SPARE a thought for those charged with promoting the positive aspects of data. It is not an easy sell, but the simple fact is that data is an enormous part of our lives.
As the digital footprint of each individual grows – whether through internet browsing history, social media posts, or engagement with specific businesses online – so too does the volume of data companies hold on customers.
Through a series of enormous data breaches in recent years, and allegations of unlawful data collection, the industry when it is spoken about at all, is generally portrayed negatively.
But things are changing. New EU legislation comes into force in May which gives consumers much more control of how their data is used. And ultimately, more people are seeing how data sharing can be mutually beneficial to businesses and customers.
Marketing can be personalised, data can be gathered and analysed to better understand complex problems – in healthcare for example – and find solutions.
Every company uses data. How they use it will determine how they grow, and how they will be perceived. That is how important data has become.
In Scotland, a burgeoning industry is now highly regarded across the world. Our small country is once again standing tall as a pioneer.
As Scottish Enterprise reveals data companies in the country have seen collective revenue pass £1 billion; the big number is the £20 billion in productivity savings that will come in the next five years.
That is a concept which even the most sceptical critic of data can surely see the benefits in.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
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