change its strategy & execution this time.

The next most important question was the issue of Privacy. What is the sanctity of privacy information owned by Linked-In & do the limited or full permissions that was given to Linked-In by these 400 million professionals, hold good for Microsoft too or how does Microsoft use these in its platform intelligently without diluting any of the privacy issues that may arise? For this, the permission-based sharing professional community that Linked-In nurtured, needs to thrive, without advertising as the primary revenue driver unlike other online platforms like Google, Facebook etc.

For software vendors to transform & think like data vendors, it forces, disruptive platform thinking from them. It requires a services, community, subscription & marketplace mindset with a strong interplay between them. Only time will tell if Microsoft is able to make this mindset shift but transform they must, if they need to play this game on the web for a leadership position.

I was reading an interesting update on Forrester Marketing 2016, where companies & marketers were asked to take cognizance of micromoments. I don't disagree fundamentally with this theory but I was thinking how do marketers prepare & adapt to this new paradigm.

One of the top questions that came to my head was - How do marketers really identify these micromoments? In an increasingly walled garden world of Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon- many customers' micromoments are happening, as I write this, in different digital platforms independently. Not only that, there are ever so many billion micromoments that happen offline in a customers' life and how do marketers make sense of it?

My premise is that it is now increasingly becoming  O2O(Offline-to-Online & Vice-versa) world, marketers need to look at this very differently. Here's my view of how this should be looked at:

Intent-driven micromoments - Some digital platforms naturally fit into intent-driven micromoments. For example, Google is a great example of a digital platform where "billions of intents" are searched by customers. People don't search for a product, they search for a need.They can be searching for a home, for a restaurant, for a car, for a college education, for naming a baby to be born, comparing a product to be bought, for a holiday etc. etc. In a customer's buying cycle - the trigger, consider & search- happens here. Marketers need to find a way of dominating "intent-share" at these micromoments.

Sharing-driven micromoments - Google, as a platform, does not naturally fit into this micromoment as customers don't share their moments there. A digital platform like Facebook fits here far more beautifully & perfectly. It is not difficult to see people sharing their convocation photos during the current season, their holiday, their child's birthday, their family get-together etc. etc. Sharing-driven moments provide opportunities for marketers to blend brands with their customer's life needs and see how they can be a part of these different micromoments. Marketers need to find ways of dominating "sharing-driven moments" & align it with their brand's storytelling.

Experience-driven micromoments - Some digital platforms like Twitter, Facebook, blogs fall here as customers share their experience - good and bad - here. For example, tweeting about poor govt. services is becoming a norm and governments globally are encouraging this. The same is with product performance, customer service, product support etc. where again experiences are largely drive this micromoment and is shared with world outside.  This micromoment can be a new business opportunity for a competing brand and retention opportunity for the incumbent brand. Again, marketers need to find ways of dominating "experience-share" micromoments.

The above are largely only online micromoments but as a marketer, one needs to find offline micromoments, which they can own,  that are contextual in the households they have been bought again & again. Be it thro' embedded IoT & other "service-led" mindset transformation platforms, marketers need to find new solutions here. 

Finally, in this battle for the customer & the micromoment, the other question to be asked is, who owns the data of the micromoment & privacy related issues need to be addressed very carefully by marketers. Doc Searls, in his book talks of intent casting,  where customers play a role in sharing their intent and brands then need to play a reverse role of fulfilling the micromoment.

Managing the customer micromoment is far more complex & deep than one can think of. And marketers need to rapidly innovate to gain share of this micromoment in their customer's life thro' relevant platforms and contextual marketing.

I was watching this lovely chat with Brian Grazer - celebrated writer, producer of successful movies and TV shows like 24, Empire, Arrested Development etc. on how he develops curiosity! Brilliant and thought provoking. I have observed over time that when you lose touch with curiosity, you lose touch with your customers. Also, you lose touch with the world around you. He also talks of inter connect of random things that he observes and learns.

If we don't  have this curious mind, we tend to stagnate. There is a lovely question in this video when somebody in the audience asks Brian a question - What comes first - interest or competency? His answer, after a lot of thought, comes with a bang - interest comes first and competency comes next. I tend to agree with him.

I was reading Bill Lee's  HBR blog article on Marketing is dead. Quite an evocative headline, I must say. We have either heard or seen such headlines for example - CRM is dead, Long live CRM!

So, I wanted to get away from the hyperbole to the real message or take-out there from his article. There is nothing extraordinary in the article that one has not read or seen in the blogs, conferences or discussion forums over the last couple of years. The key questions to me is how is it being practiced on the ground?

I agree with Bill Lee that there is a tectonic shift in how traditional marketing will be done in the future but the chasm within the marketing specialists still remain which is the biggest challenge and pain for marketers. 

Lee talks about about four key points that is needed to rewire marketing as against the traditional marketing model that is broken:

1. Restore Community Marketing
2. Find your customer influencers
3. Help customer influencers with social capital
4. Get your customer influencers involved in the solution you provide

The interesting aspect of making this change happen is how will marketing specialists - advertising, public relations, digital marketing, CRM & analytics have to adapt themselves to these new rules. What I observe today is that the advertising folks have a poor understanding of community marketing or content marketing or database marketing while digital marketers have a relatively poor understanding of brand keys and architecture and public relations folks talk only about online reputation management(ORM). This is where marketers get frustrated with their marketing partners. 

Here's what I believe can make it happen on the ground:

1. Hire outside their disciplines- Many of these specialists need a higher appreciation & respect of the techniques of the other and a seamless fusion of each of the strategies into their marketing plans is increasingly important if this model has to be fixed. 
2. Identify leaders as orchestrators - There is a need for what I call as orchestrators in each of the specialist disciplines who have the ability, skills and competency to tie-up the loose threads that emerge of out their team's plans into the other discpline or play a seeding role of embedding an idea of the other discipline within their marketing plans. Therefore, they lead the customers across their decision journey for their client's brands. 
3. Clients need to identify conductors within their teams - I believe time has come for CMOs to look for conductors within their teams who demand and define the "tight connections" between the outcomes of each of these specialist disciplines & orchestrators within these specialist teams to make this happen.

The word "intentcast" has been used by Doc Searls, one of the proponents of customera taking control of their own data vs companies take control of the data.  He has written a brilliant piece in Wall Street Journal - Customer as God basis his new book intent economy.

 He makes a very strong point by mentioning that businesses treat customers like a cattle herd and they have to get ready for personal empowerment.

I personally believe this is true and agree with Doc totally. Here's why there's a silent revolution that's happening in the customers' own world:

1. Businesses are increasingly finding a large majority of their customers really don't want them to be reached out to. The digital mediums of mobile, web make this "shut-out" very easy. I have heard customers say that You Tube Ads are annoying - be it the banners or the ads before the videos. They just are blind spots. The best customers don't want to be bugged with messages and worst customers  businesses don't care any way!  They need to find a new model to appeal to both.
2. It is sometimes extremely painful to provide information to businesses and many a times the same information is sought again and again across different parts of the same businesses  and across the internet. Information is not seamlessly transported across the pockets of businesses or across different sites they are present on the web.
3. Customer's personal information is treated with very little respect as tracking by cookies, content is widespread. Search for information is treated as " intent to buy" which may not be the real case in the offline world.  Walking in the high street or mall does not mean we are opening the wallet to buy.
4. Rather "intent to buy" must be treated as information and bussinesses must find flexible ways to build conversations with customers. Not all conversations are purchase conversations.
5. If businesses  own the platform along with customers who intend to know, understand, compare, evaluate and purchase, then at least customers will give them a chance.
6. In my opinion, Intentcast is the end of the sales funnel but bussinesses that lead  customers to the end of this funnel will be the ones that will gain trustshare and then marketshare. 

I had written in my last blog post about the WSJ's Data Transparency Weekend.

Here are some very interesting applications and winners. There are some very lovely ideas here!

• Outstanding Scanning Project:TOSBack2 – a project to scan the Web to build a “living archive” of all privacy policies online.

• Outstanding Education Project:PrivacyBucket – software that lets users of the Chrome Web browser view the type of demographic estimates that Web tracking companies make about them based on their Web browsing history.

• Outstanding Control Project:Cryptocat – an instant messaging service that lets people engage in encrypted chats inside their Web browsers or on their phones. Extra bonus: the program lets people generate random numbers (which are needed for encryption) by shaking their phone – allowing the creators to say that their program is powered by dance moves.

• “Ready for Primetime” Award:MobileScope – a service that lets people see what data is being transmitted without their knowledge by their cellphone. It also offers ad-blocking and do-not-track services for cellphones.

• Judge’s Choice Award:Site Scoper – a website that scans for tracking files and sensitive content on websites before you visit it.

And, finally, The Soup Cans and String Winner: Ostel, for its work on technology that allows people to make encrypted cellphone calls using voice-over-the-Internet technology.

Read more here