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Big Data Analytics: what do your Likes reveal?

Big Data Analytics allow us to automatically analyze digital records such as our updates, photos and ‘Likes’ on Facebook. But did you know that your 'Likes' on Facebook could expose intimate details about you as well as personality traits you might not want to share with anyone?[read more]

BI: bigger is not always better / shutterstock

A myth that has haunted BI software for years is that bigger is always better. If firms find a solution they are comfortable with, it can become an integral part of their processes for a significant amount of time. Buying tons of software or going on an analyst hiring spree just depletes the corporate coffers.[read more]

Tip of the Big Data iceberg

We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to “big data analytics.” We can now gather, correlate, and analyze information in ways that were unthinkable in the past. However, with great power comes great responsibility. Analytics is a very powerful weapon, and weapons can be abused.[read more]

long-range planning / shutterstock

Competence in long-range planning is vital to the success of any business. Especially for corporations that now use spreadsheets to manage their long-range planning, I recommend they look at Planview Enterprise as an alternative to support a more effective long-range planning process.[read more]

Big Data's PR role / shutterstock

According to Wikipedia, Public Relations is the practice of managing the spread of information between an individual or an organization and the public. As all of that information is data, it can be analyzed and used to improve the PR activities performed by organizations.[read more]

Building a roadmap (image credit)

This post will discuss how to develop a robust gap analysis to identify any significant shortcomings between the current and desired end states. We use these findings to begin develop strategy alternatives (and related initiatives) to address what has been uncovered.[read more]

CIOs predict new world of IT / shutterstock

Wondering about the form IT will take over the next few years is only natural. According to Forrester Research analyst John McCarthy, his firm's North America CIO Forum gave several hints about the direction IT is taking. These indications could point to the future of BI development.[read more]

Big Data vs. Proactive Analytics

With all the hype about the SAS Visual Analytics product, what is the plan for the SAS BI/EBI? During the SAS Global Forum 2013 opening session, Jim Davis pointed out that SAS had been selected as the leader in strategy and current product offering with the Big Data Predictive Analytics Solutions.[read more]

Greg Bell, Berkeley Lab

Berkeley Lab operates the fastest science network in the world, connecting all science labs in the United States. In March 2013, the Energy Sciences Network transferred a staggering 15.5 Petabytes across the network. Here is a video featuring Greg Bell, a computational scientist at Berkeley Lab.[read more]

Cash flows and outlays / shutterstock

IT leaders often express dismay at the process involved in not only forecasting for CAPEX needs, but then stepping through arduous internal CAPEX budget approvals. What’s all the fuss with CAPEX, and why is it so difficult to obtain?[read more]

Data modeling / shutterstock

Data modeling is a critical part of the development of any information system. It enforces certain rules on the information – such as ensuring that customer identifiers are never duplicated, that no account exists without a customer to own it, and that all the information about a customer has been filled in.[read more]

Yammer

It’s become very difficult for IT to police who brings personal devices into the enterprise (never mind what people do with them). You’ve probably heard of BYOD, a trend that will surely continue. But what about bringing your own software? Is this a nascent trend about which IT has to worry?[read more]

Exigen Services OpenL tablets

OpenL Tablets is an open source business rules management system that Exigen has been developing since 2004. The focus of OpenL Tablets is on allowing business analysts to create and manage business rules independently from a technical team.[read more]

Video interview on perils of Big Data

Under a top secret court issue, the telephone records of millions of Verizon customers have been stored and analyzed by the NSA. Is Verizon the only company that has to give the data or are other companies doing the same? Check out this ReutersTV video to learn more about it.[read more]

Big Data road to success

Big Data is complex. The technologies in Big Data are rapidly maturing, but are still in many ways in an adolescent phase. With all the hype around big data, it is easy to expect Hadoop to do anything and everything. However, the road to success with Hadoop is full of both opportunities and obstacles.[read more]

Where does insight come from? / image source

Neuroscientist Dr. Mark Beeman at Northwestern University is using puzzles and brain imaging to understand how insight works. His team have discovered that when an insight occurs different areas of our brains are active than when we reason analytically.[read more]

Salesforce's marketing cloud / shutterstock

Why all the interest in marketing automation software all of a sudden? It's what I'd call the CMO opportunity. The leading enterprise trend today is focused on customer experience (CX), and the CMO is emerging as the key executive in most company's CX strategy.[read more]

The Analytics Gap / shutterstock

Let’s call it the Analytics Gap. In many companies, some of those who interpret the data don’t stick to rigid, unspoken rules of behavior. And those who with the greatest executive authority can’t quite appreciate what these people can tell them.[read more]

What is Big Data?

While everyone is talking about Big Data there are still a lot of misunderstandings about the term and what it really means. I would like to use this article to put a stake in the ground and define in simple terms what 'big data' is, and hope that with everyone's help we can create a complete definition.[read more]

Big Data infographic

Big Data continues to spark excitement, but most businesses are still searching for a way to get value from it. It is often analyzed in isolation from other meaningful sources of information and has been the exclusive domain of scientists. What's required to make more informed strategic decisions using Big Data?[read more]

Jeff Kelley on Apple and Big Data analytics

Apple’s streaming music service, iRadio, doesn’t seem to be a Big Data story per se, yet, but Jeff Kelley, Wikibon Principal Research Contributor, explains the opportunities Apple has with big data analytics and how it can improve the customer experience with big data.[read more]

What does a good analytics vendor look like?

Let’s face it: the best way to make your organization more data-driven is to get the best analytics talent within your organization. So what should you look for in your analytics vendor?[read more]

Bring your own device

According to a recent survey by Gartner, 38% of companies expect to stop providing devices to workers by 2016, suggesting BYOD is an unstoppable force in the IT industry. However, there are significant hurdles to overcome before many organizations can look at implementing a BYOD strategy.[read more]

Vision 2013

I recently attended Vision 2013, IBM’s annual conference for users of its financial governance, risk management and sales performance management software. These three groups have little in common operationally, but they share software infrastructure needs and basic supporting software components.[read more]

Semantic web: coming soon?

The semantic web, or web 3.0, is often quoted as the next phase of the Internet. It will enable us to easily share and re-use data across application, community and enterprise boundaries. The question is, however, whether big data and its technologies can spur the development of the semantic web.[read more]

Power Matrix Game (image by Siemens)

I consider Siemens to be one of the most reputable and environmentally-conscious companies around. With their dedication to sustainability, it comes as no surprise that they would raise awareness and teach people about new forms of energy through a new, fun game called Power Matrix.[read more]

Big Data is dawning / shutterstock

The Big Data age is dawning. Just like every major emerging opportunity that presents an unprecedented competitive advantage across sectors, we might not know the ultimate outcome with this journey at this stage. But everyone wants to know: who will race to the finish line and come out on top?[read more]

Big Data techniques

Recent trends have contributed to Big Data's growth -- namely, volume, velocity, and variety. Today, only a small percentage of data in the digital universe is being analyzed. But there is plenty more to come. How will Big Data make its presence felt in the near future?[read more]

ROI and ERP

Some tools such as ERP (enterprise resource planning), CRM (customer relationship management) systems and project planning software can be hard to quantify in terms of ROI since they’re management tools; thus much of what they provide isn’t directly visible in sales.[read more]

Social Big Data: Twitter data visualization

What happens when you plot billions of geotagged Tweets on a map? You can see the arteries of the world. Check out this cool data visualization of Tweets in Europe. According to creator Miguel Rios, the dots on this chart represent every geotagged Tweet since 2009.[read more]