The Heat in Text Radar: Mya 03 to May 09
May 14, 2013
This week the Text Radar big data and content intelligence blog covered a set of interesting topics this week that are pertinent to anyone interested in harnessing the power of big data insights.
“Data Analytical Decisions are More Definitive at Adding Insightful and Valuable Content” explains how important raw data is to business success. The use of this data, however, can be difficult to manage without experts to advise.
The article explains:
“This view is held even more firmly in the manufacturing, energy and government sectors, and 65 percent assert that more and more management decisions are based on ‘hard analytic’ information.
The research shows that organizations are increasingly moving towards evidence-based decision making, but at the same time, face significant challenges in managing and leveraging the ever-increasing volumes of data not only from a technology perspective but also as an organization.”
Another article, “Big Data Analysis Not a Simple Data Collection Technique,” dispels some of the rumors surrounding big data. It explains that big data mining is far more than simple data collection.
The article provides this example:
“Taking an influential paper on economics and intelligence efforts around the Boston bombing suspects as background, wherein a few missing rows in Excel and a misspelling of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s name, Wise points out that ‘data management tools (i.e., the FBI’s systems and Excel) were undone by fairly simple errors,’ with terrible results. In other words, as much as we may believe Big Data is as simple as ‘Input data into Hadoop, outcome insights!’ the reality depends heavily on the people querying that data.”
Managing data without the appropriate skill set can lead to the failure of any company. One way that big data can be most helpful when used appropriately is when “Mining Data for Finding Talent for Hire”. Gild, helps companies find “diamond in the rough” or individuals that have slipped through the cracks of traditional recruiting methods by mining social media sites.
The article provides the thoughts of Gild’s chief scientist, Vivian Ming:
“Dr. Ming doesn’t suggest eliminating human judgment, but she does think that the computer should lead the way, acting as an automated vacuum and filter for talent. The company has amassed a database of seven million programmers, ranking them based on what it calls a Gild score — a measure, the company says, of what a person can do. Ultimately, Dr. Ming wants to expand the algorithm so it can search for and assess other kinds of workers, like Web site designers, financial analysts and even sales people at, say, retail outlets.”
As you can see, data can be used to find the answer’s you’ve been searching for as long as you have the right tools. A company leading the way with text analytical tools is Smartlogic. Their suite of tools has the ability to join data with content and applying content analytics to that information for the purpose of content intelligence giving integrity and reliable methods to making decisions in any environment.
Jasmine Ashton, May 14, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
The Heat in Text Radar: April 19 to April 25
April 30, 2013
This week, the Text Radar content intelligence, compliance, and big data news service covered quite a few interesting stories.
The first that I would like to highlight is, “Smartphone Data Used to Better Serve Customers.” According to the article, thanks to smartphones, app stores can tap into a wide range of data sources about user preferences and activity.
The article states:
“This ‘big data’ available within an app store can significantly help to tailor the user experience and offerings. For example, a user who lives in NYC and just landed in London might be interested in the ‘TimeOut: London’ app or ‘Booking.com’ app for booking a hotel. A user who posted a video on Facebook of the latest Knicks game may be interested in the ‘New York Knicks Official App,’ and a user who listens to Coldplay a lot, might want to download some Coldplay wallpapers.”
Another story, explains how big data has brought the IT and marketing community together. “Creating a Customer Centric Culture with Big Data Analytics” advocates the use of big data to create a customer centric corporate culture.
A study found:
“* 40% of marketers and 51% of IT executives said it’s critical for improved decision making.
* 36% of marketers and 23% of IT execs said data drives the ability to personalize customer experiences.”
The final story that I would like to highlight for this week’s issue involves big data’s impact on the health care industry. “Turning Unstructured Data into Healthcare Improvements” explains how doctors can find value using data from your mobile phone and other devices.
The author provides this example:
“For example, she said, an app could process data from a mobile carrier to determine whether new supplements for early-stage arthritis are actually helping a patient. If the patient is checking her phone earlier in the morning and moving around more frequently, that could indicate that the medicine it’s doing its job.
Service providers may balk at the prospect of releasing their troves of user activity data – and Estrin acknowledged that they would likely worry about PR headaches and privacy issues.”
It is important to understand the various outlets that you can use big data to be beneficial to your company’s success. Smartlogic’s Semaphore Content Intelligence Platform runs on semantic technology giving your organization’s information rich value and a better experience for your users.
Jasmine Ashton, April 30, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
The Heat in Text Radar: March 01 to March 07
March 12, 2013
This week, the Text Radar data analytics blog shared some innovative ways that companies are using big data to solve some of industries’ most difficult challenges.
The first article that I will highlight is “Using Analytics to Improve Cities and Governments,” shares how the Smarter Cities Technology Centre in Dublin is working to improve over 2000 cities around the world.
The article states:
“Each project develops practical solutions to specific urban management areas, such as traffic management. One that Dublin hosts is the development of the IBM Intelligent Operations Centre for Cities. No one envisages a total solution but the vision is that incrementally and over time, the development of smart systems for key areas will enable a city to integrate more and more of its operations into an overall ‘smart city’.
Due to the fact that so many different companies from different industries are gaining valuable insights from big data, many major corporations are beginning to invest in big data solutions. According to “IBM Makes More Investments in Big Data and Mobile” big data, business analytics, social business, and mobile represent a new era and much sought after ecosystems that IBM is going all out after.
The article summarizes:
“IBM continues to transform itself by going after higher value opportunities and Big Blue is moving into these new spaces with its ecosystem of business partners in tow.
At the IBM PartnerWorld Leadership Conference 2013 in Las Vegas, Bruno Di Leo, senior vice president of sales and distribution at IBM, said the company is looking at three primary imperatives: to lead in the new era of computing, to reach new kinds of clients and to demonstrate new types of expertise.”
Another article “Netflix Uses Big Data to Deliver an Original Series Success” explains the movie giant’s tactic of releases all of the episodes at once for their original series, House of Cards.
The article explains its Netflix’s strategy:
“Big bets are now being informed by Big Data, and no one knows more about audiences than Netflix. A third of the downloads on the Internet during peak periods on any given day are devoted to streamed movies from the service, according to Sandvine, a networking provider. And last year, by some estimates, more people watched movies streamed online than on physical DVDs.”
As you can see, big data has a variety of interesting and innovative uses. Those companies looking to spearhead their own big data initiative should seek out a third party solution like Smartlogic’s Semaphore Content Intelligence Platform.
Jasmine Ashton, March 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
RxScriptMD: The Future of Prescribing in a Regulated Market
February 27, 2013
Arnold Information Technology released a new Augmentext service today. RxScriptMD tracks next generation prescription services. The feature article in the début edition features Erez Lapsker, president of MediScripts. With a track record of more than 30 years of medical marketing innovation, Mr. Lapsker provides a look at the future of the systems and methods for prescriptions issued by physicians and other authorized medical professionals. Mediscripts is the global leader in point of prescription solutions.
The RxScriptMD publishes Monday through Friday. Among the topics the information service will cover are:
- Patient care
- Physician engagement
- Prescription methods
- Regulatory compliance
- Technology (mobile and pad based).
Mr. Lapsker told RxScriptMD:
We all know that the best time to reach healthcare providers is during their work day in their practice when they’re diagnosing or treating patients. But with the combination of most health care providers now working for others to manage care or group practices or the revised pharma code limiting meals and other prescriber interactions, healthcare practitioners have less time to talk to sales reps at the office. Brand teams really need to get innovative and seek out different approaches to get into the conversation. For over 30 years, MediScripts has been at the forefront of this trusted space. Our solutions engage physicians right at the point of prescription.
You can access the service via your newsreader, follow the content via Twitter, or access the content directly at www.rxscriptmd.com. This publication complements the coverage of electronic medical record indexing which appears in Beyond Search, Text Radar, and EMRxNow. For more information about how to gain coverage in our information services or to learn more about Augmentext, write seaky2000 at yahoo dot com.
Stephen E Arnold, February 27, 2013
The Heat in Text Radar: February 8 to February 14
February 19, 2013
This week the Text Radar information service presented readers with a series of articles that did an excellent job explaining the state of big data, content intelligence, and compliance on national and international workplaces.
“Using Analytics to Get the Most Return from Big Data” discusses the importance of analytics tools.
A survey of businesses showed:
Businesses are on a somewhat different tour. Of course, they are walking with the elephants, but many so-called Big Data projects have more to do with more traditional data types, i.e. relationally structured, but bigger or requiring faster access. And in these instances, the need is for Big Analytics, rather than Big Data. The value comes from what you do with it, not how big it happens to be.
Another article explains the impact big data is having on the banking industry. The article, “Banks Using Big Data to Offer Better Services to Customers,” explains how JP Morgan Chase & Company recently started tapping into big data.
The article states:
Several months ago, it began to combine that database, which includes 1.5 billion pieces of information, with publicly available economic statistics from the U.S. government. Then it used new analytic capabilities to develop proprietary insights into consumer trends, and offer those reports to the bank’s clients. The technology allows the bank to break down the consumer market into smaller and more narrowly identified groups of people, perhaps even single individuals.
The final article that I would like to showcase, aired on February 11, is called “Turning Data in Actionable Insight and Real World Applications.” The article explores the differences between big data and just plain data.
The post summarizes:
Big data is a technological revolution centered around collecting, storing and processing more data of more types than ever before. It’s also about doing all this stuff faster than ever before as data streams in from sensors, servers, Twitter, web surfing and however else we’re generating data. Data scientists are thinking up clever ways to stitch this data together, apply statistical techniques and do all sorts of things.
One of the greatest benefits of big data is that when it is paired with the correct solution it is able to deliver actionable intelligence. Smartlogic’s Semaphore Content Intelligence Platform uses semantic technology to give you a complete information management experience with powerful search and navigation.
Jasmine Ashton, February 19, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
The Heat in Text Radar: February 1 to February 7
February 12, 2013
This week, the Text Radar content intelligence, compliance, and big data analytics blog covered some unique stories regarding the impact of these technologies on a variety of different industries and disciplines.
The first story, “Strategy Shift a Must for Business Success in Service and Maintenance Industries” covers a the need for drastic shift in practices as a result of budget constraints and the loss of knowledgeable workers.
Fear not my friends. The post offers this advice:
“Advancements in technologies and connectivity have created new opportunities, and now is the time to rethink investments and strategies in service. But, increased awareness of the importance of service at all levels of the organization, and across domains is critical to successfully harnessing these opportunities.”
Another article, “Economics Sited as Biggest Obstacle When Making Decision on Big Data Systems” discusses what the future has in store for IT trends.
When explaining how big data will financially impact businesses, the article states:
“If your applications were supported by a relational database, you had to force feed unrelated data into some sort of relational database construct in order for that data to be managed. And I think as use of the Internet and the amount of data – particularly metadata – have both exploded, that usage of the Internet and the “webification,” if you will, of many applications has produced a flood of data that’s unstructured. And getting a cost-effective way to handle metadata and highly unstructured data has really been a vexing issue for a lot of IT managers.”
Additionally, it is no secret that big data plays a large role in advertising. “Ad Campaign Ideas Stay On-Target When Utilizing Real Time Data Analytics” discusses the creative processes that have changed with advertising campaigns since they started utilizing big data analytics technology.
Alice Wilson explains:
“Along with the obvious improvements being made with real-time data analytics in the creative world of ad campaigning, gut instinct is still playing an important role in this process – it is just that now an idea can be corroborated more on-the-money utilizing these tools.”
These three articles all highlight the significant impact that big data and real-time analytics is having on the world as we know it. One company that creates beneficial data management tools for companies is Smartlogic.
Jasmine Ashton, February 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Andreessen Predicts Trouble for Traditional Workers
February 8, 2013
Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has some strong, educated opinions about the ups and downs of technology-related businesses and where the industry is headed. TechCrunch shares an interview with the professional prognosticator in, “Marc Andreessen on the Future of Enterprise.”
Journalist Alexia Tsotsis spoke to Andreessen for her piece, “The Enterprise Cool Kids” (also at TechCrunch), but thought the interview insightful enough to share in its entirety. The piece retains the casual, conversational tone of their chat.
The two cover a lot of ground: an industry focus that continually swings between enterprise and consumer markets; a decrease in hardware investments in favor of a shift to the cloud; the nimbleness of new businesses run by millennials compared to the comparatively bogged-down state of larger companies. The piece as a whole is a valuable read.
What caught our eye most, though, was Andreessen’s predictions for the worker bees among us. He states:
“It feels a lot like in the new economy you will have a lot more contractors. You will have a lot more people with sort of fluid careers contracting on a project basis, and then all this technology is going to be an enabling layer for that. . . .
“For some people it feels great to never be tied to a specific employer and to always be doing contract work and be changing jobs every two years, and it feels like it’s fun and exciting and exhilarating. For a lot of people that’s really scary. And so the lifetime employment promise that the big companies used to be able to make was very compelling for a lot of people because it felt safe.
“So now you are in a world where the big companies can’t deliver — even if they wanted to deliver on lifetime employment, they can’t.”
You have been warned.
Cynthia Murrell, February 08, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
How to Gain the Maximum Value Out of Big Data
February 5, 2013
From the Harvard Business Review comes an article that outlines the results of an interesting survey conducted by NewVantage Partners on how businesses plan to achieve value from big data and the technological solutions that tap into it. In the article, “Getting the Maximum Value Out of Your Big Data Initiative both statistics from the study are shared in addition to next steps for organizations looking to employ big data.
As many as 85% of participating companies answered that that either have big data initiatives in the works or currently underway in order to improve business practices and increase efficiency.
The article states:
In order to achieve this goal, many of the firms interviewed have established a new business metric for measuring the value of their Big Data initiatives — Time-to-Answer (TTA). TTA reflects the speed by which executives can answer critical business questions and has become a common measure on Wall Street and among other leading firms. The Pentagon has established an equivalent metric known as Data-to-Decision, which is dramatized in the analyses conducted by the intelligence community in the Academy Award–nominated film Zero Dark Thirty.
These organizations developing metrics for evaluating ROI such as TTA are a few steps ahead of others. These such organizations were most likely the early adopters of key technology components such as PolySpot. Their solutions enable connectivity between data across the enterprise.
Megan Feil, February 5, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search.
Business Users and IT Pros View Things Differently
January 31, 2013
No wonder there are clashes between users and their enterprise systems. Network Computing ‘s “IT Perceptions, End User Realities” examines a recent report from InformationWeek that revealed a bit of a schism between IT pros and, well, everyone else. In the perception study, end users and IT personnel expressed divergent views on IT’s role and how well its members have been performing.
The study (available here, free with registration) asked survey takers IT-related questions, and broke answers down into those of IT and non-IT professionals. While 60 percent of the techies saw IT as integral to their organization, only 43 percent of the rest agreed. And though only 34 percent of the IT folks saw their department as “not especially innovative,” 42 percent of other respondents held that disparaging view. The survey also found that only half of business users were at all satisfied (“moderately,” “very,” or “completely”) with the performance of their IT divisions, and 20 percent reported being not satisfied at all.
Having dipped a toe in the IT field, I can sympathize. Hardware and software and, especially, the intersection of the two often fail to perform as expected even for the most seasoned technician. The challenge of tracking down a problem within an eclectic system is a process only those who have closely observed it can begin to appreciate. On top of that, IT is one of those jobs where people tend not to notice your work until something goes wrong. Still, IT pros used to get more respect. What changed? Writer Kevin Fogarty suggests:
“In the past, IT held the technology trump card. If the marketing department asked for a new application and IT said no, there was no chance a rouge team was going to sneak into the data center, rack a server, run the cables and fire up the software. Now those who chafe under restrictions from find themselves with easy, relatively inexpensive access to applications and services online. . . .
“Unfortunately for IT, this state of affairs enforces the notion that hot new technology comes from outside the company, while IT faithfully keeps the old, busted stuff alive inside the company. It’s an attitude that the technologists theoretically responsible for moving the company into the future are, in fact, anchoring it in the past.”
So now, IT departments must find new and exciting ways to justify their existence while simultaneously maintaining finicky legacy systems. Many, I would add, must do this with staffs that have been gutted over the last few years.
There is one hopeful point for IT in the report: 59 percent of the non-IT personnel think internal IT will become more important over the next two years. Maybe they don’t like the IT department very much, but at least they know they still need it. At least a little bit.
Cynthia Murrell, January 31, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
HP Autonomy Problem Larger than Accounting Snafus?
January 11, 2013
Nigel Cannings at The Global Legal Post believes HP has a more crucial Autonomy-related problem than one of financial analysis, we learn from his article, “HP and Autonomy—Lacking the Innovation Sauce.” Cannings asserts that HP’s real issue is one of squashing the potential of the company it just purchased. He writes:
“My father is a 45-year veteran of the software industry and a serial entrepreneur. His last business was acquired for a substantial sum by a North American company, so he was speaking from experience when he commented: ‘When will these large corporations learn the three golden rules of acquiring an entrepreneurial company? First, work out what it was that made it so successful and bottle it. Second, tie in the technical and marketing resources that achieved that success. Third, allow the founders to do what they do best — don’t try to reinvent them.’
“HP has ignored these rules.”
Cannings argues that had HP stayed out of the way of Autonomy’s Mike Lynch and his team, the investment would have paid off handsomely. Instead, not only did the tech titan level their startling accounting charges, they are focused on the wrong aspect of their asset. While HP seems intent on pursuing the voice retrieval technology, they would do better, he says, to go after co-processer—fueled supercomputers. This, he insists, is the path to maximize profit from the Autonomy buy. Navigate to the article to see how he makes his case.
Cannings also says that this failure is a symptom of HP’s larger lack of innovation. Specifically, he charges, the company lacks the drive to re-innovate frequently, a quality that helped propel companies like Oracle, Apple, Microsoft, and IBM to the heights of success. Is HP on the road to mediocrity?
Cynthia Murrell, January 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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