As a DATA STRATEGIST I’m responsible for helping corporations (very large corporations) for planning action and creating policies around the data. This includes enterprise use, definitions, and governance. My career path lead me to focus on customer data which included email communications, loyalty programs even credit card programs (the amount of data generated and used for analytics is very valuable to retailers!). In theory it may sounds so simple, but if it was, you wouldn’t receive mail with your name misspelled or receive emails from companies that can’t identify you as a regular customer. Data governance is also a big part of the job and includes security, rules and definition of each piece of data.
Month: November 2016
Health care and Big Data
Wiretapping
Managing your digital wallets.
We are all familiar with our bank, the brand, the account number, the balance. How familiar are you with your digital wallets – Paypal, Apple Pay, all those digital transactions that uses non-traditional monetary process?
We have changed the way we do business today, and with that we need to change the way think about our own digital assets. If you were to make a new will today, would there be digital accounts to be added to your estate? How easy are these digital accounts accessible if you are not available?
FaceTime for grandmas.
Do you have an iPhone, yet never used FaceTime?
My friend, who is a grandma of 4, is on her second iPhone yet has never used FaceTime. So for the grandmas out there, don’t be shy. FaceTime is a fun mobile app that you will enjoy using with your grandkids, especially if you don’ t get to see them often.
It is a real time video call. No recordings, no redos.
FaceTime is an Apple app that can only be used between Apple devices. It is similar to a telephone call but you are making a video call. You must also have an Apple ID to use FaceTime. When you set up your Apple device you are asked for details like phone number and email address. To make a call you need the other person’s phone or email address associated with their Apple ID.
A FaceTime call is also similar to a phone in the type of data that is collected during the call. The time and length of the call are captured. And although it uses your camera, the video and audio are not recorded. Of course, like a tape recorder, someone intentionally records the call.
It’s easy to use. There is a icon for the app on your iPhone. Open it, add a contact. NOTE: There is a contact list in FaceTime that is different than the Contact Apps. You can add contacts from the Contact Apps into your FaceTime contacts.
To make a FaceTime call you need either a cellular connection or a Wifi connection. The app may not be available on older Apple devices or devices in counties outside of the US.
Skype is other video call service. It uses your contact information associated with your Microsoft ID. (I signed up for Skype a long time ago and it is connected with gmail account.) Skype is available as a webpage or as an app, and you must be connected to a data plan.
Marketing is fuzzy – when it comes to using customer’s data.
My mom at the time was rocking 70. She recently had a check up that required a followup visit to a cancer doctor. The test were negative and she left the offices in good spirits. The next day she received a formal invitation from the same hospital group inviting her to join ‘the cancer support groups for those living with the illness.’ She went into a complete panic.
Did the doctor give her the wrong results? Does the support group know more about her health condition than she does?
Although the 2 events were completely unrelated, as far as the hospital marketing policies were concerned. Her visit to the doctor wasn’t the trigger to for the invitation for the support group. It was the fact she was a recent customer of the hospital group that triggered the invitation for the support group. Very fuzzy logic (the chicken or the egg).
But for a 70 yr women, who lost her mother to cancer, it didn’t feel like two unrelated events.
When she went in for her test, she ‘signed’ into the hospital. She agreed to receive marketing information from the hospital and other other fuzzy marketing efforts.
We are all familiar with HIPAA laws or at least the form we fill out at a doctor’s office. They protect your test/results from being shared, not the fact you are customer of a hospital that specializes in (pick your medicine).
Standard terms and conditions for doctors and medical facilities:
We may use your medical information when conducting research projects, fundraising events and marketing campaigns, throughout the health system. We or our affiliates may also send out fundraising communications about our fundraising efforts to solicit your support.
If you wish to opt-out of these activities, you have the right to request to do so in writing.
What is reasonable marketing material and the data to support the content of that marketing material? What responsibility does an organization have to use the collected personal data (in this case) respectable way.
FYI – No HIPAA laws were broken in my mom’s case.
the Privacy & Security Rule under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) provides clear standards for protecting and securing patient information, while allowing the flow of necessary information for patient care and other important purposes.
What is PII (Personal Identifiable Information)
United States General Services Administration defines PII as
“any information about an individual maintained by an agency, including (1) any information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual‘s identity, such as name, social security number, date and place of birth, mother‘s maiden name, or biometric records; and (2) any other information that is linked or linkable to an individual, such as medical, educational, financial, and employment information.” So, for example, a user’s IP address as used in a communication exchange is classed as PII regardless of whether it may or may not on its own be able to uniquely identify a person.
Why is this important to you:
A company as the obligation to keep your name safe and secure from thieves (crooks, hackers, the bad guys).
Depending on the type of information lost/stolen, an individual may suffer social, economic, or physical harm. If the information lost is sufficient to be exploited by an identity thief, the person can suffer, for example, from a loss of money, damage to credit, a compromise of medical records, threats, and/or harassment. The individual may suffer tremendous losses of time and money to address the damage. Other types of harm that may occur to individuals include denial of government benefits, blackmail, discrimination, and physical harm.
Because of the power of modern re-identification algorithms (aka data science), the absence of PII data does not mean that the remaining data does not identify individuals.
Cookies
http://www.acxiom.com/About-Acxiom/Privacy/How-Cookies-Work/
Desktop, tablet, phone, app – whats the difference?
Not every website is built equal. Believe it or not a good looking website may look completely different between a desk top and a mobile device. The code use to build the back end of the website may differ from device to device (desktop to tablet), platform to platform (android to IOS) and each software version may have it’s own features.
This is way a website looks different between a desktop and mobile. A desktop has slider bars to be used with your mouse. On your phone you use your finger to scroll through the site. These both need to be programed for the different viewing devices. There are tools to allow you publish templates that auto format for multiple combinations of devices + platforms + software.
And then there are apps (or applications), there have features and functions completely different from the website. This is depended on the code use to create the tool. which platform it is released on, and software versions.
Mom if you are listening – your Fitbit app and the Fitbit website have different capabilities. Not everything is equal in both places.
Coding can be come complicated the more advanced you are in the features. So when something new is launched, it may not be available across all interactions for that brand. I know it sucks – for the younger people out there – there is a whole industry around customer experiences, journey map (what needs to happen where) and design (making it easy/natural/seamless).
What is Big Data?
I’ve been working with customer data for over 20 years now. I’ve seen good data, bad data, black data, red data, big data and bigger data.
Big data is not lots and lots of data; well actually it sort of is, but that not all it is.
Big data has 3 components. These three components must provide value and insight to the user.
Let me explain…
A group of data programming geeks were consulting on site for a large airplane manufacture. They were creating a large data warehouse to store all sorts of details about a planes engine, parts and maintenance details. Each part was to be tracked and available for complex queries. It is big data but it is not Big Data, yet.
A lot of information is collected regarding an aircraft. Mandatory maintenance schedules and updates are recorded. All maintenance (scheduled or unscheduled) must be recorded, commercial and private. This is not a requirement for cars/trucks; cars don’t fall from the sky, yet.
Side Note: Should autonomous cars have mandatory maintenance schedule to be used? Like an aircraft? For example a check point for the vehicle may be required to be road worthy a scheduled intervals.
With tons of data being entered into storage, where to you begin? This is new data to the user, there needs to be exploration to find new patterns that provide insight to decision making. Add lots of information together, so that it is accessible to ask ‘what if’, ‘when if’, ‘why if’… and answering that question is BIG DATA
The geeks, analysts, programmers had already defined that an unscheduled repair is 1000x more costly than a scheduled repair. A well known statistic in transportation. What what can you do about it? How do you find new scheduled repairs that prevent costly unscheduled repairs? Using the data to define benefit or advantage is BIG DATA.
BTW – you don’ t need lots of data to have Big Data. Just Big Value.
Weather forecasts are a user of Big Data. The weather data points have been recorded for centuries. We have applied analytics to this data to create weather forecasts (aka predictive analytics). Weather forecast are a result of Big Data – using history to find patterns to forecast the weather.
Big Data can come from all sorts of sources.
You can see from the chart below ‘every minute of the day’, we as individuals create tons of social data every time we use social apps.
Data is not just created by website searches; is also also created every-time we take a digital picture, a doctor scans a patient on digital film, or a Fitbit collecting steps. This is new data that didn’t exist so long ago.
Side Note: There were pedometers when I was a child. They measured your steps the same way, by movement. Today ‘Fitbits’ are a rebirth of an old tool. The ability to report and share your metrics changed the industry.
If you are digital health geek, you create your own Big Data. Tracking your vitals, exercise, food intake and sleep patterns, gives you insight into goals.
