2020 VISION THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS INFORMATION - #VISIONARIESWANTED - HUBSPOT
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#VisionariesWanted 2020 Vision The Future of Business Information A guide to enterprise information strategy & actionable intelligence
Imagine
You are at your desk, or even on the road preparing You point and swipe your finger (or, if you prefer,
for an important business or client meeting. You say speak) to open key information sets that you need to
out loud to your computer or mobile device, “Tell know more about. In short order you’ve found all the
me everything I need to know about company X or information you need for your meeting. Better still,
topic Y.” the intelligence you’ve gathered can be output to a
professionally formatted report or presentation with
Immediately, a 360-degree visualization of the answer your name on it.
appears on your screen, with a graphical overlay,
highlights of recent activity and other critical issues, To some people, this may sound like pure fantasy.
all tailored to your role and interests. Others may claim it already exists, at least in part.
For most knowledge workers, IT professionals, and
Warning indicators draw your attention to potential decision makers, however, it will be seen as a worthy
issues and direct you to relevant headlines, journal goal, which in the current information and technolo-
articles, data sets and other intelligence sources, gy environment is not so far-fetched.
including company and competitor profiles, stock
performance, patents, lawsuits, pipeline data, Getting there, however, requires a high-level under-
and more. standing of the major obstacles that lie in our path. To
that end, this white paper has identified four critical
Geo-specific intelligence shows global matters such areas of focus for digital strategists.
as political, regulatory, trade and shipping issues, as
well as weather. Keyword clusters reveal trending
social media buzz and sentiment.
Four Critical Areas of Focus for Digital Strategists:
Information Diversity Smarter Data
Understanding how Learning which new
the explosion of data technologies
information and promise to improve
data has created a business
new series of digital information
transformation workflow and
challenges. enhance
decision making.
Personalization Mobility
Recognizing how Looking beyond
advancements in smartphones, tablets
artificial intelligence and gadgets to
and predictive how business
analytics will enhance information will
the business- become more
Fo
rY
ou
information user portable and increasingly
$
experience. personalized.
2 © 2016 InfoDesk – All Rights Reserved
#VisionariesWanted
Executive Summary
This white paper examines current trends in business create competitive advantage.” That power lies at the
information technology and management and paints intersection of various disciplines, including:
a clear picture of where forward-thinking organiza-
•
tions will need to be in the next three to five years to Information/knowledge management
compete effectively in the global market. • Business/competitive intelligence
• Corporate communications
Ranging from the challenges surrounding the prolif- • Information technology
eration of data sources, to the rapidly changing need • Digital strategy and innovation
for greater on-demand personalization and mobili-
ty, this paper provides an actionable roadmap for Moreover, this white paper attempts to prepare
information professionals, IT leaders, and senior organizations and knowledge workers for the
management alike. changing skill sets that will be required in the not-too
-distant future.
With an eye on decision making, this white paper
avoids overly technical discussions of specific And finally, it demonstrates the value of investing in
technologies, solutions or practices. Instead, it tries business information solutions, sooner rather than
to underscore “the power of information resources to later, and warns of the near-certain costs of not doing
so.
3 © 2016 InfoDesk – All Rights Reserved
Information Diversity
Understanding how the recent explosion of information and data has created a new series
of business information challenges.
“For all the data flowing through companies,
executives often struggle to find the information
they need to make sound decisions.”
Imagine
You’re a C-suite executive for a fast-growing biotech While the essential problem remains the same, the
company that’s about to bring its first product to stakes today are much higher. Never before has
market. As you’re ramping up your go-to-market there been such volume and variety of information
strategy, staffing up and investing in new technology and data for making decisions. Indeed, we’ve entered
and business information resources, suddenly, you a new era of information diversity.
realize you’re no longer running a small company.
“In the past two years alone, more data has been
From this point forward, your educated hunches created than in the entire history of the human race,”
will no longer suffice. The decisions you’ll be making Forbes reports. “By 2020, 1.7 megabytes of new
involve myriad subject (data) domains, many of them information will be collected every second for each
well beyond your area of expertise. They’ll include individual on the planet.”
pipeline, clinical trials, patents, M&A, legal, and
regulatory issues. Not to mention sales, marketing, Today, according to a recent IMB blog post, “big data
competitive intelligence, human resources, supply can be a vital competitive differentiator for organi-
chain, finance and countless others. zations. Traditionally, businesses needed to limit
the scope of the data that they could use to make
The question now becomes, how will you manage all the critical decisions for driving successful business
of this new information and data to find the answers outcomes. Big data solutions have eased many of
you need to make sound business decisions? those limitations, so organizations can look at far
more data and therefore make better decisions.”
This problem is hardly new. Back in 2010, a McKinsey
article made the point clearly: “[F]or all the data Further, many are predicting dire consequences for
flowing through companies, executives often struggle enterprises that fail to rise to the new information
to find the information they need to make sound and data challenges created by information diversity.
decisions.” As a recent i-Scoop article put it, “Competitors right
now are eating away revenues or preparing to disrupt
According to McKinsey, “Potentially valuable content our businesses/industries because they are better at
is frequently trapped in organizational silos, lost understanding and using information.”
in transit from one system to another, bypassed
by inadequately tuned data collection systems, or As organizations prepare their digital transforma-
presented in user-unfriendly formats. Although wired tion strategies, how can they make the most of this
with layers of information-gathering technology, new information diversity and what challenges do
organizations still find it difficult to deliver the right they face?
data to the right people.”
4 © 2016 InfoDesk – All Rights Reserved
Information Diversity (cont.)
“First of all, the new era of information diversity has According to Stites, the success or failure
changed the very definition of business information,”
said Sterling Stites, InfoDesk CEO. “Today business of organizations to manage diverse sets of
information encompasses a greater variety of data and information, begins with several
information than ever before,” he added, “it’s literally
anywhere you look to for business insight.” important factors:
Some of the key sources of business information and
data include:
Data Consistency
Not all information is created equal. Unless
Published content
A wide array of published and aggregated content inconsistencies among feeds, formats,
worth touching continue to prove that content is semantics, tagging and structure of different
still king.
data streams can be normalized and unified,
Free information aggregating a mishmash of incomplete
Vast amounts of free and open source information
readily available on the Internet from web sites, blogs data for decision making becomes
and elsewhere.
virtually impossible.
Commercial databases
A wealth of specialized databases and other tools for
mining specific content sets such as scientific, legal,
risk, financial data, etc. are also readily available. Information Silos
Cross-functional decision making requires
Social media
New solutions for monitoring marketing, such as breaking down or bridging information silos.
sentiment monitoring and other new technologies
provide new business insights. Valuable business information often remains
inaccessible to decision makers because it is
Internal Data
Sets of internal data, knowledge assets, and consum- buried by static architecture, user-unfriendly
er and transaction data are growing exponentially.
technology, or restricted to certain groups.
Obviously, bringing all this information togeth-
er and making it readily accessible to decision
makers requires vision, leadership, resources and
commitment. “In many cases, enterprises will need Mapping Relationships
to completely reinvent their business information The real money shot is “getting the data to
approach,” said Stites. “Branch and root.”
talk to each other.” This requires mapping
Many companies are now investing heavily in Big Data relationships and concepts (i.e., creating
initiatives, often overshadowing other disciplines,
such as knowledge management. Stites cautions common taxonomies and shared dictionar-
against unreasonable expectations of Big Data,
ies) among various business domains (e.g.,
saying, “Big Data is part of the answer—it’s not the
entire answer.” connecting the dots among business areas,
According to a recent Harvard Business Review article, such as business news, regulatory updates
“the biggest reason that investments in big data fail and consumer behavior).
to pay off, though, is that most companies don’t do
a good job with the information they already have.”
The article states, “They don’t know how to manage it,
analyze it in ways that enhance their understanding,
and then make changes in response to new insights.”
5 © 2016 InfoDesk – All Rights Reserved
Information Diversity (cont.)
Only if internal and external information and data next-generation executive information systems
sources have been properly formatted, organized (McKinsey)
and associated do they become really useful, forming • The Four V’s of Big Data (IBM Infographic)
the basis for smarter data. The next section of this • Big Data: 20 Mind-Boggling Facts Everyone Must
white paper discusses what smarter data means and Read (Forbes)
why it’s an important element of any digital strategy. • Building a big data center of excellence (IBM blog)
• Information management and strategy – an
Key Discussion Points executive guide (i-Scoop)
• Information is growing in volume and variety • The Key Pieces of Digital Transformation
faster than ever. Roadmaps (Centric Digital)
• Enterprises need to incorporate information • Open data: Unlocking innovation and perfor-
management into their digital strategies now. mance with liquid information (McKinsey)
• Challenges include data consistency, information • Whatever Happened to Knowledge Manage-
silos and mapping relationships. ment? (WSJ)
• Properly managed information/data is essential • You May Not Need Big Data After All (HBR)
to future technical innovations. • Study reveals that most companies are failing at
big data (CIO)
Reference Articles
• Data to dollars: Supporting top management with
6 © 2016 InfoDesk – All Rights Reserved
Smarter Data
Which new data technologies promise to improve business information workflow and
enhance decision-making?
“70% of executives are making significantly
more investments in artificial intelligence
technologies than they did in 2013.”
Imagine
You are a newly appointed CIO or CDO of a Fortune improve business information workflow and enhance
1000 company. Your task is to overhaul your decision-making.
company’s global digital strategy, including, of course,
how your company manages and shares intelligence According to a recent PWC survey, today’s enterprise
across an increasingly dispersed global workforce. investments in new technology are driven by compet-
This is no small challenge. itive advantage: “Actively engaging and learning from
many outside sources creates an opportunity for
As a recent McKinsey article puts it, “Enormous market differentiation. With so many potential ideas,
streams of data and information are transmitted you must filter and prioritize those that hold the most
every minute—circulating ideas and innovations promise for the business.”
around the world via email, social media, e-commerce,
video, and more.” What’s more, the article says, “As Specifically, PWC states, “The emerging technologies
these sprawling digital networks connect everything, that land on each company’s short-list will vary widely,
everyplace, and everyone, companies must rethink but those that executives see as being most strategi-
what it means to be global.” cally important in three to five years are cybersecuri-
ty, data mining and analysis, data visualization, digital
To be successful you will need buy-in from the C-suite delivery, and private cloud.”
and the board of directors. In order to do that, you’ll
need to convince them of the importance of investing Accordingly, in the past few years, several data-driven
in data technologies. technologies have moved out of the more theoretical,
academic space and into the business world.
Further, you’ll want to help them understand, and
even get excited about, the potential of new data In fact, Accenture’s 2016 Technology Vision Survey
technologies, such as data analytics. To do this found that “70% of executives are making significant-
you’ll need to raise their digital IQ and increase their ly more investments in artificial intelligence technolo-
“awareness of the art of the possible.” gies than they did in 2013.”
In the previous section, this paper discussed the Enterprises are investing heavily in a broad class of
impact of data diversity. This section will look at data-driven, business information-related technolo-
some specific new data technologies that promise to gies that includes natural language processing (NLP),
artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML).
7 © 2016 InfoDesk – All Rights Reserved
#VisionariesWanted
Smarter Data (cont.)
“Understanding the finer differences and capabilities to find the information, “semantic metadata provides
in this alphabet soup of data technologies can be the answer to an important question, ‘What is the
daunting,” said Sterling Stites, InfoDesk CEO. When meaning of this content?’ in a way that comput-
these new technologies are applied to business ers can process so that they can find, filter, and
information, in this regard, he continued, “it’s import- connect information.”
ant to keep your eye on the prize,” Stites said. “It’s
all about the ability to make connections—or connect Natural Language Processing
the dots—among disparate data domains and gain
new insights that will drive innovation and competi- Another daunting challenge for enterprises,
tive advantage.” according to IBM, is, “[g]etting value from a sea of
social media posts, images, email, text messag-
Semantic Enrichment es, audio files, Word documents, PDFs and other
sources that make up the other 80 percent of data
To achieve this goal, “we need smarter data,” said that can’t be understood by computers—information
Stites. Smarter data means more than uniform and otherwise known as unstructured data.”
normalized data, which of course are critical. But
it also means semantically enriched data that can Consequently, IBM maintains, “companies across
leverage powerful search tools to understand context industries are turning to Natural Language Process-
and intent. ing (NLP),” to extract value from unstructured data.
Semantic enrichment, according to a Council Science NLP, according to IBM, “enables computer programs
Editors article, “is the process of adding a layer to understand unstructured text by using machine
of topical metadata to content so that machines learning and artificial intelligence to make inferences
can make sense of it and build connections to it.” and provide context to language, just as human
Because computers have difficulty interpreting the brains do. It is a tool for uncovering and analyzing
nuances of language, and people rely on computers the ‘signals’ buried in unstructured data.”
8 © 2016 InfoDesk – All Rights Reserved
Smarter Data (cont.)
Machine Learning A recent Wired article puts it this way: “When Amazon
recommends a book you would like, Google predicts
Machine learning (“ML”) is akin to, and often that you should leave now to get to your meeting
mentioned alongside, NLP and artificial intelligence on time, and Pandora magically creates your ideal
tand language.
(“AI”) for that matter. So what’s the difference? A playlist, these are examples of machine learning over
recent Quora post explains their relationship: a Big Data stream.”
Moreover, Wired states, enterprise organizations
often employ ML software to develop predictive
models for “churn analysis and prevention, real-time
recommendation, and fraud analysis and preven-
Building tion.” In the context of information, according to
systems Wired, the value of ML is its ability “to discover
AI that can do patterns that we’ve never seen before.”
intelligent Artificial Intelligence
things.
As noted above, both NLP and ML are subsets of the
larger field known as artificial intelligence (AI).
What does AI really mean? Or, more specifically, what
Bonjour does AI mean for the future of business information?
Hola
Building
systems A recent Harvard Business Review article explains
why AI is critical: “[T]he explosive growth of complex
that can and time-sensitive data enables decisions that
understand NLP can give you a competitive advantage, but these
decisions depend on analyzing at a speed, volume,
language.
and complexity that is too great for humans. AI is
filling this gap as it becomes ingrained in the analyt-
ics technology infrastructure in industries like health
care, financial services, and travel.”
So far, many of the internal business uses for AI
involve crunching large amounts of data (i.e., numbers
Building
not text). According to the HBR article, IBM’s Watson
systems Group is making advancements combining data and
ML that can text and “has published research touting the rise of
‘cognitive computing’ – the ability of computers like
learn from Watson to understand words (‘natural language’), not
experience. just numbers.”
To date, “[t]he biggest application of Watson has
been in health care,” HBR states. “Watson excels
in situations where you need to bridge between
massive amounts of dynamic and complex text
Building Hola information (such as the constantly changing body
of medical literature) and another mass of dynamic
systems and complex text information (such as patient
that can learn records or genomic data), to generate and evaluate
how to hypotheses.” The ultimate goal is to leverage the
NLP + ML massive volumes of data to provide better, more
understand personalized patient care.
language.
*Note: NLP and ML are subsets of, but not equal to, AI
9 © 2016 InfoDesk – All Rights Reserved
#VisionariesWanted
Smarter Data (cont.)
To be sure, the business information applications for • Understanding data analytics and decision
AI are still in development. “Large-scale AI/big data making (Management Disrupted)
projects are costly and have shown mixed results,” • Raising Your Digital IQ (Strategy+Business)
said InfoDesk’s Stites. “On a smaller scale, however, • 6 Machine Learning, AI, Analytics Trends To
many companies are using AI, especially semantic Watch (Information Week)
enrichment and NLP, to make business informa- • Lessons from digital leaders: 10 attributes driving
tion more personalized and useful in day-to-day stronger performance (PWC)
decision making. • Business Intelligence and Analytics: From Big
Data to Big Impact (MIS Quarterly)
The next section of this white paper examines • Accenture Technology Vision 2016 (Accenture)
the growing importance of personalization for • SEO 101: What is Semantic Search and Why
business information. Should I Care? (Search Engine Journal)
• How Smart Is Your Content? Using Semantic
Key Discussion Points Enrichment to Improve Your User Experience
• Enterprises are investing heavily in AI and Your Bottom Line (Council Science Editors)
technologies. • How Natural Language Processing is transform-
• Key AI technologies include semantic enrich- ing the financial industry (IBM Watson Blog)
ment, natural language processing, and machine • What’s the difference between Machine Learning,
learning. AI, and NLP? (Quora)
• Cognitive computing is the ability of computers • Use Data to Tell the Future: Understanding
to understand words, not just numbers. Machine Learning (Wired)
• Many companies are using AI to make business • What is Artificial Intelligence: Basic Questions
information personalized and useful in day-to- (Stanford)
day decision-making. • Artificial Intelligence Is Almost Ready for Business
(HBR)
Reference Articles
• Five priorities for competing in an era of digital
globalization (McKesson)
10 © 2016 InfoDesk – All Rights ReservedPersonalization
How advancements in artificial intelligence and predictive analytics will enhance the
business information user experience.
Imagine
You are the head of a global information services information to create a more personalized
team for a leading media conglomerate. Histori- user experience.
cally your job has been to make business informa-
tion—including current industry news, competitive As Business Analytics 3.0 puts it, “[t]he future of
intelligence, research, and market intelligence— consumer engagement is an engaging and immersive
readily available to all employees, especially the experience across formats.” The article goes on to
company’s . state that, “To enable this… Machine intelligence is
getting increasingly married to human insight.”
With the sheer volume of intelligence competing for
your audience’s attention, as well as changes in user “Machines (software robots) increasingly are learning
behavior and expectations, you’ve struggled recently to teach themselves to recognize objects, text, spoken
to engage information users. Fearful of the disrup- words and more. They are also able to interface/
tion happening across all industries, your company is interact with people in a natural way. Apple Siri,
shifting resources away from information services in Google Maps are examples of this.”
the hope that investments in technology and Big Data
will solve all your business information needs. In business-to-consumer (B2C) products and
services, this type of machine learning can be seen
Your challenge is not merely to convince upper in analytics-based data applications. Business Analyt-
management of the importance and value of business ics 3.0 provides these examples as shown in the
information. Rather, it’s to realign your department’s graphic below.
priorities with those of the company as a whole,
including better meeting the needs of diverse user According to Sterling Stites, InfoDesk CEO, there are
groups, IT teams and digital strategists. two distinguishing factors between B2C and B2B
personalization. B2C personalization often benefits
This means applying new “smarter data” technol- from huge amounts of data, while the bar for success
ogies, such as predictive analytics, to business is much lower.
Examples of B2C Personalization
Personalization Based on Personalization Based on Social
Customer Behaviors Media Relationships
We are sorry we missed you this X X X X X
Several of your Facebook friends
week at Starbucks after twelve F�� Y��
! have recently enjoyed visits to our
straight weeks of enjoying your Spa, so we’re offering you 20% off Sp�
company! Here is a free ‘Venti to try it yourself.
Blonde’ for you.
Personalization with Personalization Based
Regard to Cross-Sell on Location
We know you’ve enjoyed our sister We see you have just landed in New
restaurant in the past, so if you or York JFK, and your final destination
your family visit any of our other is Marriott in Times Square. Here is a
restaurants next week, here’s a $10 Uber taxi coupon to get you
coupon for a free appetizer. there in 45 minutes.
Source: Business Analytics 3.0
11 © 2016 InfoDesk – All Rights ReservedPersonalization (cont.)
“An online coupon that boosts coffee purchases by
10-20% may be a big success. Whereas, a prediction
with 10-20% accuracy in personalized medicine could
actually be a life threatening failure.”
Furthermore, according to Business Analytics 3.0,
“delivering real-time actionable intelligence is not
Geo-location
easy. Closed-loop performance systems that deliver Organizing content by specific region, country, city or
continuous innovation and insight are tricky to even using GPS technology to deliver location-specific
build and maintain. Applications include marketing alerts as users move around.
campaigns, customer behaviors, risk management,
operations, financial and investment management.”
Semantic search
The article states, “The challenge is not insight but the
Identifying related content across sources or
evolving context. What was interesting 2 weeks ago
domains based on NLP and/or semantic enrichment
may no longer be interesting to a target individual. So
(to provide content users might not otherwise find).
the context (rules engine) has to evolve continuous-
ly… basically the ability to learn.”
If applying AI and predictive analytics in data-rich Social media monitoring
areas such as marketing, finance and risk is challeng-
ing, then trying to accurately predict the business Using monitoring solutions to identify keywords or
information needs for a diverse workforce becomes search terms for potential threats.
particularly complex.
Enterprises seeking to personalize their users’ experi- Trending content
ences can benefit from advances in AI and data analyt-
Providing suggested content based on what
ics, using these advances to personalize business
colleagues are reading or following (e.g., most-read
information delivery based on a variety of criteria.
articles or suggested articles).
Creating Personalized Business
Information Experience Notifications
Alerts based on external threats, such as political,
weather, or labor issues, with potential to disrupt
User information business or supply chains.
Grouping users based on business area, department
and job function to provide information tailored to “Ideally, computers would be able to take all of these
their needs. factors into consideration to identify and deliver only
the most relevant information for each user,” said
InfoDesk’s Stites. “Not only that, over time, comput-
Areas of interest ers will actually learn what ‘most relevant informa-
tion’ means to each user and then actually predict
Leveraging internal taxonomies to deliver content
(and deliver) new information that will be most useful
based on specific areas of interest (regardless
to each user.”
of domain).
12 © 2016 InfoDesk – All Rights Reserved#VisionariesWanted
Personalization (cont.)
According to a recent article in Search Engine Land, analytics technology means that instead of looking
a number of companies, including Apple, Google into the past for generating reports, businesses
and Microsoft, have already developed a number of can predict what will happen in the future based on
personal assistant apps with predictive capabilities. analysis of their existing data.”
Products like Google Now, Apple Siri and Microsoft
Cortana are designed to help individuals be more Key Discussion Points
organized, find useful information and generally • Smarter data technologies, such as predictive
navigate their worlds better. These apps can track analytics, can be applied to business information
any number of user behaviors and activities, includ- to create a more personalized user experience.
ing the users’ emails, social media activity, calendars, • Analytics-based data applications are more
and even mobile GPS location to provide alerts, common for consumer products and services.
reminders, and even make suggestions. • Delivering real-time actionable intelligence is not
easy due to constantly evolving context.
“The purpose of these apps is to help you general- • Organizations can personalize their users’ experi-
ly. The predictive aspect that’s one part of them is to ence by leveraging advances in AI and data
help you even before you know you need help. When analytics.
that works, it’s incredibly helpful,” stated Search • Predictive analytics will find new business applica-
Engine Land. tions to aid decision making.
Similarly, organizations can employ this type of Reference Articles
predictive analytics to create competitive advantage. • Using better questions to disrupt yourself (EY)
As a recent article from Wired stated, “Only with • The True ROI of Digital Content (Dow Jones)
advanced analytics, and specifically machine learning, • Predictive Analytics 101 (Business Analytics 3.0)
can companies truly tap into their rich vein of experi- • How Google Now, Siri & Cortana Predict What
ence and mine it to automatically discover insights You Want (Search Engine Land)
and generate predictive models to take advantage • Use Data to Tell the Future: Understanding
of all the data they are capturing. This advanced Machine Learning (Wired)
13 © 2016 InfoDesk – All Rights ReservedMobility
Looking beyond the smartphones, tablets and gadgets to how business information will
become more portable and increasingly personalized.
Imagine
You are a millennial who has recently graduated from the way people consume news information in their
college, entering the professional workforce for the personal lives. Twenty years ago we, as a society,
first time. You’ve grown up using smartphones and were overwhelmingly dependent on our televisions.
now, when you’re looking for business information, Since the rise of the Internet and the mobile revolu-
you fully expect the same ease-of-use and level of tion, most of us have become utterly reliant on, even
personalization you’ve been getting from apps such addicted to, our smartphones.
as Amazon and Spotify.
But what about business information? How will these
Predictions abound on the Internet for the future mobile trends affect the way we consume and share
of almost everything, especially technology. When it timely intelligence in the workplace?
comes to speculations about the near-term future
of mobility, many of these predictions are simply This section looks at some of the top mobile trends
lists of space age gadgets, wearables and intelligent and how they are changing the way we communi-
robots, all of them swirling about in the Internet cate, work, and consume information. Also, and
of Things (IoT). perhaps more importantly, how these trends have
the potential to disrupt business information.
Contrary to popular belief, digital disruption is often
far more gradual than abrupt. Take, for example,
Potential Impact of Mobile Trends
in the Workplace
Supremacy of the Messaging over
Smartphone Email
Smartphones have all but Many people already
replaced landlines and, to prefer texting to email.
some extent, televisions. Are How is texting infiltrating
computers next? the workplace?
Social Media as Personalization of
Information Everything
Channel NEWS
The proliferation of mobile
apps, including increasingly Hello Sean,
Facebook and Twitter are advanced digital assistants, is
What can I help you
with today?
threatening traditional NEWS changing how we live. How
news channels. What will they change the
about business way we consume information
information? at work?
14 © 2016 InfoDesk – All Rights ReservedMobility (cont.)
“If successful, ‘Facebook for Work’ could have a huge
impact on how business information is consumed in
the workplace.”
Smartphones for Work Citing the PEW study, Wired also stated, “And it’s not
just those stereotypical teens or millennials…Users
The global popularity of smartphones is expected to of all genders, ages, races, demographics, education
continue to grow over the next several years. Some levels, and household incomes claimed they increas-
even predict that smartphones and/or tablets will ingly got their news on Facebook in 2015 compared
become the sole personal computer for many. to 2013, even as usage of these sites has remained
pretty steady overall.”
A recent Wired article claimed, “We’re at the
point where anyone armed with a current model According to Wired, “It’s a big audience, and both tech
smartphone or tablet is able to handle almost all giants are pushing aggressively into news to meet that
of their at-home—and even at-work—tasks without demand. Facebook launched Instant Articles earlier
needing anything else.” this year. Twitter meanwhile acquired Periscope, and
also plans to release curated event-based feeds later
To be sure, more and more people rely on mobile this year.”
devices for many day-to-day business activities,
such as making phone calls, accessing email, and Further, social media companies are also making
managing calendars and appointments. significant inroads in the workplace. For example,
this year Facebook launched “Facebook at Work” (in
Further, sophisticated business apps also allow users beta) for business collaboration.
to access many different types of business informa-
tion with their mobile devices. According to Sterling A recent Fortune article describes “Facebook at Work”
Stites, InfoDesk CEO, “as the workforce continues to as “a separate version of the social network that is
become more dispersed, the demand for on-the-go accessible only within the confines of a company’s
business information will certainly continue to grow.” internal IT systems. Personal Facebook accounts
are kept separate from the more straight-laced
“Even if it seems unlikely that smartphones, or even corporate version.”
tablets, are going to entirely replace work computers
in the near future,” said Stites, “we can look forward “The idea is to apply ideas from the consumer edition
to many exciting innovations in mobile business of Facebook—like sharing status updates, posting
information usage.” articles in newsfeeds, and group chats—to the
business world,” stated Fortune.
The Social Workplace
“If successful,” Stites of InfoDesk predicted, “‘Facebook
Wired recently reported that a new PEW study found at Work’ could have a huge impact on how business
that more than 50% of Facebook and Twitter users information is consumed in the workplace.”
report these sites as their primary source of news.
15 © 2016 InfoDesk – All Rights ReservedMobility (cont.)
Workplace Collaboration Tools Notification platforms. Messaging + Notifications =
New mobile engagement toolsets. New capabilities
When it comes to innovative workplace collaboration are emerging to: power push notifications, sophis-
tools, Facebook is hardly the only notable contend- ticated audience targeting, message centers, digital
er. According to a recent Business Insider article, wallet programs, and location analytics.”
“Facebook is competing against other established
products like Microsoft-owned Yammer and Slack, Furthermore, Disruptive Digital stated, “Notifica-
the super-hot startup that has become one of the tions are growing rapidly and becoming increasing-
fastest-growing business apps of all time.” ly interactive. This is driving new touch-points with
messaging platforms and other apps.”
Other sources agree. According to a recent Fast
Company article, “Less than three years old, Slack While the full implications of this trend for business
already has 3 million daily active users, and more information remain to be seen, it is clear that people
importantly, Slacksters spend an average of 10 hours are quickly becoming accustomed to doing business
connected to the service each weekday, two hours of using texting and chat. “One can only assume,”
it in active use—time they could be using Microsoft said InfoDesk’s Stites, “that we can anticipate more
Outlook for email.” capabilities for managing and sharing business
information via text and chat.”
Slack is no doubt a cause for considerable concern
to the likes of Microsoft and even Facebook. As Personalizing Mobile Business Information
Business Insider stated, “Microsoft has tried to make
a Slack-like service work several times: It bought A recent Hubspot blog article, citing a study from
Skype in 2011 for $8.5 billion and Yammer, another the University of Texas, stated, “we can attribute our
office-collaboration tool, in 2012 for $1.2 billion. preference for personalized experiences to two key
Neither deal proved transformative.” factors: desire for control and information overload.”
More precisely, the blog stated, “personalization can
Messaging vs. Email help reduce our perception of information overload.”
Not unlike the above-mentioned workplace collab- If this is true, it seems only natural to conclude that
oration tools that use chat as a primary form of people would also want to reduce the perception of
internal communication, another mobile trend is information overload through a more personalized
the apparent shift away from email toward text, mobile business information experience.
even for work.
The previous section of this white paper discussed
According to a recent eWeek survey, business texting personalization, including the emerging class of
has become significantly more widespread, with digital assistants, such as Google Now, that have the
as much as “80% of people currently using texting potential to create a more personalized business
for business.” information user experience.
Likewise, consumers are becoming more accustomed As a recent Digital Trends article put it: “If you let
to mobile notifications and messaging from a wide Google Now learn about you and your habits, then
variety of product and service providers. A recent it can throw up information that it thinks you might
Wired article even suggested, “that soon people will be interested in. News, sports scores, weather, and
turn to their messaging apps to do all the things they traffic information is served up in real time based
once did in their web browsers or via other apps. on your previous movements and searches… When
This is already happening in China, where people it works, Google Now can give you what you want
buy movie tickets, book train travel, and shop, all before you even know you want it.”
on WeChat.”
According to InfoDesk’s Stites, “Taking cues from
Likewise, according to a recent Disruptive Digital digital assistants and other new personal apps,
post, “Mobile is rapidly expanding opportunities to mobile business information users can also look
engage customers and increase stickiness. There forward to a new breed of business information apps
is [an] incredible amount of innovation taking and tools, all of them designed to help personalize
place around Mobile Engagement, Messaging and mobile experience.”
16 © 2016 InfoDesk – All Rights ReservedMobility (cont.)
Key Discussion Points • Facebook and Twitter Really Are Where People
• Mobile trends are changing the way we communi- Get Their News (Wired)
cate, work, and consume information. • The Evolving Role of News on Twitter and
• Do business information users prefer using Facebook (Pew Study)
smartphones and tablets for their business • How Facebook’s Social Network For Work Will
information needs? Change Business (Fortune)
• Will texting for business communications impact • Here’s what the first users are saying about
business information? Facebook’s Slack competitor (Business Insider)
• Will new workplace collaboration tools like Slack, • 26 Billion Reasons Why Microsoft Must Beat Slack
Yammer, and Facebook at Work change business To The Future of Productivity (Fast Company)
information consumption? • 45 Texting Statistics that Prove Businesses Need
• Can the new breed of business information apps to Start Taking SMS Seriously (One Reach)
and tools meet the growing demand for business • Business Texting Grows More Widespread
information personalization? (eWeek Survey)
• 25 Geniuses Who Are Actually Making the Future
Reference Articles Happen Now (Wired)
• 6 Mobility Predictions for 2020 (Cisco) • The Notification Economy – New Contextual
• Intelligent robots threaten millions of jobs (Phys. Experiences for Mobile Engagement (Disruptive
org) Digital)
• Half of teens think they’re addicted to their • The Psychology of Personalization: Why We Crave
smartphones (CNN) Customized Experiences (Hubspot)
• The Internet of Things: Sizing up the opportunity • Consumer control and customization in online
(McKinsey) environments (University of Texas Study)
• In Less Than Two Years, a Smartphone Could Be • ‘Google Now’s’ Terrifying, Spine-Tingling,
Your Only Computer (Wired) Bone-Chilling Insights Into Its Users (Forbes)
• The future of apps should be better apps (Tech • How to Use Google Now (Digital Trends)
Crunch)
• Why tablets will become our primary computing
device (Forrester)
17 © 2016 InfoDesk – All Rights Reserved#VisionariesWanted
About 2020 Vision About Dow Jones
“2020 Vision” is an educational program co-devel- Dow Jones is a global provider of news and business
oped by Dow Jones and InfoDesk for information and information, delivering content to consumers and
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