Information Access and Analytics are Vital in Subjective World of Big Data
February 7, 2013
Are decisions in the business world ultimately based on rational and objective facts? Or are they based on intuition? University of Virginia, Darden School Professor Robert Carraway weighs in on the subject in his recent guest post on Forbes. The article “Meeting the Big Data Challenge: Don’t Be Objective” expands on these questions.
Carraway reports that the Corporate Executive Board of U.Va.’s Darden School of Business created a new tool called Insight IQ. This tool is used to assess the tendency of managers to rely on intuition versus analysis. It turns out that 19% of over 5,000 managers in major global corporations are “Visceral decision makers” that rely almost exclusively on intuition.
The author argues that big data and more logical, objective analytical tools and frameworks places even more weight on the role of intuition.
This is one reason why I think so many CEO’s say they are far more likely to rely on intuition than analysis in making decisions. Almost by definition, the issues they deal with are complex and multi-faceted, impossible to completely model or holistically analyze. My experience is that every CEO I know DOES use analysis, but what is far more visible to them is how they have to rely on intuition to fill in the gaps, and this is what they self-report.
If intuition is inevitable in the process of making decisions then it is even more important to rely on technological solutions to offer the analysis which intuition becomes informed by. We suggest taking a look at PolySpot solutions for enterprise information access.
Megan Feil, February 7, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search.
Black Duck Names Open Source Rookies of 2012
February 7, 2013
For five years running Black Duck has named its picks for the top open source rookies on the market. The 2012 list has just been announced and eWeek covers the story in their piece, “Black Duck Names 2012 Open-Source Rookies of the Year.”
The article begins:
“Black Duck Software has announced the 2012 Open Source Rookies of the Year, a list of hot new open-source projects initiated in 2012. Black Duck reviewed thousands of open-source projects started in 2012 to select this year’s group of Open Source Rookies. This is the fifth year Black Duck has compiled a list of top open-source projects.”
Among the honorees are: Ansible, Yahoo Mojito, Syte, Twitter Bower, and TypeScript among others. While the open source solutions serve different purposes in the economy and technology sector, they are all grounded by the strength of an open source based infrastructure. Many of the honorees are in emerging technology sectors like social media, but open source plays an important role in the enterprise as well. And while the enterprise may be slightly less exciting, open source is no less important. Take LucidWorks for example. Few would argue that its security, efficiency, and scalability are anything less than exciting.
Emily Rae Aldridge, February 7, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
A Case Study for the Use of Onalytica Software
February 7, 2013
In order to tout their product, Onalytica presents a case study in “‘The Onalytica Way’—Onalytica Insight Used in Jefferies Equity Research.” The global investment bank used Onalytica’s solution specifically to research companies whose business models tap into on-line networks. The write-up states:
“The research explores the growth dynamics and business models of UK comparison sites MoneySuperMarket and Rightmove, as examples of businesses which exploit the many-to-many dynamic in different ways. Our previous work with Jefferies includes research analysing the global Fashion debate and retail markets, which eventually led to a buy recommendation on ASOS based on our insights. Using our InfluenceMonitor platform, we draw out brand insights from the online debate to see how these sites’ share of influence has developed over the quarters in comparison to their market competitors.”
For more information on weighting for influence in online analysis, the post points us to another of the blog’s articles titled, not surprisingly, “Weighting for Influence.” It might be worth checking out if you are curious.
I hate to be the one to point this out, but. . . if this worked as they claim, wouldn’t Jefferies be the dominant investment firm? Just asking.
The marketing consultancy was founded in 2004, and is based in London. Onalytica provides clients with “near real-time” analysis with the aim of better positioning themselves amidst day-to-day market changes.
Cynthia Murrell, February 07, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Apple May Have Made a Tactical Error on Mobile Devices
February 7, 2013
Here’s more on the Google versus Apple rivalry. ReadWrite Mobile declares, “Apple Forced Google’s Hand on Android.” Journalist Matt Asay supplies some perspective on these giants’ battle for our business. His central argument is that Apple‘s insistence on rigid control of iPhone and iPad apps prodded Google to build Android, the biggest competitor to Apple’s mobile operating system.
Some suggest that Google’s habit of running its software on rival platforms is a “Trojan Horse of sorts.” Asay, however, posits that, had it not felt threatened by Apple, Google would have stayed out of the mobile hardware and mobile OS markets. The article asserts:
“If you’re Google, watching Apple systematically attempt to remove or replace services like YouTube, Maps, etc. and improve its own sync and other services, you’ve got to be worried that Apple could be one deal away from removing or deprecating Google search in mobile Safari and replacing it with its own technology, or even (gasp!) Microsoft’s Bing, which was rumored to be in the works back in 2010.”
Fast forward a few years, and Android and Android-enabled devices are alive and flourishing, providing consumers with many economical alternatives to the pricey iPhone. Krishnan Subramanian of Rishidot Research thinks that, absent this Google-provided option, smartphone adoption would have taken place at a much slower rate. Asay concludes:
“By seeking to holistically control the customer experience, Apple has simply ensured that the majority of the market will, in fact, get that experience … from Google. Because Google, despite being in the position to own the entire mobile experience, is also just as happy to run on platforms made by others. Consumers experience Google everywhere. With Apple, they can only experience it on Apple hardware.”
So, is Asay correct—did Apple unwittingly undermine its own lead in the crucial mobile space?
Cynthia Murrell, February 07, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
DataStax Enterprise 3 0
February 7, 2013
DataStax hooked itself to the Facebook entity and now pitches its newest version, we learn from the Register’s “DataStax Cranks Up Facebook NoSQL to 3.0 with Enterprise Features.” The article explains what to expect from the latest release of its DataStax Enterprise Edition. It is worth noting that this company also offers a search system.
Writer Timothy Prickett Morgan informs us that DataStax’s raison d’être is to commercialize the open-source Cassandra NoSQL data store created by Facebook. The company does offer a stripped-down Community Edition for free, but the list of features available only in the Enterprise Edition is significant. Version 3.0 tackles perceived security flaws in Hadoop with new features, including some tweaks it is releasing to the open-source-community edition of Cassandra. Morgan writes:
“The open source tweaks include internal authentication and internal object permissions, with the same grant/revoke paradigm used by relational databases also being applied to the NoSQL data store – in this case, it is done at a table or column level. Databases also have row-level locking, but there is no analogy to this in a NoSQL data store. DataStax has also added client-to-node encryption based on the familiar SSL protocol to make sure that data being passed between Cassandra and an end user device is encrypted in flight.”
Enterprise users can also count on external authentication, encryption for at-rest data inside the stack, data auditing features, and a commercial version of Cassandra (aka the DataStax Enterprise Database Server). Round-the-clock tech-support coverage is thrown in as well. The product is not quite ready for general release, but “early adopter customers” can take it for a spin now. Check back around the end of February for general availability.
Headquartered in San Mateo, California, DataStax was founded in 2010. Their Cassandra-based software implementations are flexible and scalable, and are employed by businesses from young startups to Fortune 100 companies, including such notables as Adobe, eBay, and Netflix.
Cynthia Murrell, February 07, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google: Objective Indexing and a Possible Weak Spot
February 6, 2013
A reader sent me a link to “Manipulating Google Scholar Citations and Google Scholar Metrics: Simple, Easy, and Tempting.” I am not sure how easy and tempting the process of getting a fake scholarly paper into the Google index is, but the information provided is food for thought. Worth a look, particularly if you are a fan of traditional methods for building a corpus and delivering on point results which the researcher can trust. The notion of “ethics” is an interesting additional to a paper which focuses on fake or misleading research.
Stephen E Arnold, February 7, 2013
Decision Making Only Becomes Easier for CMOs with PolySpot
February 6, 2013
Last year, Gartner forecasted that by 2017, the CMO would be spending more on IT than the CIO. The landscape of office politics has caused what Forbes is calling “Big Data Star Wars: The CMO/CIO Wars Continue.” Money drives the decisions in external business affairs and clearly the same is the case for internal issues as well.
Acknowledging that IT budgets are shrinking and CMO desires to tap into insights from unstructured data platforms is only increasing, the article purports the trend as a continuing one.
The article states:
Marketers want to do more with big data in 2013, which probably means they will increase the pressure on the IT department or by-pass it with cloud-based resources. More than half of the survey respondents said they have already started implementing real-time data and plan to make greater use of it in 2013 to drive more personalized marketing campaigns, with another 30 percent saying they plan on using it for the first time or consider using it.
Many of the technology resources available to organizations aid in connecting departments across the enterprise with information access to insights churned from big data solutions. One such technology that we have seen make waves in this area is PolySpot. Their library of over one hundred connectors makes decision making for business professionals a cinch.
Megan Feil, February 6, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search.
Independent News in Eastern Europe Bolstered by Solr
February 6, 2013
Independent news agencies have a hard time escaping the tight grasp of government in restricted countries. In the nation of Georgia, the non-profit Sourcefabric has developed Newscoop based on open source software. Open source is not only contributing to profitable business, but to political and ideological freedom. CMS Wire has a full story in, “Newscoop CMS 4.1 Integrates Solr for Search, GeoLocation Tools.”
But our interest here is in the technology, and how Newscoop has been boosted by the power of Solr. The article states:
“The enhanced search functionality in 4.1 is made possible by an integration with Solr, an open source search project out of the Apache Lucene effort, and it is designed to facilitate the ability of site visitors to find relevant content on the news site or in connected blogs. Solr features full-text search, hit highlighting, database integration, auto-suggestion and advanced ranking.”
Many software and enterprise solutions also find their strength in the solid base of Apache Lucene and Solr, the two most trusted names in the Apache open source community. One such solution is LucidWorks. While LucidWorks’ ultimate aim is in efficient enterprise search, its commonality with Newscoop is its sturdy and reliable infrastructure.
Emily Rae Aldridge, February 6, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Ai-One Touts Intelligent Agent Advantage
February 6, 2013
Is it another breakthrough in the analysis of unstructured text? Ai-one provides a detailed account of its data-analysis platform ai-BrainDocs in, “Big Data Solutions: Intelligent Agents Find Meaning of Text.” The write-up begins with an summary of the familiar problems many organizations face when trying to make the most of the vast amounts of data they have collected, particularly limitations of the keyword approach. Ai-one describes how they have moved beyond those limitations:
“Our approach generates an ‘ai-Fingerprint’ that is a representational model of a document using keywords and association words. The ‘ai-Fingerprint‘ is similar to a graph G[V,E] where G is the knowledge representation, V (vertices) are keywords, and E (edges) are associations. This can also be thought of as a topic model. . . .
“The magic is that ai-one’s API automatically detects keywords and associations – so it learns faster, with fewer documents and provides a more precise solution than mainstream machine learning methods using latent semantic analysis. Moreover, using ai-one’s approach makes it relatively easy for almost any developer to build intelligent agents.”
The write-up tells us how to build such “intelligent agents,” delving into the perspectives of both humans and conventional machine learning (including natural language processing and latent analysis techniques). It concludes by describing the creation of their ai-BrainDocs prototype. The article is rich in detail—a worthwhile read for anyone interested in such mechanics.
Founded in Zurich in 2003, ai-one is now headquartered in La Jolla, California, with research in Zurich and European operations in Berlin. The company licenses their software to developers around the world, who embed it in their own products.
Cynthia Murrell, February 06, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Iris Insight Discovery Platform Offers New Approach
February 6, 2013
Is this another data-analysis revolution or just more fancy graphics? Wired reports, “Data-Visualization Firm’s New Software Autonomously Finds Abstract Connections.” Ayasdi asserts that their Iris Insight Discovery platform helps you find answers in your data to questions you didn’t even know to ask.
If you check out the article, start with the embedded video; it does a good job of explaining the product. Writer Liat Clark explains:
“It’s a type of machine learning that uses hundreds of algorithms and topological data analysis to mine huge datasets before presenting the results in a visually accessible way. Using algebraic topology, the system automatically hunts down data points close in nature and maps these out to reveal a network of patterns for a researcher to decipher — any closely related nodes of information will be connected and clustered together, like how a social network arranges its data according to relationship connections.”
By removing the requirement for human-generated queries, the software is unfettered to offer up any patterns and anomalies it detects. Chances are, at least some of those will turn out to be important. The platform is apparently already producing exciting results in the medicine, and DARPA has optimistically bankrolled much of the development, hoping its use of the platform will bolster our national security. Now, a new round of funding is launching the product into the public realm.
When Ayasdi was formed in 2008, it was built on a decade of research at Stanford, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and the National Science Foundation. The company is now located in Palo Alto, California. Their unique name is Cherokee for “to seek.”
Cynthia Murrell, February 06, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
