In the Digital Universe, Performance Decides Success

In Part 4 of his data performance series, Jesse Davis ​discusses out how data can be used to gain better insight into customer behavior.

We’re very social creatures, so we like to share what we find and make it available for everyone to see. Now, thanks to the rise of social media, we’re used to sharing everything all the time. Each time we post something or track a news item on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or any other social media network, we generate data—little digital footprints that we leave as we wander around the web.

You’ve heard that this data is valuable before, but how do we make use of all this data? How do we mine it so that we can better improve experiences for people, or to enhance our businesses in real time?

Data-Based Deals

Hulu has an awesome platform for putting marketing data to use. I’ll sit down in the evening and watch some TV with my wife and we get to choose our ad experience. We can change the way companies present information to us by volunteering a little bit about what we’re interested in. All of this is tracked. All of this is stored. All of this can then be used to deliver better targeted content to customers.

Another example is Macy’s, where they are starting to use in-store behavior to inform marketing programs. Macy’s app not only knows that you’re in their store, but through iBeacon technology, Macy’s can tell that you’re in the shoe department and offer you a coupon for shoes right then and there. This type of technology goes beyond geolocation, where we just have latitude and longitude.

These are the types of real world applications that you want so you will be able to take that data, mine it with other information that you have about an individual, and present with them a coupon or information that encourages a purchase.

Performance Determines ​Success

This trend is bleeding into other sectors as well. Take healthcare and life sciences; they’re coming up with ways to serve patients better. Case in point: I had an injury not too long ago, and trying to get an X-ray from one doctor to another took four days. Four days to send one picture from one person to another! That just seems crazy to me and to a lot of other people as well.

As data continues to grow in volume and value, performance becomes a bigger and bigger indicator of success and survival, which is why companies like Progress are working to speed up this process, again, to improve our life experience and interaction with digital information.

This is what we call life in the digital universe. Data is at the forefront of everything we do, as a society and as a human race. We use data to predict weather patterns, drought patterns, to try and feed people, or make transportation and energy-use more efficient for millions of people. All of this comes down to data and how fast we can mine it, use it, translate it, transform it, analyze it, and put it into decision-making. Even that individual out there that refuses to use a cell phone or computer is living a data-dependent life, even if they are recording the data they use in notebooks instead of on servers.

Fastest in the Industry

The drivers my team and I build here at Progress® DataDirect® are designed to be the fastest in the industry, and we stand behind that claim with award winning technical support. When you find performance degradation issues in our software, we treat them like defects because we understand how important speed is to your business. You can pick up a free trial today and try it out for yourself, or watch a replay of my webinar, “Industry Insight: Optimizing Your Data for Better Performance.” Don’t forget to check back for the next installment of this series!