The Signal EconomyPublishing Success in a Web of Sensors, Senses and Semantics

John Blossom, Shore Communications Inc.

24 February

2014

About Shore

• Content Marketing Strategists

o For publishing and content technology products & services in enterprise and media markets

• We provide:o Market research, intelligence & analysiso Marketing strategy review and adviceo Go-to-market content and services

• Recognized:o Twice-awarded EContent 100 Company o SIIA CODiE – Best Media Blog

shore.com

What is Signal?

A new perspective on information

What is signal?

• sig·nal ˈsignəl/ noun“A gesture, action, or sound that is used to convey information or instructions”

• Clear status & action indicators derived from complex inputs

• Highly actionableinformation at theright time & place

Where do we get signal?

Anything

Anywhere

Any time

Signal is the

most abundant

knowledge

resource

today

Everything can generate signal

Internet Protocol Version 6 provides

340 trillion trillion trillion addresses!

EVERY THING in the world

can send signal via the Web

and Web-aware networks

The world IS signal

The economic impact of signal

FROM:

Information

Autocategorization

Building data sets

Extracting entities

Computing

Analysis

...and that’s just the “things!”

More than 32 billion new

personal sensors in 2014

Not just big data!

It’s what Big

Data helps us

to DO faster

and better

with analytics

Poll Question #1

Are you integrating big data

analytics into your current

publications or client

platforms? (YES/NO/NOT SURE)

What’s creating signal?

sensors

social

semantics

analyzed at scale

In Web cloud services

SENSORS: Signal in motion

• “War on Terrorism”o I

LocationAltitudeMotionSoundVisionSpeed/PacesOrientationBiometricsProximityTension/PressureGesturesEnvironment

ChemicalsClimateDensityFunctionIdentityInfraredImageGesturesLoadMotionProximitySound

SENSORS: Signal in locations

transforming:

science

industry

services

Topics

Emotions

Opinions

Tastes

Relationships

Activities

Profiles

SOCIAL: Signal from and for people

SEMANTICS: Signal from analysis

Aesthetics

Relationships

Language

Focus

Intent

Conditions

Patterns

Aesthetics

Relationships

Language

Focus

Intent

Conditions

Patterns

SEMANTICS: Redefining seeing

Aesthetics

Relationships

Language

Focus

Intent

Conditions

Patterns

SEMANTICS: Redefining seeing

SEMANTICS: Redefining listening

Weak signals

Asymmetry

Idiom

Nuance

Gesture

Attitude

Likelihood

SEMANTICS: Redefining listening

Sound as an always-on semantic gold mine

SEMANTICS: Redefining markets

SEMANTICS: Redefining innovation

Rapidly scalable resources

Massive data sets

Real-time artificial intelligence

Signifying vs. storage + retrieval

SCALE: Everything is analyzable

SCALE: Everything has syntax

• Sensor data real-timeanalysis enables productsthat act on perceived focus and intent

• The value of sensors hastransferred from hardware totailored big data services

• Publishing vs. triggeringKnowing relationship, focus and intent in real-time

SCALE: Everything is predictive

Mass predictionof personaldemand & action

SCALE: Everything is a service

Affordable mass customization of anything

SERVICES: Signal hacks industries

SERVICES: Signal hacks industries

SERVICES: Signal hacks industries

What does signal change?

FROM:

Information

Autocategorization

Building data sets

Extracting entities

Computing

Analysis

TO:

Predictive Services

Autocontextualization

Signifying signal sets

Mapping realities

Thinking machines

Tailored Actions

What is The Signal Economy?

The value of acting on signal

What is The Signal Economy?

• The generation, collecting, organizing and

analysis of signals that drive economic activity

predictively at unprecedented scale

• From hypothesis-driven mass planning cycles

to signal-driven targeted production cycles

An economy of signal-driven markets

...using less time, fewer resources and more effective filtering of options

Understand and fulfill unique demands at scale before others even see them

An economy that demands analysis

zeromomentoftruth.com

An economy that anticipates demand

An economy of tailored production

Signal drives scalable micromarkets rapidly

An economy sensing its own demands

An economy of complex simplicity

• Creating economic value out of effective signalso Driving innovationo Exploiting more “blue skies”o Accelerating marketingo Support as research

• From expert-driven decision making tocollaborative, data-drivendecision making

• Marketing before markets are defined

Basic diagram source: Cognitive Edge Pty.

EXPERTS

SYSTEMSSIGNAL

$(Accepted Hypotheses)(Valuable Hypotheses)

(No Hypotheses) (Applied Hypotheses)

An economy that redefines success

Investing in signal monetizes the value of failure

What Should I Do?

Publishers in The Signal Economy

Where publishers like to be

MediaData

Editorial

Text

Distribution

Where publishers fit in the Web

Your StuffSites/Apps x

Search/Distribution

Social

Demand

Publishers in The Signal Economy?

Your StuffSensors/ xBig Data x

Analytics

Web Stuff

Predictive Services

Poll Question #2

Do you think that predictive

services would provide

high value to your current

or prospective customers? (YES/NO/NOT SURE)

Why hide content from signals?

Make it aware of what makes it valuable now

Why not become a master of signals?

Build services & relationships that deliver it& act on it

Structure is just the beginning

• “Google Now for xxx”Can signal from your content be found and adjusted easily?

Is it structured in a way that will enable action-oriented analytics?

Follow the verbs

The verbs of entity relationships shift in real-time

Create new adjectives and adverbs

What subtleties and nuances do others miss?

Adapt to the TL;DR culture

Massive information without massive and instant

interpretation and application is a thing of the past

Success in The Signal Economy

• “What processes and actionsare valuable right now?”

• “What should I be looking atthat has escaped my focus?”

• “What are customers/ competitors/leaders/researchers going to do next?”

• “This looks like a valuable idea. Can I get in on it?”o Monetizing idea selection and access to its testing

Your to-do list

1. Focus on analytics producing actionable metricso “How can we quantify semantic signals for action?”o “How do we respond now?”o “What are ‘failures’ telling us?”

2. Focus on tailored actionso Targeted, personal, predictive o Aware of real-time syntax shiftso With rich context from anywhere

3. Focus on actionable syntax for any and all contento Rethink your assets - are they contextualized for success?

• “Google Now for xxx”

o From static to predictive insights

o From queries to predictive alerts

o From building lists to building relationships & successful processes

o From delivering facts to multiplatform actions

o From indexing to real-time knowledge mapping

o From producing research to signifying signals

Potential Value Statement

A closing thought...

”...Something can be a real failure until it’s not. It’s just an absolute dud until it’s a hit. So you have to be able to sense those early indicators of success, and the leadership has to really lean in and not let things die on the vine. When you have a $70 billion business, something that’s $1 million can feel irrelevant. But that $1 million business might be the most relevant thing we are doing.”

- Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

For Follow-Up

PHONE(+01)203.293.8511203.293.8511EMAIL

jblossom@shore.comWEB

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POSTJohn BlossomPresidentShore Communications Inc.80 Talcott Road

Guilford, CT 06437-5002 USA