There is a glass with water in it sitting on a table- is the glass half empty or is it half full?
The way you answer the question above may determine how you think about IBM’s new solution for the high demand for data scientists. Data scientists are people who can analyze and control analytical programs that work to sort through large masses of data.
As the amount of data the world produces increases, the need for people who can sort through that data and make meaning of it goes up as well. IBM believes that they can aid this problem with their natural language analytics program which is predicted to be able to do the job of a data scientist.
This provokes the question, is this a good thing? Is this a means to an end or is this the beginning of a war between humans and robots for jobs?
As a child I can remember watching the futuristic life of The Jetson’s on Saturday morning cartoons and thinking “wow that must be a long time from now!” But this is not necessarily the case. With the immersion of Big data and its widespread application, we are beginning to see “The Future” much more quickly than we expected.
Now that Big Data Analytics has been around long enough to no longer think of it as a magical, all knowing, wonder tool, companies are now used to Big Data and understand how to manage it. Big Data has become a mainstream, ordinary process in the work place. With Big Data being more manageable and easy to understand, it is now being applied to many different new and exciting projects. Big Data is being utilized in Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, and Machine Learning.
Artificial Intelligence is being developed in forms anywhere from robotics to the Internet of Things. Big Data is being heavily utilized in Natural Language Processing to enhance applications such as Apple’s Siri. Natural Language Processing is something we can expect to see a lot of a The Internet of Things continues to make a bigger presence. Machine Learning will make its mark as algorithms continue to be developed to ensure efficiency and minimal human intervention. Between these three sectors we are looking at the world of The Jetson’s being very near.
Ever wonder if Big Data could be used in Law Firms?
When we think of a law firm we don’t generally picture a bunch of lawyers sitting around computers crunching data, but the reality is that there is a lot of paperwork and analysis involved in law.
The processes in law are long and rigorously documented, meaning there is a lot of information lawyers much go through when remaining educated on a case. This Big Data Lawyer enlightens us on how Big Data could be used to analyze documents, saving lawyers valuable time.
Almost every physical object can be connected to the internet.
We are racing forward to an era of hyper-connectivity. Objects now have the ability to communicate with each other, all using DATA!
The Internet of Things is happening now!
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a term that has been thrown around for a few years now, but many of us may still not fully understand what it means.
The IoT refers to a network of physical objects or “things” that have the capabilities to both collect and exchange any amount of data. They do this through a variety of software, electronics, sensors, and network connectivity.
So many devices that we own are connected to this “Internet of Things”, and we are using this network of data everyday to make our lives easier. This includes everything from cell phones, coffee makers, washing machines, headphones, wearable devices and almost anything else you can think of. If it has an on and off switch, then chances are good that it is connected to the IoT.
Now that more and more objects are connected to the IoT, those objects can all communicate to optimize day-to-day practices, create new opportunities, and save us money!
This is a great video looking at 7 bind-blowing facts of the Internet of Things.
“In 2008, there were already more objects connected to the internet than people.”
“The ATM was one of the first objects of the Internet of Things, dating back to 1974.”
“This year we will have 4.9 Billion connected things.”
“By 2020, we will have 6.1 Billion smartphone users.”
“The global market for wearable devices has grown 223% in 2015.”
“By 2020, a quarter of a billion vehicles will be connected to the internet.”
“All of these devices collect and transmit data, contributing to our Big Data world!”
You can pretty much look anywhere on the internet today and find an article, post, or book written on the benefits of Big Data. It is on the mind of every executive out there, and rightfully so. While the benefits do greatly outweigh the downsides, it still needs to be brought to attention that there often remains a weak link in big data- the data itself.
Without good data, the business intelligence gained from it can all be deemed useless. Without good data, companies find themselves spending unnecessary time and money in an attempt to clean it up. So, rather than focusing right now on how much data we could possibly gather, shouldn’t we be focusing on how to retrieve the ‘correct’ data?
Annual BI and Big Data expenditures are expected to reach $114 billion by the end of 2018- not a number to be taken lightly! It is estimated that almost $65 Billion of that is absorbed or unrealized by businesses each year due to return mail/bad data. Poor data is prevalent in nearly every major industry, from healthcare to retail and finance to telecommunications.
USPS gave us a perfect example of how crucial good data is when they incurred $1.5 Billion in costs processing “undeliverable as addressed” mail. While there were many other factors, over half a billion dollars in expense was due to businesses having wrong addresses in their databases.
Organizations can continue to go along as many are today, gathering all of the data they can get their hands on, because somewhere within that, the good data will fall. However, in an age of efficiency and desire to save as much time and money as possible, executives should drive their organizations to ensure data is properly entered from the beginning or corrected within the systems and databases. Thankfully, there are many products already on the market that can help companies with this today.
After getting rid of the crud in the data and spending our time retrieving only what matters, we will begin to see Big Data being used to its fullest potential. Oh, the possibilities!
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