I don't know how many of you use sites like Expedia or MakeMyTrip or ClearTrip.com to do your bookings. I often do. I like to go online and get my own tickets. I usually use Expedia or Orbitz.com to, not only buy my flight ticket, but also booked a hotel or a car when travelling to the United States.
I came across this article that Bala Iyer and Mohan Subramaniam wrote: "Are You Using API's to Gain Competitive Advantage." Basically what they were saying was that all the companies that are really moving forward today are using APIs or Application Program Interfaces to help them. They talk about Uber, Airbnb, Alibaba (e-commerce) and PayPal (online payment) – they all have this in common.
I was curious to know more about these APIs. I hadn't really come across this acronym before. They go on to explain that APIs are a technology that allows firms to interact and share information with other firms at an unprecedented scale, taking advantage of the far-reaching progress in digitization and the rising influence of software in our day-to-day lives. I tried to look at ways to understand that more clearly. I found that APIs or Application Program Interfaces are interfaces that have information that allow different software to talk to each other and share information with each other. This then allows them to have more information to do the kind of work that they need to do. For example, Expedia that has flight information talks to an API that has hotel information, or companies like Hertz or Avis that deal with car rentals. Thereby, they are able to offer more services on their particular site.
I was in awe - the amount of information that these companies have about people is incredible. Look at the amount of information that Facebook may have after you use it, or Uber has after you use their cabs, or Expedia has after you've booked a flight. All that information is being stored somewhere and is available to some people. In fact, Uber has what they call a 'God view', which is interesting, because it's really saying that it's a huge amount of information that they have and it seems like only God has about certain people. They, themselves, have come under a lot of flak about how that information is being used. When that information about you is available, then a lot of executives in these companies have that information. And people who are unscrupulous are quite capable of taking that information and using it for their own ends.
Recently Uber was taken to task about this by and American senator about some of the information that they had, because they found that one of their employees had used the information in their database. For example, once you've used Uber, they are able to know where you live, where you work, what social visits you make and so on. This particular employee was able to track a journalist who was late for a meeting and know that she was 30 minutes out, which was against company policy. In another case, Emil Michael, a Uber executive, in a talk with journalists, talked about how they had enough dirt on journalists that they could use against some of the press who were critical of their company. In particular, they were talking about Sarah Lacy, who was editor-in-chief of PandoDaily, a tech news site, and how they could use some dirt that they had about her to make her write good reviews about their site.
As you begin to think about this, you realize that, while all this information out there is a great asset in helping us navigate through sites, it's also scary. Sometimes you go to a site and they ask you to sign in using Facebook or Google. Should you use Facebook to sign in, immediately what you are using is an API that Facebook allows, which then links them to the place that you have signed into and gives them all that information as well. That's how it works. For example, you search for nearby restaurants, Yelp App on Android for instance - it plots their location on Google maps instead of creating their own maps, and via the Google maps API, the Yelp App passes the information it wants plotted – restaurant addresses, Yelp star ratings, and so on to an internal Google map function that then, returns a map objective with restaurant pins in it with proper locations. All of this information about you is then saved. It creates a huge database, making you wonder where all this information about you is going and who has access to all of it.
That made me really think about all this information. But as I thought further, I thought that on the one hand, companies are finding that they really need to take care about the people that they have in charge of all of this information because it's beginning to come back to bite them. As Uber has found not only in New Delhi, but in the US as well and recently in the Sydney terrorist attack. Because of demand, one of their apps raised fares and charged so much money for people to get out of Sydney.
So, companies are going to be on the lookout for men and women who are people of strong character, who have good moral values and high ethical standards. That's where we ought to focus. Even as technology grows and all this information goes out, more and more there is going to be a need for gatekeepers, people who will be able to be trusted to know when and how and where to use the information that has been stored all around the worldwide web.
I thought of Clayton Christensen, Harvard University Professor in Business Administration and how at one point, he was asked to play on a Sunday and he told them at the varsity level that he couldn't do that. The team tried to persuade him. But he replied, "I've always said that I'm a religious person and I will not use Sunday to play any games." So he didn't play. Years later he said, "I realized how important saying no to that was." He said, "It's easier to hang on to your principles 100% of the time than it is to do it at 98%. Once you give in, you've created a precedent for the next time."
Here's what I was thinking friends, that as we look at all this information about us that's out there, it also creates, looking futuristically down the road, a great avenue, a great opportunity for men and women of solid character, good strong ethical bases who will be in demand, because this information needs to find good gatekeepers, people who will use it well. My prayer is that's where you come in, that you will be the people that companies search for because you have a name in the industry for ones who can be trusted. That's my prayer for you today.
Can I pray with you? Almighty God, help us to be men and women of integrity. Help us to be those who can be trusted with information, valuable information, that can be used in so many different negative ways. But help us to be the men and women who will be sought out by companies worldwide because we are known for good moral standing. That is our prayer today. You help us be those kinds of people, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.
• Bala Iyer & Mohan Subramaniam, "Are You Using API's to Gain Competitive Advantage." https://hbr.org/2015/04/are-you-using-apis-to-gain-competitive-advantage
• Jose Pagliery, "Uber limits'God View' to improve Rider Privacy." http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/16/technology/security/uber-privacy-letter/
• Virginia Harrison, "Uber fares soar duringSydney Cafe Siege." http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/15/news/uber-sydney-cafe-siege-fares/index.html?iid=EL
• Frank Pollotta, "Uber Exec suggests digging up dirt on Journalists." http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/18/media/buzzfeed-uber-dinner-journalists/?iid=EL
• Bala Iyer & Mohan Subramaniam, "The Strategic Value of API's." https://hbr.org/2015/01/the-strategic-value-of-apis
• Brian Profitt, "What API's Are And Why They Are Important." http://readwrite.com/2013/09/19/api-defined
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