In Soviet Russia, marketing candidate find you!
SteveYes I am (sadly) old enough to remember the heyday of one Yakov Smirnoff, a Russian comic popular in the 70s and 80s. Smirnoff's main schtick was to crack wise about the differences between the then-communist Russia and his adopted home in the USA in a format that came to be known as the 'Russian Reversal' and that went something like this:
In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, Party always find you!
and
Ol' Yakov was quite a funny guy, and I couldn't help but think of him several times over that last few days when seeing numerous pieces in various contexts about how technology, robots, and increasingly sophisticated algorithms are more and more moving the needle to produce not only what we explicitly ask for and need, but also what they think we will need next.
See for example, Pre-cognitive robot knows you need help before you do, about developing robot technology that is learning how to 'see' and assess you, your actions, and your environment to anticipate your needs and react to them without or before receiving commands or direction.
And this piece, Forget Searching For Content, Content Is About to Start Searching For You, on how smarter, location-based, and fundamentally tied to your mobile device applications will more and more 'push' data, suggestions, and options to you, based on where you are, what you are doing, and who you are with, without you having to search or ask for information.
And this one, The Data Made Me Do It, about how the availability (and our increasing willingness to share) of oceans of personal data is leading to better and smarter 'anticipatory systems' that can and will provide you the answers to questions that you haven't even asked. Yet.
The key running through all these examples? None are really similar to what passes for analytics or business intelligence or even 'big data' solutions that we keep hearing so much about, and what lots of energy are focused on. Mostly, these current tools try to provide better insight and visibility into things that have already happened, not so much about what is likely to happen next, or even more advanced, to lead you with answers to questions you have not even though about yet. What has already happened is important, no doubt, but that is only a baseline or floor for beginning to understand what's next and what is not even imagined.
It's said that when really good basketball players play together on a team for awhile that they begin to understand, visualize, and anticipate each other's moves, and what they are most likely to do on the court without having to shout, point, or even make subtle eye contact with each other. Each player just knows where the other one will be, and with that knowledge and insight, can make the best decisions about what to do next, again, without even asking.
I think the same thing will eventually be said for the best technology support systems that we deploy in our workplaces.
They won't tell us what has happened, but what is likely to happen.
They won't be about providing report cards about the past, but rather action plans for today, (and tomorrow).
They won't remind us that we need to do a search for candidates for that Controller position that has been open for two weeks, rather they'll present us a list of qualified and interested people to contact for that VP of Marketing position that isn't technically open yet, but that signals from the internal and external social networks indicate a 87% probability the current VP is going to resign.
As Yakov the HR Director would say, in Soviet Russia, you don't look for marketing candidates - marketing candidates come looking for you.
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