Fasten Your Seat Belt: A Big Data List with Some Surprises
March 31, 2014
I read “The World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Big Data.” I am not sure if this Fast Company article is news, content marketing, or analysis for the Silicon Valley set. I found the list of companies that apparently are going to get a chunk of the “$18 billion” market for Big Data surprising. I read the article riding in the back seat of a friend’s SUV. I had my seat belt fastened. The shocks in this article prevented me from jumping upwards and striking my head against the vehicle’s roof. You are now warned.
First, there are some obvious companies on the list, assembled according to one of those undisclosed analyses embraced by “real” journalists and mid tier consulting firms hungry for engagements.
I recognized these big names: GE (General Electric, maker of jet engines and other gear that continues bring “good things” to one’s life), IBM (purchaser of companies like Cognos, Cybertap LLC, SPSS, and others in the data arena),
I had heard of Kaggle (for fee information and services) and Splunk, the company now in the gun sites of Elasticsearch, among others, for log file supremacy. I ran across Knewton (education) when I did a feature for Online Search Magazine not long ago.
There were some outfits that I had never heard of. My personal filtering system (Overflight) had little information about these organizations. New to me were Evolv (a personnel outfit), the Weather Company (not global worming type climate data, the environment and shopping angle), and Ayasdi (a visualization services firm funded by DARPA).
I think the word is “eclectic”i for this group.
But the two shocks were Mount Sinai Ichan School of Medicine (allegedly building the hospital of the future) and GNIP (another social media analytics firm).
Several observations:
First, the list raises more questions than it answers. What were the criteria used to determine who was able to make the cut for “most innovative.”
Second, what the heck is “innovation.” I think this word, like search and Big Data itself, is emerging as the go-to buzzword for the first half of 2014.
Third, are these outfits much different from hundreds of other organizations that process available data as a routine business process?
Beyond Search is surprised by the listicle itself and the helter skelter natures of the selection of companies. By the way, I thought IBM was in the game show winning business. Watson, Jeopardy, and revolutionizing health care just like Mount Sinai.
Little wonder folks are confused about Big Data. A dose of Google Flu might be necessary.
Stephen E Arnold, March 31, 2014
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