Big Data Debunkers Arise, Unite, Question Value

April 27, 2015

I enjoy reading the “analyses” of Blue Chip consulting firms. I have had a brush or two with the folks at these outfits over the years. I seem to recall working for one of them and doing consulting for a couple of others. At age 70, who knows?

I read “To Benefit from Big Data, Resist the Three False Promises.” Just three, I thought. To learn the truth, I sucked in the bits and learned:

Gartner recently predicted that “through 2017, 60% of big data projects will fail to go beyond piloting and experimentation and will be abandoned.” This reflects the difficulty of generating value from existing customer, operational and service data, let alone the reams of unstructured internal and external data generated from social media, mobile devices and online activity.

Zounds. A Blue Chip firm citing an Azure Chip firm. That, to me, is like the Cleveland Cavaliers tapping into a talent from a middle school basketball team. I assumed there was an intellectual gap between the Blue Chip consultants and the second tier outfits. Guess I was wrong. Another possibility is that the folks behind the article were plucking low hanging research fruit in order to make their case.

I learned that the three “false promises” were ones that just never, ever crossed my mind. The article states that there are three, count ‘em, three items of information about Big Data which are not true. Not true equals a lie, does it not?

  1. The “technology” singular of Big Data will automatically discover and present business opportunities. Shucks, I though magic happened, particularly when dissimilation was involved.
  2. “Harvesting more data” automatically generates “more value.” There’s that magic again. I was stunned to learn that collecting information does not automatically equal much of anything. If there is one thing easy to collect, it is digital information.
  3. “Good” data scientists similar those who work at Blue Chip and Azure Chip consulting firms? No matter. The “good data scientists” cannot “find value” for a paying customer. Is this a hedge to prevent consulting firm clients from alleging that the Big Data services did not yield a pot of gold?

Big Data, like most of the technology buzzwords, short circuit harried executives’ prudence. The silver tongued are able to invoke MBAisms and close deals. The benefits of those deals are often very difficult to pinpoint, quantify, or understand.

Write ups that are blunt tips on probing questions are amusing. I wonder if there is Big Data to make clear how many Big Data projects end up like other digital information silver bullets; that is, shooting blanks. Bang. Bang. Bang. That’s value.

Stephen E Arnold, April 27, 2015

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