Upstream Mother

"Upstream Mother!"

Allie Fox, the misanthropic inventor in The Mosquito Coast.

At almost every technology and data or global finance conference there is the absolute necessity to remind everyone that big data is growing at an unprecedented rate. "It usually goes like, "In the last ten years, we've created more than, than existed before data existed" or something like that. Most organizations struggle simply to absorb their data, never mind to channel or to derive meaning from it. Yet the same folks insists that we live in a super-connected world. Do we really?

I am reminded of Paul Theroux's novel, The Mosquito Coast, in which the main character goads his wife and children about an endlessly cluttered and nonsensical post-human America, and then moves them all to a remote coast off Africa. We're not quite as bad off as Theroux might have had us believe, but data (as specifically related to Investment, Equities, Futures and Commodities) are indeed often confusing, desperate, disjointed and fairly unsophisticated in their organization. This is even more the case in Frontier and Emerging Markets. If analysts wish to identify the problems to be solved in terms of new, unstable or dynamic markets, we must identify the most exploitable areas of those markets amid what may often be conflicting data points.

Intelligence, be it economic, military or otherwise, is gathered in order to gain an advantage. One gathers intelligence so that one can outwit one's adversaries or competitors. For the analyst, there is a profound opportunity for maximization of utility. Now, what the hell does that mean? Maximizing utility means getting the most out of your data, and then doing something (such as improving customer service, or mitigating risk) with what you've gotten out of your data.

Data are the key to maximizing utility. Data live at the very focal point of optimization. We must insist on greater levels of openness, and greater collaboration. The poet Virgil tells us: "... if I cannot prevail upon heaven, I shall move hell." Social computing--not social networks–will not only be the driving force for greater levels of granularity in analytics, but also for the overall development of holistic systems we have yet to imagine. This is primarily because they offer so much flex and dynamism. The difference is subtle and yet enormously promising.

Stay tuned, my friends. Something is going to happen. Something wonderful.