Fern Halper's data makes the world go 'round
the big wide world of data and analytics
Dave Stodder and I just finished writing our 4Q Best Practices Report on “What it Takes to Be Data-Driven: Technologies and Practices for Becoming a Smarter Organization.” What struck me in analyzing the data for the report is that although organizations have embraced BI and analytics, they still have a journey in front of them … Continue reading Three Organizational Best Practices for Becoming Data-Driven
I am excited to announce I’m a co-author of Big Data for Dummies which will be released in mid-April 2013. Here’s the synopsis from Wiley: Find the right big data solution for your business or organization Big data management is one of the major challenges facing business, industry, and not-for-profit organizations. Data sets such as … Continue reading Two Weeks and Counting to Big Data for Dummies
While text analytics is considered a "must have" technology by the majority of companies that use it, challenges abound. So I've learned from the many companies I've talked to as I prepare Hurwitz & Associates' Victory Index for Text Analytics,a tool that assesses not just the technical capability of the technology but its ability to … Continue reading Five Challenges for Text Analytics
This week marks the one year anniversary of the IBM Watson computer system succeeding at Jeopardy!. Since then, IBM has gotten a lot of interest in Watson. Companies want one of those. But what exactly is Watson and what makes it unique? What does it mean to have a Watson? And, how is commercial Watson … Continue reading Are you ready for IBM Watson?
Next in my discussion of big data providers is IBM. Big data plays right into IBM’s portfolio of solutions in the information management space. It also dove tails very nicely with the company’s Smarter Planet strategy. Smarter Planet holds the vision of the world as a more interconnected, instrumented, and intelligent place. IBM’s Smarter Cities … Continue reading Four Vendor Views on Big Data and Big Data Analytics: IBM
I am often asked whether it is the vendors or the end users who are driving the Big Data market. I usually reply that both are. There are early adopters of any technology that push the vendors to evolve their own products and services. The vendors then show other companies what can be done with … Continue reading Four Vendor Views on Big Data and Big Data Analytics Part 1: Attensity
I just finished testing two low cost (<$50.00/mo) social media monitoring tools. They were both easy to use with clean user interfaces. Both had some nice features, especially around reaching back out to people making comments in social media. However, running these two services side by side brought home some issues with these kinds of … Continue reading Five basic questions to ask before leaping into low cost social media monitoring
In 2011 analytics will take center stage as a key trend because companies are at a tipping point with the volume of data they have and their urgent need to do something about it. So, with 2010 now past and 2011 to look forward to, I wanted to take the opportunity to submit my predictions … Continue reading Five Analytics Predictions for 2011
There has been a lot of discussion recently around advanced analytics. I'd like to throw my definition into the rink. I spent many years at Bell Laboratories in the late 1980s and 1990s deploying what I would call advanced analytics. This included utilizing statistical and mathematical models to understand customer behavior, predict retention, or analyze … Continue reading What is advanced analytics?
Advanced Analytics was a big topic at the IBM IOD conference last week. As part of this, predictive analytics was again an important piece of the story along with other advanced analytics capabilities IBM has developed or is in the process of developing to support optimization. These include Big Insights (for big data), analyzing data … Continue reading Advanced Analytics and the skills needed to make it happen: Takeaways from IBM IOD
