Last week, I had shared a post on WSJ's data transparency weekend and some interesting ideas that came up during the meet. As a follow-up on the same topic for the first in my blog, I have guest article by Fiona. Fiona Causer is currently a student pursuing her bachelor's degree in Legal Studies.Before going back to finish her bachelor's, she worked as a paralegal for a little over 2 years assisting in cases involving labor and industry. In her free time, she enjoys writing and seeks to use it as a vehicle to convey ideas and engage others in discussing relevant legal issues of our day.

"The Internet, with its plethora of social media networks, is creating a new living landscape that is disrupting the way many individual rights are being interpreted.  It is forcing law degree and paralegal certification granting learning institutions to revamp, or at the very least, reinforce how imperative it is that future law experts understand how to assess the two Bill of Rights Amendments that address free speech and personal privacy: The 1st and 4th Amendment, respectively. Policies concerning social media networks like Facebook and LinkedIn have people troubled about the applicability of both of these rights in the midst of a new Information Age driven by the fruits of Web 2.0.

Private Interest

Many arguments in court come down to the expectation of privacy. Since our court system works through precedent as well as legislative acts, the social media cases already completed are shaping up the online definition of privacy to include passwords and security protection. In other words, if you need authorization to get in, the material counts as private. If the material is posted as public, without restricted access, users are giving up their privacy rights.

Similar rules hold true for contracts with Facebook, Twitter, and other data-sharing sites. They often insert clauses that allow the networks and affiliated advertisers to track your social data for marketing purposes. Of course, these parties cannot use the information for any illegal purpose (such as identity theft), but they can often access your information for targeting purposes: This is simply a danger to posting personal information online.

Government Interest

If your information on social networks is public, government agencies such as the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service can and are trained to use this information in their investigations, though policies still prevent them from adopting fake identities online. Different social networks have different policies of their own when it comes to cooperating with government agencies, filling this area with potential landmines. Courts do agree, however, that the 4th Amendment does not allow any private individual to search or seize any electronic information – this is strictly a government-based decision.

Even the Supreme Court is moving cautiously here, as seen in the 2010 Quon texting case, where the Court said that while text messages should be private, certain cases allowed searches based on the language in the 4th Amendment. The Supreme Court favored the idea that electronic communication, at least for government employees, should in general be treated like an employee's physical office space, with the same "reasonable expectation of privacy" rules incurred.

The Department of Homeland Security has long held a habit of monitoring social media sites for threats, but recent lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act and the use of private contractors like General Dynamics have led to a legislative reprimands which may change policy in coming years. More worrisome is the latest National Security Agency data compound being constructed in Utah: It's primary purpose is to hold the vast amounts of intelligence data the agency picks up through its eavesdropping networks, including social media info. While the NSA has been known to violate privacy laws before, one of the most common deterrents against data-snatching is still one of the most effective: email encryption programs"

I am sure various personal privacy is an important area for countries, companies & individuals. Also who owns the data and what can be shared will be an important area of interest over the next couple of years.As individuals seek control of the data and companies need to be in touch with customers, a new normal of collaboration and sharing is sure to evolve in the future.

I had written in my last blog post about the WSJ's Data Transparency Weekend.

Here are some very interesting applications and winners. There are some very lovely ideas here!

• Outstanding Scanning Project: TOSBack2 – a project to scan the Web to build a “living archive” of all privacy policies online.

• Outstanding Education Project: PrivacyBucket – software that lets users of the Chrome Web browser view the type of demographic estimates that Web tracking companies make about them based on their Web browsing history.

• Outstanding Control Project: Cryptocat – an instant messaging service that lets people engage in encrypted chats inside their Web browsers or on their phones. Extra bonus: the program lets people generate random numbers (which are needed for encryption) by shaking their phone – allowing the creators to say that their program is powered by dance moves.

• “Ready for Primetime” Award: MobileScope – a service that lets people see what data is being transmitted without their knowledge by their cellphone. It also offers ad-blocking and do-not-track services for cellphones.

• Judge’s Choice Award: Site Scoper – a website that scans for tracking files and sensitive content on websites before you visit it.

And, finally, The Soup Cans and String Winner: Ostel, for its work on technology that allows people to make encrypted cellphone calls using voice-over-the-Internet technology.

Read more here

Your data is the single biggest business for many existing and emerging companies across the world.

The web browsing you do is tracked thro' your IP and the cookies that get dropped in your PC or tablet leaves trails of our behaviour which many companies trade for money! The mobile phone that you use creates data repository on your location making it valuable information for  retailers, travel companies and leading brand marketers to name a few. Companies need to co-opt customers, collaborate and working with them closely if they want to build trust and meaningful conversations with them.

The need to be transparent about your data and its usage - is the single most important priority for companies. WSJ is conducting an event next week on data transparency and they are inviting developers to build free web tools to promote data transaparency and control. Think it is a great initiative and co-opting developers, customers by making them aware of their rights is great first step. 

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As QR codes are beginning to revolutionize the convergence between the web and mobile, building new ways for brands to interact with customers, adding the power of interactivity, data & information for advertising campaigns, I have always found that it is not easy for not so tech-savvy customers to appreciate & experience the power of this technology.I believe that for successful adoption of high-end or innovative technologies, simplicity is key. QR codes still are a bit complicated for wider adoption.

In fact, a few months back in India when I was a part in an internal company marketing conference,  some of the new marketing initiatives had QR codes being integrated as a part of their campaigns. Sadly, neither the channel partners nor the sales folks nor the senior management folks knew how to use or leverage it. It left me thinking about its challenges for wider adoption amongst consumers. 

Recently, I came across an interesting technology called Touchcodes which appealed a lot to me. I loved the simplicity and ease of use. It was a lot more intuitive and did not require new learning from the average consumer.

Here's how it works:

" the new technology works by embedding  a thin layer of capacitive material in printed items like business cards, tickets, magazine pages, or product packaging. When you hold the paper to a capacitive touch screen, it acts like a set of invisible fingers tapping out a complex code that’s interpreted by a Touchcode-enabled app or website."

I believe it has some lovely applications that are very intuitive and comes naturally to us in the way we  are used to doing things :

• Imagine a coupons being distributed by retail stores and can be read on the phone by placing the coupon on the touchscreen of the mobile. This can ensure instant redemption and also trackback mobile nos available against the existing member databases.
• Can be in ads in magazines and the customers can just cut the card and place it on the touchscreen of their mobiles to avail of instant trial/samples.
• Catalogs can be customized with touchcode cards for availing customized offers.
• Imagine holding your phone in a supermarket, touching the pasta box and getting instant recipes on your mobile phone!
• The data captured can be very useful for customized marketing programs

QR Codes are not going away soon but I do see Touchcodes being adopted soon for many applications across offline media, web & mobile.

The "natural interactivity" they come with is a compelling story for marketers.

This week there was an interesting debate around P&G CEO - Bob McDonald's comment. He had mentioned that:

“In the digital space, with things like Facebook and Google and others, we find that the return on investment of the advertising, when properly designed, when the big idea is there, can be much more efficient. One example is our Old Spice campaign, where we had 1.8 billion free impressions.”

The word  "free" had raised a lot of eyebrows and threatened many on the future of advertising & marketing services business models. He was almost  saying that digital is the new mass market and that P&G does not have to pay big bucks to catch the attention  & mindspace of  such consumers, which they normally end-up spending for their brands offline. 

While I agree with him - some platforms will have to be leveraged where millions of consumers are already there in the digital market place, other marketing technologies need to be identified, invested and nurtured very carefully as most of these will increasingly become fragmented as more disruptive marketing technologies emerge in the years to come.

In fact I hold a contrarian view  that everything will not be free but I see technology marketing creating a new model of marketing spending - micro investing & budgeting - A lot of small budgets will have to apportioned intelligently across mutiple-technologies which can help marketing meet its brand objectives! Instead of a bazooka approach, it will be a stealth-gun method.

As I see the future, many new technologies will keep coming-up and world of technology marketing is going to see many disruptive innovations - by way of customer engagment technologies, customer experience platforms, payment technologies, BIG data & Analytics etc.. Today, it might be the facebook, google+ , twitter etc. and tomorrow it might be Pintrest, Instagram, some kind of a 3D software game etc.

The question really is how should brands decide which of these technologies do they need to invest and grow their marketing spends on? When we interact with many companies & their marketing departments, we do find them adopting marketing technology basis "flavour-of-the-season" approach.

1. Many a times, there is a need to adopt more depth to their thinking on how these technologies can leverage their current marketing strategies
2. Also, they need to evaluate and prioritize them from a host of options available to them but need to see which ones amongst them has a best-fit match to their marketing objectives.
3. They must refrain from having a herd mentality basis the buzz some of these technology marketing platforms create and start to adopt them without any framework or approach
4. Given they have limited resources and time to invest, it is important to debate & agree with all their marketing partners - both internal & external on how it will help achieve brand KPIs
5. Also, CIO & CMO will have to start working very closely as many of these technologies will link many of the company's internal departments like never before.

It was interesting to read Brian Solis  blog about the same topic and he had an interesting infographic which many of the CMOs can adopt as they evaluate and adopt many of these disruptive technologies for marketing:

It is important for CMOs to invest and back the right marketing technologies. They must carefully evaluate & measure the brand-fit & marketing objectives against each of them.

The world economic forum and many futurists believe personal data is the new asset class that will emerge as a competitive advantage for many marketers. It is important that marketers start using this data  intelligently, judiciously and in a manner that benefits and engages the customer. Else, this is one area that can have a severe backlash from customers just like the occupy the wall street episode.

Personal data may be the new oil but refining and using it sparingly with relevance is becoming a very important issue for marketers to focus and address.

Who is the owner of our personal data?

However,  there is an emerging debate around the ownership of personal data as digital outposts & sites are gathering data about customers like never before. Google recently released a new privacy policy last week which  redefines how this data will be used across all Google properties that we as their customers have an account. The new Google privacy policy reads " We may use the name you provide for your Google Profile across all of the services we offer that require a Google Account.....We also use this information to offer you tailored content – like giving you more relevant search results and ads...."

Clearly, the challenge that is becoming a key part of the debate is who is the owner of this personal data  and what of it can be used and by whom.

My View

I personally believe customers should be given control of their data. Customers must give permission about which of this data can be used basis their interests and lifestyle needs to companies, advertisers and marketers. And thereby brands can deliver value to these customers.

Imagine personal data lockers being available which customers can own for a fee(much like the demat of company shares that have happened over years across different countries & markets). There will be several central agencies that hold this data and provide access to customers  - with a front-end which provides flexibility to give permissions to customers to release this data for commercial purposes. If the past few decades were the era of credit bureaus, the coming decades are the era of data bureaus.

Imagine a customer wanting to buy a car ticks the check-box on the need or expresses the need to be a part of a community of interest.Many marketers and companies then vie to build a dialog and a conversation with the customer - not spam her with emails, irrelevant ads and messages on mobiles. All the searches that customer does then become available for relevant ads to be shown to her online. Then, the sales & marketing teams of different marketers & products unlock a new engagement platform to woo this customer.

The customer experience is therefore refined, relevant and customized like never before using the data that is in control in the hands of the customer. 

Imagine the power of this data. Imagine its efficiency. Imagine its effectivness. If personal data has to remain as the new oil, the control & flexibility must be in the hands of the customer.

The profession of marketing is the midst of a huge change. New devices, social media, data-led insights are changing the dimension for brands like never before. Here's a perspective shared by some experts of what's coming and how we need to get prepared. I picked-up some of the points and trends and sharing them here:

• Customer data will become more important than ever. Tapping into Facebook’s social graph will allow businesses to access an incredible amount of information…This will be used to take marketing personalization to a whole new level.
• Cross-department and channel collaboration will become more prevalent as marketing coordinates its research, analysis, activities and reporting with other parts of the business.
• Webinars as an educational and marketing platform saw a huge rise in popularity in 2011, and will continue to grow in popularity in 2012.
• The importance of viral and shareable content will drive companies and brands to become more creative with their content, replacing the predictable sales pitch with more informative or entertaining material, making the 2012 browsing experience less like opening pages, and more like changing channels.
• Marketers need to think about how different channels connect with each other for users (such as email and social, display and mobile) and enable seamless extension of the user experience from one channel into another.
• In 2012, we will see a continued rise in “on-demand” capabilities for all manner of media, and we will begin to utilize cloud-based services more and more. Marketing will allow less on wide shotgun blast approaches, and more on targeted, concentrated efforts.
• Organizations that understand how great content turns audiences into mini-brand ambassadors will focus on storytelling and narrative as a catalyst for this change.
• Social and mobile technology will continue to grow in importance. Email marketing will become less important as social media becomes the primary channel to communicate to customers and offer buying opportunities for consumers.

Would love to hear your comments on what you hear, see, read and what are you likely to do in the coming years.