It had to be spawned in marketing: The term big-data, like the term cloud computing, is simple and punchy. It evokes a mental picture of a situation that enterprises find tough to talk about, let alone control.
The difficulty is that big-data encompasses a range of unstructured information in which enterprises are literally drowning. Getting a handle on it calls for sophisticated technology that isn't so easily explained.
The crux is this: IBM is releasing "new predictive analytics software that automatically correlates and analyzes big data to help clients embed hyper-intelligence into every business decision." The term IBM uses to describe this new software is "analytical decision management."
The new software is part of IBM's Smarter Analytics initiative, which, simply put, is focused on helping enterprises make sense of big-data in real-time.
There's new (and complicated) technology involved. Here's how Jeff Jonas, IBM Fellow and chief scientist of entity analytics, describes the new analytical decision management applications released this week: "The technique that we're using -- very new -- is called incremental context accumulation. [It] works the same way that puzzle pieces find their home in the puzzle, and it does this in real-time." The more data you use, Jonas says, the more accurate the predictions you can make.
No, I don't understand it. Do you? That said, I do understand the problems that IBM is addressing -- namely, the need to parse social networking data to find buying patterns and brand recognition among customers, as well as more negative trends such as fraud, the need to see what the heck is going on in real-time and take action about it.
And maybe that's the point. IBM isn't describing one product or technology in all this, but a series that matches up with other products, kind of like the puzzle pieces referenced by Jonas. Does it matter what language you apply to that? Big-data solutions is as good a term as any. As they say, actions speak louder than words.
Thanks for the clarification, DHagar. Agreed! it will take some time to come to grips with big data and analytics. And I think the process will take place in a number of ways.
As I restated to Mary, I full agree that we are still the architects of computers and the human mind is superior. My original thinking was that we have not "recomputed" our own thinking to account for the affects of the greater computing power and the impact of more and smarter data. So the human mind has not kept pace with the power of computing that we designed.
Restated, those comments should be directed to the impact of the data itself, the product of computing, rather than the computing itself.
DHagar, I would politely disagree with you. Even with the significant advancement in machine learning and AI I believe that it has not surpassed the limit of the human brain. Firstly, because these programs are developed by humans and perform in a manner which is written in form of a code.
Yes, to the common man the computation power of the computer might not be comparable to humans as it takes us a bit longer to work on structured problems than computers. However, unstructured problems are totally a different ball game and humans definitely have an edge over machines there.
Mary, I should clarify my remark. We understand how the technology works, what I meant to imply is that we have not yet caught up with the impact and full understanding of its impact. It has created such a ripple affect, along with the ability to have more comprehensive information available upon demand, that I do not think we have begun to digest what that impact is.
So the human brain has not caught up with the results of the use of the technology, we are still limiting it too our past concepts.
While I don't agree that tech has moved beyond human understanding, I do think analytics have exceeded the powers of many who don't skills in this area. That's where the specialists and vendors come in.
I believe that the technology now, and with the compounded machine learning, has moved beyond the limits of our human brain to understand how it works. The specialists, as you point out, are increasingly "applying" that computing power in new and different ways in response to our computing, or now adding the business demands.
It truly opens the door to entire new dimensions of thinking, analyzing, and problem solving that we haven't begun to tap into. So your point, BIG DATA, is a good human-oriented term to define this phenomenon.
Yes, it makes sense that data scientists would be best for working on analytics for big data. I also wonder whether many in IT aren't simply going to rely on their internal resources to ask the right questions, while leaving the byzantine mechanics of the actual software to IBM and other big vendors.
It's enormously complex--and I agree with IBM in that the more modeling ("learning about") this data that the underlying analytics algorithms do, the more that certain patterns begin to repeat themselves so that the puzzle pieces begin to fall in place.
Big data processing is a difficult concept for IT (or almost anyone) to grasp because the process for sifting through this data is nonlinear and takes many paths at once. The hope is that an "end result" picture (confirmed by repeating patterns of data) begins to emerge that people in the business can act upon. By the way, most enterprises are finding that they need to hire quantitative analysts and researchers to work with this stuff.
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Facebook and Twitter are great for posting cat pictures. But are people really using social media for life-changing communications? Like, if a hurricane comes by and blows down their house?
In a standout presentation at the Jefferies 2013 Global Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in New York this week, the UK government talked about becoming a "very intelligent client."
A consumer business would have to be crazy or desperate to change call-center software in December, the peak of the holiday season. But that was exactly Positec's position.
To help enterprises deploy software faster for mobile, social, big-data, and cloud applications, IBM this week acquired development tools vendor UrbanCode.
New tools like laptops, tablets, smartphone, and wireless connectivity let us work from San Diego to Katmandu, and anywhere in between. But time management remains a problem.
Showing results is the best way to win over social business doubters, according to Mary Maida, Medtronic lead information solutions manager. Internet Evolution's Mitch Wagner interviewed Maida at the E2 Innovate conference.
The medical instruments manufacturer looks to metrics to quantify its social business engagement, according to Mary Maida, Medtronic lead information solutions manager. Internet Evolution editor in chief Mitch Wagner interviewed Maida at the E2 Innovate conference.
A recent release of the popular TweetDeck app for Twitter power-users gives new life to software that had previously taken a wrong turn. Here's a quick walk-through of the new TweetDeck, to show you why it should be at the top of your Twitter toolkit.
Enterprises are discovering that using social networking within the secure setting of a SaaS provider's network gives them an unusual opportunity to freely collaborate with partners, suppliers, and even competitors.
As social media make their way into company operations, IT'ers and engineers are using it to exchange ideas and collaborate on problem solving with others. But there is also a line to be drawn when it comes to proprietary information sharing.
The very low-tech "scrum" project technique introduces "crowd talking" to projects and also sets the entire crowd to problem solving. So far, these new social-media-style meetings appear to have supercharged project execution.
Elizabeth Pizzinato, SVP of marketing and communications at Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, calls content marketing "the new black" and explains how her brand engages its target audience.
Linda Descano, President and CEO of Women & Co., and managing director of partnerships and branded content of North America marketing at Citi, explains her firm's marketing opportunities and challenges.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
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