Information Delivery for Mobile Workers: A Big Data Need
October 17, 2012
In the beginning of the Big Data craze, there was always the impending potential of tiny mobile devices, tablets and Wi-Fi connections bringing even more data to the table. Now, massive amounts of data repositories from all the user activity on exists, but the question of analyzing it effectively and quickly still remains on the table.
With the consistent boasting of the benefits of Big Data, it is no surprise that the TechCrunch article “Telefonica Wants To Turn Its Mobile Data Into A Big Data Business, Launches Dynamic Insights Unit” states the mobile industry is ready for their piece of Big Data action:
Big data is one of the key building blocks of the digital economy. Approached in a smart and responsible way it has the potential to transform every part of business and society. Telefónica says that Dynamic Insights’ first product will be called “Smart Steps” and will be aimed at companies and public-sector organizations to “measure, compare, and understand what factors influence the number of people visiting a location at any time. Presumably, it will combine not just user numbers over given periods but also track movements at particular locations.
Having access to all that data does no good without a reliable information management platform to allow enterprise wide access to relevant data swiftly and securely. We’ve got our eyes on PolySpot information delivery solutions.
Jennifer Shockley, October 17, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
IT Sets Information Delivery Into Motion with Enterprise Search Technology
October 15, 2012
Big Data has caused a chain reaction in the business world and new software developments have required IT departments to scramble to keep up and re-establish their importance. Why? Innovative information intelligence platforms can now perform and replace basic IT functions and increase company ROI by cutting man-hour costs.
Despite the proven efficiency of programming, Information Age’s article “The New Business Intelligence” feels that some human intervention is still needed to maintain quality control:
The IT department is still responsible for maintaining the consistency of data, imposing common data definitions, and incorporating new sources of data, so that as businesses change, users will still have the data they need to get their jobs done. There needs to be the kind of collaboration between the business and IT that means that, even if IT is not directly involved in a BI deployment, there has at least been the opportunity for IT professionals to stress the importance of governance and data quality.
Information intelligence software would require the company’s individual criteria to be programmed in order to function efficiently and generate ROI, so the article was somewhat on point. However, once the parameters are set, IT can take a vacation with software solutions such as PolySpot in place as their technology delivers information.
Jennifer Shockley, October 15, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
IntelTrax Top Stories: October 5 to October 11
October 15, 2012
This week’s top stories from the IntelTrax advanced intelligence blog focused on the impact of big data analytics solutions on a multitude of different industries.
According to “New Pike Research Report Analyzes Smart Grid Analytics” there will be a spike in smart grid data analytics spending that is forecasted to reach more than $34 billion. The bulk of this spending, which will occur worldwide, will be in the Asian Pacific.
When describing the report, the article states:
“This Pike Research report analyzes the global market opportunity for smart grid data analytics across four key solution segments: meter analytics, grid analytics, asset analytics, and renewables integration for business intelligence, operations, and customer management. The report provides a comprehensive assessment of the demand drivers, business models, policy factors, and technology issues associated with the rapidly-developing market for smart grid data analytics. Key industry players are profiled in depth and worldwide revenue and capacity forecasts, segmented by application and region, extend through 2020.”
“Expert Suggests You Ask Your Analytics Vendor the Tough Questions” explains the importance of advocating for yourself and your business by asking the hard questions when choosing between a myriad of solutions that solve the same or similar data management problems.
The article states:
“SAP customers looking at the possibility of deploying text analytics software within their operations should be diligent about asking vendors lots of questions, according to one expert.
Giving vendors the third degree is especially important when shopping for text analytics technology because there is a wide range of offerings on the market at various levels of maturity, said Hanns Koehler-Kruener, a research director with Stamford, Conn.-based IT research firm Gartner Inc.
Additionally, text analytics technology is still emerging into the mainstream and therefore terminology and performance expectations will vary from vendor to vendor. As a result, the only real way to find out if a particular text analytics product meets specific needs is through questioning and trial and error, the analyst said.”
While most companies see big data as a huge benefit when channeled appropriately, consumers may see it as a threat to their privacy. “The Threat of Big Data” explains how big data can be misused.
The article states:
“What those breadcrumbs tell is the story of your life. It tells what you’ve chosen to do. That’s very different than what you put on Facebook. What you put on Facebook is what you would like to tell people, edited according to the standards of the day. Who you actually are is determined by where you spend time, and which things you buy. Big data is increasingly about real behavior, and by analyzing this sort of data, scientists can tell an enormous amount about you. They can tell whether you are the sort of person who will pay back loans. They can tell you if you’re likely to get diabetes.”
Whether you are looking to utilize big data for good or evil, there are companies out there that are willing to help your company harness data. Digital Reasoning uses automated understanding to take the pressure off employees and gain valuable insights from big data.
Jasmine Ashton, October 15, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
RenewData Adds Clearwell to Technology Quiver
October 12, 2012
RenewData, a full-service eDiscovery provider, has announced that Clearwell Systems has been added to the company’s quiver of technology. According to the recent article on Compliance Week, “RenewData Adds Clearwell e-Discovery Software,” the company has joined forces with the eDiscovery platform Clearwell, which helps organizations identify, collect, analyze, and review data. This software combination will allow users to achieve maximum value in the eDiscovery process.
We learn more about the RenewData technology addition in the article, which tells us:
“‘The complexities and amount of data involved in eDiscovery today dictate that there shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all approach to review,’ said RenewData Vice President of Marketing Joe Garber. ‘The addition of Clearwell Systems, along with our company-specific offerings like Language-Based Analytics, allows our clients a combination of speed, transparency, precision and insight into data as well as review cost reduction.’”
The technology should allow clients to make more informed decisions by finding the relevant information they need. However, it appears that government compliance and constant changing regulations are fueling an interest in content solutions as users hustle to comply. The large collections of data and shifting regulations offer a motive to find a valid content and big data solution.
Andrea Hayden, October 12, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Managing Information Overload with Simple Strategies
October 12, 2012
Challenges that accompany tackling the massive amounts of data that are available online may often seem to outweigh the benefits. Many businesses realize there is value in the information at their disposal on the Web, but may not believe it is worth the hassle. These companies may find solace in the recent article, “Five Ways to Win the Battle Against Information Overload” on Digimind’s blog. The blog post informs readers of how to manage the constant streams of data to find the information that is needed.
The post suggests prioritizing key sources, visualizing data, organizing information into folders, and removing duplicate sources and recurring information.
We also learn about the benefits of filtering out the noise:
“Reduce the amount of irrelevant information you receive on a daily basis by putting filters in place to remove low-quality, high-frequency sources. For example, instead of getting all the news from your RSS feeds, exploit a tool which will check that the articles behind your RSS feeds include your selection of keywords (competitors names, technologies…). Your information stream should provide you with regular, insightful data pertaining to your industry and tailored to your specific needs. Everything else is just noise and will distract you from your main mission.”
This post offers some simple tips that provide some sanity in the attempt to cope with information overload. Companies do not always have to invest in costly Big Data solutions to make the most of the available data; efficiency and productivity can come from small changes in daily processes.
Andrea Hayden, October 12, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Datameer Receives Third Year of Funding from RedPoint and Kleiner Perkins
October 11, 2012
Tech Crunch recently reported on the big data and hadoop analytics company Datameer in the article, “Analytics Company Datameer Raises $6 million From Redpoint Ventures and Kleiner Perkins.”
According to the article, After raising $2.5 million from Redpoint in 2010 and $9.25 million led by Kleiner Perkins in 2011, Datameer has raised $6 million as of September 25. This year’s primary donors were Redpoint and Kleiner Perkins.
Why are these two companies so interested in investing in Datameer? It may have something to do with the fact that Datameer makes a spreadsheet-style interface for Apache Hadoop and makes the big data analytics platform easier for non-developers to use.
The article states:
“That may sound simple enough, but Hadoop can be very difficult to use, especially for business users who typically work in Excel or business intelligence dashboards and don’t necessarily need to perform computationally complex problems. To help those users out, Datameer has developed an interface for Hadoop that uses a familiar spreadsheet model. It also sells a desktop edition that will enable users to run Hadoop on a single desktop machine, with no need to run a big cluster anywhere. The standalone desktop version obviously isn’t comparable to a big cluster of servers, but it can be used as an analytics tool in its own right. For more details on the company’s offerings check out Curt Monash’s analysis.”
Big Data analytics solutions are becoming a more and more integral part of strategic planning. Those companies who are interested in getting the most of their data, should look into investing in one of these solutions.
Jasmine Ashton, October 11, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
IntelTrax Top Stories: September 28 to October 4
October 8, 2012
Lately, the IntelTrax information and advanced intelligence blog has been covering a lot of stories related to risk analytics.
The October 4 post “Risk Analytics Becomes Big Business” explains how the days of manually entering data into spreadsheets are over and how risk can now be quantified and lowered with the use of analytics technology.
The article give an example of a company using analytics to mitigate risk:
“Numerix (http://www.numerix.com/), the leading provider of cross-asset analytics for derivatives valuations and risk management today announced that Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL), a pioneer in the Luxembourg financial industry has selected the Numerix CrossAsset analytics platform to support its model validation and model comparison processes. With Numerix’s highly flexible, fully transparent analytics architecture, BIL can conduct rigorous model analysis to independently validate pricing and risk sensitivity outputs, as well as make comparisons between different models to analyze how the outputs vary under different assumptions.”
Another article that emphasizes the financial impacts of data analytics is, “Effective Financial Data Analytics Rely on Quality.” This article discusses how important it is to utilize statisticians and data preparation along with a business’s strategy to form predictive models.
The article states:
“A critical aspect therefore is identifying what data is needed for effective prediction – and what data ends up actually being available and used to build the models. Most analysts can’t fix data – therefore they do the next best thing statistically, which is dropping or avoiding poor quality data.
Data analytics touches nearly all aspects of a business and it’s nearly impossible to achieve effective business intelligence without it.”
The Financial sector is not the only one that is using data analytics technology. It appears that the government is jumping on board the big data wagon as well. “Government and Utilities Get Big Data” explains how analytics spending has gone up quite a bit in the business world.
The article states:
“Utilities must solve data collection and storage challenges and learn how to analyze and act on new forms of information before they even get to the point of realizing real returns on their smart grid investments.
According to a new report from Pike Research, a part of Navigant‘s Energy Practice, the worldwide market for smart grid data analytics is expected to grow steadily through 2020, with cumulative worldwide spending from 2012 through 2020 totaling just over $34 billion.”
One company that has worked to provide data analytics technology for both the government and financial enterprises is Digital Reasoning. Digital Reasoning uses automated understanding to tackle some of big data’s most messy challenges by enabling enterprises and agencies to detect fraud, uncover market trends, gain better insight into customer behavior, gain competitive advantage, and mitigate risk.
Jasmine Ashton, October 8, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Exalate Lands Big Venture Funding for Big Data
October 7, 2012
Folks at the online marketing consulting firm eXalate must be celebrating since, as Online Media Daily reveals, “eXalate Secures $12 Million to Harness Big Data.” The Series C funding was led by new investor NewSpring Capital, and a general partner from that firm, Glenn T. Rieger, will be joining the eXalate board. The money is destined to both help grow the company’s product line and facilitate expansion. The write up by Laurie Sullivan tells us:
“eXelate will address several emerging trends, notes Mark Zagorski, the company’s CEO: custom modeling and adaptive audience intelligence. In the former, marketers use their own data as a ‘seed’ to model more relevant target audiences and accelerate the purchase funnel. In the latter, marketers modify targeting models in real-time to adapt to how audiences are interacting with the brand. He said both move the audience targeting business away from ‘cookie cutter segmentation’ and into a model where data conforms to the client, not the other way around.”
Zargosi believes his field is just beginning to glean intel from events with less obvious connections, and that existing investments in limited solutions is holding companies back. “Going beyond ‘the platform’ and actually providing solutions” gives eXalate‘s clients an advantage, he says. The company is headquartered in New York City, and currently has offices in Israel, France, and England.
Cynthia Murrell, October 07, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Autonomy Releases Policy Management Solution
October 4, 2012
A new solution for policy management has been launched by HP’s Autonomy, according to the article “New Autonomy Solution Helps Automate Policy Management” on Compliance Week. The product, HP TRIM 7.3, integrates Autonomy ControlPoint with records management to allow organizations to automatically apply policy based on meaning to structured as well as unstructured data. This release will give companies the power to understand and make use of the concepts and ideas within their data.
We learn more about the features in the article:
“The new features of HP TRIM 7.3 and Autonomy ControlPoint 3.0 are built on Autonomy’s Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL) platform, which allow organizations to identify the location and compliance status of their information assets, and then apply the correct organizational policy. The policy includes security, storage, and retention settings for each asset. This enables organizations to achieve a new level of governance by removing the significant burden of traditional manual approaches.”
The solution also allows customers to identify, classify, and manage business records and mitigate risk by applying policy to content across multiple repositories. As Big Data overwhelms, businesses would be wise to employ such an effective data management solution. More information about TRIM can be found here.
Andrea Hayden, October 04, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
GoodData Has More Offerings for Business Analytics
October 1, 2012
GoodData has already made a name for itself by offering SaaS cloud service that also provides its users with a healthy batch of big data analytics. Gigaom reports that, “GoodData Targets Big Business Data With New Offering.” The new service is called GoodData Bashes and it allows users handling marketing, sales, or subscription data to connect the sources into one analytics tool. The primary purpose of GoodData Bashes is to be a simplistic data analytics to the business world.
Even if everything referring to analytics these days is tied to big data, GoodData is actually doing it:
“And despite some reservation over the overuse of the term “big data,” that’s exactly what GoodData is doing — even if its customers don’t know it. As they connect more data sources and expect deeper, faster analytics, GoodData has to step up its operations. Stanek said his company’s infrastructure, which runs on the Amazon Web Services cloud-computing platform, handles about 20,000 data feeds per day from its 6,000-plus customers. GoodData is running Hadoop, in-memory databases, analytics software and everything else necessary to ingest, process, analyze and visualize data so customers don’t have to.”
Cloud computing is an essential part of GoodData’s plan to give its users real-time analytics. Most big data plans are heading in the cloud direction as mobile access grows in higher demand. It means more streams of opportunity to tap into generating more profit.
Whitney Grace, October 01, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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