GMOs will go viral

In the September 91, 2014 issue, Ignacio Garcia, founder of Tree Intelligence, was invited by the print magazine Época Negócios to talk about network analysis, netnography and market trends.

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GMOs will go viral

Source: Business Season
News posted on: 01/09/2014
Author: Pedro Carvalho

When pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline wanted to find out that it was guiding health discussion on social networks, it hired Argentine Ignacio Garcia. It was also for him that the World Economic Forum was tasked with mapping out who influenced presidents of certain countries on the Internet. The client list follows Natura, Vivo, Braskem… Garcia is a “netnographer”, ethnographer of the virtual age. “What I do is Internet data analysis [big data], but adding a layer of context, meaning and human behavior,” he says.

Graduated in anthropology, lives in Florianópolis, where he founded Tree Inteligence. In recent months, the company has tested a new tool with Natura, which will now be launched in the market. Powered by algorithms and 40 netnographers worldwide, technology, according to Garcia, can predict some scenarios. “It's not hard to understand how ideas come true,” he says. “With more sophisticated analysis, you can answer questions like if this influential person left the Internet, how would the debate be reorganized? If a law is passed in Paraná, what is the chance that it will influence a state in the northeast of the country? He predicts that environmental issues will heat up on the Brazilian web.

Biofuels
Background: In Brazil, there is a tendency for palm oil to advance to biodiesel production. It replaces fossil fuels, but causes deforestation.

Forecast: There will be a "social contagion" with the debate on the topic migrating from the US here, spread by NGOs, parties and newspapers.

Animal testing
Background: Following the case of the Royal Institute beagles, laws have been created or are under debate to restrict animal testing in the country.

Forecast: The trend is a debate about the actual results of this type of practice in the pharmaceutical industry and possible non-animal alternatives.

Transgenic
Context: It is a subject that has gained strength in the US. California changed a law and the discussion went viral on the east coast of the country.

Forecast: "The theme migrates and should gain strength in Brazil," says the researcher. According to him, a strong influencer of this debate is The Huffington Post.