Mastering Digital & Other Lessons from Netflix: When is a Customer a Fan?

Digital Strategy, Innovation

Mastering Digital & Other Lessons from Netflix: When is a Customer a Fan?

13 Mar , 2016  

Netflix has long been heralded as a leader in the use of analytics and even the creation of novel big data. That is all true. Nobody knows more about movie tastes than Netflix, with its some 1 billion reviews in its database. The graphic above shows that Netflix can use such data and customer behavior […]

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Lessons from Nest: Leveraging Big Data for Solving Big Problems – Managing Complex Systems

Big Data and Analytics, Digital Strategy

Lessons from Nest: Leveraging Big Data for Solving Big Problems – Managing Complex Systems

29 Feb , 2016  

Big Data and Big Profits: Nest Optimizes the Mechanical Realm By now, most of us have seen or are even using programmable thermostats. One of the recent and more interesting offerings in this space is from Nest. Nest sells a thermostat that captures data about human presence to self learn what heating and cooling decisions […]

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Big Data Monetization Lessons from the Sharing Economy

Big Data and Analytics, Innovation

Big Data Monetization Lessons from the Sharing Economy

29 Oct , 2015  

The rapid and impressive rise of Uber and Airbnb in revolutionizing the car service and lodging industries is a testament to the rise of the “sharing economy.” In the sharing economy, assets that are traditionally owned and utilized by a single person for a single purpose, such as a personal car or personal apartment, are […]

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Big Data to Big Profits: Nest Optimizes the Mechanical Realm

Big Data and Analytics, Digital Strategy

Big Data to Big Profits: Nest Optimizes the Mechanical Realm

7 Mar , 2015  

Big Data and Big Profits: Nest Optimizes the Mechanical Realm By now, most of us have seen or are even using programmable thermostats. One of the recent and more interesting offerings in this space is from Nest. Nest sells a thermostat that captures data about human presence to self learn what heating and cooling decisions […]

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Big Data Driving the Driverless Car: Digitizing Travel A major change to driving and travel is soon upon us. With little doubt, we can expect driverless cars in the next decade or so. However, it is not driverless cars that will change how we travel, but rather the digitization of travel, enabling driverless cars, which will change how we travel. In the earliest versions of automated cars, driverless automation was approached mechanically. An early version proposed vehicles locking into a monorail when on the interstate, for instance. Similarly, early versions of speed control were simply mechanical means for keeping the speed at a designated level, with no specific measuring of the surroundings. The development of sensors and rapid digital processing on cars changed the paradigm for control of the vehicle and its subsystems. Mechanics would be controlled by data, not uber mechanics. Instead of controlling mechanics by brute force, sensors and data allow or a more precise and agile adaption to how vehicles are operated. This paradigm shift and movement to data creation for the purposes of mechanical control has already overtaken the next generation of aircraft. A single flight on a Boeing 787 is estimated to create no less than half a TB of data from sensors. This data is, in many ways, data exhaust. The byproduct of proactive sensors and devices communicating their status and conditions around them. It is reflected in the Internet of Things (IoT) and how connected devices communicate their status even if action is not taking place. Just being connected will create data! Location, availability, and operating status are just some of the basic measures that can be captured on a continuous basis for any autonomous vehicles (even before trip begins). Once a trip is undertaken, data about the trip, deviations from the expected course, energy use, system performance, and specific environmental, traffic, and road interactions are captured. All of this is Big Data that is valuable to engineers, customers, regulators, and other businesses. The future of driverless vehicles includes a radical change in how we travel, owing to the digitization of travel. Soon, we will be able to open an app on our smartphones and summon a driverless car. It might come from Google, Uber, Apple, or a traditional automobile manufacturer. The collection of data begins even before the trip begins. In many ways, the wave of Big Data has digitized vehicle use already. Consider how Uber has digitized car services already. Owning a car is less critical if instead in can be summoned with high reliability and at a reasonable cost, as also in the case of Uber. Data about demand and supply of cars is currently used by Uber to price trips. Once driverless cars are available on demand, digitization of travel will create a new market for travel and the opportunity to seek out new efficiencies on when and how to travel. Data is created about the trip at a granular level allowing for new optimal decisions. In fact, the digital layer controls everything about the trip. By digitizing travel, travel by time of day, destination, route, and even purpose can be ascertained and used to make new optimal decisions. Might this suggest differential pricing? Sure it does. Want to go faster, you can pay for that. Taking the kids to school? Perhaps the local school district picks up part of the cost for the trip. Want to save on travel costs; your driverless car might suggest using the roads at non-peak hours or making long-distance trips at night. Taxing bodies might see the digitization of travel as a convenient means to tax trips based on distance, speed, energy use, or even just popularity and convenience of a road. You get a bill (on your app of course) that includes payments to all the invested parties: driverless car provider, tolls for roads, insurance, and energy use. The implications for how we travel and use vehicles are endless once we have digitized travel. The prerequisite digitized maps are now in place. Sensors allow Google’s driverless car to regularly travel on roads with traffic. Mobile technology is ready to interface with users. Digitizing travel will require Big Data and make new Big Data that will create new markets or travelers and travel providers. It will also change how we travel and pay for travel.

Big Data and Analytics, Digital Strategy

Big Data Driving the Driverless Car: Digitizing Travel

28 Feb , 2015  

Big Data Driving the Driverless Car: Digitizing Travel A major change to driving and travel is soon upon us. With little doubt, we can expect driverless cars in the next decade or so. However, it is not driverless cars that will change how we travel, but rather the digitization of travel, enabling driverless cars, which […]

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Big Data is Transforming Consumer Packaged Good (CPG) Marketing

Big Data and Analytics, Innovation

Big Data is Transforming Consumer Packaged Good (CPG) Marketing

11 Feb , 2015  

Major consumer-package-goods firms (CPG), like Kraft, Nestle, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have always operated with a blind spot about customers. This has always made marketing challenging. Although their products were often ingested by consumers, they rarely if ever met customers. CPG firms rarely knew their identify of customers and even at times had a poor understanding […]

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Digital Strategy, Innovation

Sharing Data in the Sharing Economy

5 Dec , 2014  

The rapid and impressive rise of Uber and Airbnb in revolutionizing the car service and lodging industries is a testament to the rise of the “sharing economy.” In the sharing economy, assets that are traditionally owned and utilized by a single person for a single purpose, such as a personal car or personal apartment, are […]

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Big Data to Big Profits: What’s Your Billboard Worth?

Big Data and Analytics, Innovation

Big Data to Big Profits: What’s Your Billboard Worth?

22 Nov , 2014  

What’s your billboard worth? How do you measure the value of data? Usually it’s a matter of determining how much the data is worth to the business – how it translates into revenue, ROI, cost savings and other quantifiable benefits to the enterprise. But you can also measure how much others value your data. Let’s […]

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Big Data to Big Profits: Asset Surveillance & Economic Value

Big Data and Analytics, Innovation

Big Data to Big Profits: Asset Surveillance & Economic Value

22 Nov , 2014  

Leveling the Data Playing Field – Forming New Markets The economic concept of asymmetric information is fascinating … so much so that research on the topic earned the 2001 Nobel Prize in economic sciences. The idea is that there is an imbalance of power in a transaction when one party has access to more information […]

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Big Data to Big Profits: Turning Data into Valuable Data Products

Big Data and Analytics, Innovation

Big Data to Big Profits: Turning Data into Valuable Data Products

22 Nov , 2014  

Turning Data into Valuable Data Products In June, WIRED published an infographic that showed the top feeder schools for big technology companies. It used information available on LinkedIn to see where recruits to companies like Apple and Twitter went to college. It meant that the merits and benefits of a college (and presumably all colleges) […]

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