Behind the social media conversation

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Historically, research teams have been encouraged to work faster and more efficiently, because marketing moved faster than market research did. In the technology industries, this pressure can be even more pronounced because of the speed at which companies can change their core product, never mind their marketing.

Take food companies, for example. Fundamentally altering their product can require changes throughout the supply chain – from packaging design right through to how factories or plants are set up. For a tech firm, such change involves experimentation and then an update to the code.

This is still a significant undertaking, but undoubtedly faster than making physical changes to a factory. As a result, almost all the researchers I’ve met from other technology companies cite agility and speed as the main priorities for their teams. Broadly, I’ve found research teams in Silicon Valley exploring three areas to help them with this:

• Develop data science and automation skills so researchers can access and use ...