CULTURE, LEADERSHIP AND COMMUNICATION / AMAIA CABEZÓN
Gustavo Entrala discussion on technology and freedom following the documentary The Social Dilemma, with researcher Javier García Manglano.
The Social Dilemma has become, with 38 million views, the second most watched documentary on Netflix. "How a production of great cinematographic quality, with a great script, through a massive distribution platform, has managed to make a great idea, which had been in the air for so long, gain momentum". This is how Gustavo Entrala, a specialist in product ideation, brand strategy and innovation culture, opened the colloquium Stop and Think Now organized by the University of Navarra on the successful Netflix production.
"Necessary" was the qualification of Javier García Manglano, researcher of the Institute of Culture and Society of the University of Navarra, after seeing the production. "It was necessary to start conversations" he said, highlighting the asymmetry that exists between what "we users know about the people on the other end when we use our cell phones, and what they know about us".
However, the real dilemma lies in the business model , explained García Manglano, director of group of research "Youth in transition". "What gives them viability is precisely that our attention is very valuable," he expounded. And this is where freedom comes into play, since the staff attention is controlled by outsiders.
Entrala stressed that this attention is achieved through predictive models of our behavior that companies have developed through innovation, with the goal to offer advertisers the optimization of the information extracted from users. An idea shared by García Manglano, who recalled that with the Internet and social networks it is no longer necessary to "shoot massively and lose countless of those shots, but to know who exactly to target". Now the business model that works is "turning the personalized impact around", thus opening up the question of collection.
Entrala clarified that there is a tendency to place great value on information staff, however, when something "free" is offered in exchange, it is considered worth giving it up, since "the value of the data is not in the data itself, but in the use that is made of it". In addition, the consultant stressed that it is still unknown which procedure should be followed to get out of this compensatory circle that makes that as soon as something of value is offered, the information staff ends up in the background.
The data, its collection, is the product for which advertisers and brands pay. And this product entails a "slight gradual change" in behavior, García Manglano clarified. Something that he considered a real cause for concern, as the possibility of the persuasive design touching springs of human nature that are there and to which we humans are vulnerable, in the quest to create the perfect Username for them.
Gustavo Entrala proposed that society should know how algorithms are generated and the decisions they make, recalling that "there is a responsibility on the part of Username". He also advocated the idea that the consumer himself should educate and learn, also in the aspect of the addictive design . To conclude, Entrala expressed that he would like to "re-humanize the Internet" with a "more human criterion" and highlighted the need for greater diversity in the supply of technology so that skill can be opened and there are no companies with control of traffic and of what we do.
