Qualtrics iQ™

books were painstakingly written by hand. And available to only a select few. Reading itself was a luxury, attainable only by scholars and their wealthy benefactors.

In Germany in 1440, only 10% of the population could read. In England, 5%. Case in point: the clergy. At the time, not only was the Bible hard to find, it was also written in Latin. The power to know and interpret was only available to those who had painstakingly learned to read. The prevailing technology—words laboriously drawn on sheets—was thousands of years old.

But today virtually 100% of the population in Germany, England, and throughout the developed world can read this paragraph without any trouble. What happened?

Johannes Gutenberg happened.

The world changed because a German goldsmith invented movable type printing. Within decades books became available to everyone. And everything changed. Access to knowledge was no longer a privilege of the few. The word was available to the masses.

Printed books flooded Europe. Education became an emphasis. Literacy rates skyrocketed. And positive things started happening: The Renaissance. The Age of Enlightenment. The Scientific Revolution. Democracy.

All from a goldsmith with a tool for rearranging metal, paper, and ink.

Today, data is the language of the powerful. If you understand what your data is saying, you can begin to predict the future.

But once again an exclusive class has emerged. Data literacy is a privilege of a select few. Data specialists, analysts, and scientists enjoy the same privileges of those pre-Gutenberg readers.

They know a mystery. They are keepers of models, formulas, and algorithms. They translate data into layman’s terms. They are the oracles. Everyone else—from entry-level employees to C-level execs—have become the laymen.

Not anymore.

Like Gutenberg, whose press democratized knowledge, Qualtrics iQ is democratizing data. Mysteries like regression, distribution, variance, and significance will transform from taboos to everyday tools. Innovations like data visualization and natural language processing are pushing data literacy to everyone. The power to know and predict with ease can now be shared by all.

At Qualtrics, this has always been our mission: putting power into the hands of users. We don’t want you to have to outsource the understanding of your own customers. And iQ technology, built right into the Qualtrics Experience Management Platform, brings massive benefits by making predictive intelligence accessible. This is the only platform:

• That automatically predicts which customers are going to leave your brand—and which are ready to spend more;
• That’s always listening to and alerts you to new trends, emerging problems, and unseen opportunities;
• That identifies the parts of your customer journey that matter most and recommends how to improve them.

Click. Understand. Predict. Qualtrics iQ is Gutenberg 2.0, bringing predictive intelligence and statistical analytics to the masses.

Let the data renaissance begin!

- Ryan Smith