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Our world today runs on data. It's changing the way we browse the Internet, run our businesses, treat medical patients and invest in technology. It's the key to solving society's biggest problems: famine, disease, poverty and ineffective education. And it is powering the global economy. But the data-driven economy is at a crossroads. With the eruption of information, we also open ourselves up to new risks and privacy concerns. As companies adopt more interconnected products and systems, the "Internet of Things" could usher in the next wave of challenges that range from data breaches to other potential privacy concerns if information is used improperly. As a society, we must decide whether to champion the explosion of connected information or allow its detractors to significantly constrain the innovation and growth ahead. Since 2007, data-related products and services have generated about 30% of real personal consumption growth, second only to healthcare goods and services, according to a 2014 report from the Progressive Policy Institute. The mobile app industry alone accounted for more than 750,000 jobs in 2013-jobs that didn't exist a decade ago. Meanwhile, the explosion of the Internet of Things promises to mine our households' daily or minute-by-minute behaviors to save money and improve lifestyles. Soon it is very likely that our personal genomic information will be used to clinically treat our current ailments and prevent the next ones. And of course, the financial industry is using big data to help consumers secure more affordable loans, improve their credit scores, protect their identities, ward off fraudulent transactions and ensure that they are marketing products and services to the right customers at the right time and across the right channels. Companies need to be able to sift through large amounts of data, find patterns and distill the key takeaways in order to make better decisions, improve our society and in turn, drive our economy forward. But with all the headline news surrounding fraud and data privacy, consumer confidence may be shaken. Over the last year and half, cyberattacks on corporations have become more common. Many consumers have fallen victim to the loss of personal identifiable information in many forms. These events have had a tremendous impact on the way consumers and companies think about data and the future of data. These are very real concerns, and they should be at the center of every discussion we have about the future of the data-driven economy. However, as challenging as these times may be, we cannot let these events dissuade us from realizing the full potential of data to help us do really good things for society as whole. Fortunately, today's corporate leaders have an opportunity to proactively head off consumers' uncertainty and fears about big data and keep the data economy open and healthy. But doing so will require businesses to operate differently than they have in the past. Companies need to operate on bedrock information values-values that dictate and ensure mandatory training for all employees, strict compliance rules and regulations, dedicated compliance officers and data governance experts and ongoing improvements to keep security and ethics at a company's core. These philosophies should be so central to a company that they find their way into key business processes, and touch every single employee and every aspect of operations. It's up to the business sector to earn the trust of consumers and lawmakers and create the legislative and regulatory conditions that allow the data-driven economy to thrive. And it's up to the people and companies that work with big data every day to advance how data can be used for good. In the late fifth century, the emerging medical profession reached a point where it needed unifying principles to guide the actions of physicians across many countries and many time periods. Now data-driven industries also need a way to ensure they advance data for societal good even at expense of profit optimization. We can do this by establishing common goals that give data professionals core values to adhere to, irrespective of their location and their individual companies' own culture and standards. The data economy has both incredible opportunity for growth and a real danger of stagnation. Only by committing to the responsible use of data can we transform our economy and the ways we operate within it. Originally Published: American Banker

Today’s data-driven world creates exciting new opportunities, but also new challenges. Many of us see the promise of being able to make more intelligent decisions by fully understanding our customers and the needs of the marketplace. There are data scientists that can do incredible analysis to give us new insights into areas we didn’t think were possible. We have more data than ever before and it is only increasing in volume. According to a recent Experian Data Quality study of CIOs, more than half believe the volume of data their organizations need to manage will increase in the next 12-18 months. Data volumes are expected to increase by an average of 33 percent. All this is changing the way that we operate and how we do business. However, most of us are not fully exploiting the data assets we have available to us today. A large problem with data management strategies today is that most organizations are not managing the data process centrally. Sixty-eight percent of the CIOs we surveyed think it is difficult to find stakeholders who take anything other than a siloed view of data management. In addition, 70 percent of CIOs believe it is difficult to make decisions because no one in their organization is taking full ownership of the data. For many organizations, the responsibility of data is falling to individual departments or the CIO. In the last 12 months, more than half of the CIOs we talked to have become increasingly responsible for data management, and an equal amount have felt increased pressure to provide data to the business faster. While the data management roles certainly need to become more centralized, the challenge is that the CIO is already stretched thin. Data management cannot be just another responsibility added on to their workload if at all possible. To combat this issue, a solution some companies are starting to explore is the hiring of a chief data officer (CDO). The CDO is becoming more common in highly regulated industries and is serving as the individual in charge of the data and information strategy, governance, control, policy development and effective exploitation. The CDO role is as much about advocacy as anything else. Part of the problem with many data governance or data strategies today is that they change the status quo for employees. Process changes are forced into place without the employee understanding why this is better for them. Consequently, employees find workarounds to get back to the way they were doing things. It’s important to note that the CDO is not a data ‘cop.’ They are an evangelist for data in the business, pointing out its benefits and how it provides insight. They are a guardian for data quality, making sure information is trusted. In addition, the CDO is responsible for managing large data management programs involving multiple stakeholders around the business, creating consistency. This role will only get more common in the years ahead. Gartner predicts that 50 percent of all companies in regulated industries will have a CDO by 2017. I think that is certainly true, and could even accelerate if data continues to evolve at its current pace. Data needs an owner and someone to take responsibility for its management and usage. A CDO is a great role to consider when evaluating the people needed to maintain an aggressive data strategy. To learn more about this top, be sure to read our new report The Chief Data Officer: Bridging the gap between data and decision-making.  

This guest post from Erin Lowry. Erin is the founder of Broke Millennial, where her sarcastic sense of humor entertains and educates her peers about finances. Erin lives and works in New York City, so she’s developed quite the knack for finding deals and free events. If we looked at current generations in a family structure, Baby Boomers are mom and dad, the Greatest Generation are grandma and grandpa, Generation X are the older siblings and Millennials are those overindulged younger siblings that always got later curfews and more relaxed rules. For that reason, there is a natural, friendly, sibling-type rivalry between Generation X and Millennials. And this week, millennials came out the victors because Generation X failed to school its younger sibling when it came to average debt load. Millennials are Growing Into the Credit Industry Generation X shouldn’t be completely ridiculed for carrying an average $185 more in debt than it’s obnoxious younger sibling (this is debt is excluding mortgages). Millennials may be drowning in student loan debt, but they’ve also had less time to get into credit card trouble, take out personal loans for life milestones that needed funding or get auto loans. In fact, the CARD Act stopped many of the younger millennials from even obtaining a credit card in college to do serious financial damage in the first place. Doesn’t the younger sibling always have it easier? Consequently, the CARD Act does make it a bit harder for a college graduate with no credit history to get a credit card (thank goodness for those secured cards). But there is one place millennials are significantly outshining Generation X and that’s credit card balances. Millennials carry an average $3,403 balance while Generation X deals with $6,752 – the highest of all four generations. Another possible reason millennials haven’t done quite as much damage to their debt burden is simply a lack of resources. Generation Xers likely has significantly higher credit limits. Not only do they probably have a higher paying job, but Generation X has been in the credit game longer and would naturally have earned higher credit limits. After all, even with millennials having an average 50% lower credit card balance, they still are 43% utilized (use of total available credit limit) while Generation X is only 41% utilized. Tsk, tsk to both generations on that one. Shoot for 30% utilization or less. The high utilization could help explain millennials’ 625 average credit score – or a mixture of irresponsible repayments or lack of history and diversity of credit could be anchoring the number. Why a High Credit Score is Important It’s time for millennials to grow up, take charge and be building their credit scores in order to make the rest of their lives more affordable. The higher the credit score, the more access you have to top-notch financial products. For instance, a 625 credit score would receive a significantly higher interest rate on an auto-loan than a 750 credit score. And millennials are currently seeking auto loans with 14% of all recently opened accounts on credit reports being for the purchase of a car. This compares to just 1% of Generation X at the same age in 1998. Next up will be a mortgage, and where just half a percent difference on a loan could mean spending tens-of-thousands more across 30 years. It’s key to get that credit score into the high 700s (or even 800+) to have access to the prime rates. Millennials Aren’t Just Less Trusting – They Prefer to be Alternative Yes, millennials watched the economy collapse as the older part of the generation was entering college or the workforce. Yes, plenty of millennials saw their parents lose retirement funds or college savings or their homes to the Great Recession. Yes, it has inherently made millennials less trusting of big banking and investing – but that’s not really the reason millennials are seeking alternative financial options. Hipsters certainly aren’t an exclusively a millennial trend, but the mentality of wanting something outside of the mainstream does appeal to the generation. Perhaps growing up in an age of social media overexposure coupled with being taught they’re special from a young age created a craving to be unique – even in financial decisions. Plus, the digital natives are comfortable with the idea of online bank, sourcing loans by clicking a few buttons online and uploading oodles of personal information without speaking with a human being. These factors have created a perfect storm for millennials to turn their backs on the world of big banking and instead use startups, apps, Internet-only banks and whatever new, eclectic, mobile-friendly option exists. Banks like Ally, Simple and Moven quickly get millennial attention while student loan refinance and personal loan options like SoFi, Earnest and Upstart are specifically designed to appeal to the 20 to young 30-something demographic. Millennials are the aging into the housing market, dealing with student loan debt, planning weddings*, having babies and looking for the best way to borrow money, refinance existing debt or getting a personal loan. Lenders would do well to remember these customers want digital access, easy-to-use apps, friendly customer service and instant access. *Ideally you do this without incurring any debt, but let’s be realistic about what happens…