Cutting Through The Hype: What You Really Need to Know about Big Data - Bill Franks of Teradata

[BrianD]

Bill Franks is the author of Taming the Big Data Tidal Wave. In his standing room only presentation at the Inspire conference today, he highlighted some of the points from his book, and talked about how Big Data needs to be addressed thoughtfully in order to obtain it’s benefits.  Getting Value Requires Judgement The key to Big Data is to get operational insight. Big Data requires big judgement. You have to decide what to investigate. Don’t just blindly start following rat holes, be thoughtful in terms of what you choose to pursue.  This actually dovetails to another point, which was made by Paul DePodesta in his keynote this morning: keep a decision diary. Remember why you made this decision, what your mindset was. Were you sure it was going to work, or unsure? And then, track what you have found so you don’t go down the same rat hole again and again. One customer we talked to deals with movie rentals, and there was a question about a post-Grammy’s lift. They did the analysis and found that it was not significant. They can now address that question every time they hear someone has a “great new idea.”

There Is No Easy Button
You still have to put analytics processes on top. You have to be able to make sense of the data you choose to track. You also need to be open to utilizing new classes of data. Combining text sentiment with purchase data to divine predictive behavior is not easy, but it puts a context around the data. It is where you will find the revelations that can drive real value.

You also need to think about the team you are building. Bill kept the Paul DePodesta theme going, saying, “You don't need a team of all stars to be a champion." It’s not easy, and it takes judgement, but it’s important to build a good team.

Big Data IS Big
There is a lot of data available. Tracking wheel temperatures on a train every mile generates a lot of data. But at some point that data is irrelevant if the trip was safe and insignificant. Be prepared to throw a lot of data away.

But Not As Big As Tomorrow’s Big Data
We are moving towards having RFID on everything. The amount of data we are collecting today is nothing compared to what we will be gathering tomorrow.

Overall, you need to start learning now. And a key to that is to start small and start proving success. Find small problems to solve to prove the processes before you move to the big problems. It is a learning curve. Don’t get overwhelmed by the Big Data Tidal Wave.        

Brian Dirking

Director of Product Marketing.