With so many conversations going on in social networks and on blogs companies are having a hard time keeping up with the new information flows. Doing this will become key to using big data tools effectively, and marketing to your customers better than the competition. We have three experts in the changing nature of information flows to explain more about the challenges and opportunities of unstructured data.

Information flows affect risk management

Dr. Manuel Aparicio, CEO of Saffron Technology talks about the rise of unstructured data, and the way this affects risk management. Social customer relations management (CRM) gives companies the capabilities to combine internal data with external information flows. Brands need to be present where the conversations are happening. Failing to grasp unstructured information sources leaves companies open to greater risk, miss opportunities, and lose customers to their competition.

How information flows could change everything

Graeme Codrington, Futurist and founder of TomorrowToday sees information flows as one of the most transformative forces in modern society. The way we process, find, and transfer information will change the role of managers, marketing, how we sell, buy, and ultimately how organisations are managed and led. The disruptive nature of social networks are only the start of these vast changes we could see resulting in the impact of information flows on businesses.

Decision making process the holy grail of data analytics

Franz Dill, Business Analytics Consultant, is hopeful that we will be able to use big data in such a way as to complement and mirror the same decision making process that we have in our own minds. That is the holy grail of collecting, processing, and analysing big data. The human mind does this naturally, whenever we interact with the world. Big data is moving this way, and unstructured information flows are an important element of striving towards this.

The impact of information flows

The best example, so far, of information flows and social media making an impact is the Arab Spring of 2011. In the revolutions of Tunisia and Egypt, and across the world, and the Occupy Wall Street protests, unstructured conversations in social networks had a direct impact on action on the ground. Decades old corrupt repressive governments toppled and fell thanks to the voice of the people being amplified in a way never before possible. This multitude of conversations can be turned to good use when advocating a new event, brand or product.