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"Suaad Sait is co-founder of Workstreamer, a business listening platform that delivers actionable, real-time information to business professionals.\nAs 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.\u00A0 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. \nThe trick, of course, is making sense of all that data, and putting it in context of what companies \u2014 and who exactly at those companies \u2014 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?\u00A0 \nRelationships Still Rule\nThe answer to these questions starts by first acknowledging that it\u2019s the same as it ever was: Business is still all about relationships.\u00A0 This should be soothing to many for whom the data web is a brave new world.\u00A0 \nThe 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\u2019s business data has put everything in stark relief, at very high resolution. Opportunities and risks have been amplified. \nFor example, if I notice a partner\u2019s 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.\nOr, 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\u2019m organizing. \nToday\u2019s 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. \nRelationships Run on Data\nStrategic relationships with colleagues and contacts both create and consume data. In fact, data isn\u2019t cold and impersonal at all \u2014 that\u2019s an important misconception to put to rest. Many of your most successful and trusted business relationships now likely run on data. \n\u201CNetworking\u201D in the traditional sense used to take a lot of time and effort.\u00A0 But in truth, all networking has ever been is the act of information-gathering \u2014 of scouting and collating.\u00A0 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.\nNow, 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 \u2014 you can get right to the heart of the matter because you\u2019re having a more informed, in-depth conversation that matters. \nFrom 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. \nConclusion\nRemember the under-the-table note sharing going on in high school?\u00A0 \nWell, imagine having the smartest kid in school organize, prioritize and collect notes for you, no strings attached. That\u2019s the kind of information advantage that is now available to us, through an ever-growing array of new social business tools. And it\u2019s not considered cheating, either. \nBut even despite all this new data and these new tools, relationships are still the beginning and the end of every business decision.\u00A0 \nThere 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.\nToday, 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.\u00A0\u00A0 But no matter how the world has changed, listening is still paramount -\u2013 listening to customers, listening to prospects, listening to colleagues, and listening to entire companies \u2013- indeed, listening to data.\n\nFor more business coverage, follow Mashable Business on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook\n\nMore business resources from Mashable:\n- How Data Will Impact the Way We Do Business- HOW TO: Make Sure You\u2019re Tracking the Right Data- 4 Tips for B2B Marketing on Facebook- What Facebook\u2019s Open Graph Means for Your Business- HOW TO: Cultivate Your Brand\u2019s Super Users\nImage courtesy of iStockphoto, Sportstock, stevecoleccs"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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