OpenText: Content Marketing or Real News?
September 18, 2016
When I knew people at the original Malcolm Forbes Forbes, I learned that stories were meticulously researched and edited. I read “Advanced Analytics: Insights Produce New Wealth.” I was baffled, but, I thought, that’s the point.
The main point of the write up pivots on the assertion that an “insight” converts directly to “wealth.” I am not sure about the difference between old and new wealth. Wealth is wealth in my book.
The write up tells me:
Data is the foundation that allows transformative, digital change to happen.
The logic escapes me. The squirrels in Harrod’s Creek come and go. Change seems to be baked into squirreldom. The focus is “the capitalist tool,” and I accept that the notion of changing one’s business can be difficult. The examples are easy to spot: IBM is trying to change into a Watson powered sustainable revenue machine. HP is trying to change from a conglomeration of disparate parts into a smaller conglomeration of disparate parts. OpenText is trying to change from a roll up of old school search systems into a Big Data wealth creator. Tough jobs indeed.
I learned that visualization is important for business intelligence. News flash. Visualization has been important since a person has been able to scratch animals on a cave’s wall. But again I understand. Predictive analytics from outfits like Spotfire (now part of Tibco) provided a wake up call to some folks.
The write up informs me:
While devices attached to the Internet of Things will continue to throw out growing levels of structured data (which can be stored in files and databases), the amount of unstructured data being produced will also rise. So the next wave of analytics tools will inevitably be geared to dealing with both forms of information seamlessly, while also enabling you to embed the insights gleaned into the applications of your choosing. Now that’s innovation.
Let’s recap. Outfits need data to change. (Squirrels excepted.) Companies have to make sense of their data. The data come in structured and unstructured forms. The future will be software able to handle structured and unstructured data. Charts and graphs help. Once an insight is located, founded, presented by algorithms which may or may not be biased, the “insights” will be easy to put into a PowerPoint.
BAE Systems’ “Detica” was poking around in this insight in the 1990s. There were antecedents, but BAE is a good example for my purpose. Palantir Technologies provided an application demo in 2004 which kicked the embedded analytics notion down the road. A click would display a wonky circular pop up, and the user could perform feats of analytic magic with a mouse click.
Now Forbes’ editors have either discovered something that has been around for decades or been paid to create a “news” article that reports information almost as timely as how Lucy died eons ago.
Back to the premise: Where exactly is the connection between insight and wealth? How does one make the leap from a roll up of unusual search vendors like Information Dimension, BRS, Nstein, Recommind, and my favorite old time Fulcrum Technologies produce evidence of the insight to wealth argument. If I NOT out these search vendors and focus on the Tim Bray SGML search engine, I still don’t see the connection. Delete Dr. Bray’s invention. What do we have? We have a content management company which sells content management as governance, compliance, and other consulting friendly disciplines.
Consultants can indeed amass wealth. But the insight comes not from Big Data. The wealth comes from selling time to organizations unable to separate the giblets from the goose feathers. Do you know the difference? The answer you provide may allow another to create wealth from that situation.
One doesn’t need Big Data to market complex and often interesting software to folks who require a bus load of consultants to make it work. For Forbes, the distinction between giblets and goose feathers may be too difficult to discern.
My hunch is that others, not trained in high end Manhattan journalism, may be able to figure out which one can be consumed and which one can ornament an outfit at an after party following a Fashion Week showing.
Stephen E Arnold, September 18, 2016
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