In the last few decades many parts of the world have become completely digitally connected.

We have left our digital footprints over multiple years on every web page, app, streaming service, and online store.

At work our interactions have moved online what started as email interactions have moved to the world of chat and now recorded virtual meetings and virtual post it notes. And automatically generated action lists.

There are many that are concerned about privacy and intrusion and that is totally understandable but we must all be able to see how this digital interaction is enabling better solutions to be found to enable us all to get things done.

Back in the day – focus groups, surveys and interviews would have been the only option available to get an understanding of pain points and needs. Market research would have been conducted via customer interviews and surveys.

These interactions would have been captured in hand written notes and rekeyed into systems. Complex long winded ways to analyse the results would have followed. The results of the analysis would have been presented in uninspiring ways.

We had to take on face value that people had behaved as they had described and would behave as they suggested if improvements were made. Any improvements in performance of decisions made were translated back to the research that had been conducted many months ago.

Now we are digitally connected – behaviours can be tracked digitally – insight can be gained – surveys can be launched in the blink of an eye and results continually analysed with changes in trends triggering insights to consider.

The level of data available to run simulations and consider consequences of actions is growing exponentially. The number of job descriptions with the word “algorithms” is growing at the same speed as the data that’s available to be aggregated and analysed.

The 2020s has the opportunity to really thrive with the insight that can be gleaned from trawling the digital interactions – new businesses will emerge, new services will be enabled and breakthrough solutions to some of the worlds most complex problems could emerge if we get the “algorithms” right.

We’ve come a long way from the world of static web pages and email addresses.. this digital era has sort of crept up on us .. it feels as if the businesses that grew out of digital first start ups over the last 10-15 years are now moving into their next stage of evolution and embracing the digital insight from the millions of digital connections – hold onto your hats the digital generation has become mainstream who knows what will happen next !