Big Data encircling the planet

I can still remember the first time I saw a 1 GB flash drive—it blew my mind. This device, the size of my thumb, could hold the information of 711 3.5-inch floppy disks. But it’s a darn good thing that data is occupying less space these days, since we’re seeing it increase astronomically in volume.[read more]

business skillset / shutterstock

Employees with technical skills are critical to enable an analytics program, but the ability to communicate, relate and navigate throughout an organization—so called “softer skills”—are especially needed to propagate analysis and communicate the impact of data-driven decision-making.[read more]

BI roadblocks?

People have been writing about the limitations of self-service BI for years. What does the failure of self-service BI mean for Big Data? Big problems. Unless self-service and pervasive BI become the norm, enterprises will never productively tap the business ROI from Big Data.[read more]

Cloud computing / shutterstock

At its most basic, cloud computing is about the ability to enhance enterprise value through more efficient use of IT resources. One of the more innovative ways to boost capacity and add capabilities in a cloud environment is by the virtualization of services and infrastructure.[read more]

Marketing automation

Leading marketing and advertising agencies are discovering that marketing automation is giving them the power to outflank their competition. Here are the steps you can take to automate your marketing, improving your customer service and your profits in the process.[read more]

Future of video streaming

Fact #1: the video streaming category is getting crowded. And, fact #2, it’s getting more than a little competitive, as media companies are moving into streaming video looking for their own new revenue streams. What does this mean for consumers?[read more]

data variety / shutterstock

Data variety stands out from the three Vs of big data from the report of the big data survey conducted by NewVantage Partners in 2012. One of the survey results shows companies focusing more on data variety instead of data volume both now and in the next three years.[read more]

IT threats / shutterstock

The U.S. government released a warning about the increasing risk of cyber attacks targeting critical energy corporations. While the majority of previous attacks have involved stealing trade secrets, the newest threats appear to be motivated by the intention to shut down industrial machinery and energy delivery.[read more]

Mobile & Decision Management: James Taylor

While at IBM IMPACT this year I was interviewed about Decision Management, Mobile and more. Check out this video to see the interview.[read more]

Customer data / shutterstock

Focusing on customer retention and reducing churn instead of customer acquisition, Gainsight integrates with Salesforce and uses sales data, surveys, support tickets, usage logs and other sources of customer intelligence to turn customer retention into an automated, data-driven process.[read more]

What's your data story? 

My colleagues and I had the opportunity to represent Attivio at the recent Tableau 8 Roadshow as a partner vendor. Unlike some BI events I have experienced over a number of years, the Tableau 8 Roadshow attendees were very much user-based rather than IT-focused.[read more]

Big Data journey / shutterstock

While much around big data remains hype, many companies are in the fledging stages of drawing value from their big data corpus, and given an army of discussions and opinions around the topic, it’s still hard to find a clear roadmap to arrive at the Big Promise.[read more]

BI evolution

Operational analytics is making headlines in 2013. But why is it important? And why is it more likely to succeed now than in the mid-2000s, when it was called operational BI, or the mid-1990s when it surfaced as the operational data store (ODS)? Let's see what has changed.[read more]

data flow

Crowdsourcing is an Internet-age phenomenon by which problems are distributed to “the crowd,” and those in the online community offer partial solutions. These partial solutions, when taken in aggregate, solve the overall problem. Today, crowdsourcing is contributing to scientific advances in health care.[read more]

What's in a name? / Shutterstock

Earlier this week, the Business section of the Flemish quality newspaper 'De Standaard' reported that the shorter the first name, the higher the income. The article showed a pricture of Bill Gates, with the caption: "Was using the nickname 'Bill' the key to the success of William Henry Gates?" There are, however, a few concerns with this research.[read more]

decision management / shutterstock

I have written about few in-memory technologies and approaches in recent months, and into this space has come Teradata with its new Intelligent Memory. I would summarize the idea behind the Teradata Intelligent Memory product with three points.[read more]