One complaint I've heard again and again at industry conferences for the last five years is the hyper-proliferation of data. Far from having too little information, online media data tends to swamp
clients and media planners. On that note, Dan Fleetwood, director of global search marketing for SAP, confided "We have an overabundance of data, an overabundance of tools, and an overabundance of
technology. What we can't seem to do is get it all together. There are really nice tools -- really nice dashboards, great funnel analysis, which try to bring it all together -- but we're still
struggling with these attribution models" and refining the decision-making process for allocating media budgets.
The frightening thing about the overloading data problem is that we're still on the momentum side . As the numbers and people grow so does the data. We
need to develop resources (train people) to learn through research what are the things that are relevant to a particular firm/business and concentrate there. A sort of specialization model based on Adam Smith's concept. Next, prepare our equipment to notice and alert us(firms) to changes in our important areas, that will enable firms to maintain a sense of competitive advantage.
Hugh D. Snow