Slides from a spark given by Brian Inderwies at Ignite Boulder 14. (3/3/2011)

1. YOUʼRE BEING WATCHED!
Living in a data-intense world.
Brian Inderwies @inderwies

2. TODAY.
People in Tokyo are
sending 342 tweets a 38% of bloggers are
posting brand or
*
minute.
product reviews. A few are
getting paid.
35,000,000 Facebook users are
updating their status.
Zyngaʼs CityVille has 20,356,593
users.
thatʼs more people than live in the actual cities of NYC, LA,
Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, and San Antonio combined.
Source: http://keenpath.com/blog/bid/52285/Social-Media-Stats-Facebook-Twitter-and-LinkedIn-Infographics

3. ARE WE PEOPLE?
OR JUST DATA
POINTS?
ta ry
Each of us is awash in a Involun
vast ocean of data. llllll
In most moments of our
day, weʼre feeding
databases with records.
y
Voluntar
*
These photos are creepy.

4. A DAY
IN THE LIFE
Whoʼs watching?
loyalty cards home ISP
bank IT admin/boss
mobile provider cameras
severity
wake sleep
home work home

5. A COMMUTE?
OR A TRAIL?
Electronic toll collection
provides “habitual
patterns of movement.”
Lawyers use this to win
divorce cases. * The toll plaza that Tony
Soprano drove through
records 90,000
*7
transactions a day.
out of 12 states with
ETC systems regularly
provide data to courts.
Source: Associated Press, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20216302/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/

6. WHEN AT WORK...
45% of employers log
telephone calls.
Men are twice
as likely as
women to use
“An acoustic noise
the internet at
generator will mask
your conversation in work with “no
case thereʼs a bug in specific
the room.” objective.”
Sources: American Management Association 2007 survey; www.amanet.org/research; International Data Corporation (IDC) survey of managers, forbes.com

7. WHAT IS THE BOSS
DOING WITH THE DATA?
Many of the same
techniques that are used
for finding the best
customers are being
harnessed to find “model
employees.”
* A SAS program measures
retention based upon quantifying
skills, profiles, studies, and * Intraoffice communication is
parsed and quantified to model the
friendships. factors leading to “winning ideas.”
Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek, 3/12/2009, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_12/b4124046224092.htm

8. LIFE OUTSIDE
OF WORK
The tools of our times
leave breadcrumbs
everywhere.
A gold card, or a
gold mine?
* People like you and me
have watched Charlie
bite this kidʼs finger
280,966,462 times.
Source: Mashable, http://mashable.com/2011/02/19/youtube-facts/

9. DO THE FEDS WANT TO
FRIEND YOU?
Social Media
Monitoring Initiative
* Safe! They were
not found to be
extracting more
than publicly-
available data
(as of this
investigation.)
After whistle-blowing, Homeland Security
performed investigations into its own use
of social media monitoring.
Source: Department of Homeland Security, “Social Media Monitoring Initiative” document,
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/privacy_privcomrev_ops_monitoring_initiative.pdf

10. A NEW SPACE RACE
Marketing scientists are voraciously
consuming all the data they possibly can
to build the next great regression model.
Classic depiction of the “new American consumer.”
* or K-means cluster.
* or naive Bayes model.
* or neural network.
Source: Unica, an IBM company, white paper: Marketing in The Fourth Dimension

11. You have two choices.
Hide from it. Learn to live with it.
Courtesy of flickr user QuietDangst Courtesy of broadbandmap.gov
Letʼs explore the options.

12. HIDING HASNʼT
TRULY WORKED WELL
Most of us discover quickly that we need to take
advantage of the economic efficiencies of a data-
rich society.
* Even this guy was found for a $5,000 bounty.
Source: Wired, September 2009

13. SURVIVAL STRATEGY #1:
DONʼT BE STUPID
Club-goers in Spain
have voluntarily
received RFID
implants to facilitate
ID and payment.
* Donʼt sell out your privacy for the privileges of
wearing a Speedo and leaving your wallet at home.
Source: http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/human-barcodes#!/photos/40537/1

14. SURVIVAL
STRATEGY #2:
*
No longer an exclusive resort
for developing exotic credit-
default swaps.
BECOME A QUANT
People need to be trained to handle big data in
this brave new world.
Huge opportunities exist today for the “numerati.”
* Stats + Data Munging + Visualization = Sexy!
Source: http://www.dataspora.com/blog/sexy-data-geeks/

15. SURVIVAL STRATEGY #3:
GAME THE SYSTEM
Every once in a
while, throw the
models a curve.
*
Download some Bieber.
* Shop at Wal-Mart.
*
I can haz teh facebooks?
My cat obtained 60 fans very shortly
after the launch of his very own fan page.

16. BENEFIT #1: WEʼRE SMARTER
AND EMPOWERED
A different game than our parents played.
We have more leverage in huge, life-altering
situations than ever before.
*
Much to the chagrin of real estate professionals.
Source: zillow.com

17. BENEFIT #2:
ITʼS A MORE
INTERESTING
PLACE
* Information empowers
the underdog.
*Boulderʼs entrepreneurs are
embracing this new reality.
In a data-intense
world, those who
understand the
power of information
can alter the course
of history. courtesy of Immersive Labs
Sources: Moneyball, Michael Lewis; Immersive Labs file photo

18. BENEFIT #3:
WE LIVE IN A WORLD THAT
PRESERVES HISTORY
With the assistance of
Google, survivors of
Holocaust victims are
able to research and
connect with the
legacy of their
families.
Source: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/27/google-archive-brings-holocaust-memory-into-the-digital-age/

19. WEʼRE CONNECTING
IN NEW AND
UNBELIEVABLE WAYS.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/#!5713221/who-wouldve-thought-that-ten-million-facebook-friendships-could-be-so-beautiful

20. THE TIMES, THEY HAVE
AʼCHANGED.
Research at delicious.com/binderwies/ignite14