Last Thursday I had the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion on digital privacy in Palo Alto hosted by the Business Association Italy America (BAIA), a network of entrepreneurs, managers and professionals focused on innovation. Personally, an event like this is always a bit of a stretch for an introvert like me, but I’m very glad I was coaxed out of my shell to engage on this important topic.
On the panel with me were two fascinating people, Professor Alessandro Acquisti and Andrea Vaccari. Andrea was a hot commodity that night, as he is co-founder and CEO of Glancee. Glancee had just been acquired by Facebook, and Facebook was going public the next day. Alessandro is a true expert in the field of Information Technology and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon.
As panel moderator Mary Trigiani put it, we were two Digital Immigrants and One Digital Native coming together, representing diverse perspectives. And the difference in perspective on on digital privacy issues between the Digital Natives in the room, who were more comfortable with their persona, behaviors, and lifestyle being out there and accessible on the Web was noticeable that night. The Digital Natives were not necessarily pushing the boundaries, but more were either unaware of the boundaries being pushed or not at all bothered by them, seemingly confident that things would be okay. The Digital Immigrants, on the other hand, expressed much more concern about how acquired data can be used by Companies for great good and great evil.
Alessandro shared his thought-provoking experiment, where he and a team of research analysts constructed a mobile App to generate a person’s social security number from a snapped photo of a stranger’s face. All based on freely available software, online databases, and statistical processing.
Andrea pointed out that we all leave “digital footprints”—data that is left behind, collected, and available for use. As an example, he related a story from Business Insider that told of how Target got into some hot water when they used observed shopping patterns to indicate women that are likely pregnant, and then used this statistically derived information to send coupons to those theoretically pregnant women. The technology proved to be so good that it exposed a teen girl’s pregnancy to her father when he found the coupons that had been sent to her.
In my view, this technology is still way ahead of the law. Living and working in Silicon Valley, every day we see analytics technology being applied relentlessly to redefine business and the way businesses work, online retailers challenging the way states levy sales tax, and online shopping experiences getting more and more targeted. Digital Privacy law requires legislation, and legislation is the purview of governments, regulatory bodies and advocacy groups—in other words, it’s not a speedy process. Structurally, legislative timelines will always lag the incredible pace of technology adoption, with the result being that most of what is technically feasible has not only not been regulated, but probably isn’t even being thought about yet in our legislative bodies.
In this digital privacy environment, many companies simply state they are “in compliance with all federal and state laws…”, but what does this really mean? Given this known lag, companies should be responsible for operating at a higher standard when deciding how to best to manage and protect information from inappropriate use. Setting internal privacy boundaries and codes of behavior proactively mitigates the negative effects of overstepping the mark and the subsequent consumer backlash. At FirstRain two of our core values are “Act with integrity at all times” and “Take ownership for the company’s success”. For us, keeping these values at the forefront helps maintain the balance between ethics and profit.
FirstRain provides our customers (B2B sales and marketing professionals) with relevant customer and industry information to increase revenue and strengthen relationships. Our users are business professionals who want to quickly and efficiently access only the information they require to drive revenue in their businesses. Now, the more we at FirstRain know about each customer, the better an intelligence solution we can then offer. But often they do not have the time or patience to enter a boat-load of personal preference information—and therefore the tension between relevance, business objectives and customer analytics. In this case, I believe the use of a thoughtful combination of “self-declared” information, combined with “observed” behavior (e.g., likes/dislikes, click-throughs, etc.) and “inferred” statistics can make a massive difference. The key is using the information with integrity and only for the intended purpose of delivering an improved customer experience.
I am concerned about digital privacy, and the lack of tools for consumers to access, verify and fix incorrect or inaccurate information out there. I am also sure that in the years ahead we will see businesses continue to push the digital privacy boundaries. There will be some notable scares, subsequent backlashes and regulatory adjustments. However, I am personally also looking forward to a massively improved user experience.
A big thank you goes to our hosts Giorgio Ghersi and Mary Trigiani at BAIA, for being wonderful hosts, and our own Daniela Barbosa, here at FirstRain, for her tireless focus on making sure this introvert turned up and participated.
Today’s Facebook’s IPO although a more consumer focused interest story then what most of our customers are interested in, brought a huge amount of tweets on the subject as expected. (I would even venture to say that it was more then a ‘consumer interest story’ but rather a ‘human interest story’). None the less, being that FirstRain is a Silicon Valley based company, the buzz is also being felt strongly outside the digital world for those of us that live here and have friends and acquaintances that are being directly impacted by facebook’s IPO. Exciting times.
Yesterday, prior to Facebook’s IPO we ran some stats using our FirstTweets™ technology and then redid the same exercise at the close of the market today. FirstTweets™ uses our patented FirstRain technology to uncover and deliver only high-quality, business-relevant tweets to sales and marketing professionals across the enterprise. Our analysis shows that less than 0.1% of daily tweets contain quality, business-related content, yet this still represents more than 200,000 tweets per day of business-focused intelligence.
The picture painted by the stats that we captured, aren’t surprising but are interesting and illustrative on why our customers are seeing value in our FirstTweets- as YY Lee our COO tweeted this morning allowing them to “cut through the frenzied roar to net out the actual business discussion…”.
On the day before Facebook’s IPO:
At the close of Market on the day of Facebooks IPO:
Charm as a leadership currency seems to change with every wave of silicon valley engineering companies.
In the old days of the early semiconductor firms the CEOs were often gruff white men. Most came up through the ranks of real products, dirty products, chemicals in the manufacturing process, union labor forces… and charm was not a necessary part of the job. Like the famously paranoid Andy Grove of Intel and the crusty Wilf Corrigan of LSI Logic. They didn’t have to be charming — they had to be in with their boards and drive global market growth for their products. They barely even worked the customers after the first few because it was an engineering and distribution driven business.
Then we had the wave of computer companies like Sun Microsystems and HP and large enterprise software firms like Oracle. Now the CEO’s had a bit more charm but it was B2B charm of the likes of Scott McNealy and John Chambers. Stay focused on the major customers and charm the sell-side analysts that covered them. Build a world class team, set high goals for your sales team (give rousing speeches at Quota Club meetings in Hawaii), pay well and drive global growth to large customers.
But now we have the wave of internet and media companies where charm on a global scale matters. This new wave of leadership focuses on accessibility, charming the media, long on user-experience and number of users, shorter on hard engineering. Old school style back fires as Carol Bartz found out at Yahoo. Open communications like Larry Page’s recent letter, mea culpa as Reed Hastings did at Netflix, charm on a global scale as Arianna Huffington did for the HuffPo and the relentless visibility of the very charming Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook fame are part of the global marketing machine.
The first group of CEOs were often engineering based and visible only in print — rough was OK. The second group was often sales based — smoother but customer focused and sometime visible on CNBC. Now we live in the era of the media-savvy CEO who is visible everywhere, all the time. Still technical, but the darlings of the tech press are the ones who know how to work the media, and social media, to their advantage.
But wait. Even today charm only goes so far. You still have to produce top line and net income growth for your investors. Charm and modern communication skills are essential in the media and internet world which is so over covered today, but they are a necessary but not sufficient condition for B2B success (unless, of course, you can get bought for technology before you figure out your revenue model).
So if you are in a B2B engineering-based product business focus on the fundamentals of your technology and your customers, but don’t forget to hone your charm skills for this new era.
We have a real problem with jobs in tech. We have more jobs than qualified people.
This is not in the news today because for much of the US population there are not enough jobs. Not enough jobs that people are trained for. And yet in Silicon Valley we have 1 tech position open for every 2 that are filled. Hiring great technical staff is tough and increasingly expensive.
But this is not just a California problem. At the Nashville Technology Council’s annual meeting last week the theme was Diversity – and all the discussion was around education and attracting IT workers to Nashville. They have 1,000 open positions and not having enough IT workers is a real, commercial problem for them.
Commissioner Hagerty, in his warm up speech, talked about the need for technical education in their schools and local colleges. Followed by Mayor Dean who covered many of the same themes and a sense of urgency about education investment. The Nashville Technology Council has a mission to “help Middle Tennessee become known worldwide as a leading technology community, the Nashville Technology Council is devoted to helping the tech community succeed.” – and their main focus this year is Technology Workforce Development.
It was really fun for me to speak to this group and their membership. 500 people, all of whom care about technology jobs in Nashville.
Here’s my talk. I cover the urgency of the need to get more women into technology and the changes we can make to help women stay in technology. Today, even if they start out in the technical field, half of our tech women leave tech in the first 10 years – they either leave in college or they leave early in their careers. It’s just too hard and too isolated.
But it does not have to be this way – and that’s what I talked about. We have to solve this problem as a country. By 2016 we will only be producing 50% of the tech staff we need as a country. Today less than 50% of our workforce (women) hold less than 5% of the leadership of the technology industry.
This is such a waste of talent. It’s a competitive, bottom line issue for any company that needs tech workers – whether they are in health care, energy or computing.
We’ve solved it at FirstRain. We have women in leadership positions in engineering – and we have a very flexible work environment. We can solve it everywhere, and as a country, if we want to.
I was delighted that my blog, The Grassy Road, was selected as one of the top 10 CEO blogs by Chief Executive Magazine this week. Given all the exposure and risk a CEO already faces why, you may ask, blog?
At the heart of my reasoning is that transparency is a good thing for a CEO. It’s important the CEO is an active communicator, it’s important that she is well understood by all her constituencies and a blog can be a powerful additive to the traditional communication platforms.
We have a FirstRain blog – MarketMine – on our web site. It’s a good vehicle for us to comment on our industry, market developments at FirstRain, showcase customers, and for my team to write and share their views in an open forum.
But for a CEO blog Seth Godin set the bar high when he posted many years ago that blogs need
“Candor
Urgency
Timeliness
Pithiness and
Controversy – Does this sound like a CEO to you?”
I agree – this is a tall order – but if you can do it then it becomes both interesting reading and a vehicle for people to get to know me… my opinions on industry, technology, corporate boards, gender equality issues and, then sprinkled in just occasionally, a personal post about a vacation or a swimming race.
You can get to know me and what I care about very easily by reading my writing. You’ll know where I stand on a number of business issues, what developments matter to me as CEO of FirstRain, and, if you want to, how to connect with me. It’s a powerful recruiting tool for prospective employees to understand our culture, and many customers read it as a way of staying close to FirstRain.
More challenging is blogging on the Huffington Post if I think an idea is interesting to the Business section readers (I’m not qualified to write about politics or celebrities which are their highest traffic sections!). HuffPo has a huge readership and so posting there carries significant responsibility, but overall I get positive feedback from people who find it helpful and so I strive to share my experience, and expose readers to our business at the same time.
But it is not without risk. As a visible person (I sit on two public company boards) I do also have to be very careful that what I write never breaches confidentiality, while controversial is never in bad taste, and does not embarrass my companies even indirectly. This is hard at times – I am not without strong opinions! Sometimes I want to write on an idea that even I know is a little out there and I’ll ask my team for advice – and so far they have corralled me well.
We are swimming in a social media world. It’s one of the characteristics of today’s Web that makes the need for FirstRain so strong in our customers. They need to understand, with great precision, what’s developing in their markets. One of the best ways I can stay on top of the emerging trends is to be a part of that world myself – blogging and tweeting and collaborating so I understand first hand what the benefits and challenges are.
John Kador characterized me as ” fearless in mixing the personal with the professional in her blog”. I should have told him about the deep breath I take before I click on Publish Post each time!
I had hoped that my second blog post for FirstRain wouldn’t, once again, be about Google (you’d think that we’d all be sick of hearing about Google 24×7? And we may be, but sick in that ‘I-still-must-tune-in-and-see-what-is-happening-kind of way’ …). Still, I found myself captivated by their announcement this summer that they would phase out a major program called Google Labs by the end of September. And as we’re now approaching that shutdown date, it’s gotten me thinking again about this interesting decision.
For the most part, I’ve always been quite impressed by Google. I am a long term Gmail user (Gmail has its own Labs, as does Google Maps) and I am still a firm advocate that Google+ will eventually be big (especially after seeing all the complaints of Facebook’s new design on my Facebook newsfeed the past two weeks). Google has launched so many winning products over the years that I was shocked to hear that such a successful and interesting part of Google was to be phased out.
For those unfamiliar with Google Labs, it was a playground for users who are interested in trying Google prototypes and providing feedback directly to Google Engineers. It allowed the public to freely experiment with pre-released Android apps, Google Maps experiments, Google Search betas and much more. Although, not all of these prototypes prove to be effective, it is still a nice way to get the public involved in ‘designing’ and evaluating some of Google’s most popular ideas.
So exactly why has Google decided to pull the plug on this program, when it seemed so many people (albeit, adventurous tech people) were benefiting from it? According to Bill Coughran, Google’s Senior VP for Research and Systems Infrastructure, Google is now beginning to prioritize their product efforts more strictly. And although some of their biggest products had started in Google Labs, they’re now focusing much more of their efforts into dominating the products already in progress, such as Google+. Google has decided that ultimately there are too many ‘small’ projects and they want to channel the company’s focus on the larger and, *cough*, more lucrative options. By simplifying and focusing Google’s product line, Coughran said, more “extraordinary opportunities are ahead”.
The Google Labs decision is more than just phasing out a neat program, however. The last few years were spent testing potential golden projects. And they did this successfully. Google beat out competitors like AOL and Yahoo in numerous departments such as search, smartphones and Email (does anyone use AOL for email anymore?). And Google Labs has significantly helped develop some of these platforms. But the need is no longer necessary as the trial period is officially over. What’s interesting is what a signpost this is for where Google is in their lifecycle as a company. Instead of the fun, pioneering tech startup playing in many sandboxes, looking for ideas and doing no evil, they’ve now evolved into a focused and mature company that—for the most part—knows its market, where the money is, and is coalescing around key products like Search, Gmail and Google+.
Now that the deadline is upon us, I was curious to check out the status of Google Labs, especially since I haven’t come across much recent news about the Google Labs termination. If you go to GoogeLabs.com, they inform users directly (no sugarcoating) that the Google Lab’s program is being phased out. Also, it is obvious that many of the experiments have been visibly shut down.
Not all of Google Labs’ programs will completely disappear. Google claims that they will be integrating some of their better prototypes into many of their already existing experiments but the actual “Labs” name will be retired. The real question for Google now, is how they can retain the spirit of Google labs—that open sense of valued community feedback in a beat environment, now that their flagship vehicle for those values has been lost.
Recently, my colleague Ryan Warren made some astute comments about the emerging importance that algorithms are now playing in our economy, society and daily lives. Like Ryan, I believe that smart people writing creative algorithms are the guts and magic that glue together much of the wonder and advancement in modern life. Algorithms are tools, and in the end, it’s the use of tools that make us fundamentally human.
I am often surprised how when reading articles, technical papers and reading the news, how a particular phrase pops out and hits me. The human mind is an amazing thing: It’s ability to take in, digest and synthesize information is magic. It’s like an “ah-ha” moment when out of all the text, information and perspective, a particular phrase catches the eye, stimulates the old grey matter and in a split-instant a new connection is made.
As I read Jane Wakefield’s recent article on BBC News, I had one such moment. As I was reading, the following quote caught my eye:
“Increasingly … we are knowing where information can be found rather than retaining knowledge itself.”
Suddenly, I found myself thinking about watching Donald Trump in an episode of the Apprentice, and then being involved in yearly business strategy meetings at several companies I have had the pleasure to work at, and then on to the several years consulting with Companies related to branding and marketing challenges.
And thus, new connections were made. In each of these situations, people were being asked to work on projects where they had to rapidly become experts in a subject area, enough to make and execute on business plans. And today, this is far from uncommon. With the pace and demands on today’s knowledge workers—business professionals who need information on which to base their daily decisions—and the inexorable drive towards higher efficiency and productivity, major changes in how we work are occurring. For example:
• Knowledge workers now move from project to project, with few jobs remain static in their responsibilities. A Marketing Professional may be writing an op-ed article one day, and the next working on the company’s strategic plan.
• Self-service is now the way of working. Why ask a researcher or admin to get information, when there are tools out there like the Web where information can be at hand in a matter of minutes or even seconds?
• Just-in-time information delivery is now expected, with no tolerance for waiting days for information to be delivered, and thus …
• The speed of work is increasing. The ability to rapidly understand a project’s business requirements, be able to do essential subject matter research, and get up to speed fast is essential, as successful professionals are those who are viewed as having a track record of working on fast, high-impact projects.
And a thread common to all these developments is that success is now often determined by a person or team’s ability to rapidly acquire information and data upon which to base implementation and operational decisions.
In this kind of environment, the need for a tool like FirstRain was perhaps inevitable. With FirstRain Monitors, business professionals can easily track the markets, companies and business-related topics that are of interest to them. They are easy to setup and provide current, daily or weekly updates. In today’s business world, business monitoring needs to be useful quickly and have value only for the duration of the project being worked on now. FirstRain’s display engine responds to this by preferentially displaying a user’s most recently active Monitors.
But our new just-in-time paradigm has risks. Our understanding of the meaning of content requires context and interpretation, and this can take time we’re often unwilling to wait for. Viewed in isolation, a piece of news may seem to have a very different meaning than it does when combined with the right historical context.
YHOO: Previous 7 Days
YHOO: Previous 1 Year
For example, an examination of Yahoo!’s results over the last week tells a very different picture than would see once you step back and look at that firm’s performance over the last year. The human mind is a great tool for synthesizing perspective based on long-term acquired knowledge—we call this learning. And it is the connection between news items and other pieces of information that provides context and the tools for critical discernment—as professionals we call this experience. Our individual ability to make smart decisions is based on the information at hand, processed through all the biases and filters represented by our past experiences and personal beliefs. To succeed and make smart decisions, we need a mixture of the right data, the right tools, the right context and the right experience. Algorithms, and tools like FirstRain, can help by providing not just the news, but timelines of related significant events and topics of further interest.
In the end, it’s the man-machine combination that creates a unique ability to assimilate information, synthesize pertinent results and make sound business decisions. In other words, it’s a continuation of that amazing innovation that’s helped us succeed as a species: the ability to make and use tools—tools that feed us, that shelter us, that move us, and that deliver us the information we need to shape our world.
Do women lead differently than men? Yes, usually. Do women face more barriers than men? Frequently. But do women often hold themselves back ? Yes.
I gave a leadership talk and Q&A, at a tech company in Silicon Valley a couple of weeks ago where I was meeting with female leaders in a hardcore semiconductor company. Because it’s hardcore it was a small group, and because I grew up (professionally) in a hardcore technical environment like that I spoke to the things I have seen women do that hold them back as leaders – and how to flip these challenges around and turn them into advantages.
Here are the 5 keys to leadership as a woman (although not exclusively…) and each one is the flip side of a common weakness:
1. Embrace making decisions – they are fun
Companies need people who are decisive and courageous. A common issue with new entrepreneurs and young managers is that they hesitate to make decisions. It’s tough when you don’t know what to do, but it’s better to make a decision quickly and decisively, and be ready to change it if you are wrong, than to hesitate, hash it over many times, or wait for someone else (your board, your team, your boss) – or even worse time and delay – to make it for you.
Making decisions gets easier when you learn to trust yourself and your judgement – you can feel in your gut and in the tips of your fingers what to decide. Never underestimate your own intuition – it’s not a myth, it’s real.
I simply did not understand or trust this until I read Blink (the voice is my head is uber-critical) but now I love the feeling. I am not always right, and I definitely need and value advice, but I learned to trust, move forward fast, knowing that if I am wrong I’ll also figure that out quickly, or someone I trust will slap me.
2. Never ask whether, ask when
This is a mindset that many men are good at. They come out of of the womb asking when they’ll get that raise, when they’ll be promoted, when they’ll go kill that bear, not whether. Women so often talk about whether. Should I push for that promotion, should I ask for more money, will I get funded, will they promote a woman, will they like me?
Working with mostly men, and a few women, I see a pattern in the successful women. They don’t ask whether they have a right to what they want, they assume they’ll get it. They don’t particularly care what other people think of them, they care about getting the job done. They act like they are competent, it’s in their future, they are going to get it, and there is not any question of whether, just when.
3. Hire your betters
The fastest way to build a great team is to hire people who are smarter and more experienced than you in their field, and if you are technical these are probably mostly men today.
It can be intimidating to interview people who are senior to you – I know. It can be downright frustrating when you talk to men who, when they meet you, talk down to you because you are blond and forget that you are interviewing them (can you tell I’ve been through this?). Remember, you don’t need to be “the man” – you need to get the job done better than anyone else.
Stay focused on your vision for your team. A group of people who work for and with you, all of whom are smarter than you in some dimension but who want to climb the hill with you. Plan to grow into being their leader and if they are good people they will give you space to do it. Give in to fear of being usurped and you’ll fail because you don’t hire a strong enough team.
I confess I used to always try to hire my “elders and betters”. As time goes by the first becomes more difficult, but thankfully the second is still easy!
4. Speak up and be sure you are heard
I have often heard the complaint that a woman will say something in a meeting, not have her idea acknowledged and then a man will say the same thing and everyone will jump on a agree. There are even TV ads that make fun of this reality.
Given that this does happen, develop some tactics that help you be heard, and help you confirm that you have been heard. State your input and then ask a question that causes your co-workers to engage in your idea. Repeat yourself in different words. Go to the white board to sketch your concept – whether it is a process or a product idea – it’s really hard to ignore the person at the white board. If you are in an online meeting call on a co-worker by name to get their direct input on your idea. What does not work is speaking your piece and then waiting – that is the easiest way for you to be dismissed.
5. Put the company first and get results
And finally – the playing field is not level. Fact. Deal with it. To lead men and get ahead in a man’s world you need to work harder, be smarter and be more ambitious than the men around you.
The CEO lives in the place where the company and it’s results are all that matter to her. So practice that. In everything you do put the company first, ahead of your needs. Ahead of office politics (I wish I had known this from day one – I had to learn this one). Drive to results, be sure you get recognition for your results, and you will get ahead and become a leader.
Male dominance of tech is not going to change quickly so don’t complain, or hesitate, just get on with it. And if you are a leader – men, and women, will follow you. When you look over your shoulder you will know.
If you are thinking of starting a company, or raising venture capital, and how happen to be female then Pemo Theodore’s new ebook is for you.
Why are Women Funded Less than Men? a crowdsourced conversation presents a thoughtful collection of advice on how to do it and the challenges you face, drawn from a fascinating set of video interviews. Pemo interviewed VCs, entrepreneurs and advisors, asking them all to speak about the issues and challenges facing women trying to raise venture capital.
In a world more than 95% run by men, and 95% invested in by men, advice for the female entrepreneur is invaluable, and by presenting the advice in short video form, Pemo makes it very easy to absorb and enjoy.
Raising venture capital has never been a problem for me, and as I watched the videos I found myself thinking was I lucky, good, or just really ignorant of the challenge? I very much resonate with the advice to not be aware of your gender as you pitch, to be aggressive and to ignore that you know most VCs are not women friendly – your idea is still great.
I also resonate with the advice from Janice Roberts at Mayfield Fund that you can empower yourself by choosing the right VC. Finding the right investing partner is critical – my advice on how to pick a VC is in this post.
Many of the contributors speak about how important confidence is. So many women let themselves down by expressing self doubt. DON’T. VCs are already taking enough risk – they won’t invest in someone that reveals their fears – and men don’t let on no matter how scared they might be. Be confident, project confidence, and your investors will follow you.
As I said in my forward for the book:
While the facts are that only 3-5% of venture capital goes to female entrepreneurs there is simply no good reason for this to be the case. Women are as strong and smart as men, and often have the advantages of better management skills and stronger team building ability. But today’s venture world is dominated by men looking for the classical male style of leadership and until that changes women need to adapt to the current rules of the game, get funded and win so they can change the game.
It take confidence, courage and authenticity and a healthy dose of advice and encouragement. This wonderful collection of advice, shared experience and often humorous stories will be an inspiration to any female entrepreneur. Pemo interviews across the spectrum: VCs, entrepreneurs, those who have succeeded, some that have failed, all that have learned and share their experience with you. It’s a terrific resource if you are raising money from venture capital, plan to do so for your next brilliant idea or are a VC yourself wanting to unlock higher quality deals by tapping into the female advantage.
The complete videos of Pemo interviewing me on raising money are here and here too.
An interesting commentary this week by BBC News’ Jane Wakefield commenting on the increasing influence of algorithms in our daily life has gotten a fair amount of play. And indeed, it’s a useful and thought-provoking piece, if for no other reason that we probably can’t emphasize enough the emerging importance that algorithms are now playing in our economy, society and daily lives.
But where Wakefield’s article falls short is in its vaguely menacing tone, patching together random examples of algorithms at use and the trial and error process of putting them to work effectively—all while implying that the extensive use of these algorithms will lead us to some unfortunate yet unspecified problem (my favorite part was her concern over an algorithm being used to determine a potential movie’s marketability in advance of making the movie—because Hollywood movie producers never made such cynical greenlight decisions before they were corrupted by algorithms …). And even more unfortunate, she completely fails to acknowledge the truly amazing things we can now accomplish because of our ability to employ algorithms.
For every example of an algorithm that has wreaked havoc due to the unforeseen effects of it’s implementation, there have got to be at least 100 examples of the application of algorithms that are making our world tick more effectively every day, like the encryptions needed for secure daily electronic transactions, the design of advanced composite materials and improved aerodynamics for more fuel-efficient cars, optimized telecommunications routing, the analysis of disease genetics, molecular drug design, trip, traffic and shipment routing, computer game design, even the algorithm that apportions the number of U.S. Representatives based on census data.
In other words, smart people writing creative algorithms are the guts and magic that glue together much of the wonder and advancement in our modern life. And while it’s relatively easy to find and get freaked out by isolated examples of algorithms gone haywire, it’s also just as easy to overlook the vast numbers of unseen algorithms powering our world.
And yet, Wakefield somehow makes this seem like a sinister conspiracy, as if algorithms were secretly sentient beings slowly insinuating themselves into our lives in anticipation of the day they rise up and throw down their human overlords. Instead, algorithms are the application of great math in modern technology to help solve problems we wouldn’t otherwise be able to solve. When an algorithm goes wrong in some unanticipated way, it might be amusing, it might be quite serious (e.g. the Flash Crash), but it’s not really a signifier of anything more significant than a program with a bug. Of course, the higher the stakes (e.g., algorithmic trading systems that interact with one another and can move the market as a whole) the more important it is that we’re thoroughly testing and deeply thinking through the algorithms we implement. No systems, human or technological, ever operate without error, and there’s probably a strong argument that our algorithmically based systems operate with many fewer errors than human-controlled systems do.
The challenge, however, is that as humans we’re much more tolerant of human-based errors than we ever are of machine-based ones, even if those machines make far fewer errors. For example, take Google’s driverless car project. These prototypes are now out and running with astounding levels safety and accuracy. And indeed, this is actually the point of the program itself, to avoid the huge number of human-caused auto deaths and save millions of lives every year (this is the number one cause of death of young people) by relying on machines who can react and make these types of decisions much more quickly and accurately than any human. But just one human death by a failure of one algorithm in one car could kill the whole program. Is this logical if the program is saving many more net lives per year? No, but the illusion of human control and superiority is a powerful one.
In reality, however, where we get the most benefit is not from either human or algorithmic control—it’s in the combination of the two. It’s humans figuring out how and when and where and what algorithms to apply in new and creative ways to better our lives. It’s humans acting as a backstop to ensure algorithms are doing their jobs accurately, and catching the instances that require a lifetime of human experience, context and subtlety to truly understand. It’s why there will always be stock trades made by humans as well as machines. In fact, we employ these algorithmic backstops everyday at FirstRain. For example, we have incredibly sophisticated text analytics algorithms that analyze the Business Web content we find, look for a category in our taxonomy to apply to a given article, and if it doesn’t find one sufficiently descriptive, then suggests a new category to create. On the whole, this works incredibly well, and it’s why our taxonomy is so unbelievably granular. But even still, we need to have a team in place that reviews these algorithmic suggestions and can do a human sanity check, lest a “#CharlieSheen” occasionally slips in unnoticed.
Algorithms are tools, and in the end, it’s the use of tools that make us fundamentally human. This is probably why I’m not overly worried about the implications of humans now using the Web to supplement our memories. From the beginning of time, our bodies have evolved along with the technologies we’ve developed to survive and thrive. I’m sure there was handwringing about the loss of body hair as we began to wear clothes, and doomsday projections as our jaw muscles shrank thanks to our use of fire to cook meat. We’re the animals that use tools more than any other, and those tools change us the more we use them. And so as we employ these newest tools, these algorithms, into our daily life in a million new and groundbreaking ways, let’s be sure we’re thoughtful about those implementations, and creative, and far-sighted, and humble, and maybe even a little grateful.
[Stay tuned for Part 2 next week, by my colleague David Cooke, on the big implications of algorithms in enabling ‘just-in-time’ content delivery]
