The very nature of content today is dynamic – from a conversation that we hold within email changing with each reply, to that of instant messaging, where with the simple application of the up arrow I can erase and amend my comments and change the meaning of a conversation. The speed of change of how we communicate, from the applications we use to the tools, devices and machines to the locations we are in all combine to create an increasingly difficult landscape where often finding the truth is like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.
Key Challenges Faced in our new information age
1) Identity
While corporate communications systems – from email to messaging to collaboration platforms generally follow an easily identifiable methodology for identity management, when it comes to publicly available communications tools it’s not so easy. Users are able to define ID’s, use any graphic they find on the internet as their gravatar or simply remain anonymous. Connecting an individual’s identity to their logins and their communications is imperative to maintaining an accurate and historic record of a conversation.
2) Inconsistent Data Formats
Since email was invented and Roy Tomlinson sent the first message on Arpanet in late 1971, they way in which email systems communicate has been standard. A standard protocol, a standard sending and receiving mechanism enabled systems written by competing organizations to be able to read each other’s messages. The world outside email is so very different. Whether the message is a Bloomberg terminal message, a Reuters communication, Gchat, Skype message or even a corporate IBM Sametime or Microsoft OCS instant message, the systems are different, the format is not the same, and the structure is varied. Organizations such as NextPlane go a long way towards providing clearing houses to “translate” the messages in order that different systems can communicate with each other, but the differences in the actual data structure remain.
3) Collaboration Complicates Communications Data
Collaboration platforms may help organizations increase productivity, decrease silos and generally provide efficiencies but they also provide yet another set of data that has created its own rules, structure and format. Most large organizations will also have multiple implementations of collaboration platforms, and not all necessarily the same. This very dynamic data, often edited by many people brings with it the challenge of yet more complexity.
4) Data Growth
The sheer volume of data created on a minute by minute basis creates problems in itself. Firstly the storage of that data – where and how it’s stored, whether its actually stored or not, for how long . The EMC Digital Universe study, which also includes research and analysis from IDC is the only study to quantify and forecast the amount of data produced annually. Due in part, states the report, to the Internet of Things, the digital universe is doubling in size every two years and will multiply 10-fold between 2013 and 2020, from 4.4 trillion gigabytes to 44 trillion gigabytes. As the usefulness of this data increases we’ll see “useful data” go from only 22% of the data in the digital universe to 35% – and also the amount of this useful data that is analyzed rise from just 5% to – well one hopes a lot more!
In this world of Big Data though, the challenges become finding the proverbial needle in the haystack, or indeed figuring out which haystack to start looking in. Data is generally incredibly siloed – separate stores for Collaboration data to email to public social data means that analysis often struggles to find its meaning.
5) Public Social Data
Aside from the collaboration solutions used and managed by organizations, there also clearly exists data from public social networks. We continually sign up to public social networks, from Facebook, to Instagram, from Twitter to Path and agree to the terms and conditions of our data being used. We complete BuzzFeed quiz after quiz to build a data profile of ourselves, without seemingly being the slightest bit concerned about this picture of ourselves being built in the ether – or who owns the data, most especially if you utilize your social profiles for professional reasons and agree to retain content on behalf of your organization to meet regulatory guidelines. This challenge of ownership and location of data raises a multitude of challenges in itself.
6) Truth is Often Stranger than Fiction – but which is which?
In a world of big data, of social media and citizen journalists reporting instantaneously from around the world, often the truth is hard to find. Highly related to verifiably identity, the challenge of understanding what is “authentic information” is increasingly difficult to manage. This is often hard to spot with spoof accounts and the propagation of fake stories from your network of trusted family, friends and colleagues. Most recently we’ve seen two attempts to move towards solving this, the first from Facebook through their partnership with Storyful to create a newswire, looking ot put Storyful’s news verification process to make the Internet more trustworthy.
The second move comes from Russia, aiming to bring the Internet under control with a recently approved new law, which obliges bloggers or authors who have more than 3,000 visitors a day to register themselves on a special list and abide by restrictions that apply to the mass media – in part this requires the blogger to check the authenticity of the published information (along with other restrictions), any abuse is punishable with a fine of around $300 to $1,000 for an individual or $10,000 for a legal entity. Keep it up and you’ll see your website suspended for a month.
7) Nothing stands still, including Legislation
While many of the laws and rules we are required to follow in this new digital age are decades old, a changing environment also brings new laws, rules and interpretations. Those familiar with FINRA and the SEC will be fully au fait with FINRA’s 10-06 and 11-39, and the SEC’s additional guidance in April 2014 on the testimonial rule and social media. We have seen very little coverage though of the 2014 California “Erase Law”, (SB 568 California Business & Professions Code Sec. 22581) which gives minors a mulligan on their social presences. Yes, that’s right, as a minor you can now, request and obtain the removal of content or information posted to the internet site, or have it anonymized. Debating this law would take a very long time, so lets stick here to the challenge of that information changing, and thus your record of communications, conversations and the like literally changing overnight, with, one would assume, no notification. And California is clearly just one state. Imagine the chaos enacted throughout all states and countries around the world. Don’t forget also to take a look at FRCP, where amendments to Rule 37 will likely see changes to ESI retention requirements.
There are by no means only 7 challenges of the real time information age neither will these challenges remain constant, there are some basic common sense guidelines that can be applied in order to mitigate the challenges:
- Where possible ensure identity is confirmed – use for instance a verified Twitter ID or the connection of multiple accounts back to a corporate identity prior to allowing usage.
- Convert data to a single format where it may be managed, manipulated and recorded alongside all the other forms of data you retain.
- Ensure any new initiatives on collaboration or new platforms have data retention plans, policies and procedures built in from the get go.
- When it comes to retention of data, break down silo’s, store together for cost and analysis efficiencies.
- When using public social networks in a business environment review network use policies upon change and ensure users sign up to both the network and your terms of use.
- When utilizing information from third party sources, ensure that your policies detail what authenticity and verification is required.
- Monitor new and changing legislation with a view to how it impacts your policies and procedures
To my mind, these challenges offer far more in terms of benefits than inhibitors to business and individual usage of real time communications and information tools, the payback of effective usage, the analysis and efficiencies far outweigh the risks – so long of course, as the appropriate risk management and mitigation strategy has been put in place.
In the last 12 months while the Financial Services industry has been standing still, Technology companies have forged ahead in comparative terms, with Technology firms standing some twenty nine percentage points higher. In this case, the terms are trust. Thus speaks the scale of trust in specific industries as detailed in the 2014 Edelman Trust Barometer.
In its ninth year, the Trust Barometer is Edelman’s 14th annual exploration of trust. Now surveying 33,000 people in 27 markets, it’s an unparalleled measure of how the population in general and a segment, the informed public view business, specific industries, issues and the government
Financial services, with only 50% is the industry at the bottom of the chart when it comes to how much individuals trust the industry to do what is right, remaining static year on year since 2013. Banking may have increased by one percentage point to 51%, but it’s only the Chemical industry that has become less trusted in the last 12 months.
Source: Edelman 2014 Trust Barometer
Worryingly for the asset management and financial advisory sector, this is the least trusted of Financial Services, falling a whopping 6% behind the banking and credit card/payments sector. No wonder that we see Facebook making moves towards the payments sector as this tops out as the most trusted area with a 52% trust rating.
Source: Edelman 2014 Trust Barometer
There is a marked difference in geographical territories, with the developing Asia Pacific market more than twice as trusting as the European Union, and 11% ahead of North America.
Fear not though, the financial services industry in the USA and Canada has definitely been doing something right in the last 12 months, seeing an increase in trust of seven and four percent respectively, putting the USA in the top three of countries who’s trust fortunes are changing positively. It’s also gratifying for the industry that in both countries, trust is higher in Financial Services than industry generally, although only by two percentage points in both cases.
Its past time to either change spokespeople – or make significant moves to change the perception of the current mouthpiece. By far the most trusted of spokespeople are the engineers, scientists or technical experts, the least? The bloggers (I’ll get my coat then…). Falling to the lower half of the credible spokesperson chart is the CEO and board of directors. CEO’s can take hear that government officials and regulators appear less credible than they do.
Source: Edelman 2014 Trust Barometer
The barometer finds that a company employee is the most trusted spokesperson to provide credible and honest information, by a margin of a huge twenty percentage points more than even activist consumers, and twenty nine percentage points more than the company’s CEO. Consistently across the areas of engagement, integrity, products & services, purpose and operations, it is the individual company employee that tops the chart as the most trusted spokesperson – a clear indication that it is the individual relationships that we all have that build and generate trust in an organization.
What can Financial Services Firms do with this Information?
1) Ensure that good business management is continued
From ensuring quality products and services to the protection of customer data and respecting employee rights, these key attributes are fundamental to good business practice – and adherence further drives trust and both employee and consumer desire to positively share and do business.
2) Empower individuals to share across multiple media sources
Online search and traditional media is viewed as the most trusted media source for Financial Services firms, clearly a role for a centralized media or marketing team to manage, but when it comes to new forms of communication like social media, it’s the individuals who have the powerhouse networks. Specifically in financial advisory and asset management, where the personal relationship is the key driver for continued business, yet the sector where that is least trusted, it’s time to embrace new technology, take heed of continued common sense regulatory guidelines and forge ahead.
3) Get Involved
84% of individuals believe that a company can take specific actions that both increase profits AND improve the economic and social conditions in the communities where it operates. Firms should embrace this – engage locally, work within specific communities, and promote those improvements. Responses to localized situations such as the 2013 Alberta Floods from firms such as TD Bank, show that a proactive, well thought out “we’re in this together” approach can often show that while a disaster may happen, the firm is standing alongside those impacted.
4) Lead the Debate for Change
49% of individuals believe that there is not enough regulation for Financial Services in the North America. In leading the debate, in sharing the combined knowledge and expertise of the industry, firms can take the trust that they are building and lead the debate for change, after all, “people trust business to innovate in a way that the government can’t”
We see examples each day of how firms are working to rebuild trust, to drive change in social and economic conditions – what do you see working?
Guest blogger, social media guru, and citizen of the world Sarah Carter regulary shares her nomadic travel experiences and social insights here with our blog audience. To learn more about Sarah and her exciting travels, follow @SarahActiance on Twitter. The post 7 Challenges of the Real Time Information Age appeared first on Actiance.