Hot jobs for next decade

What if I say that next big career opportunities lies in the field of Predictive Analytics. (Part of data mining) Sound strange! isn't it.

Some facts that I think will help to shape my argument.

This decade have witnessed a huge investment by corporates in building dataware houses to collect different types of enterprise data, most importantly customer data. These corporates are now sitting on huge pile of data without knowing what to do with this. Companies are now coming to realization that they can use this data to understand the needs of its customer and tailor their product offering based on users needs. In lack of thorough understanding of customer needs, most companies target the customer segment that is big enough to keep their manufacturing plants running at full capacity. However with advancement in technology and manufacturing capabilities it is possible to customize the products to the unique needs of individual customer without substantially increasing the cost. Nike with its NIKEiD is already giving an option to customers to customize their shoes. Similarly computers companies such as Dell, HP are giving an option to their online customers to customize the computers based on individual requirements. This micro-segmentation require knowledge about the customer requirement that can be mined from the data stored in enterprise databases. This is where predictive modeling tools using statistics comes into picture. These tools will help companies to identify the new market trends from the data. Based on these trends companies can change or develop new products to capture the unmet market demand, thus maintaining the competitive advantage over its rivals.

Predictive analytics is an emerging field. People who have advanced mathematics and statistics degrees will be at forefront of this revolution. Even better, mathematicians and statistician with domain knowledge in industry such as retailing, banking etc will sell like hot cakes in next decade.

Helping Businesses with Web 2.0

Over the last few years, using a combination of technology investments and process re-engineering, companies have substantially raised the productivity of transactional processes. Companies today are sitting on vast and unexplored surplus of intellectual capital of its workforce. This surplus can be tapped and exploited from the use of innovative participatory tools such as Web 2.0. Corporate leaders who are eager to find new ways to constantly innovate the business model in dynamic environment might find the use of such technologies quite useful. Web 2.0 promises further gains, although the capabilities differ from those of past technologies.

Issues surrounding business implementation of web 2.0

Top down organizational culture – Most of the companies in today’s world follow the top down approach in implementing a business process. Upper management sometimes believes the technologies will be adopted without management intervention. This approach might not work in the organizations where decisions making responsibilities fall with the top management. Participatory technologies such as Web 2.0 are founded upon bottom-up involvement from frontline workers.

Perceive value from web 2.0 - Earlier IT campaigns, focusing on identifying and prioritizing the applications that would generate the greatest business value, was relatively easy. These applications focused primarily on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of known business processes within functional divisions (for example, supply-chain management software to improve coordination across the network). By contrast, the value generated from web 2.0 tools cannot be perceived immediately, thus placing a bottleneck in its successful implementation.

Disconnection from regular work – Most of the time in an organization, Web 2.0 often considered separate from mainstream work. Thus, using Web 2.0 and participating in online work communities often becomes just another task on an already busy list of tasks. Participatory technologies have the highest chance of success when incorporated into a user's daily workflow.

Performance incentives - Traditional management incentives such as variable allowance, promotion etc aren't particularly useful in encouraging participation from the workers. In traditional technological platforms, the failure of employees to use particular application may affect its performance appraisal. The same evaluation criteria if imposed with participatory technologies often results in low quality outputs from employees. One of the more active approaches to unlock participation of good quality is to recognize the user desire to recognition. This can be done by bolstering the reputation of participants in relevant communities, rewarding enthusiasm, or acknowledging the quality and usefulness of contributions.

Identify the right participants – Another important issue to increase the quality of participation is identifying the right persons. Targeting users who can create a critical mass for participation as well as add value is key to success. Without the right base, efforts are often ineffective. To select users who will help drive a self-sustaining effort, the companies can target technology-savvy and respected opinion leaders within the organization.

The successful implementation of web 2.0 tools in the organization depends how successfully companies can overcome above issues and develop strategies that enhances user participation. Encouraging participation calls for new approaches that break with the methods used in the past by companies.

Google secret sauce

There is lot of argument about enormous power that Google has in organizing and displaying the information on its website. It enjoys tremendous power to make and break online businesses. Through its proprietary algorithm that determines which web pages show up in top spot in its search result, Google can drive lot of traffic to other websites. On other side a slight change in its secret recipe will send entire website into oblivion.

Google considerable power also stirs resentment and doubt over the way it is exploiting its monopolistic power. It has massive control over so many companies that rely on internet for driving sales. Moreover, thinkers have started to worry that Google will directly compete with some of it businesses that it helped to become part of mainstream economy during internet boom such as online shopping sites. Google move into specialized services such as travel are stirring wider concern from online travel websites such as Expedia, Priceline. These services are a part of new approach that company adopted in 2007 known as Universal Search. Online retailers are concerned that Google will favor some of its services over their businesses thus driving away traffic from their websites. So much are the concern that thinkers have coined the term "search neutral" on similar lines as "net neutrality" that is applicable to telecommunication and cable companies. The frustration of the businesses arises mostly due to the fact they have not completely mastered the technique to nail the search technology that drive their sales. In this respect Google search technology is not completely transparent to its users.

I think of the above issues more from different prospective. Google (or other competitors) will loose its relevance in this competitive world if they have to reveal the nitty gritty of their search algorithms. The competitors in this situation will quickly replicate Google technology, reducing the competitive advantage that made its technology command leading position in search. Abuse would be another problem that comes if the search engines disclose their algorithms or if they have to use standardized algorithms. Spammer would use that knowledge to game the system.

As always companies have plenty of arguments to defend its activities and business models. Google argues that its search results are the product of objectives rules for filtering web pages. The further argument is that the main aim of Google search using its own services is that it is quick and provides a more relevant answer to users questions. I can buy the argument as long as I am getting the most relevant results of my search queries and there are no other more relevant results on internet. But this argument is flawed because how can one be sure that there are more relevant results on internet if they keep seeing the results from Google own services.

Furthermore, in my opinion constant changes in search technology are required as long those changes are transparent and don’t cause the complete shift in traffic pattern. The web is more complex than it was ten years ago. New media types such as social networks, tweets, audio streams, and pictures have added to the complexity of the search. In this changed scenario it is important to experiment with the new technology and changes in the search algorithm are warranted to make the search relevant with current times. Another strong argument is that it is these small changes that make Google search different from Bing or Yahoo search. Without these innovations, search will become the commodity creating a disincentive for companies to find new and innovative ways to seek out the best answers on an increasingly complex web.

In summary, businesses need to adjust their expectation of what they expect from Google. Static search technology is not in the interest of business because of dynamic nature web. Moreover, businesses cannot expect Google to open its core technologies for public scrutiny because those technologies are an essence of its survival. Google on the other hand has to walk a fine line in deciding on what services they can offer so that they do not directly compete with businesses that provided the advertising revenues in the past. Moreover, they should actively engage online businesses in teaching how the Google technology works and how to optimize their websites with the new changes. This is essential if Google wants to grow its platform. It remains to be seen if two sides can maintain harmonious relationship.

Content moderation: A necessary evil for publishers

People everywhere are getting together via the Internet in unprecedented ways. Millions create content, inform each other about global issues, and build new communications channels in a connected, always-on society. The rise of user-generated journalism is generally attributed to blogs. Users and readers want to be heard. They want to influence what they are reading. Unfortunately this revolution in user generated content means that not all information on the Internet is suitable for all of its users. While many companies maintain high standards of decency and refuse to allow any indecent material on their computer network, not all companies have the capabilities to do so. Internet malcontents have turned too many of the “group sites” into cyber‐graffiti walls, filled with offensive comments. Malcontent on the websites threaten to spoil the members’ experience on the websites.

Publishers and blog owners are looking for ways to effectively monitor the content on their websites. Effective monitoring not only maintains the editorial standard of the publishing house but also positively engages users on the website. As the market for user-generated content set to rocket over the next few years, the important question for publishers and advertisers remains: how best to monetize the rapid growth and demand in user generated content whilst ensuring a brand-safe environment?

The importance of this market, in comparison to the traditional advertising market is clear. As budgets tighten due to global financial uncertainties, brand marketers are looking to maximize the ROI potential of social media ahead of other digital media channels. Rich media such as user-generated content that is uploaded and viewed from social media communities is going to be a major global trend for brands to adopt and commercialize, and for advertisers to take advantage of in terms of reaching new audiences. Indeed, for any user generated content to be of significant value to the advertising community it is absolutely critical that the environment is moderated and therefore, brand safe. Moving forward, the owners/publishers of social media and social networking sites should be compelled to take responsibility for the content that is displayed on their sites, especially if effective monetization is a business aim.

Major enterprise publishers will look to harness this potentially, highly lucrative revenue opportunity. Every major brand will create and manage its own digital community where every consumer will be able to share their voice. However, the potential of this demand will only be realized if advertisers can be assured that their brand is safe within the user generated content market.

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