‘Data Scientist’ Replaces ‘Social Media Scientist’ In LinkedIn’s 2014 Top Skills List -
Does that mean my position has suddenly become irrelevant? Not really! What it says to me is that data collection, mining analysis and Cloud management are now the number-one recruitment darlings.
While us social networking folks were sought after last year, in 2014, those that slice and dice data came up more often in the 330 million member profiles. They, plus those involved in middleware, integration software, storage systems management and information security are the jobs in greater demand today.
This makes sense based on how many companies decided this past year to store their data in the Cloud -- whether it be the Internet of Things, smart homes, wearable devices, or TV streaming. All of these professional fields just matriculated from geek to chic - from hobby to mainstream vocation - so much so that TV tracking experts at Nielsen decided to add online television viewing to its area of purview.
Nielsen Media, the company which has conducted standard TV measurement ever since that technology first graced our living rooms back in the 1950’s - has just announced plans to measure subscription online video services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.
While both services have long been mum on ratings for both acquired programs and original series, Nielsen now plans to tabulate the data for them using that which was collected for clients and studios to see how their acquired content is performing on both Netflix and Amazon.
Just a quick perusal of articles posted by the likes of Fortune, Harvard, Gigaom and Time Magazine gave more spotlight time to Data Scientists as well.
‘Data Stars’ like Andrea Burbank of Pinterest, Patrick Poels of EventBrite, Silvanus Lee of Dropbox and Surabhi Gupta of Airbnb made the Fortune list, while former Netflix Senior Data Scientist Mohammad Sabah noted his position at the streaming video platform required the capture and analysis of an incredible amount of data -- trying to figure out what consumers’ preferences were and what they wanted to view next.
At the time, Sabah said, 75 percent of users selected movies based on the company’s recommendations, and based on those findings, Netflix has sought to make that number escalate even higher.
To that end, Netflix’s most-interesting use of data might be its attempts to actually analyze what’s going on in movies themselves. Sabah said it had already captured JPEGs and noted the exact time that credits start rolling, and it also took into account other characteristics. For instance, It could make a lot of sense out of variables, such as volume, colors and scenery that might give valuable signals about what viewers really like.
"People call them (data scientists) unicorns" because the combination of skills required is so rare, said Jonathan Goldman, who ran LinkedIn Corp.'s team that in 2007 developed the "People You May Know" button -- which five years later drove more than half of the invitations on the professional-networking platform.
Employers according to Goldman says the ideal candidate must have more than traditional market-research skills: the ability to find patterns in millions of pieces of data streaming in from different sources, to infer from those patterns how customers behave and to write statistical models that pinpoint behavioral triggers.
Anyone with "data science" in his or her job title on a LinkedIn page is going to get "100 recruiter emails a day," said Josh Sullivan, who leads a 500-person data-science group at the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp.
And as newer social networking platforms surface with ‘payment models' such as Tsu, Bitlanders, MyLifeB, BonzoMe and Bubblews - in my estimation that’s a whole new crop of networks that are going to need Social Media Scientists like myself to manage, market and promote for SMBs as well as larger brands. For more on this topic, see my previous post titled, “2015 Prediction For Top Digital Job: ‘Paid Social Specialist.’”
What a difference one short year makes. In 2013, my position of ‘Social Media Scientist’ which focuses on ‘social media marketing’ for clients and publishers was the most viable job in the land. This year, not only did ‘Data Scientist’ take the top spot in Linkedin’s “Top 25 Job Skills” list, the social media marketing skill was wiped clean off the 2014 list entirely.
Social Media Marketing no longer needed?
While us social networking folks were sought after last year, in 2014, those that slice and dice data came up more often in the 330 million member profiles. They, plus those involved in middleware, integration software, storage systems management and information security are the jobs in greater demand today.
Data Tech Gets its Sea Legs
Netflix & Amazon Prime Get Big Boy Pants
While both services have long been mum on ratings for both acquired programs and original series, Nielsen now plans to tabulate the data for them using that which was collected for clients and studios to see how their acquired content is performing on both Netflix and Amazon.
Data Scientists now Sexy
‘Data Stars’ like Andrea Burbank of Pinterest, Patrick Poels of EventBrite, Silvanus Lee of Dropbox and Surabhi Gupta of Airbnb made the Fortune list, while former Netflix Senior Data Scientist Mohammad Sabah noted his position at the streaming video platform required the capture and analysis of an incredible amount of data -- trying to figure out what consumers’ preferences were and what they wanted to view next.
At the time, Sabah said, 75 percent of users selected movies based on the company’s recommendations, and based on those findings, Netflix has sought to make that number escalate even higher.
To that end, Netflix’s most-interesting use of data might be its attempts to actually analyze what’s going on in movies themselves. Sabah said it had already captured JPEGs and noted the exact time that credits start rolling, and it also took into account other characteristics. For instance, It could make a lot of sense out of variables, such as volume, colors and scenery that might give valuable signals about what viewers really like.
What this means for finding jobs in 2015?
Employers according to Goldman says the ideal candidate must have more than traditional market-research skills: the ability to find patterns in millions of pieces of data streaming in from different sources, to infer from those patterns how customers behave and to write statistical models that pinpoint behavioral triggers.
Anyone with "data science" in his or her job title on a LinkedIn page is going to get "100 recruiter emails a day," said Josh Sullivan, who leads a 500-person data-science group at the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp.
So Says the Social Media Scientist. . .
So with this somewhat disturbing news that my field of play is not on the top of mind awareness for recruitment, I am content in the fact, I’ve secured a solid client base over the years.
On the other hand, ironically data shows that social media still does matter.
Ninety-two percent of business owners today recognize the need to invest in social media as a necessary part of their business strategy, as it relates to engaging and marketing to their consumers; that’s an increase from 2013, when that number was 86%.
That’s enough work to keep me busy for at least another year — and who knows when Linkedin’s “Top 25 Job Skills” list rolls around in 2015, my skill set might just be back in high demand, once again!
Happy job hunting and recruiting in 2015 -- you, Digital and
Social Media Scientists!
No comments:
Post a Comment