When I was young, Computer stuff was called Information Technology, we had classes in it and it was pretty boring. The guy teaching the classes had the social skills of a service elevator and the people who were good at the class didn't really talk to anyone outside of their group. They pretty much spoke their own language. How things have changed.
I have just come back from a meeting with Gi Fernando who runs Techlightenment. They make social media apps. They made the Bob Dylan and Socialistics Facebook apps for example. Needless to say they are pretty sharp cookies in the digital social behaviours game. It was one of those good chats where both parties got really excited about the future, you know, flying cars and robotic maids. We both got out more than we came with and I expect we'll do it again soon.
As I walked away I started thinking about research companies and how possibly they're on the edge of a whole structural change of how they work. The information that's being gathered about people as they use social digital technology is only just starting to be harnessed. Obviously soon we will be able to dive a little deeper than the limp Amazon recommendation model and it will get very interesting. In terms of data, the richness we'll be getting back will start to want beyond basic quant data and will start to roam into qual territory.
Having worked at a qual agency, where you spend all day thinking about people, behaviour, analysing it and trying to predict the future I can't help feeling that soon all this will be shifting.
We'll be getting very rich information about what people use online and on mobile devices and how they use it. Will we still need to ask 50 people how they really feel? I think it'll be obvious. Even the subtle nuisances will be visible. If this is the case it'll have a pretty big effect on the research industry.
I've thought this for a while and have in fact been working with Dub, who are building digital research tools for agencies. But it only really occurred to me today that this might change the way research is done everywhere. I would imagine if research companies aren't embracing this new information technology thingy they're gonna get left behind.
This digital tidal wave is going to start to affect more industries than perhaps most people realise.
picture shamelessly borrowed from the fabulous Indexed blog
