SAS Explains Big Data. Includes Cartoon, Excludes Information about Cost
July 13, 2015
I know that it is easy to say Big Data. It is easy to say Hadoop. It is easy to make statements in marketing collateral, in speeches, and in blogs written by addled geese. Honk!
I wish to point out that any use of these terms in the same sentence require an important catalyst: Money. Money that has been in the words of the government procurement officer, “Allocated, not just budgeted.”
Here are the words:
- Big Data
- Hadoop
- Unstructured data.
Point your monitored browser at “Marketers Ask: What Can Hadoop Do That My Data Warehouse Can’t?” The write up originates with SAS. When a company anchored in statistics, I expect some familiarity with numbers. (yep, just like the class you have blocked from your mind. The mid term? What mid term?)
The write up points out that unstructured data comes in many flavors. This chart, complete with cartoon, identifies 15 content types. I was amazed. Just 15. What about the data in that home brew content management system or tucked in the index of the no longer supported DEC 20 TIPS system. Yes, that data.
How does Hadoop deal with the orange and blue? Pretty well but you and the curious marketer must attend to three steps. Count ‘em off, please:
- Identify the business issue. I think this means know what problem one is trying to solve. This is a good idea, but I think most marketing problems boil down to generating revenue and proving it to senior management. Marketing looks for silver bullets when the sales are not dropping from the sky like packages for the believers in the Cargo Cult.
- Get top management support. Yep, this is a good idea because the catalyst—money—has to be available to clean, acquire, and load the goodies in the blue boxes and the wonky stuff from the home brew CMS.
- Develop a multi play plan. I think this means that the marketer has zero clue how complicated the Hadoop magic is. The excitement of extract, transform, and load. The thrill of batch processing awaits. Then the joy of looking at outputs which baffle the marketer more comfortable selecting colors and looking at Adwords’ reports than Hadoop data.
My thought is that SAS understands data, statistical methods, and the reality of a revolution which is taking place without the strictures of SAS approaches.
I do like the cartoon. I do not like the omission of the money part of the task. Doing the orange and blue thing for marketers is expensive. Do the marketers know this?
Nope.
Stephen E Arnold, July 13, 2015
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