In a recent blog I wrote about how big data is a game changer for the insurance industry. But the question that is often asked “What is big data”? Many people associate big data with the 4 V’s: Volume – The sheer size of data that is produced. Velocity –
In transportation, when an asset is standing still, it is losing money. The same can be said for your business strategy: when you are standing still, you are not innovating or taking advantage of new ways to enhance efficiency or drive profitability. This is true in all industries. In the
Back before storage became so affordable, cost was the primary factor in determining what data an IT department would store. As George Dyson (author and historian of technology) says, “Big data is what happened when the cost of storing information became less than the cost of making the decision to
It is said that everything is big in Texas, and that includes big data. During my recent trip to Austin I had the privilege of being a judge in the final round of the Texata Big Data World Championship, a fantastic example of big data competitions. It felt fitting that
Health care is undergoing exponential change, and this year we’ll continue to see the industry launch bold missions to improve the patient experience. With new types of data and technologies, the vision of making health care more personalized and proactive is becoming closer to reality. In my new book “The
Health care is undergoing exponential change, and this year we’ll continue to see the industry launch bold missions to improve the patient experience. With new types of data and technologies, the vision of making health care more personalized and proactive is becoming closer to reality. In my new book “The
What if a reckless driver adopted a more responsible approach because the car insurance pricing was based on driving habits? What if the senior from next door had the insurance payments based on kilometres driven, resulting in significant savings? This may be reality sooner than you think. The Internet of Things will revolutionise
What if a reckless driver adopted a more responsible approach because the car insurance pricing was based on driving habits? What if the senior from next door had the insurance payments based on kilometres driven, resulting in significant savings? This may be reality sooner than you think. The Internet of Things will revolutionise
When I walk into my local chicken shop I always feel that Mary, the owner, has roasted chickens, prepared salads and put on extra rice pudding for my family’s Friday night meal. Mary welcomes me with open arms, greets me and my son by first name and always has an
My view of the world is shaped by where I stand, but from this spot the future of analytics for 2016 looks pretty exciting! Analytics has never been more needed or interesting. Machine learning established in the enterprise Machine learning dates back to at least 1950 but until recently has
You’d better watch YouTube, you’d better not cry You’d better not post, I’m telling you why Big data is coming to town He’s making many lists (and selling them too), he’s writing it twice (for redundancy’s sake), He’s gonna find out whose naughty or nice Big data is coming to town
When we talk about the Internet of Things and “analytics at the edge,” we’re talking about modeling data as close as possible to the device – not far away in some warehouse or data storage appliance. So, generally, the edge is anything with a sensor that is transmitting data: an
I brushed aside some sawdust on the workbench and set my laptop down. It wasn’t really mine. SAS Library Services had kindly lent me a new laptop for the “Making Sense of Sensor Data” workshop at UNC’s BEaM Makerspace. I had just set the laptop down…in sawdust. Like any normal
The Internet of Things (IoT) has become the new It Girl of the IT world. Of course her big brother big data continues to generate big buzz. My sis from another miss Tamara Dull has blogged about the relationship between big data and IoT, positing big data is a subset of IoT on
“Field of dreams warehouse”– a historic phrase I used in the early days of data warehouse development. It describes the frenzy of activity that took place to create enterprise data infrastructure, before the business rationale for the data use was even understood. Those were the early days. In some ways
Jim Harris explains why it's especially important to assess the quality of metadata when it comes to big data.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a revolutionary approach that will radically change our lives, our way of integrating with technology, and the way we do business and marketing. Companies have already defined a strategic plan for collecting and organizing data coming from the IoT. The next step is to
Why are so many companies across a diverse set of industries investing in and around the Internet of Things? Everywhere I go, every blog I read … I sound like my favorite band from the 80s: the Internet of Things is watching me. In reality, it’s the reverse: I'm seeing
I have been working on streaming analytics in conjunction with a project at Duke Energy, so a few months ago I was contacted by a colleague who wanted to look at the feasibility of applying what I’ve learned to our Internet of Things (IoT) initiative. In particular, we wanted to see if
Big Data has become a technology buzzword. But how is Big Data changing insurance? Historically, insurance companies have used SMALL data to make BIG decisions. Today, insurers are using BIG data for SMALL decisions. What does this mean? Traditionally, insurance companies have aggregated data to group risks into broad categories
Will the Internet of Things (IoT) create a web of connected devices that make our lives better or an infinite infestation of annoying devices invading our privacy for no good reason? I don't know. I do know that the answer is going to depend less on the technology and more
You may not be in London on October 7 to take advantage of the Lancaster Centre for Forecasting's free workshop on promotional forecasting. However, there are still plenty of forecasting educational opportunities coming up this fall: SAS Business Knowledge Series Best Practices in Demand-Driven Forecasting (Chicago, September 24-25) My colleague
There's a lot of talk right now about the Internet of Things and how it's likely the prime catalyst for the digital transformation of organizations over the next few years. Billions of sensors, and devices with sensors, all generating data in a hyper-connected world where it can be easily shared
Recently, I had an opportunity to participate in an analyst briefing around the Internet of Things (IoT). During the review, a chart was shown to summarize the status of IoT projects in the manufacturing sector. I wasn’t surprised by the varying degree of “completeness” of IoT projects across this industry, but
Operations technology (OT), such as control systems, are crucial elements in our daily lives. They make the stoplights function at intersections. They guide robots with precise movements on the shop floor. Their switches and routers are the backbone of our internet. But what if they were even more intelligent? What
I believe most people become overwhelmed when considering the data that can be created during event processing. Number one, it is A LOT of data – and number two, the data needs real-time analysis. For the past few years, most of us have been analyzing data after we collected it,
In my last two posts, I introduced some opportunities that arise from integrating event stream processing (ESP) within the nodes of a distributed network. We considered one type of deployment that includes the emergent Internet of Things (IoT) model in which there are numerous end nodes that monitor a set of sensors,
The Internet has been around a long time. "Things" have been around even longer. Put the things on the Internet, aka the Internet of Things (IoT), and you get so much hype that IoT is at the top of Gartner's "Peak of Inflated Expectations" – and poised for a fall into the "Trough of
In my previous post, I discussed the similarities, differences and overlap between event stream processing (ESP) and real-time processing (RTP). In this post, I want to highlight three things that need to get real. In other words, three things that should be enhanced with real-time capabilities, whether it’s ESP, RTP or
In my last post, we examined the growing importance of event stream processing to predictive and prescriptive analytics. In the example we discussed, we looked at how all the event streams from point-of-sale systems from multiple retail locations are absorbed at a centralized point for analysis. Yet the beneficiaries of those
