• by Tyler Brewer , Op-Ed Contributor, October 3, 2016

We, as human beings, can only look forward to an ever-increasing rate of growth and sophistication of technology – that much is obvious. But as marketers and consumers of technology, we need to recognize and harness the shift occurring.

Technological development is now creating spaces for brands and businesses to fill, where industry and commerce once created the spaces for technology and innovation to fill. 

Amber Case, the cyborg anthropologist who studies the history of humanity’s interaction with technology, spoke at length at last week’s FutureM Summit about how tech is designed (or should be) to augment the best parts of humanity. So shouldn't the brands we buy do the same?

We create an extension of our own meaning through things we purchase, so don't you want the products and services you buy to reflect what you find meaningful? We are at the moment in time where the growth of technology is guiding the evolution of brands and companies, instead of the other way around.

So where is technology telling us to go? Where should a brand point itself to ride the current to a place where value exceeds price and esteem exceeds the size?

It's an easy answer with a difficult and complex application: Follow the data.

The amount of ambient data flying around our heads is almost incalculable, and the ways to interpret that data are nearly as limitless, as demonstrated by David Kenny, the GM of IBM's Watson. In his work with Watson, to create an oncology model for Memorial Sloan-Kettering, so doctors could match patients to proven treatment regimens, much like audience modeling.

Technology can also make connections and turns it into messages we can understand, way faster than we are able to process, but you won’t reap the benefits of what your data can tell you if are putting Baby in the corner. Nobody puts Data in the corner.

What you do with your data matters. How you store your data matters. How you secure you data matters. How data is integrated in your business functions matters. Our bodies don’t function properly because the liver happens to sign up for newsletter from the brain.

Everything is integrated seamlessly. Technology is telling us to pay attention to and integrate the precious data available to us, into every function of your business so that brands, can truly react in real-time to the moments that matter to their consumers.

Is this anything new? No, but it cannot be said enough until it is commonplace among brands and companies. Until the “bottom line” is no longer the last excuse we give for not taking risks, this needs to be heard and repeated.

It is not enough to clean and secure the data. Only when data is woven throughout an organization can it respond organically to this chaotic but connected world.