COVID has changed a lot about the way we go through the world and navigate even simple, mundane tasks. No matter how someone feels about all the different things that have gotten wrapped up in the virus, things like masks, lockdowns, vaccines, its origins and so on, the fact is, the effects have been immense. Truth be told, the full effect of the shifts in the economy, distribution networks, and how and where we get our work done won’t be known, much less understood for years to come.
One thing we do know is that people’s habits have changed immensely in the last year. While at one time only a relative handful of people were doing curbside pickup or home delivery, now, almost everyone has done that at least once. Things that we never thought we would buy online are now in our cart and at our doorstep before we even think about going to an actual store for them.
That means all the information that companies had on us as a society pre-COVID has virtually no descriptive power for what we are doing now. Such information is now a historical curiosity rather than something that could be a guide for what people will generally be doing this summer. Realizing this, companies are looking to recalibrate how they get their data and how they analyze it.
One significant element getting a fresh look is of course data management. Many companies do a bang up job of collecting tons of data. The problem lies not in whether they are collecting it, but in what they do with it. All too often, data sits in different servers and split up between different departments, siloed, making cross referencing the data difficult. How much time and energy gets wasted because different departments in a company can’t look at each other’s data? Or what about different companies under a larger, umbrella company? They are probably each gathering all their down data, duplicating a ton of effort that could be better spent elsewhere. This is exacerbated by the rush to gather new data to capture all those changed behaviors.
In managing it, they also clearly need to secure that data a lot better. There are simply too many data breaches to justify any level of complacency. Especially since that data doesn’t really belong to the companies collecting it. The individuals who generated that data are the ones who own it. At best, these companies might look at it as being on loan to them. As such, they have to take better care of it than if it were truly theirs.
That’s what we do at TARTLE, we understand that when someone stores their data with us, we are acting as stewards of that data. We keep it secure and don’t just share it with anyone. The only person who shares the data is you, no one else. What do you think we are? A bank loaning out your money to people without you knowing about it?
What is also apparent is that the first problem, the hoarding of data, leads to the attitude on the part of a company that they are the ones who own the data. With server racks full of it, the temptation definitely arises to find ways to monetize it, first to make enough to pay for the servers themselves and then the question becomes ‘why not more’?
What if there were a way to get the data you need without hoarding it? What if you could get it straight from the source, the individuals generating it? What if you did it with their consent? You don’t have to just store it in racks, you can get exactly the data you want, when you want it, avoiding all the extraneous noise, and so save yourself a lot of the costs of data hoarding as well. You can get all of that with TARTLE. Sign up and get the data you need when you need to do the analysis you need now. Then, if you want, you can sell the analysis if it is beneficial to someone else. That helps create a system that works not just for a few but for everyone.
What’s your data worth? Sign up for the TARTLE Marketplace through this link here.
COVID has changed a lot about the way we go through the world and navigate even simple, mundane tasks. No matter how someone feels about all the different things that have gotten wrapped up in the virus, things like masks, lockdowns, vaccines, its origins and so on, the fact is, the effects have been immense. Truth be told, the full effect of the shifts in the economy, distribution networks, and how and where we get our work done won’t be known, much less understood for years to come.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path.
Alexander McCaig (00:18):
Welcome, welcome, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for listening to TARTLE Cast or watching it, however you have it on your preferred medium. And speaking of mediums, we got to talk about the new digital medium post COVID and what that means for businesses and their analytics.
Jason Rigby (00:42):
Well, Alexander McCaig, as I look into this Forbes article, they're talking about recalibrating your customer analytics strategy.
Alexander McCaig (00:50):
I love it, recalibrate.
Jason Rigby (00:51):
And so we're getting into the forefront of data being important for your business and what that's looking like as we get into a post pandemic. Because I think what happened in this year, year and a half and what companies done, and they know that data-driven companies did well, so now everybody's going to follow along. So now all of these companies, whether you're Uber or whether you're Kroger, whoever it may be, it's going to be data-driven.
Alexander McCaig (01:22):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (01:23):
I mean, that's the new... We've talked about this before the pandemic, but-
Alexander McCaig (01:26):
I mean-
Jason Rigby (01:26):
We're a data company.
Alexander McCaig (01:28):
We are the data driver.
Jason Rigby (01:30):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (01:31):
It is like we built the car, like we built the Tesla and now we're just having people drive them. It's like, here's your tool? What are you going to do with it?
Jason Rigby (01:39):
And so I want to get into in this article, they say, while digital transformation of selling will benefit all businesses longterm, it requires some big changes-
Alexander McCaig (01:47):
Big change, big. B-I-G.
Jason Rigby (01:48):
... to data. And so they gave these things, and I want to get into these. And so one of the ways is managed data, how companies manage data.
Alexander McCaig (01:57):
First of all, they do a poor job. Some of them do. They have bad security measures. They silo it and archive it and keep it ice cold and never really analyze it properly. Maybe it's in folders that people are like, "Oh my gosh, I didn't realize this was in here." Some things are on cloud processes or stored on some sort of server that isn't connected with another one. So your storage lacks fungibility. There's a lot of issues with it. And then if you are storing information that is personally identifiable, you should take the highest and best standards to make sure that that is protected. Correct? Especially if you don't really own that asset, it's on loan.
Jason Rigby (02:41):
No, but I mean, and we're going to do a show on it, but we were going over Uber's new data policy and they were talking about the data they own. Like, the information we get from the app and what we get from people's cell phones, but that's our data.
Alexander McCaig (02:57):
Yeah. They said it's theirs.
Jason Rigby (02:59):
Yeah, exactly. And a lot of companies are this way. It's like, I was creative enough to come up with this app and collect this data from... So it's mine. It's not the people's. It's mine. And I want you to get into this, Alex. Let's take management as a theory.
Alexander McCaig (03:18):
Okay.
Jason Rigby (03:18):
So when we look at management, old-school management and proper management, I don't want to say new-school management, the proper way that you manage people, looking at people as widgets or looking at them as... So if we look at-
Alexander McCaig (03:29):
Oh, as human beings?
Jason Rigby (03:30):
Yeah. If we look at it as a person that's being owned and a slave to the corporation and we own you, we pay you, you owe us. We have our fist over you constantly in pressure, pressure, pressure. That's what they're doing with people's data.
Alexander McCaig (03:47):
All the time. Well, they just right there in those words of claiming, like I'm sticking my claim to this land, it's on my servers. I own it. Let me tell you something. Because somebody banks their data with TARTLE and it's on our server, we have to be good stewards of that data. That's not our asset. That's theirs. When people think of the concept of the bank, I put it in there and it's all secure, once you put your money in the bank, the bank does whatever the hell they want with it. I won't even really call it a bank.
Jason Rigby (04:23):
So they're an investment firm. They're making money off of you.
Alexander McCaig (04:24):
They're making money every time they get a new part of your... Every deposit that comes in means they can loan out more. Every time you start to put this data in all these other companies, they can go out and then collect more of it without ever even asking you if that was okay. Why is it that policy has to come in and then tell these people how to make humane decisions, respectful decisions? Why is law have to come in and tell people to do the right thing? Why couldn't you just design it like that from the get go? With TARTLE, it's designed for that human being for the management of their information, through their own power and choice. Not for me as Uber to come in and say, we own this data. Uber, is that your cell phone? No. Just because your app on it doesn't mean you're allowed to have my IMEI number because that's associated with the mobile networks. That is my home address, my social, everything else on it. No, absolutely not.
Alexander McCaig (05:24):
The IMEI is the social security number of a phone. That's how I view that in my mind. But you own that? That's your data? Bullshit. You wouldn't have it if the person didn't bring their phone over to you. Just because they chose to adopt your software, doesn't mean you own all that information. It's your service. You may own the algorithm of your service, but you certainly do not own that person's information. Because if you start to own their information, you say that you own their thoughts. You own their behaviors. What are you running? Just like a massive slave ship at that point? That's what it sounds like. You're stripping away that sort of digital freedom. That's not painting a good future.
Alexander McCaig (06:04):
And so when I look at this, that's not how stewardship should work. And in this world where people are recalibrating, what they're doing, you need to one, consider recalibrating it for sales and the growth of your company, but also recalibrate it with a human aspect because that's been missed. And if people aren't going to be inside your business, you got to do everything you can to be more human, to connect with them over this digital format.
Jason Rigby (06:27):
So not only manage, but they say analyze.
Alexander McCaig (06:29):
Thank you for letting me finish that whole thought.
Jason Rigby (06:31):
Yeah. Analyze. So whenever we look at these change, and they're saying that it's obvious, and they're saying, this is a big change and you said poorly they've managed data, I personally think poorly they've analyzed data wrong.
Alexander McCaig (06:48):
Yeah. Listen, if you're poor at managing, you're not going to be good at analyzing either. Okay? Because if you're really analytical, you'd be really analytical about how you manage things. Would you not?
Jason Rigby (06:58):
But it's almost like hoarders, for the sake of hoarding.
Alexander McCaig (07:02):
You've been into a hoarder's house?
Jason Rigby (07:03):
Yeah. Yeah. They don't know why they're doing it. It's just like a subconscious thing. They just know that they have all of this. They're just collecting as much as they can. [crosstalk 00:07:12]. And then from there, we'll try to figure it out. And so I guess we can hire a few data scientists and see if we can come up with something good for our marketing plan.
Alexander McCaig (07:20):
But then you have mountains of information. You've collected all this stuff and you're like, well, what do I deal with first? And then you're going to ask the question, well, what stuff do I bring to goodwill? You know what I mean?
Jason Rigby (07:28):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (07:28):
You've got so much in your house, it's like, what do I donate first? I don't even know where to start.
Jason Rigby (07:32):
Or they're looking at it as, what can I sell off to a company?
Alexander McCaig (07:36):
That's because your intention wasn't focused. You're just like, now I have all this stuff. I got to sell it. I got to get it out of here. You know what I mean? Oh, wait a minute. Is there money to be made from this piles of data that are around me in my hoarded house?
Jason Rigby (07:47):
But I think taking that piles of data and using TARTLE and then allowing it to be ethically sourced through a first party-
Alexander McCaig (07:56):
Nice job, Jason, the way you put that.
Jason Rigby (07:58):
Now you're able to properly analyze.
Alexander McCaig (08:00):
Nice job, ethically sourced. Yeah, you're right. Well, you are properly analyzing, but why though? So you eat like good, nice organic food, goes in your body. It processes it so well, it's clean, right? Helps you maintain that equilibrium. You feel good, but if I'm hoarding all this stuff and I'm just eating it down, it's going to take more server load. I have to store more. It's going to have a higher cost. And then hopefully I can get some sort of positive benefit from it. But I'm totally, I don't even know what thing to ingest first. I have no focus. It's like I took everything under the sun and made this like weird stew and I'm ingesting it. And the stew is not making me feel well, right, because there's no focus of what I actually wanted in that stew, how I want to analyze it and ingest that information. Nothing about that was ethically sourced.
Alexander McCaig (08:49):
Now when you feel so good, if it's like, yeah, I went to the people, I respected them for having that data. They created it. I know it's theirs. I want to empower them. I want to pay them for that information so that they can also put that money toward the big causes to help save this world. Right? And at the same time I can deliver them products or services that make sense, that aren't wasteful, that are truly egalitarian, humanitarian, all those things. And I can make a buck at the same time. That sounds like a pretty good model we should focus on, but it also requires good analysis and a good analysis of great data. And you can only find that if you ethically source that data.
Alexander McCaig (09:32):
In Forbes, they talk about the emotional quotient, right? Their specific quote is, "Businesses will need to find new ways to use new data from customer transcription and digital engagement platforms." So what they're doing is they're just trying to grab this information that's happened after the fact and then decide, oh, that's the emotional state of the individual. And then do this big comparative analytics to say, oh, this person's like this person. Well, that's fundamentally not true. Everybody is individuals, right? What you should be doing is finding that proactive, that leading data. Again, they're looking at emotional quotient, but everything's happening after the fact, all the analytical models are after the fact. You've collected this data after the fact. Nothing you're doing ahead of time. You're only putting out fires in a post-COVID world.
Jason Rigby (10:20):
No, and I think it leads us right into the third one, which is protect. So they use... And I would put protect first, personally, if I was going to rate these big changes in the way that corporations handled data. Number one, we should be looking at it in a protection sense first.
Alexander McCaig (10:38):
Yeah. So say you buy something on the TARTLE marketplace, first of all, these individuals are protecting their data by banking it with TARTLE, just because of our encryption standards, everything we do to make sure that that is absolutely protected and under their control only. Once they sell that to a business, whether you are one of these highlighted individuals in Forbes, you own that information. So if you want to protect the value of your information, well, then you have to make sure that you protect it to the best of your ability. And if you don't want any liability on the backend for someone getting into your server, so there's a leak because it has personally identifiable information, well, then you need to do a good job to look at that in the protection sense. If something is not protected, you can't uphold the value of that asset that you own. So protection should come first.
Alexander McCaig (11:25):
How do we do this for the defense of maintaining the value, the value of the asset, maintaining the value of a human being? You have to protect it first. That's why policies are put in place by states. That's the trinity. There's like, let's protect this in the event of something bad happening. So, that should preclude all these other things. This is what happens first. And then from that, now I can work on my analytics after I figured out where I'm sourcing it from. So do I have the ability to protect this asset? So if I'm buying gold, do I just store it out in the front yard no gate, no cameras? You know what I mean? Protection comes first. If I'm going to own something that's valuable, I got to make sure I take care of it. You don't just buy the Ferrari and just throw it in a neighborhood that's known for high auto theft. That's irresponsible. It's about making the responsible decision first.
Jason Rigby (12:14):
And I think the next one, which is not a bad word, and I want to talk about this real quick, monetize. So if you're a hoarder and you're just collecting a bunch of data, we think of the hoarder shows and all that, there has to be an exchange. It has to move. You can't just collect it. And see, this is the problem. This is why they're so inefficient with data and why we're not being able to monetize data properly. They're just collecting it, hoarding it. They're doing a disservice in the way they analyze it, the way they manage it. So now when it comes to monetize it, they're not being able to monetize it because they're just collecting this and it's actually costing them with the amount of server farms that they have.
Alexander McCaig (12:54):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (12:54):
If they use TARTLE, now we have an exchange working.
Alexander McCaig (12:57):
And create an annuity.
Jason Rigby (12:58):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (12:59):
This is awesome. Now I can move this asset around. If I do an analysis, a research report, I don't care what it is, I can sell that on TARTLE. I think this may be a smart thing. These businesses should learn from the people we have across 213 countries in the globe, 213. They should learn from them as a model to say that, wow, they're taking their information and monetizing it. It's not just cooped up somewhere. Why don't we do that? Or why don't we buy information from them, do an analysis, and then we can also sell our analysis on TARTLE? I don't care. We've given you the option to do something, but listen, if it works for them, it's got to work for you. And if it didn't, it wouldn't be a good system. Because if it's not good for everyone, it's not good. Right?
Jason Rigby (13:46):
So whenever we look at protect, manage, analyze, and monetize data, if a buyer's listening to this, someone that wants to purchase data, or maybe they want to use the data that they have with the customers that they have now, and then use TARTLE, what is the way that they can do that?
Alexander McCaig (14:04):
Well, if you'd want to do that, you would send an email out to your customers or however you communicate to them, text, I don't care what it is. Hard mailing that says, we want to ethically source data from you. We want to learn from you. We want to respect what you're creating. Please sign up on TARTLE and allow us to purchase this information from you and feel free to donate those earnings towards causes you care about, or go buy yourself a sandwich, anything around that sort of message. It's that simple. The tool's out there. It's an open marketplace. Anybody can join it. That's why we're in so many countries so quickly. Just be like, as a company, we want to ethically source your data. We want to take the next step. We want to show you that we are a leader, that we respect you.
Jason Rigby (14:50):
Besides ethically, what's the incentive for me to use the data that I have in the TARTLE marketplace?
Alexander McCaig (14:57):
As a business?
Jason Rigby (14:58):
Yeah, as a business.
Alexander McCaig (14:59):
Well, don't you want more revenue streams because more revenue, cash is king, right? You all understand it as a business. If you don't got cash, if you don't have revenue, you don't have health. You're a dying business. You have to ask more loans and then collateralize that against things that you don't want to collateralize. So if you want to open up a new revenue stream for yourself, go use TARTLE. Don't take some backdoor thing with some ridiculous approach that has some sort of inflated price with old information. Act on things that make sense, share that knowledge, elevate everybody. A rising tide lifts all ships. Be that tide. Right?
Jason Rigby (15:37):
When I always look to nature for things, it's almost like their data's in a cocoon.
Alexander McCaig (15:41):
Yeah. It needs to like go through its genetic process in the inside and then come out to something beautiful. Don't come out as some like engrossed creature.
Jason Rigby (15:51):
Because I guarantee you most companies, like if we're talking about Citibank or JP Morgan or whoever it may be, they have a ton of data. And that data could be used properly with the customers. And they can monetize that data. They could analyze it properly. They can manage it properly, protect that data by using TARTLE.
Alexander McCaig (16:08):
And give better reports to the people that are invested in those companies.
Jason Rigby (16:11):
Your data scientists. Yes.
Alexander McCaig (16:12):
So they would want to give you more investment dollars.
Jason Rigby (16:14):
Because you can go directly to the consumer and ask a question.
Alexander McCaig (16:17):
Yeah. Finance has always known about data. They've been on top of it. The rest of the world wasn't paying... The first person that paid attention was Walmart. That's what it was. First it was the finance. Well, first it was finance. Then it was NASCAR. Then it was Walmart. That's how I would describe that. That's sort of that process and like, oh, now we value the data. We value the time, the approach, the analytics, all that stuff. You can be efficient and egalitarian and at the same time. You don't have to be efficient and be a robber baron. Does that make sense?
Jason Rigby (16:47):
No, that makes perfect sense. So we encourage every buyer, if you're out there and you have more information, you can email us. What's the email, Alexander?
Alexander McCaig (16:55):
Contact@tartle.co.
Jason Rigby (16:58):
And we'd love to have a conversation with you. You can go to tartle.co, sign up and find out more information about how you can purchase data from TARTLE.
Alexander McCaig (17:06):
Yeah. Take the next step.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Thank you for listening to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path. What's your data worth?
