Panel
In the 21st Century, Data Is King
Milken InstitutePaul Kudrowski, Kevin Slavin, DJ, Jim Messina, Frank Cooper, Michael Chewy, Michael D
- Audience interaction is scheduled for the final 10 minutes of the session, with an expectation that attendees prepare inquiries within this specific timeframe.
- Big data dynamics are projected to shift from a foundation of low-cost storage, processing, and cloud trends toward a landscape where effective data utilization becomes a primary basis of competition for firms, sectors, and entire economies.
- Organizations are expected to increasingly adopt the scientific method, utilizing real-time experiments (e.g., A/B testing in physical spaces) to drive decisions, though implementation in offline and CPG sectors presents significant challenges.
- A fundamental cultural transition is anticipated across industries, moving from sampling and seeking causality to analyzing large terabytes and petabytes of data for real-time iteration, adaptation, and correlation acceptance.
- PepsiCo forecasts a difficult transition in talent and culture to handle massive data volumes, aiming to merge data with intuition and imagination through collaborative "Mission Control" units where data scientists and content creators work together.
- Frank Cooper predicts that large corporations will hold an advantage over startups in data collection and analysis, though startups may leverage agility and adaptability without legacy ecosystem burdens.
- PepsiCo expects mobile technology to serve as a key enabler for closing data loops in retail via direct consumer engagement through apps and augmented reality, facilitating a shift toward buying media based on cultural groupings rather than traditional demographics.
- Marketing strategies are projected to evolve toward combining art and science, potentially attracting artists to brands that prioritize meaning over purely data-driven approaches, which previously led to failures for major technology firms in the music space.
- Michael Chui identifies tremendous untapped opportunities in healthcare and energy sectors for combining diverse data sources, while noting that the entertainment industry faces a significant shift where human analysis is replaced by data revealing consumer tastes.
- Emerging markets are expected to see widespread data adoption, with top-tier users matching global standards, though the broader regions may struggle to catch up; mobile platforms are specifically noted for enabling localized, geo, and social data integration in these areas.
- The healthcare sector is projected to see significant growth through wearable devices (e.g., glucose and blood pressure monitors) that aggregate data to improve global wellness metrics rather than focusing solely on individual health.
- DJ Patil anticipates an explosion in data usage within national security, citing examples like the Boston bombings, and expects current venture focus to shift from building generic technology stacks to creating nascent verticalized solutions for specific roles.
- Kevin Slavin warns that entities relying entirely on data without human augmentation face failure, citing systemic risks from automated, non-human parsing of language and potential economic unhinging events due to leverage on unverified data interpretation.
- Political campaigns for the 2016 election are expected to require reinvention from previous models to succeed, with data serving as a cross-platform tool for both campaigning and nonprofit advocacy to scale engagement on issues like climate change and immigration.
- The 2016 electoral landscape predicts that candidates using outdated methods will lose, while a head start in data availability from previous campaigns will be utilized to close gaps, with success potentially driven by non-data factors like celebrity influence in fundraising.
- Organizing for Action is expected to operate as a startup to fundamentally alter ground-level political engagement, aiming to create vehicles that allow campaigns and groups to access cross-platform data for various purposes.
- Young entrepreneurs are predicted to focus on converting data into interactive value-add products for users, moving away from passive spreadsheets, while the trend of algorithms rewriting human language is expected to continue at high speeds.
- Nielsen's historical methods are projected to be viewed as naive, with future systems rendering consumer taste and consumption visible through new data collection methods, contrasting with previous reliance on boxes and journals.