Embracing the Chaos: Data Crush, Accelerating Change, and The New Normal

Today, we live in a society that is alight with constant, relentless, accelerating change. It seems every aspect of our daily lives is changing before our very eyes, and the beliefs, structures, and experiences that we take for granted are evaporating every day.  What is most surprising in all of this is not that these changes are coming so quickly.  Rather, what's remarkable is that all of us appear to be so blasé with it, if not downright welcoming!

Modern society has focused upon globalization, quality, information technology, and connectedness for half of a century, and there are some outcomes from these efforts which may have been somewhat unexpected.  Some key consequences of these efforts include:

• Quality: Consumers simply expect perfection.  Deliver anything less, and your customers will immediately abandon you for someone else
• Ubiquity: Globalization and just-in-time logistics have made it possible to have nearly anything, anywhere at any time.  And now, for most of us, anything less than this is simply not acceptable.
• Immediacy: Globalization, Logistics, and smartphones with apps have also created the expectation of immediate gratification.  Customers want their needs fulfilled instantly, and now predictively.
• Disengagement: It was common in the past for people to build their own solutions to their problems.  Then, they began to outsource certain functions while maintaining a degree of control.  Going forward, this will no longer be the case.  Customers will only care about obtaining a result; how they get there will become less and less important and more and more difficult to discern in any event.
• Intimacy: Conversely, customers' increasing disengagement with how they obtain products and services will leave them hungering for other forms of connectedness.  Feeling like part of a community will be even more important as our needs are met more anonymously.
• Purpose: Ultimately, these trends will leave many people feeling adrift in their lives.  They will hunger for a sense of purpose, for a reason for being, for something to feel passionate about. Whoever can fulfill this need for purpose will hold a tremendous influence over those whose needs they meet.

Together, these six trends will form the basis of our "New Normal," the way in which each of us lives in the new world we are creating.

Constant accelerating change is also a part of our new normal.  When a new app is released or a new electronic gizmo is launched, we not only adopt them nearly instantaneously, we also grow tired of them almost as quickly. When a new smartphone is released, it sells millions of units on its first day of sale.  When a new app becomes popular, it may also sell millions of copies in a single day.  It seems our technology-driven society has tapped into our ingrained lust for discovery and change and is now hyper-stimulating all of us into a frenzy of activity.  Rather than being sated, our hunger for newness and change seems to grow sharper by the moment.

This then defines the opportunities and challenges that present themselves to organizations who wish to tap into this revolution. How do you hold true to any sort of consistent message, brand, and value proposition in a world that rewards constant, relentless change over all else?  Almost certainly, the answer lies in data and analytics.

Data analytics has been a key driver of organizational performance since the dawn of the computer age. The availability of information has allowed organizations to constantly improve their performance and to better address the needs of their audiences. As such, data and analytics have leveraged the human mind just as levers, pulleys, and wheels enhanced the power of human muscles. The application of new insights and knowledge that is derived from data and analytics will be the basis of economic growth and power over the coming decades, and only those organizations that adapt to this fundamental change will likely survive the disruption that this change will necessarily entail.

Embracing the Chaos

In light of these thoughts, the theme of AIIM 2015, "Embrace the Chaos," seems particularly apropos. We live in extremely chaotic times, where much of what we take for granted is being degraded by our lust for newness.  Indeed, I now live by the axiom, "If you're not uncomfortable with what you're doing, you're either not trying hard enough, or you're already irrelevant."

The challenge for business leaders is to stay in this zone of discomfort, embracing the chaos around you and still building value from what you know and what you do. Walking this tightrope means using business information and analytics to constantly question your existing beliefs, and bravely stepping out on the tightrope of change.  If this doesn't make you at least a little bit nervous, you're not trying hard enough.