The age of the internet ushered in the age of information. That is a no-brainer. Google and its cohorts have lowered down the cost of acquiring data and information. Advances in computing sciences have allowed us to process these information with great ease. Even artificial intelligence is being used now in determining what relationships exist amongst different kinds of data-points. We have gone to the point of automating trades in finance and in the stock market [rightly or wrongly, I don’t know and I have no opinion about]. In marketing, we have also reached the point where data and supposedly, expert algorithms are being used to aid in the decision-making.
I have no problems with that.
Technology is good.
But the age of technology – the age of cheap or at least, easily-accessible information – has also created a new mindset that is slowly creeping into the marketing world.
The age of shortcuts.
And that is what’s really ticking me off.
Spidey’s uncle summed it all up: With great power comes great responsibility.
Technology has empowered us – but at the same time, it bestowed upon us (whether we like it or not) greater responsibility to manage the data and information that we get.
Just because equations and models suggest that “this way is the right way” doesn’t necessarily mean it is the right way. (The concept of statistics is all based on probability – that we are not sure in spite of the amount of data and information that we have.)
We cannot yet peer into the future with great accuracy – we cannot predict the movements of markets, of the earth, of storms, of people.
All models can do is point us to the right directions and potential options – but the decisions remain with the “unsophisticated” brain of marketeers and communications experts.
Again, I go back to Martin Luther King, Jr.:
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