Mount_Everest_as_seen_from_Drukair2_PLW_editBig Data Predictions for 2017

Prologue

You want Big Data predictions for 2017?

You’ve got ’em!

These are my Big Data, Data Warehousing and Analytics extrapolations for 2017. They are based on extensive, exhaustive and enigmatic work carried out by top-notch researcher gurus at Cambriano Energy, between December 2015 and December 2016.

So, stick with us as we survey the landscape that will be Big Data in 2017.

To begin at the beginning

We recently received a letter from our special correspondent Afilonius Jones, and I am using this to set the scene and tone and tenor of this piece. Naturally, the letter is address to the Head of our Big Data State.

Dear Brenda,

In 2014 I read an article – it could have been in The Guardian, The New York Times or the Old Moron’s Almanac – on the Secrets of Big Data Success. It said, “The secrets of Big Data success can be yours for 25 pounds sterling, sent to Secret of Big Data Institute, Milton Keynes.”

So I wrote away, seemed an amazing bargain, secret of Big Data success, twenty-five quid. Sorted!

And I got a letter back in 2015 saying, “If you think you can get the secret of Big Data success for twenty-five pounds, you don’t deserve to have it. Send fifty pounds for the secrets of Big Data success.”

So I wrote away again, as it still seemed an absolutely fabulous bargain, secrets of Big Data success, fifty pounds.

And I got yet another letter back in 2016 saying, “If you think you can get the secrets of Big Data success for fifty pounds, you’ve got another thing coming, sunshine. Send a hundred pounds for the secrets of Big Data success. Which you might receive in 2017 – the officially appointed year of Big Data success”

So, I’m now in a quandary. What should I do?

Yours puzzled,

Afilonius Rex Jones.

A difficult situation indeed. This is how we replied.

Dear Perplexed Afilonius,

We are in the process of researching our Big Data Predictions for 2017. May I respectfully suggest that you wait to read our findings before parting with your valuable time, money and the will to live?

I’m sure you could really benefit from our help.

Yours in data,

Coco Jones

Executive Producer

Editor: Yes, I know I now, it is total post-truth plagiarism and a massive lack of respect and trust – as it’s supposed to be. Yet, mysteriously, as if by some invisible magical act of juxtaposition, it is all somehow true. Which is somewhat fitting when it comes to subjects such as Big Data and absolutely fabulous Big Data success.

Nonetheless, short and shrift, without labouring the point, my absolute grovelling apologies to the late and great Peter Cook.

Onwards and upwards.

It is now coming up to 8:30AM on December the 31st (or, maybe not), and it is time therefore to dust off the amazing, awesome and absolutely fabulous Big Data predictions for 2017. The massive maraschino cherry on the top of the fabulous Big Data cake is this… it’s absolutely free, gratis, kostenlos and on the house.. And it is worth every cent you pay for it.

Prediction #10: Big Data insight, knowledge and experience will expand to fill the whole of the known universe

In 2017 Big Data in business brings a whole new meaning to the term ‘service the customer’.

Simply stated, there is no bullshit like Big Data bullshit, and there are no unscrupulous purveyors of bullshit like Big Data pundits. If you don’t believe me, take a look at some of the articles on web sites like… well, here and there and almost everywhere.

There is a place for Big Data. There is a time for Big Data. Big Data has its relevance – sometimes. But that’s not going to stop the charlatans, wide-boys and snake-oil merchants from trying to flog Big Data as if it were a universal panacea.

The market is awash with suckers who want to be conned big time. Again, and again and again. So it will probably work.

And now Big Data is going to save humanity, revolutionise business and bring eternal life to those who deserve it, by applying the paradigm of the roman census to all data search. Brute force, hubris and faith-based data management… to the fore in 2017.

Prediction #9: A surfeit of clowns will make up stuff about Data Warehousing needing modernisation

No one talks about ERP needing radical modernisation when the box it is running on is replaced with a go-faster platform. So why do some people do it when it comes to Data Warehousing? Adding another 2048GB of memory to your platform is not business process modernisation, it’s a simple hardware upgrade.

What we are really talking about here is the maintenance of infrastructure, which is typically an ongoing process in most large businesses and IT organisations.

Another thing. Adding a Big Data source to your data warehouse is not data warehouse modernisation, it is simply adding a new data source.

Doing data warehousing wrong is not data warehousing, it is something else. Getting round to the idea of doing data warehousing right, is not modernisation of data warehousing, it is just a decision to do data warehousing the right way.

But that’s not going to stop a surfeit of clowns from proclaiming that data warehousing is in desperate need of modernisation.

Prediction #8: Data equation tools will dictate the market

2017 will herald a mass of new launches of specialized software designed to use equations with streaming sparky data, making it easier for us to do complicated eclectic math, such as subtraction, addition, multiplication and (some ethereal forms of) division.

This is the evolution of the roman-census Russian-roulette approach to Big Data, as is well known in the Data Science trade as Divide and Conk Out.

Thanks to this new bleeding edge (gold-nugget mining magic) we will at last be able to use mathematics and data to create new and enriched data, information, knowledge and wisdom – which we will use to try and sell useless crap that nobody needs to people with more dollars than sense.

Prediction #7: The Internet of Things will turn pro

Hunter S. Thompson? “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro”? “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”? “…just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.”

IT has become unnecessarily weird, addled and overdosed on post-truth and idiotically illogical… Never mind… Oh, look! Donuts! Yeah, whatever.

Nowhere is this now more evident than in the field of Big Data, Data Science, adding up numbers and things, shopping list production, equations and the Internet of all Things sacred, profane and totally fatuous.

As we all know now, there exists a surfeit of wearable and data-inclusive devices on the open market these days. Some are faddish, some are vaguely faddish and some are clearly faddish and lacking in any practical Big Data usage or otherwise. However, no worries, naysayers will not triumph. This is the age of the age of the ‘whatever’.

That said, 2017 will be the year that IoT breaks out from the freak-niche and retentive-adopter markets, as people will need to be more connected and ‘on’ at all times. A trend that will continue to grow along with a marked increase in mental health issues, for which ample insurance will be provided for by the far superior, all-knowing and highly lucrative private Big Data driven health industry.

Prediction #6: Businesses and organizations will find previously untapped big data talent

You have probably read similar things before, but by the end of 2017 there will be 4.6 billion people employed around the globe in big data management and analysis roles (see 7 New Big Data Roles for 2015). Yet this will not be enough to carry forward over to 2018. By the end of next year, more than 2420% of businesses across the pond will have big data strategies in place or will be planning their 4th and hopefully the most successful iteration of Big Data, according to a survey conducted by Aunt Dolly Associates.

Moreover, the number of colleges, universities, speak-easies and gin joints offering courses related to big data science, equations, colours and shapes and other life-changing skills, will help to boost the current surfeit of credulity, sycophancy and  wilful ignorance, and outsource and offshore the shortage of competence, knowledge and experience. Which isn’t exactly rocket surgery.

Prediction #5: Big Data will explain the meaning of life

In 1879, Leo Tolstoy, in the midst of a mid-life existential crisis of melancholia, asked himself the question: “What is the meaning of life?”

Unfortunately, we have not been in a situation to satisfactorily answer this question until now, right now, as we stand at the cusp of 2017, and look forward to the pending mega-revolution in Big Data.

Simply stated, if we all hoard all of the data that crosses our paths, and then unite this data in a Universal Big Data Repository – a database so very large it will make the data that the Large Hadron Collider people collect seem like mere grains of sand in the Sahara desert – we will surely, with the aid of big data science, big queries and the mastery of grown-up ‘equations’, discover at last the mystery of the world and the meaning of life – or not.

One of my favourite poets Hermann Hesse, wrote in Verliebt in die verrückte Welt: Betrachtungen, Gedichte, Erzählungen, Briefe, that “I believe that I am not responsible for the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life, but that I am responsible for what I do with the life I’ve got.”

In another place and in another time, Albert Camus opined that “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”

But, again, I put it to you. What did he or Hesse know about Big Data or big data scientists? I’ll tell you what they knew about Big Data, if for nothing else, in order to save you from the inconvenience of having to search the internet for the obvious answer yourself.

What did they know about Big Data?

Nothing! Absolutely nothing, at all!

That’s what they knew.

Prediction #4: Big Data will democratize skills and demonetize property

Do you look up to the influential demigods of Big Data evangelism? Do you want access to all the prohibitively expensive and costly published opinion, business and technical tomes on Big Data? Are you exasperated by not being able to fulfil your Big Data potential? Do you want instant skills?

Of course you don’t.

Oh, you do?

Well, fret thee no more, dear reader.

In the year of the rooster everyone who wants to, will be able to become a Big Data guru, Big Data whizz or Big Data big cheese. As I have explained elsewhere (7 New Big Data Roles for 2015) there will be a plethora of new roles and responsibilities in what will be a burgeoning 135 trillion euro Big Data economy.

Moreover, in the same modern spirit of benefaction as the democratization of data (it will no longer be considered as property, no matter what its provenance, content or context), so too will there be a gradual removal of intellectual capital rights – an abusive and dated piece of legislation for sure.

The first artefacts to benefit from this market based enlightenment will be the plethora of business, technical and methodology books on the very subject of Big Data. During 2017 all Big Data content will become free for all. No price, no royalties, no profit, no value, no nothing.

Prediction #3: AI will be King, again. Machines will learn to take decisions based on Big Data

You read it here first.

In 2017, machines will go to high-school to learn to better support the decisions of the ‘right-thinking people’ and their ‘right-thinking orthodoxy’ by leveraging Big Data to the post-truth max.

Exciting, you may say. However, don’t worry. I live in Europe. Now t’s not as if we have ever had any problems with the abuse of reason, the misuse of data or the interested manipulation of what appears on the surface to be rational discourse – that is, apart from a brief hiatus between the 1933 and 1945, when things were a tad awkward and many people lost their lives on account of being murdered.

In 2017, we will be free to do what is right. If the machine says it is so, and the machine knows because it has all the data and the science to back it up, then the machine must be right. Right?

Bring it on. In 2017, the full force of machine learning will be brought to the fore in the quest to build a thousand year neoliberal hegemonic federation empire, oops, community of like-minded data-driven individuals who are only out for the common good, even if some people do get hurt in the process. Ahem!

Prediction #2: Microsoft clamps down on blatant bullshit purveyors who currently enjoy carte blanche when it comes to publishing and promote their amazing crap on LinkedIn Pulse

We can live in hope.

Prediction #1: Big Data will solve the Brexit conundrum

In 2017, Big Data will solve the Brexit conundrum, make sense of the USA Presidency, end the threat of climate change and bring about perpetual world peace.

Well, that’s all folks!

Well, that draws to a close our Big Data predictions for 2017.

So, without further ado I wish you all an absolutely fabulous start, middle and end to 2017, a year that will be astonishing for fire chickens (and their fire partners), big data and a massive dose of turbo-charged hype-on-steroids.

Many thanks for reading.

As always, please share your questions, views and criticisms on this piece using the comment box below. I frequently write about strategy, organisational, leadership and information technology topics, trends and tendencies. You are more than welcome to keep up with my posts by clicking the ‘Follow’ link and perhaps even send me a LinkedIn invite. Also, feel free to connect via Twitter, Facebook and the Cambriano Energy website.

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