SuccessfulWorkplace

What makes data analytics so interesting isn’t necessarily the volume of data, as an excellent example of data analysis showed on FastCompany this week, where they covered A Map of the Geographical Structure of Wikipedia by Olivier Beauchesne, a data scientist in Montreal. Beauchesne took geocoded articles from Wikipedia (meaning the writeup had a location […]

Two things happened this morning. The first was that I chose to break a long-standing rule and signed up for the New York times monthly subscription. Ugh, the hated paywall. As cordcutters, we pay for very little of our news and entertainment, Netflix aside. Which is how the second thing happened. I paid because they […]

2013 was an enormous year for two kinds of big…Big Brother and Big Data. On June 9, 2013, the world became aware of Edward Snowden, a geeky young NSA analyst who introduced us to the largest personal surveillance operation ever created. He showed us they don’t have to listen to your conversations in today’s analytics […]

Data is highly layered and nuanced, which is why what’s happening with Big Data is so fascinating. Big Data is much more than large volumes. It is all data, used to find perfect context at the perfect moment. Today, Apple Insider reported on Apple’s application for a patent for layered maps, a way to create displays […]

For centuries now, we’ve created goods through mass production, using machines, assembly lines and ever-larger ways to melt, mix, cut, stamp, rivet and paste. We’ve gotten used to using many materials to create something of higher value, with the waste being given off as liquid, gases and material headed for a landfill, or worse, put […]

We’re in the Data Age. Everything is suddenly digitally quantifiable and that raises profound questions about privacy, what we can know about ourselves and what others can know about us. The very idea of information’s discovery, ownership and use is undergoing fundamental change in a world of suddenly archaic laws and government structures. Here are […]

Technology companies are talking big about encryption and new ways to shield their networks and online customer data. This has potential to start a cyber war with the NSA as government and private enterprise get locked in a battle to prevent and gain access to data. All of this is being done in an effort to distance […]

Forrester’s Nigel Fenwick posted Dawn of a New Digital Age this morning, a great summary of why we sit at the beginning of something very different from what humans have experienced to date. Fenwick calls it a revolution and ties his evidence to the rise of web-connected sensors: Consider a world in which every object […]

In Venture Beat yesterday, Meghan Kelly wrote up an article saying that data scientists, “…may soon become one of the most sought-after people in your industry.” with an accompanying infographic (see below). As evidence, Kelly said that data scientist job postings increased 15,000 percent between 2011 and 2012 alone. I think she has it wrong […]

Last week it emerged that retail giant Tesco is to implement screens in its forecourt petrol stations which can tell a customers’ age and gender in order target advertising more effectively. The system uses facial recognition technology to make this happen. Tesco will introduce the OptimEyes screen, developed by Lord Alan Sugar’s Amscreen, to all […]

Over the past several years there has been an enormous amount of press over NoSQL, which is a way to store and retrieve data found in a less structured and less consistent form than relational databases. NoSQL was claimed to be the heir apparent to the relational database, the kind that made Oracle an enormous […]

In 2012 the Senseable City Lab, part of MIT, conducted an experiment called Trash Track to see just what happens when someone takes out the trash. By attaching transmitters to over 3,000 pieces of rubbish they were able to track where that item went, whether they went to the correct recycling facility or not, and how far […]

Snowden’s stories of a far-reaching NSA shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone working with Big Data. We’re entering a new age and the technology and techniques of the past won’t hold up. Just reading the headlines is all the evidence we need. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone was being monitored by […]

In a previous post, Preparing for the internet of things, extreme scalability, real-time event handling, and time-to-insight were given as the three biggest challenges for Big Data and the Internet of Things. These are challenges that can be addressed now if companies are ready to invest and be proactive about what’s surely coming in the next […]