As social networking becomes more and more integrated into our lives the data points generated will become a goldmine for marketers and savvy business leaders. The business intelligence industry is especially well suited for accessing the information and utilizing predictive analytics and process management technologies to lead the charge on how best to make offers to prospects, to serve needs of clients or to tap into the crowd for feature and needs analysis within markets segments. The listening posts will become large highly optimized data marts and analytic databases designed to kick off processes to serve the every whim and thought of our customers......STOP RIGHT THERE!
While I believe in the ability of business intelligence and process management to automate and define, we still need interaction from business people in this loop to maintain a true sense of touch and customer care. James Kobielus did a great article covering these topics over at Information Management and shares his thoughts on adding another "...layer of abstraction between you and your customers,..."