Megadata: a National Strategy, not a Marketing Tool

Megadata: a National Strategy, not a Marketing Tool
China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan, ROC)
A Translation
January 5, 2015

Executive Summary: Professor Ko's campaign committee won the election by means of data calculation. That of course must be taken into consideration. But is making the effects perceptible to voters the Mao cabinet's only motive for megadata planning? Is megadata merely a policy marketing tool, rather than a comprehensive policy planning strategy? If so, then the Mao cabinet is truly out of touch with global trends, and the Kuomintang government is destined for defeat yet again in its cyberwar with the DPP.

Full Text Below:

The New Year holiday was chilly. We are now into the year 2015. We look back. We look ahead. We alternate between the old and the new. We see that we have plenty of homework to do. Many people are still caught up in wake of the nine in one elections. Several newly elected city mayors have shocked voters with impressive victories. But from a larger perspective, this was inevitable. A ruling party made way for newcomers. In a democratic society, none of this is surprising. In 2015 the ruling and opposition parties on Taiwan should not be concerned about who will run for president in 2016. They should be concerned about the way Internet technology is changing the world.

Many commentaries about last year's nine in one elections mention the arriveal of a new generation of voters. They noted how this new generation grew up with the Internet. It knows how to use new media. It became involved with the election campaigns. In March last year, during the student movement, many noted how students were using the new media. They overrode the influence of traditional mainstream media. They even monopolized discussion of the STA. They successfully blocked passage of trade in services legislation. They forced the ruling KMT to study the new media and incorporate it into their own policy advocacy approach. Clearly the real world effect was negligible.

Many still do not understand the new media behind the March student movement. In fact, it was merely one link in the development of a digital network. It was not the cause, but merely the effect. Ignore the media for the moment, and one soon discovers that the banking, retail, travel, mobile phone, and entertainment industries all underwent tectonic changes long ago. More and more e-commerce sites have surpassed bricks and mortar stores in performance. These changes are quietly rewriting our lives.

Take the world's largest retailer Wal-Mart, for example. It has 50,000 employees on Mainland China and an annual turnover of more than 10 billion dollars. It is a retail giant. But once Jack Ma founded Taobao, a mere three years later, Taobao's annual turnover was three times that of all Wal-Mart stores on Mainland China. On 11/11, 2013, Singles Day, a single day's transactions equaled that of an entire Hong Kong Golden Week. This simple data should surprise anyone. The world has changed. Alas, many have yet to wake up to the fact.

Actually the current cabinet includes many members who understand new media. For example, over the past several years, the cabinet has been promoting 4G mobile broadband networks and related industries. It has invested a great deal of effort into them. The popularization of 4G smart phones is merely a matter of time. It will inevitably accelerate the development of new media on Taiwan. But the ruling administration failed to realize that the establishment of 4G broadband technology on Taiwan was merely one link in the digitization chain. Other factors are changing as well. They include political, economic, social, and even psychological factors. They include of course the digital generational divide. In other words, the new generation media exercise was not a forecast. It was an announcement that the New World has already arrived.

When Premier Mao took office, he issued his so-called "Mao's three arrows." He assigned Chang San-cheng, a deputy premier with ICT expertise, to plan and implement "open data," "megadata," and "crowdsourcing," and make the benefits perceptible to the public within within six months. The Mao cabinet apparently expected megadata to accurately calculate public demand and facilitate farsighted governance. Was Premier Mao's vision for megadata merely for public perception? If so, then he underestimate the power of this new global trend.

Consider current practice in nations all across the globe. The US plans to raise research and production of megadata to the strategic level. In 2012 alone it invested $ 200 million to implement a "Megadata Research and Development Plan". Mainland China has already made plans. They include promoting open government information, encouraging large data clusters, establishing the Zhongguancun Information Industry Alliance trading platform, and building science and technology megadata platforms. Britain will treat megadata as a strategic technology. It invested 189 million pounds in 2013 to develop megadata technology. France has issued a "digital roadmap" and announced that it will support strategic megadata, including a € 300 million high-tech investment fund to promote megadat development. Korea is aggressively pursuing a series of strategies for megadata development. The related research and development is seen as a matter of "national will". It budgeted $ 200 million in 2013 for a four-year national megadata engineering project. Singapore intends to increase its government data analysis capacity, and promote Singapore as a global data analysis center.

Professor Ko's campaign committee won the election by means of data calculation. That of course must be taken into consideration. But is making the effects perceptible to voters the Mao cabinet's only motive for megadata planning? Is megadata merely a policy marketing tool, rather than a comprehensive policy planning strategy? If so, then the Mao cabinet is truly out of touch with global trends, and the Kuomintang government is destined for defeat yet again in its cyberwar with the DPP.

社論－解構2014 大數據不只是行銷工具 是國家戰略
2015年01月05日 04:10
本報訊

在幾許涼意的新年假期中，我們邁向了嶄新的2015年。回首過往，展望未來，永遠都是在新舊年歲交替中，必須要給自己的功課！有許多人或許到現在還沉浸在去年底九合一選舉結果的後續效應中，幾位新當選的市長在新舊年交替時節所帶來的震撼，確實令人印象深刻。不過宏觀看來，這原本就是政黨輪替、新人新政必然的現象，在民主社會中本就不足為奇，我們倒是認為，展望即將到來的2015年，台灣朝野更該關注的絕不是2016年誰出馬參選總統，而是正在被網路科技改變的世界！

許多人在評論去年底九合一選舉結果時，都會提到世代選民的興起，當然也會提到這批在網路氛圍中成長的新世代，如何運用他們所熟悉的新媒體，介入了這場選戰的操作。事實上更早在去年的三月學運，許多人就已目睹了這群學生如何運用新媒體的操作，不僅凌駕了主流媒體的傳統影響力，更全面篡奪了服貿議題的話語權，成功阻擋了服貿立法進度，逼得執政黨的行政部門成立了專責單位研究新媒體，期盼將之納入政策宣導的機制，但很顯然實踐的效果並不顯著。

有不少人還弄不清楚，三月學運背後所謂新媒體的神話，其實正是數位網路發展的一環，它其實不是原因，而是結果。如果先不將目光集中媒體，就不難發現，當下從銀行業、零售業、旅行業、手機業、娛樂業等，早就出現版圖龐大挪移的現象，越來越多商業網站的業績，已經超越實體產業經營許久才能達到的成果。而這些改變，也正在悄悄改寫我們的生活。

以全球最大的零售商沃爾瑪為例，它在大陸有5萬名員工，年交易額超過百億，可謂為零售業巨無霸；然而在馬雲創辦他的淘寶網之後，僅3年的時間其交易額就是沃爾瑪在大陸所有交易額的3倍，2012年光棍節一天的交易額，就是沃爾瑪所有門市在大陸1年的交易額，也相當7個香港黃金周。僅憑這幾個簡單的數據，任誰都會驚覺，這個世界已經改變，怕只怕有許多人還沒有醒覺過來。

事實上，目前的內閣團隊中並不乏瞭解新媒體趨勢的，例如過去幾年行政團隊在推動4G行動寬頻網路建制與相關產業的發展上，就投注了不少心力，4G智慧性手機的全面普及化，只是時間早晚的問題，這勢必也會加速了新媒體在台灣的發展。然而執政團隊所未顧及的是，4G寬頻的技術建制，僅只是台灣邁向數位化升段的環節之一，同步在變化的，其實還包含了政治、經濟、社會甚至還包含了心理層面，這中間當然就包括了世代數位落差的因素。換言之，新世代對新媒體的演練，並不是預告，而是宣告新世界的到來。

毛揆上任後，曾發出所謂「毛式三箭」，他指派有資通訊專長的副閣揆張善政規畫，半年內要靠「開放資料」、「大數據」與「群眾外包」，讓民眾有感。據了解，毛內閣期盼要透過大數據，精準「算出」民眾需求與前瞻施政。毛揆對大數據的願景，如果僅只是想讓民眾有感，就低估了這個新趨勢在全球發展上的威力。

看看當下全球各國的做法，美國將大資料研究和生產計畫提高到國家戰略層面，僅2012年就投資2億美元實施「大數據研究和發展計畫」；中國大陸亦早已經提前布局，包括推動政府資訊公開、鼓勵大數據產業集群、建立中關村的資料產業聯盟及交易平台、搭建首都科技大數據平台等；英國將大數據列為戰略性技術，2013年投資1.89億英鎊支援大數據技術研發。法國發布《數位化路線圖》，宣布將大力支持大數據在內的戰略性高新技術，投入3億歐元資金用於推動大數據領域的發展；韓國積極制定一系列有關大數據的發展戰略，將相關研發專案視為具有「國家意志」的科技專案，撥2億美元預算在2013年起的4年時間裡打造運用大數據的國家工程；新加坡則是加強政府資料分析的能力建設，推動新加坡成為全球資料分析中心。

講得直白一些，柯P競選團隊藉由數據計算打贏了選戰，固然必須檢討，但如果只是規畫怎麼利用大數據讓民眾有感，把大數據做為政策行銷工具，卻未視為國家戰略做出完整規畫，那就真的與全球大趨勢脫節，國民黨政府的網路戰爭注定一敗再敗。