Who will be the winner of the Big Data age?

Intern Jian Shouming contributed to this article

q=, Global Business Classics

William Hoffman, vice President, a= Davos Economic Forum Communications Forum

Information generation, organization and free flow occur every day. Today, for the first time, individual users have become the main body of information generation and circulation. When you fix an self-portraits with Mito, or after the child learns to walk the video to pass on Youku, you also through the email, QQ, MSN, gtalk to send these photos and the video link to your friend, when you use the mobile phone to send the text message, in Jingdong and Taobao browsing and shopping, with the mobile phone to pay?? All this will be transformed into data stored in every corner of the world.

Both the amount of information that has been acquired, or the amount of information exchanged, has grown exponentially. In the World economic field, the data has become the hot spot that everybody concerns. Albert Laszlo, the author of the new thinking that predicts the future in the big data age, Barabasi even said that 93% of future human behavior can be predicted by data. What is the problem with the development of big data at present? What kind of security is required for the use of personal data? "Global Business Classics" reporter with these questions interviewed Davos Economic Forum, Vice President of Communications Forum, Mr. William Hoffman.

Q: In your opinion, what things in life can be quantified by data, which can not?

A: In general, we can now use data to improve the status quo of our lives, it can provide a new tool. The data is a microscopic view to explain the complex reality.

Q: From the microscopic point of view, everything can be converted into data?

A: All things can be measured. can be converted into pictures, sounds, videos, or data. Data as a method of measurement, although not to convert sound or convert video, but it can become information, so very precious. Data is a very fast and quantifiable method. By translating it into information, you can use the information you get to explore the nature of things--this is the most important point and the future.

Q: Are people's feelings, feelings, relationships between people, these can be expressed by data?

A: People will discover and create new social relationships. People are interconnected and cooperative, you can use data to explore social structures, social networks, and then connect the data to present a digitized picture. From the point of view of the data, the picture will become more and more clear. Data can provide more detail and internal information for these studies, which makes the development of data more promising.

Q: What will life be like when people become completely data and communicate with the outside world instead of appearing as a person?

A: Historically, any new technology can affect popular culture, such as television, radio, computers, and now social networks. When technology rises, people start to spend a lot of time on it, but after a while, they always get back to normal. New technology will attract young people who have leisure time, they choose to invest in the upsurge, and indulge in a rising technology, but in adults, when they have a job, family, they will devote more time to social interaction. Therefore, people in essence still devote more time to social intercourse, which cannot be substituted.

Q: Now many companies are claiming to be doing personal data business. Some advertising companies collect user's personal information through cookies, analyze the information, and recommend products for their needs. And users are often worried about danger? How to keep your personal data safe?

A: I think it's a question of how to balance. Provide personal information to business companies, government departments, how to maintain a balance between the disclosure of personal information and security. In contemporary times, there is often instability in interaction, and how to maintain balance is a problem. Companies do not fully respect the privacy of individuals, and individuals are not fully aware of the need for others, the community to share their information, everything is in the early stages. However, when people begin to realize that there is no discomfort, more and more people are willing to share more information. Companies and governments will also become increasingly aware of respecting personal information, otherwise people will look for other businesses.

Q: Is there a common rule for personal data security? Now some companies will find some reason to say: The rules are other industries, other companies and even other countries, and their own industry is unique.

A: This is the question of how to create new principles and rules. More and more industries are starting to join the data industry, and it is difficult to enforce the same rules globally. It can be seen, however, that in a similar business society there are rules to protect private interests, legal and illegal provisions. In the data industry, there are many contradictions in the existing rules, and individuals have begun to use private rights rules to think about what is legal and what is illegal, so it is still in its infancy. If you look at today's financial industry, its development along with the rules of perfection, has been looking for what is the most important, only to develop to the present. It also needs the support of the Government and the improvement of the policy, must maintain a balance.

Q: So who should play the role of maintaining balance? Government or company?

A: Part by the government, part by the company, part by the individual. The cooperation of Governments, companies and individuals can identify new rules and find workable solutions, especially for changing societies. Some institutions existed 200 years ago, but they must respond to the times and must adapt to the development of the new situation. I have no answer to this question, but we can rethink and find the balance and find what people think is important.

Q: Not long ago, Tencent in the new version of QQ launched a QQ circle function. Tencent, by reading the notes column data that users add to their friends, can be used to figure out how many common friends the user and the user's friends have, and to display the name of the column. This sounds to be a good function, can help the user to retrieve some separated friends, but this function has been the user's dissatisfaction and complaints. What do you think of such a problem?

A: There is no doubt that the need to improve the direction is the enterprise needs to protect personal information, the disclosure of information is a serious violation of the company should bear the responsibility, the disrespect of information may let the company collapsed overnight, the company's reputation destroyed. One of the responsibilities of a data company is to help other companies maintain the reliability and security of information and prevent information leaks from happening again.

Q: Do you think the data will lead the next economic development tide? Does the data industry have many opportunities?

A: Data can be found in the relationship between things, can produce benefits, so the use of data will create a lot of opportunities, because you can find the inherent laws. Another great contribution to the data is the predictive function, which discovers the intrinsic nature of things and tells you what tomorrow will be and what needs to be done tomorrow. While it's a complex social system, the data tells you what's going to happen and how people react, which is a huge opportunity in the data industry.

Q: Which industry do you think can use data for better development? For example: The book recommended users feel good, but the relationship between the recommendations, users are not very like.

A: I think there are opportunities in this industry, but need to occupy a good position, and customers, providers to establish a good relationship. For now, we're spending a lot of energy on advertising, retailing and customer relationships. If you want to ask me which industry the data will be the fastest development, I think it is in the medical field. If the data can be used to develop new drugs and find cures before they occur and spread, people will become healthier, allowing people to be treated in hospitals. From the number of applications, medical data, personal data can be widely used. I am very interested in how data can be applied to medical and health fields.

Q: In China, there are love and marriage sites to match the user's personal information, through the methods they create to compare the information, and then recommend the most matching people to you.

A: This is a case where the market is more effective and opportunities are everywhere.

Q: How is the government doing about making decisions based on data?

A: As I said, so far we are in the early stages of understanding the new traditions and technologies. We all know that this thing exists, but I don't know what it is. We all know that we need new forms, technologies, and controls, but these very complex things are now a little beyond our understanding.

Our management needs to become more flat, more efficient, but more reliable, and the government's use of these principles involves their self-confidence, their institutions and their methods. In general, it will be a good start to share these principles, and we need to further apply these principles to local governments to meet the needs of local residents.

Q: Are there some challenges for government to use data governance? After President Obama took office, the first government document signed was the government's transparent and open document. In your opinion, what opportunities and challenges does the government face?

A: Every period of government system will face opportunities and challenges, transparency can be used to solve the data. Through data, Governments can provide better services, and people have the right to approach specific data, so that governments can have a better interaction with citizens and make people aware that the problem is a big challenge. However, from another perspective, the data need not be fully disclosed. Some data can be made public, some data need to be kept secret, some data need to be closed, depending on contact. People are not aware of this, and now people generally think that data must either be open or must be closed. One must understand that it is not entirely up to your needs to decide which data is open and which data is closed. So, what I have just talked about is that people's consciousness is a big problem.

Q: Therefore, should the Government have such an attitude: open information is non-negotiable and openness can be negotiated.

A: The government must find a way to suit itself, there is no ready-made, unified model, and change is underway.

Q: What do you think of the future of data, says Prof Barabasi: data can predict the future.

A: Although there are uncertainties, the data gives us a better perspective and gives us a better tool. Social development so fast, the data can provide us with an obvious possibility. We always have the opportunity to judge what the data tells us, although this trend is not obvious, but it is a better possibility. People always have different directions, and data tells you what to do.

Q: Do you think technology can be better than manual in predicting the future?

A: Technology can see what people do not see, but people can use the information provided by technology for their own better decision-making services. People can see the core through the interior, you can see the geographical, time span is very big things, you can see the status quo can see the future, and then can be reflected. At the same time, the development of technology makes technology more and more powerful, and people must see its negative effects, anything can change from positive to negative.