Why We Need To Be Ready for data-driven future, Mark van Rijmenam

Interesting interview with Mark van Rijmenam whose book we recently reviewed here. See more articles by and about Mark here.

What is your background briefly?

Dr Mark van Rijmenam is the founder of Datafloq and Mavin. He is a globally recognised speaker on big data, blockchain and AI, a strategist and author of 3 management books. His last book, The Organisation of Tomorrow, discusses how AI, blockchain and analytics turn every business into a data organisation. He has been named a global thought leader on big data, blockchain and artificial intelligence. He holds a PhD in Management from the University of Technology, Sydney and he is the publisher of the ‘f(x) = ex‘ newsletter read by thousands of executives.

Does it seem like a logical background to what you do now?

Yes, it seems like a logical background to what I do now. I have always done those things that I enjoy doing and building my own company, researching the strategic implications of new technologies on organisations and speaking about it at events is something I very much enjoy doing.

1 min pitch for what you are doing now?

Currently, I am working on expanding Datafloq. We have just launched our browser plugin to fight fake news. This plugin allows users to rate articles across the web. This will help to fight fake news and will give content a quality score and authors across the web a reputation. As such, authors can be held accountable for whatever news they will be spreading in a way that is fair, open while warranting the privacy of these authors and their commenters.

Through a detailed analysis of both AI and real-time reader feedback, articles across the web can be rated, based on their quality, fake news probability and the likelihood of plagiarism.

The plugin is the MVP of a new project I am working on, which is called Mavin (formerly called Imagjn). Mavin will be a reputation-based content network where data is yours, reputation is a catalyst for trust and accountability is a given, while allowing users to be anonymous.

Next to my work on Datafloq and Mavin, I am helping organisations to understand new technologies and prepare their organisation for tomorrow. I do so through workshops, boardroom sessions and keynote speeches at large events around the world.

Ready for a data-driven future?

Why did you decide to write this book?

I had completed my PhD at the University of Technology Sydney and I believed that the results of my research would be very useful to organisations around the world. However, nobody reads a PhD thesis! That is why I converted my thesis into an easy-to-read-and-digest management book.

Why do you think D2 + A2 is such a powerful idea?

The D2+A2 model helps organisations understand how to digitally transform their organisation and be ready for the data-driven future. Many organisations struggle with transforming their business using the latest technologies and this model gives a clear approach how to do so.

If your organisation wants to succeed in becoming a data organisation, the first step is having infinite streams of complete, high-quality, well-cleansed, unbiased data that is collected at every process and customer touchpoint within your organisation.

The second step of transforming your organisation into a data organisation is to distribute that data, thereby facilitating new ways of collaboration with industry partners using distributed ledger technologies and making the data available to all your employees regardless of their location using public/private/hybrid cloud solutions. Not all problems require a blockchain solution, but to enable seamless collaboration, data needs to be available in the cloud.

Once company-owned data has been made easily accessible and exchangeable with internal and external stakeholders, it allows for more efficiency, transparency, security and privacy across every step in the value chain. Of course, in the near future, this will require a different approach as within the next decade, ownership of data will be returned to consumers.

The third step in digitally transforming your business is to analyse the available data for insights, patterns and anomalies using descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics. This will provide you with insights into your environment and the context to improve your decision-making. The final step will be to automate your internal processes and your decision-making. Smart algorithms will enable automation, but it is key that you have developed the right governance practices to ensure responsible AI.

You address the issue of ethics, this is super relevant, how well or badly are the FANG companies and other large players addressing this?

A data organisation offers a lot of opportunities, but also comes with great responsibilities. Unfortunately, too often organisations do not take data privacy, data security and ethics serious enough. As a consequence, we have seen too many data breaches in the past years.

The organisation of tomorrow should be aware that there should be a balance among the technology used, the data analysed, the products created, the impact on the environment and the profit pursued. Without such balance, relentlessly pursuing shareholder can quickly damage your customers’ privacy and rights as we have so clearly seen with Facebook. The fact that even now, they still refuse to ban fake political ads is very disturbing.

A data-driven approach is extremely powerful, especially with the right tools to use that data. However, it should not be at the expense of your customers, your employees or the environment. Only when organisations ensure data security, data governance, data privacy, and works with unbiased algorithms, can they expect long-lasting, loyal customers.

Could we see serious impacts on those companies that are slower to deal with public concerns about the privacy and (mis)use of their personal data?

Absolutely, in the future, switching costs are likely to reduce dramatically and, it will come down to offering the best possible service/product for the best price. And if you do so, and take care of your customers, your customers will take care of your shareholders. If you don’t and misuse consumer data, consumers will switch a lot faster then today.

What’s next for you?

As mentioned, most of my time is now with developing Mavin and expanding Datafloq. We have just relaunched Datafloq and we are working hard to develop the tools to fight fake news, bad bots and trolls with Mavin.

How can people find out more about you personally & your work?

You can always reach out to me via Twitter, LinkedIn or send me an email. Alternatively, you can go to my speaker website or visit Datafloq.com.

Anything else you’d like to add / we should have asked?

Every organisation is a data organisation and organisations have to change their business if they want to remain relevant. This means that they not only need to develop the skills and incorporate the various technologies, it also means they will need to change their culture.

Developing skills and incorporating technologies are the easy part, changing your company culture is the hard part. If organisations want to understand how they can use the D2+A2 model and digitally transform their business, they can get in touch with me.

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