Big Data is big, smartphones are bigger, and mobile technology is booming within enterprises. We recently attended conferences by both CTIA – The Wireless Association and the Direct Marketing Association, and we came away with several insights worth noting:

Big Data is, well, big. More and more data is being collected by marketers. The challenge is how to best sift through it all to find actionable information to use within your marketing efforts. The tools to allow anyone to do what only large organizations could do a few years ago are becoming more readily available.
Smartphones are growing in market share, up to 65% of all cellular phones in the U.S. now. This is noticeably faster than was anticipated just last year.
Mobile technology is maturing in the enterprise, with security and privacy being the latest concerns. As employees find ways to use their personal mobile devices for work email and applications, the leakage of sensitive corporate data is growing to be a huge problem that warrants attention by the CIO.
Other hot topics include the transition of location-based services into buildings where GPS is no longer effective, the continued evolution of the app market, and the beginning of the rollout of mobile payment technologies that appear to be on the verge of revolutionizing the way we pay for products and services.