Want to be an Analyst? Use Social Media

While I was thinking on the topic to write, as flash, something on consulting popped up in my mind.. Not sure why it popped up but as I started thinking about it, started taking a different turn. In typical business consulting assignments some of the terms that we hear as a client from consultants/analysts are:

• Top 10 Technology trends as per Gartner or Forrester for 2011- 2016
• Best Practices given as Rx for success
• Some Frameworks or business models promising a glorious future keeping in mind the current day business risks

Record Events

I have no abject disregard for these predictions but when I think of the current economic recession or any major scam which hits the headlines, I am forced think as to what happened to those predictions or forecasting by analysts or top notch consultants.What we get to read is always the post facto analysis of  the event as though it was obvious and we as naive intellects neglected to see through or were ignorant of these early warning signs. 

Why is that we find it easy to find a reason for failure(s) and not way to predict such failures and help avoid it?

This trend really bothered me and I got some interesting insights from Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book The Black Swan..

We,humans, have this problem of retrospective determinism.Once we have an issue at hand, say economic recession, we are really good at looking at the chronicle of events,take a deep dive into it and come up with simplistic answers and the worst part is that the reason failure will usually point towards a single event or two.One more possible reasons,although not conclusive, that can be attributed for this kind of problem is our " Confirmation bias". When we have a set of events in hand, we would like to simplify it using our inferential systems and confirm our opinions than just look at events as is - empirical studies..

I am not going to proceed to try and solve this problem as I am also a victim of these biases. But the one piece that is interesting to me is " chronicle of events". In the chosen topic of interest start recording all the relevant events that you read or listen to. But how to record it? I use the social media platforms for doing it.The central point in this blog is about how one can record the chronicle of events in the chosen topic of interest using social media platform at no cost. Once could use:

• Twitter favorites
• Digg relevant articles
• Share events or articles on Facebook
• Audio/Video content on Youtube
• Google Reader 
• Any form of content syndication

pretty much the same platforms that you use on a daily basis. The only difference is that you will focus on recording events on the chosen topic of interest.Lets say the topic is "new technology in mobile phones". As you record these events and do an empirical study on a regular basis,your ability to predict future events can get  brighter..Imagine a set of predictions from side, if taken up by the right people, brings about stability /growth in that industry. I know that it sounds too ambitious and wishful thinking but what's wrong in dreaming such a scenario. When I think like an earthly mortal, these  events recorded in the social media platform can used to do a post facto analysis or retrospective determinism which anyways we are really good at. 

Let the analyst in you wake up!!!!