Michael Shashoua: Play the Game

At last month’s Asia-Pacific Financial Information Conference in Hong Kong, sponsored by sibling publications Inside Market Data and Inside Reference Data, as well as the Financial Information Services Division (FISD) of the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), keynote speaker Louis Eccleston, president of S&P Capital IQ, pointed to the advances other industries have made in data management through technological innovation, and the possible opportunities from emulating these examples.
This isn’t the first time in recent months someone has suggested that financial industry data managers can learn from other industries. It’s becoming a growing drumbeat in this space. In September at the European Financial Information Summit, consultant Keith Holdt of TomorrowToday challenged financial industry participants in the conference to find ways to mine the social media industry and all the data it generates to increase their effectiveness, and possibly even predict the future in economics as well as other fields.
Also in Europe, in October, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) hosted a workshop in which panelists presented reasons why the financial markets are immature when it comes to data management, especially compared with other industries. The FSB invited consumer products companies to share their experiences at the event as well.
Just as Holdt pointed to social media as a source of more data, IMGroup’s Simon Asplen-Taylor cited telecommunications as an industry that excels at using social media data—in this case, to identify customers. And Chris Pickles of BT noted that the telecom industry’s use of open standards gives it an edge because more potential partners can interact with each other as a result.
Games Without Frontiers
Eccleston urged the financial industry to look at “gamification,” the use of computer game design and technology for other purposes. This is achieved by focusing on people’s natural tendencies to play games and be interested in games. S&P, for one, is working on revisions to the navigation of its website that will make it more conducive to “gaming” approaches to solving data management issues. A data management service that makes itself more attractive with gaming-style features has a greater chance of catching on with users.
“Data science could be used to sift and sort through the barrage of global data that descends upon us and our clients every single day to easily and functionally aggregate information from multiple sources and answer complicated questions,” said Eccleston. “Data visualization could be deployed in risk and portfolio management as an efficient means to rapidly comprehend large amounts of real-time market or forecast data, and rapidly identify and isolate anomalies across portfolios.”
As a result, data scientists will play an important role in the financial industry, according to Eccleston. They will contribute to financial data products and possibly even become the “power” behind these products. More than 50 percent of firms will “gamify” innovation processes by 2015, according to Gartner research. This makes standard user data interfaces antiquated.
Perhaps “gamifying” data management can also by its nature make data services providers more competitive and spur them to offer clearer views, with greater intricacy and accuracy. Keeping data management connected with what is happening in the markets requires closer attention to social media as well, as Holdt related. Inside Reference Data will continue to explore these broader contexts for managing reference data—these are the areas where news is likely to be made in 2013 and beyond.

Perhaps “gamifying” data management can also by its nature make data services providers more competitive and spur them to offer clearer views.