Big data
Gareth Jones asks whether Big Brother, or Big Data, should be front of our minds‘I just don’t get this ‘twittering” thing’, Said an HR delegate in a condescending voice at a conference recently.
‘I mean, I’m sorry, but I don’t care that you’ve just drunk a great cup of coffee.’ Cue awkward shuffling as I realise that I did indeed tweet a picture of my perfectly formed latte that very morning.
And so yet another HR professional stares the gift horse of social media in the mouth. But I’m not talking about the many missed personal opportunities for her to communicate and share, to learn from other like-minded souls, to support and be supported, to inspire and be inspired.
No, I’m talking about the many missed opportunities for her function, even her wider organisation.
What my twitter-hating friend failed to see was that the most compelling force in the future of people management sits right there – smack bang in the middle of all that twittering. And here’s why.
Data-day brilliance
Back in 2011, a quite amazing story slipped out about a hedge fund that was using twitter data to predict the movement in the stock market. Here was an investment business, taking these ‘inane tweets’ and making money from them. Apparently one of the sentiment streams they drew from the tweets tracked ahead of the stock market by three days.
More recently, there’s the fascinating story of Ramona Pierson, a maths genius who was knocked down by a bus at the age of 22. The story of her recovery, and how she went on to build her new software company is fascinating. Declara, a social engine originally conceived to replicate her brain, now appears to have the potential to put management consultancies out of business.
Admittedly, neither of these two examples has anything to do with HR. But what is going on here – the exploration of social interaction – is fundamental to the future of people management. Both of these examples are using big data techniques, specifically the analysis of unstructured data and content – tweets, emails, conversational threads, to you and me – to identify patterns in behaviour that previously we have been unable to see.
Organisations today are spending billions in an attempt to measure and understand issues such as engagement and performance management. But compared to big data techniques, the way we are currently addressing these challenges seem incredibly blunt and inappropriate.
Talk is good
The alternative? Conversation. Embedded in your organisation, at its core.
Your employees are already talking about everything that is important to you and them – you just can’t hear it. And the beautifully crafted questionnaire that you paid several millions to do this year won’t scratch the surface of what’s really going on.
Were I a CEO of a big business, I would open up the organisation, embed social technology and allow it to spread, unmoderated. Clearly I’d have my eye out for abuse, but that’s largely another HR red herring.
Leaders and HR professionals in particular have to realise that the trick here is in letting go. Forget terms like ‘social media’, ‘social business’ or social anything for that matter. That tag will largely disappear in the years to come when it becomes business as usual. Which it most certainly will.
The important bit to recognise is peer-to-peer exchange in real time. Unfettered, un-coerced, natural dialogue. It’s like the world’s biggest focus group. On steroids. All you have to do is join in.
But there’s the rub. Letting go and joining in isn’t currently in the HR book of best practice.
Which is a shame. The full potential of ‘big data’ has yet to be realised as we are still in the embryonic stages of understanding what is possible.
What I do know is that it’s coming. And it’s going to have a significant impact.
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