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Suaad Sait is co-founder of Workstreamer, a business listening platform that delivers actionable, real-time information to business professionals.

As businesspeople, we now have an unlimited amount of constantly updating information at our fingertips. It holds the promise of great value (and more importantly, profit), but it is also voluminous and fleeting.  Powerful new search engines, newfangled social CRM systems, and a preponderance of social sites and services leave us sitting at desks, feverishly fetching news and updates throughout the day in an attempt to stay up-to-date.

The trick, of course, is making sense of all that data, and putting it in context of what companies — and who exactly at those companies — matter most. Increasingly, we have the palpable desire to turn good data into good decisions and profitable relationships. But how can you take advantage of that tsunami of information without risking death by data? How can everyday businesspeople get value out of these data-heavy services and sources? 

Relationships Still Rule

The answer to these questions starts by first acknowledging that it’s the same as it ever was: Business is still all about relationships.  This should be soothing to many for whom the data web is a brave new world. 

The business world still runs on relationships, and data is as much at home at a cocktail hour or on a conference call as it is in a slide deck. The game has not changed much at all. The difference is that today’s business data has put everything in stark relief, at very high resolution. Opportunities and risks have been amplified.

For example, if I notice a partner’s company’s stock surge at the opening of the market and tie it to a news item on quarterly earnings, I can now send a timely congratulatory note and schedule a follow-up meeting to discuss leveraging that momentum for a proposed joint venture.

Or, say I am alerted to an old college friend changing his contact info on a social network, and as a result, track down a few details on his role at a new company. I might subsequently notice via a status update that he is departing for my home city in a few days, and now I can initiate a reconnection and invite him to participate on a panel I’m organizing.

Today’s most actionable business data comes from living and very human sources like social networks, wikis, microblogs, crowdsourced contact directories, collaboratively filtered finance communities, real-time search engines, hyperlocal news sites and more. Managing that data can involve a lot of mixing and matching, comparing and contrasting.

Relationships Run on Data

Strategic relationships with colleagues and contacts both create and consume data. In fact, data isn’t cold and impersonal at all — that’s an important misconception to put to rest. Many of your most successful and trusted business relationships now likely run on data.

“Networking” in the traditional sense used to take a lot of time and effort.  But in truth, all networking has ever been is the act of information-gathering — of scouting and collating.  We used to start with an idea of a person we were trying to do business with, without nearly enough relevant information about them. That has changed as a result of the personal data now available via social media sources.

Now, when you finally meet someone in person, or run into them at a conference, the interaction can be immediately more rich and productive precisely because of data — you can get right to the heart of the matter because you’re having a more informed, in-depth conversation that matters.

From crunching data and doing your homework, to finding a path through your existing relationships, to setting up that first meeting with a timely and well-researched missive, the new data-driven way of doing business can be infinitely more productive.

Conclusion

Remember the under-the-table note sharing going on in high school? 

Well, imagine having the smartest kid in school organize, prioritize and collect notes for you, no strings attached. That’s the kind of information advantage that is now available to us, through an ever-growing array of new social business tools. And it’s not considered cheating, either.

But even despite all this new data and these new tools, relationships are still the beginning and the end of every business decision. 

There is little doubt that there will be a fundamental overhaul in the skill-set of the average businessperson in the next five years as companies grapple with, and realize the upside of making better use of data, both internally and externally.

Today, the technologies and techniques that were once the exclusive domain of Wall Street analysts and Silicon Valley engineers are finally trickling down to everyday businesspeople.   But no matter how the world has changed, listening is still paramount -– listening to customers, listening to prospects, listening to colleagues, and listening to entire companies –- indeed, listening to data.

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More business resources from Mashable:

- How Data Will Impact the Way We Do Business/> - HOW TO: Make Sure You’re Tracking the Right Data/> - 4 Tips for B2B Marketing on Facebook/> - What Facebook’s Open Graph Means for Your Business/> - HOW TO: Cultivate Your Brand’s Super Users

Image courtesy of iStockphotoclass="blippr-nobr">iStockphoto, Sportstock, stevecoleccs

Elias Bizannes is the chairperson and executive director of the DataPortability Project; founder of the Startup Bus; creator of the Silicon Beach community; and manages the finance function at search engine startup Vast.com. He previously was at PricewaterhouseCoopers Australia, where he rolled out a CEO-sponsored social media program using to change collaboration practices at the firm and make it more “open”.  In this guest post, he tackles the cultural roots of Facebook’s ongoing privacy problems and suggests a solution in the form of a clear data portability policy.

Facebook’s technological prowess is tarnishing its image, which could damage its long-term corporate success. What worked for Facebook when innovating as a startup with a superior service, will not work when the technology manipulates the personal information of its community—without its perceived permission—especially once Facebook starts to monetize that information. If Facebook really wants to change the world, then it should start at home and not expect the world adapt to it.

The Facebook Culture: Do Now, Fix Later

Facebook is famous for releasing new products and completely reinventing itself, often to the protests of its large community. When the live homescreen launched, it was filled with bugs that subsequently had to be fixed—and Facebook’s engineers were proud of this. In their eyes, they were compliant with what founder Mark Zuckerberg has styled this organisation to be: a hacker culture, permanently in beta—rapid innovation for innovation’s sake and a “because we can” attitude.

The hacker mentality extends to Facebook’s practices with member privacy. When Robert Scoble posted a private exchange with Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg expressed this culture with these words:

We’ve been listening to all the feedback and have been trying to distill it down to the key things we need to improve. I’d like to show an improved product rather than just talk about things we might do.

This is the kind of statement a good entrepreneur would make at most startups in Silicon Valley.  It is not what the CEO of a globally significant company should espouse. Because when you already matter to the world, when you have built a community nearly 500-million strong, your existence is dictated more so by your environment.

Facebook is no longer a startup; it’s a company with a vast community, levying an impact so large that US senators bother to take the time to ask questions about company practices. Entrepreneurs might prefer a do-now, talk-later culture; but when you build a company on the philosophy of community and that has a global impact, you must engage members in a continuous dialog that demonstrates authentic concern for their needs and expectations.

“Stakeholder management”

If you expect to change the culture of a company or a community, you must manage the relationship with your stakeholders. I learned this important lesson when rolling out wiki and blogging tools at one of the world’s largest and most conservative private companies, tackling the specific problem of making the culture more open. I had the full support of my firm’s leadership to do what I wanted. Yet the middle management held me back because I didn’t recognize they were my stakeholders—and even though my vision was realized eventually, it took far longer than needed because I ignored a primary rule of leadership.

Stakeholder management isn’t just about listening, it’s about managing expectations and honoring relationships. Companies have stakeholders who are not just their shareholders; they are their employees, the local communities, and their customers (to name a few). These stakeholders might not have the traditional power of executive management or investors, but their vote matters just as much and sometimes more.

Facebook’s users may not be their customers, but they are its stakeholders. Because of Facebook’s hacker culture, the company can’t recognize the problem: even if they incorporate every pixel of feedback, they still are not going to succeed because stakeholder management is less about logic and more about emotion. It’s giving people a sense of control over an outcome that affects them and their data.

Zuck: Take a lesson from the marketplace. (The real one.)

Facebook isn’t the only company with this challenge. Any company that is listed on a stock exchange is well aware of stakeholder management. A single surprise announcement that deviates from expectations can smash the market capitalization of a company overnight. It’s why continuous disclosure policies around the world are growing in popularity, where companies announce significant company changes progressively through the year; and why capital markets require quarterly reports and management estimates in the lead-up to an annual report.

Disclosing your expectations and having your stakeholders informed can determine how companies on stock exchanges survive. In this vein, Facebook needs to recognize that it is no longer good enough to rely on its hacker culture to charm its community. Hacking works for product development, it doesn’t work for privacy—and while Facebook is not (yet) a public company, it needs to start practicing better stakeholder management with its community if it hopes to play with the big boys.

That’s not to say stakeholder management will make Facebook boring and predictable. Look at Apple.

Apple is now one of the largest companies in the world and it’s anything but boring. And as its CEO Steve Jobs said on stage this week, the company still operates like a startup. It’s not an easy thing to do, but done right, magic can happen (like the complete reinvention of a company, an industry, and a person as has happened with the Apple story).

What’s Next: The Portability Policy

It’s easy to criticize, which is why I’m more interested in having the industry discusss a solution—hence this post.The DataPortability Project, a registered not-for-profit that exists for the sole purpose of advocating the portability of personal data residing on websites and in networks, has recognised this as a key problem for all web services. (Disclosure: I am the chairperson and executive director of the DataPortability Project).  For the last 16 months, have quietly worked on a challenging way to address these issues.

We started with the observation that the current ToS and EULA model—those hundred page legal documents you are forced to agree to in order to use a service—are often ignored by consumers and hence they are surprised when they get a service enforcing its terms. We believed a simpler way is needed to communicate what a service does with respect to a person’s data and what rights they have over it.

Later this month, we will be formally announcing our initiative which we call the “Portability Policy”. This will be a set of questions a company can answer (with no right or wrong answers) that discloses what people can do with their data. The goal of this initiative is to create better communication in the marketplace between service providers and end-users. With better communications, we also hope this will give better clarity to what users can come to expect. And while this might not solve all of Facebook’s problems, it could be a tool that Facebook and other hacker-culture startups could use to better manage their stakeholder relationships and give users a sense of control. This is so they can iterate their technology in parallel, to innovate their products and pursue profitability.

The real challenge with data portability isn’t technical so much as cultural. As Chris Saad, who coined the term and helped found the movement, correctly pointed out in a post last week, Facebook’s vision was not clearly documented in its social contract. We want to help fix that.

The Portability Policy will be released soon and we look forward to launching a discussion about it. In the mean time, you can sign up and be among the first to adopt this new framework for communication and give feedback. For more, visit http://PortabilityPolicy.org/.

Photo credit: Flickr/Massimo Barbieri.

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Working out on financial details, for majority of the people, is not as easy as it sounds. But a financial plan helps in protecting your hard earned money and spending it as wisely as possible. Regardless of when you begin, the basics remain the same. Below listed are some tips to begin with.

Ø SAVE MONEY:
Ben Franklin said, "A penny saved is a penny earned." Before you decide to trash something, find out if it has value. Sell it at E-bay, sell it on consignment, sell it at a garage sale. You can always throw it away later if it doesn't sell. Using a shopping list can eliminate return trips for forgotten items and also help you resist impulse buying.

Ø BUDGET:
Budget and stick to it. Budgets can help in financial planning because they make sure your money is being used the way you want it to be. Although budgets are a necessary evil but they are the only practical way to get a grip on your spending. Neither make budget too lean that you are left with nothing in your bank account at the end of month nor make it too tight that staying within it drives you nuts. Framing budget is mainly a 4 step process - Identify your current spending, evaluate them, set goals for financial objectives, track spending to make sure it stick within budget's guidelines.

Ø INVEST:
There is never a wrong time to start investing. Don't make your money to sit idle when you are working hard to earn it. Let your money also work for you. Its relatively painless and rewards are plentiful. Investing money involves putting money into some form of "security". Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and certificates of deposit are all types of securities. Most people prefer government bonds which are very stable not too risky. On the other hand few people are lured by high profit of stocks and mutual funds. But stock comes with high risk too. Define your risk taking ability and invest accordingly but do invest.

Ø EMERGENCIES:
Everyone needs to save for a rainy day. Always keep some money aside for emergencies like health problems, accident, house repair, stalled car etc. The money should be easily accessible like as in bank saving account, cash at hand, locker etc. The emergency amount can be any where between 3-6 months worth of living expenses. You don't need to build it up all at once - start putting away small amount each month.

Ø TRACK YOUR EXPENDITURE:
Once you know what money you have now and what income you can expect to get, it's time to find out where your money goes. Take a month and track your spending down to the penny. Make your first purchase a small notebook and pen and always jot down any expense occurred. Analyze the list over a period of time. You will be astonished to find that much expenditure done were totally unnecessary or could be avoided/postponed. No matter how small it is, money going out of hands should be tracked.

Ø TAXES:
If you get a hefty refund every year, you are having too much withheld from you pay check and are giving the government an interest free loan. Understand tax and its various brackets. Not the every dollar you make is taxed same way. Your first dollar of taxable income will be taxed at a lower rate then your last dollar. Avoid late payments because it brings interest on unpaid tax from due date along with late payment penalty.

Ø LIFE INSURANCE:
Having insurance cost but not having costs more. It is recommended to have both health and life insurance. Whether its your employer provided or individual, insurance is must. Group insurance coverage provided by employers are always better as they are subsidized by the employer. In the event of job loss, state and federal regulations protect you from losing your health coverage. Although they offer little protection from high premium costs, jobless workers may get help paying for these premiums as part of the economic stimulus bill.

Ø PLAN FOR RETIREMENT:
Retirement seems like a long way off but the earlier you start saving for a long-term financial goal, the more options you have. Expert estimate that one needs 70 percent of preretirement income. Understand your retirement needs, ask for social security benefits and take charge of your retirement financial plan. Most people prefer 401(K) retirement plan as it is one of the easiest and best way. Immediate tax relief and usually a matching contribution from your company are two important benefits of this plan.

Ø WATCH YOUR CREDIT:
Always be careful about sharing personal information and don't give out details more than required. You have right to reason if someone ask you such information. Sign up for credit alerts to avoid identity theft as it helps to protect your hard earned money. If you are doing online transaction, make sure that the website is legitimate and always choose e-commerce secured transaction like the one offered by paypal etc. They keep you safe by hiding your details.

These personal tips will help you to gain control on your money. Always remember, the more you know, the more you are able to achieve your financial goals.

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