We must demand more of Facebook (and of ourselves); ethical standards for AI; blockchain in plain English; the massive impending change for online advertising; transforming customer experiences; if you rely on third party data, you need to find another way; more data restriction at Facebook; shorter skippable ads coming to YouTube; data-based TV advertising; what we can learn from Spotify's IPO; what to look for in Big Tech regulation; industry guidelines on consumer data from the ARF; social media metrics that matter; traits of the best problem-solving teams; texting returns us to our origins; and more in the With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility edition of The Full Monty from Brain+Trust Partners for the week of April 9, 2018.
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Top Stories
As we write this edition, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is appearing before Congressional committees where he is testifying on Facebook's approach to data and privacy. We read the prepared testimony that Facebook released (spoiler alert!) and caught some of the questioning.You've probably heard the phrase "with great power comes great responsibility." Its origins are uncertain, as it's been co-opted by Winston Churchill, Teddy Roosevelt and even Stan Lee in the first Spider-Man comic. The earliest recorded version is actually from a set of decrees set forth at the French National Convention in 1793: "great responsibility follows inseparably from great power." And that too is preceded by the Biblical verse Luke 12:48:
"From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."
And so we return to Mr. Zuckerberg. His seed of an idea in his Harvard dorm room has turned into a company that touches billions of people around the world in its utopian desire to make the world a more connected place. Facebook has been given and entrusted a great deal – personal data of nearly one-third of the world's population.
The question is: have we demanded enough of them?
As we've seen and read, Zuckerberg does seem to be contrite and admits errors of judgment. There's no question that Facebook is run as an idealistic and optimistic company, and while it portrays itself as a benefactor to the race, it hasn't played by the rules. Time and again, Facebook has been warned about privacy violations and playing fast and loose with features. From its surprise release of the News Feed in 2006 to the ill-fated Beacon advertising system to consensual data sharing and many more examples, Facebook has lived by apology.
See, it 's not like Facebook hasn't known what it's been doing. With Cambridge Analytica, Facebook knew what happened in 2015, but it's only in recent weeks – thanks to the press – that we've become aware of it. In an interview with NPR, Facebook's COO Sheryl Sandberg said that the company is now taking aggressive action and making privacy policy easier to understand – about something that has been at the core of their business strategy from the beginning. She said Facebook was "way too idealistic," but it's not "way too idealistic" when Facebook had been given warning signs that they choose to ignore. That's willful neglect.
We can imagine the difficulty in undoing so much that's been done in the last decade by Facebook. With so many users, it must be a daunting task. It's also daunting to think that personal privacy is being treated so lightly by someone with so much power. For a contrast in responsibility, look no further than Apple CEO Tim Cook, who stated that "privacy is a human right."
The control of data will be the major conversation among brands and tech companies in the foreseeable future. From data breaches and hacks to privacy policies, consumers will want to know where their data is going. And as an entity that has a relationship with your customers, you'll want to have as much control over that data as possible, as that's what will lead to better customer experiences and peace of mind for your customers.
Much will be demanded; much more will be asked.
Industry developments and trends, including advertising & marketing, journalism, customer experience, content, and influencer relations.
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The question is: have we demanded enough of them?
As we've seen and read, Zuckerberg does seem to be contrite and admits errors of judgment. There's no question that Facebook is run as an idealistic and optimistic company, and while it portrays itself as a benefactor to the race, it hasn't played by the rules. Time and again, Facebook has been warned about privacy violations and playing fast and loose with features. From its surprise release of the News Feed in 2006 to the ill-fated Beacon advertising system to consensual data sharing and many more examples, Facebook has lived by apology.
See, it 's not like Facebook hasn't known what it's been doing. With Cambridge Analytica, Facebook knew what happened in 2015, but it's only in recent weeks – thanks to the press – that we've become aware of it. In an interview with NPR, Facebook's COO Sheryl Sandberg said that the company is now taking aggressive action and making privacy policy easier to understand – about something that has been at the core of their business strategy from the beginning. She said Facebook was "way too idealistic," but it's not "way too idealistic" when Facebook had been given warning signs that they choose to ignore. That's willful neglect.
We can imagine the difficulty in undoing so much that's been done in the last decade by Facebook. With so many users, it must be a daunting task. It's also daunting to think that personal privacy is being treated so lightly by someone with so much power. For a contrast in responsibility, look no further than Apple CEO Tim Cook, who stated that "privacy is a human right."
The control of data will be the major conversation among brands and tech companies in the foreseeable future. From data breaches and hacks to privacy policies, consumers will want to know where their data is going. And as an entity that has a relationship with your customers, you'll want to have as much control over that data as possible, as that's what will lead to better customer experiences and peace of mind for your customers.
Much will be demanded; much more will be asked.
Artificial Intelligence / Autonomous
The latest in AI, machine learning, bots, and blockchain, mobility, and autonomous everything.ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE / MACHINE LEARNING
- The tech industry's AI leaders are mulling ethical standards for AI. Now's the time to get out in front of this, before AI gets into a corner like other Big Tech has. One reason we need more than technologists on the case.
- Seeking to meet the need for more AI engineers, Microsoft's Professional Program now offers accreditation in AI. Let's hope some humanity majors take them up on that.
- The Y Combinator-backed startup Voicery uses AI to develop bespoke, synthetic voices for brands, sometimes giving them eerily human voices. Just what do you think you're doing, Voicery?
- The US needs to prepare for the age of AI, lest it get left behind. The case for a national AI plan, via the MIT Technology Review.
- Both Google and Amazon filed patent applications that outline an array of possibilities for how devices could monitor more of what users say and do.
- Paying (or fighting) parking tickets and property taxes could be realm of lawyer bots. But will municipalities suffer the consequences?
AUTONOMOUS / MOBILITY
- Turbi, a Brazil-based car-sharing service, is taking advantage of FaceTec‘s mobile facial recognition technology for customer verification.
- Car dealerships may be at a fork in the road: in the age of increased competition from Uber, Lyft, Tesla and others – get big or get out. They still have the ability to meet customer needs, and to do so when and where the customer demands it. In other words, how can they make it frictionless?
BLOCKCHAIN
- Confused by what blockchain is? Here's an explanation of blockchain in plain English.
Communications / Marketing / Business Strategy
STRATEGY / MARKETING / CONTENT
- Thanks to the fallout from the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica news, online advertising could change dramatically.
- The result is that the data you own (see the Pʟᴀᴛꜰᴏʀᴍs section below for more) becomes increasingly more important. What's not as important is the size of your mailing list.
- When creating and sharing content, live by the 5:3:2 rule. Companies and individuals alike should abide by this; most don't.
JOURNALISM / COMMUNICATIONS / REPUTATION
- You may not place much stock in customer service, but the data say you should, for the sake of happy customers. Here are six ways that customer service can transform the customer experience.
- Pharma's use of social media has matured. How do we know? Growing audiences, shrinking engagement.
Retail Apocalypse
Humans are a transactional species, and the practice — if not the very notion of what retail is — is undergoing a historical metamorphosis.- A global race to automate stores is underway among several of the world’s top retailers and small tech start-ups, which are motivated to shave labor costs and minimize shoppers’ frustrations. As usual, Amazon is the driving force. And we think it goes beyond Amazon's traditional competitors and into many areas of consumerism.
- Walmart is opening more than 500 pickup towers across the US to distribute customers' online orders with a discount, and take advantage of their physical presence to increase foot traffic at stores. Disclosure: Walmart is a Brain+Trust Partners client.
- Apple's new Business Chat is in beta and is a universal chat tool that lets businesses interact with consumers via a mixture of bots and humans.
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Platforms
News to know about relevant social, virtual, and augmented reality platforms that may affect your business.- The reckoning is coming for social media's value to business, driven by the decrease in to which data marketers and businesses have access via APIs. Reliance on third party data is going to hamper brands, says Christopher Penn from Brain+Trust Insights. And this is why, at Brain+Trust, we encourage clients to own your data and own your customer experience.
- While Facebook has been on the hot seat recently, Twitter deserves some attention as well. The company's quest for free speech turned Twitter into a toxic place and now they're racing to make up for it.
- This columnist makes the case for removing the retweet function. We have to admit, doing so might make it a cleaner place.
- Twitter says it suspended 274,000 accounts for promoting terrorism in last six months of 2017, bringing total to 1.2 million since August 2015.
FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM / WHATSAPP
- How can you tell if your data was shared with Cambridge Analytica? Facebook has this handy tool to help you.
- Facebook announced that it was removing dozens of accounts and pages that were run by the Russia-based Internet Research Agency, a troll farm that impersonated Americans. Some 70 accounts and 138 Pages were removed.
- The company also announced that it is restricting data access from the platform and making its privacy settings easier to understand. This includes a bulk app removal tool.
- As part of this transformation, Instagram surprised developers by choking off its API, severely limiting how much data they can pull from the app.
ALPHABET / GOOGLE / YOUTUBE
- YouTube will be featuring shorter, skippable ads. They're guaranteeing more viewability to advertisers, with their six-second ads being skippable after five seconds. Gee, thanks. While it's not "no ads," it's better than longer, unskippable ads.
MICROSOFT / LINKEDIN
- On February 7, 2018, LinkedIn removed its sharing counts, blinding many to the performance of their content on the network. Machine learning can fix missing or broken data, from simple social media shares to complex datasets.
Media
The latest in the world of streaming video, audio, and the advertising, pricing and bundling models related to them.VIDEO
- NBC has taken the lead in data-based TV advertising, with AMC, Fox, Turner and Viacom following with their "Open AP" consortium of audience-based ad targeting.
AUDIO
- Spotify's un-IPO arrived last week. The stock has leveled off in the $150s, and it may set a path for other companies to pursue a direct listing as well.
- Spotify's success is off-the-charts. Naturally, Quartz used charts to tell the story.
- The most popular podcasts are capitalizing on their fandom by taking their shows on the road and hosting live events.
- More adults listen to podcasts on smartphones than all other devices combined.
- Program of the Week: Our pick this week is a series of picks from Karen Doak, who has exquisite taste (believe her). Do you have a program to recommend? Add yours to our Google Sheet: smonty.co/yourpodcasts.
Don't forget to subscribe to The Difference from Brain+Trust Partners!
Regulatory / Security
Business disruptions in the legal, regulatory, and computer security fields, from hacking to the on-demand economy and more.REGULATORY / SECURITY / HACKING
- With their appearance before Congress this week, Facebook is under consideration for regulation. If there is regulation on Facebook and other Big Tech, look for proposals on data portability, transparency and new opt-in rules, with Europe's GDPR as a template.
- One thing Facebook will not be doing: accessing your patient data, as proposed in a project with several high-profile US hospitals. That project has been halted, given everything in the news. Smart move. We're not even sure, given HIPAA, how Facebook would have navigated around this.
- The Advertising Research Foundation announced an initiative to develop industry guidelines on consumer data privacy and protection.
- When asked for password hints, setting secret questions, or taking quizzes on social media, don't give away historical data about you. Especially the kind that can be easily verified. Place of birth, birthdate and Social Security Number are the pot of gold, but also things like your high school, first car you drove, name of your first pet, etc. Common sense.
- Data breaches of the week: BestBuy customer data may have been exposed; Panera Bread left millions of customer records exposed on the web; and Delta and Sears were the victims of a malware attack that breached the data of hundreds of thousands of customers.
ON-DEMAND ECONOMY
- Alibaba’s mapping unit, AutoNavi Holdings Ltd. also known as Gaode Map, has launched its own carpooling business, starting in Chengdu and Wuhan initially with plans to roll out nationally in China.
Measurement / Analytics / Data
The future is not in plastics, but in data. Those who know how to measure and analyze it will rule the world.- All of the social media metrics that matter, according to Sprout Social.
- How to prove the value of PR to your CEO via Gini Dietrich and Spin Sucks.
- The latest episode of The Difference features Katie Lioy one of our colleagues at Brain+Trust Insights, talking about dark data and what you need to know about it. Listen here:
Mental Nourishment
Other links to help you reflect, improve, or simply learn something new.- You know who's really addicted to their phones? According to Nielsen research, it's "The Olds," or more properly, graying GenXers. Only in the world of Wired are 35 to 49 year-olds considered "The Olds."
- The two traits of the best problem-solving teams include the way mistakes are handled and how outcomes are determined, via HBR.
- Texting has returned us to our roots as an oral culture.
- A landslide of classic art is about to enter the public domain.
- The latest cultural import from Paris is a Short Story Dispenser, which prints a one-, three-, or five-minute story with the push of a button. And it's free.
- And since you seem to like what you've read so far and have earned a break, here are 10 endlessly fascinating websites to waste your time on.
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