Earlier in the year I blogged about Big Data trends in 2014, how this space is moving quickly and the wonderful analogy “Big Data is like teenage sex, everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it…”
As predicted – by everyone who predicts these tech trends – this space is still moving forward at pace, only 3 months into 2014 and Big Data has moved from being described like an inanimate object to becoming an umbrella term, survey stats are starting to show businesses (real businesses not just IT vendors) are discovering uses for Big Data sets and the critics are finding fault with applications of Big Data already.
You probably already know this but the internet is full of posts on all things related to Big Data, some have nothing to do with Big Data but salaciously drew me in to read them with the term in the headline, others are rehashes of the same old rhetoric many legacy IT vendors have been telling us for a while (no Jim Goodnight you didn’t invent Big Data). However there have been some real gems well worth a read so here is an overview of a few:

• The Evolution of Big Data and where we’re headed – excellent succinct piece providing an overview of the emerging and seemingly pragmatic terms Smart Data, Identity Data and People Data.  We have long understood data as a commodity and asset but it has taken the emergence of Big Data to help us understand that data within this context.

• The Data Companies Wish They Had – survey results and related article. Of interest here is the use case style of describing what companies wished they had in the way of data for decision making within the context of Big Data. The survey results demonstrate the growth in positive sentiment towards Big Data for example 28% of respondents Strongly Agreeing with the statement “To what extent do you agree that big data has helped improve your organisations ability to innovate”.

• How Big Data will change our lives Infographic – nothing new visualisation wise but does pull together some really interesting statistics and insight especially the final point “Big data will create it’s own global economy that will create jobs in addition to those created for Data Science and created for the IoE*” *IoE I believe is a typo within the infographic and should read loT = Internet of Things.

• Big Data are we making a big mistake? – fantastic long post so leave yourself some time to read as is well worth the investment. Quite a dissertation into the evolution of Big Data “phenomenon”, highlights the “Google Flu Trends” success and recent disappearance (a topic of many recent blogs). The conclusion nicely surmises my own perception of the topic “Big data has arrived, but big insights have not. The challenge now is to solve new problems and gain new answers – without making the same old statistical mistakes on a grander scale than ever”.

On the Technology front the investment Intel are placing in Cloudera’s distributions of Hadoop should propel the Big Data technology landscape forward in ways we have not seen to date, of greatest interest to the market is Intel’s decision to shelve their own distribution of Hadoop in favour of partnering and investing in Cloudera – love this headline “Intel jettisons it’s Hadoop Distro and puts millions behind Cloudera.”
Final side note – I wrote this blog then edited it after reading about 10 Words you should cut from your writing! It seems I use amazing and things a little often – classic. Enjoy, Vic.