IntelTrax Summary: October 26 to November 1
November 5, 2012
The IntelTrax information intelligence blog posted some excellent articles this week discussing the importance of investing in data analysis technology to help improve the efficiency of workplaces.
“Big Data a Big Part of IT Spending” looks at some projections regarding the rate of IT spending growth, most of which went towards social media campaign spending. However, the spending is continuing to branch out as more and more industries are beginning to utilize the technology.
The article states:
“Big data this year will account for US$28 billion of IT spending worldwide, which will increase to US$34 billion in 2013, according to Gartner.
In a report released Wednesday, the market research firm said much of 2012 expenditure will be in adapting traditional tools to address issues related to the big data phenomenon such as machine data, social data, and the large variety and velocity of data. In contrast, only US$4.3 billion will be focused on new big data functionalities.”
As big data analytics becomes more mainstream, we are seeing more interesting ways that it is being utilized. “Big Data Justice League” examines the use of big data analytics to predict the criminal behavior of maritime pirates.
The article states:
“There are almost too many sources of unstructured data to grapple with: interviews with pirates in custody, news stories about piracy incidents, data from mobile phones found during investigations, e-mail traffic, and social media posts from the pirates themselves. And here’s where the story gets really interesting, in my opinion. Most of this data comes from disparate sources that can vex the best investigations. It’s not simply a matter of easily formatted spreadsheets with clean rows and columns. At warp speed, data comes in from the Web, mobile devices, PDF files and other documents — a potential treasure trove of hidden insights.”
Some companies that a new to the big data game take a little bit of time to see the return on their investment. “Data Scientists More Important Than Most Think” gives four major detractors to analytics success:
“1. 35% of the time, it is the missing analytics skills – For analysts – how well are they able to bridge the gap to business, to understand the real question behind the ask before they jump into the data pull? For PM’s and marketing managers – how well do they understand the recipe behind making decisions based on data (BADIR framework), how well familiar they are with the fundamental analytics technique?
2. 10% of the time, it is the missing decision making process – How does budget get allocated? What is the process of laying out product roadmap?
3. 25% of the time, it is the organization’s data maturity – how easy is to get to data, how many version of the truth exist, does data exist in its rawest form for everybody to aggregate as they please?
4. 30% of the time, it the management and leadership – how is the management making decision, how are they establishing roles and responsibility, how are they holding people accountable?”
Regardless of your industry or expertise in the data analysis field, Digital Reasoning can be of great help. It offers one of the best analytics platforms on the market and can get your house in order by using automated understanding for big data.
Jasmine Ashton, November 5, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Data Analytics Steamroller
November 2, 2012
IT professionals may soon find themselves very, very busy, according to Datamation’s “Data Analytics: Advanced Roll-Out is Accelerating.” The article reports on a new survey from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, which found demand for advanced analytics tools in finance, marketing, and operations departments poised to rise dramatically over the next few years. With the adoption of more advanced tools should come an increased demand for serious IT chops. The article reports:
“IT pros in the BI/analytics world can thank our old friend unstructured data. Incorporating emails, text messages, YouTube videos, Facebook posts, Word docs and other unstructured information into a data warehouse already populated with rows and columns of production, sales and personnel information has been a wish list item for almost a decade.
“And it’s extremely difficult to do – spreadsheet jockeys who are wizards at nested formulas and linking Excel to DB2 or Oracle 8 aren’t ready to deal with the wide variety of data types that marketing, customer service and other departments need to examine.”
The shift even has some organizations, like Procter & Gamble for instance, breaking up their IT departments and dispersing their analytics experts among other departments. Writer Larry Marion observes that “IT pros will be pushed and pulled as the organizational disputes drag on.” They can take comfort, though, in their enhanced job security. Still an extremely valuable commodity.
Cynthia Murrell, November 02, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Content Distribution is Only Part of the Enterprise Puzzle
October 30, 2012
One cannot argue the importance of content delivery, but it is only one portion of the enterprise as a whole. Companies focused primarily on video delivery may end up a few pieces short of the complete enterprise puzzle, but according to Information Week’s article “Kontiki: A New Approach To Enterprise Content Delivery” Kontiki thinks video is the answer.
As a startup venture, Kontiki’s CEO is hoping to make an impact on the future of enterprise content distribution:
“Kontiki has been quietly garnering the enterprise video distribution business of companies like GM, Nestle, Coca Cola, and Wells Fargo, to name just a few. The company’s secret sauce is compelling IT shops to consider an approach that obviates the need for expensive WAN acceleration hardware. (The system takes video into a remote branch one time and distributes it peer-to-peer throughout the network.) Think of it as enterprise content delivery–like a CDN, but it moves content inside the firewall.”
Kontiki holds some very lucrative video management contracts but successful businesses look for complete enterprise solutions. A sizeable portion of the enterprise actually lies in the searching, seizing and sorting of both structured and unstructured data. Since enterprise content distribution is a final process, Kontiki’s clients have a powerful distribution platform but may need to utilize additional system in order to acquire usable data and make everything click together. An enterprise seeking a secure search application that locates and delegates targeted content to the right users at the most relevant times will find that Intrafind offers a solution that can complete the enterprise puzzle.
Jennifer Shockley, October 30, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
IntelTrax Summary: October 19 to October 25
October 29, 2012
This week, the IntelTrax advanced intelligence blog published some interesting stories related to big data’s influence over modern enterprises and higher education.
The article “Text Mining Brings Out the Value on Big Data” explains how companies are turning data volumes into increased profits. Many companies are choosing to automate the process through data analytics and text mining software.
The article states:
“Many companies haven’t begun to benefit from valuable enterprise text data,” said Fiona McNeill, Global Product Marketing Manager for SAS Text Analytics. “Most know that information in-house and in social media must be analyzed to bring value. SAS Text Analytics are being used for patient safety in healthcare, digital content performance in the media industry, early-warning systems and citizen intelligence in government and more. Nobody delivers the depth and breadth of technology for analyzing structured and unstructured data that SAS does.”
“Higher Ed for Big Data” reports on new programs meant to reinvigorate the tech work force and bring young talent to the industry.
According to the write-up:
“Colleges and universities are moving swiftly to create advanced degree programs to help meet what’s expected to be rapidly rising demand among employers for specialists who can manage and analyze big data.
The schools are likely aware of a McKinsey report warning of a mega-shortage of analytical experts that could leave as many as 190,000 positions unfilled by 2018. They’re also responding to appeals from big employers like IBM and SAS Institute that have been lobbying college administrators to set up such programs.
Schools have offered analytics training for years, but the emerging advanced degree programs add instruction in the use of analytic and business intelligence tools to produce useful information from petabytes of data collected from social media sites, sensors, transaction records, mobile applications and other sources.”
PepsiCo is another large company that has recently seen the value of data analytics. “PepsiCo Acquires a Taste for Data Analytics” shares an interview with PepsiCo‘s Global Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Business Information Solutions Caroline Watteeuw.
Watteeuw explains one of the company’s new products:
“We are betting on what we call SMAC. It is Social, Mobile, Advanced and Immersive Analytics, Cloud. There are a couple of things that are not relevant for PepsiCo but interesting. I call them comeback kids. If you go back 15 years when Xerox was at its peak, it was all about very precise ink-jet printers. Right now, people are trying to use ink-jet printer technology and refocus it on creating organs (researchers at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, for instance, are using modified ink-jet technology to build tissue and organ prototypes). It is absolutely phenomenal. Then there are three dimensional maps. You have 3D TV, gaming and printing. 3D maps will allow you to navigate through different layers of geography to do oil and gas exploration in a very different way.”
For those who are interested in getting the most of their big data, there are a variety of companies out there offering cutting edge solutions. We recommend Digital Reasoning for their long standing reputation as a leader in big data analytics that pushes the envelope.
Jasmine Ashton, October 29, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Video Tour of PolySpot Administration Console
October 24, 2012
Polyspot has posted a YouTube video that serves as a whirlwind tour of their “PolySpot Administration Console / Brand New Version: 6.0.” The two minute video succinctly demonstrates that this console is another useful reference for information mavens.
The Administration Console is one of four consoles included in PolySpot’s Information At Work platform, designed to serve all departments of their clients’ organizations. The product page elaborates:
“All PolySpot search applications are based on PolySpot Information At Work, a shared deployment platform for all types of search application, including cross-functional search applications, business intelligence applications and business-specific and decision-making applications. . . . Although a standard database is highly versatile, it does not provide high-quality search performance. Similarly, while an index provides unrivalled search performance, it is not sufficiently versatile in terms of data enrichment and updating capabilities. PolySpot Information At Work is an innovative solution that combines the best of both worlds: the performance of an index (PolySpot SearchMart) and the versatility of a semi-structured database (PolySpot InfoWarehouse).”
PolySpot focuses on boosting business efficiency with single-point access to a wealth of structured and unstructured data. the company taps into the wonders of open source software, basing its infrastructure on Apache’s Lucene Solr. Founded in 2001, PolySpot makes its home in Paris, France.
Cynthia Murrell, October 24, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Third Party ERP Resources Need Proven Search Application
October 22, 2012
The article highlights that companies should weigh the options:
“Third-party ERP support is probably not a good choice for companies that consider it important to have access to a vendor’s current version, patches and updates, Scavo says. However, ‘I think there are plenty of examples of companies that have gone off maintenance and at some point in the future decided to come back to the vendor for an upgrade. It’s very hard to imagine a situation where the vendor will not take that customer’s business back,’ he says. Doing so might save you money.”
Oracle Offers Integrated Big Data Engine
October 18, 2012
You need a big database engine and a lot of hardware so you can converge lots of big data. At least, that’s what Oracle hopes we will believe. V3.co.uk‘s reports, OpenWorld: Oracle Touts Converged Approach for Big Data.”
OpenWorld includes both hardware and software made to work together. This sort of integration is, after all, what Oracle has historically done best. The write up reports on comments from Oracle’s Balaji Yelamanchili:
“Yelamanchili explained that with the advent of in-memory analysis, which stores data in RAM rather than on a platter-based disk drive, appliances are able to operate on an exponentially faster magnitude without raising costs or sacrificing capacity. The Exalytics system stores up to 1TB of data in memory while running up to four Intel Xeon E7 processors. . . .
“Additionally, the company said that firms will benefit from combining the Exalytics platform with its ExaData server platform. Oracle has designed the two systems to connect via on-board Infiniband high-speed connections.”
This may be the right approach for businesses that can afford it. And that actually see a need for a powerful big-data engine. No doubt many companies fall into that column, and Oracle does tend to build reliable products.
However, Oracle president Mark Hurd seems to think every organization should want to buy his company’s system; “the data is coming whether you like it or not,” he says. Hmm. Is a state of alarm really a good place from which to make financial decisions?
Cynthia Murrell, October 18, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Mobile Search Improves as Cloudant Integrates Full Text Indexing
October 16, 2012
The mobile app field is on fire right now as more businesses add Web and mobile applications, and one company is making great strides in mobile search capabilities. Cloudant has announced its cloud database service is adding full-text indexing and search powered by Apache Lucene. We learn in “Cloudant Upgrades Cloud Database Server With Integrated Text Indexing and Search Basedon Apache Lucene” on PRNewswire that Cloundant “Search 2.0” allows developers to enhance their Web and mobile apps with full-text search and analysis of documents.
The article continues:
“‘Search 2.0 enables the types of text analytics that just aren’t possible with the limited in-database search capabilities of SQL or other search systems,’ said Mike Miller, co-founder and chief scientist at Cloudant. ‘I can’t think of any application out there that wouldn’t benefit from better search. By drawing on the speed and simplicity of Lucene, we are able to provide developers with an easy, familiar way to do that for large amounts of application data that will perform at-scale for massive amounts of users.’”
While Cloudant’s moves in the mobile search field are impressive, our research indicates that accurate enterprise search is still needed in the industry. Intrafind’s enterprise search applications can answer the need to “find information securely.” The company’s iFinder is a basic solution for structured and unstructured enterprise data, allowing users to gain access the information needed in an enterprise quickly and efficiently.
Andrea Hayden, October 16, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Exploring the New York City 311 Dataset
October 16, 2012
Data insights can come from many places, of course, and previously unexplored sources can be well worth pursuing. Open-source-project blog Enthought[s] informs us of a novel data wellspring in “Explore NYC 311 Data.” Inspired by this year’s Datagotham talks on “urban science,” writer David Kim and colleagues wondered what insights they could glean from NYC 311 data. NYC 311 is New York City’s information line, but it also serves as a repository of residents’ complaints. Through the city’s Web site, they were able to access data on about four million 311 calls between January 2010 and August 2012. Kim writes:
“NYC 311 calls are categorized into approximately 200 different complaint types, ranging from ‘squeegee’ and ‘radioactive’ to ‘noise’ and ‘street condition.’ There are an additional ~1000 descriptors (e.g. Radioactive -> Contamination). Each call is tagged with date, location type, incident address, and longitude and latitude information. . . .
“Simple aggregations can help analysts develop intuition about the data and provide fodder for additional inquiry. Housing related complaints to HPD (NYC Dept of Housing Preservation and Development) represented the vast majority of calls (1,671,245). My personal favorite, ‘squeegee,’ was far down at the bottom of the list with only 21 complaints over the last two years. I seem to remember a crackdown several years ago. . . perhaps it had an impact.”
Perhaps. Not being a big-city dweller, I cannot comment on the importance of squeegee crackdowns. However, Kim’s observation on that matter is just one example of the sort of hypothesis one can draw from the litany of New Yorkers’ complaints.
The article goes on to discuss the team’s efforts at visualizing the data, their aggregation techniques, and their desire to add in more data sets. Kim makes a point of crediting the open source tools they used– PostGIS, Psycopg2, Pandas, D3, QGIS. If you are interested in tapping the possibilities of datasets, the article is worth checking out for the details.
Cynthia Murrell, October 16, 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
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