Seven Magnificent Big Data Success Stories


Mount_Everest_as_seen_from_Drukair2_PLW_editMartyn Richard Jones

Lora del Rio, 31st August 2016

Big data has arrived. Big Data is here for keeps. Big Data is the future.

Despite some of the malicious, mendacious and malodorous words of naysayers, sceptics and contrarians, the world of big data and big data analytics is replete with totally amazing and fabulous success stories.

Big Data gurus are often accused of not delivering coherent, cohesive and verifiable accounts of Big Data successes. Which is understandable but at the same time a pity. So here, to illustrate this miraculous and remarkable turnaround, I give you not three but seven of the many Big Data success stories that I could have casually grabbed out of the ether.

First, we take a trip to Glasgow to discover the leveraging of Big Data in alternative investments. Then we pass over to Boston to explore the magic of Big Data at Universal Legal. We venture through Switzerland and innovative marketing. Explore the heights of Dongalong Creek. Have a word with the good folks at Heisenberg Labs. Then round it off with a quick in-depth summary of Big Data at Choppers. So, here we go…

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Big Data on the Roof of the World


Mount_Everest_as_seen_from_Drukair2_PLW_editOnce upon a time, there was a mountain known as Peak 15. Very little was known about it. Then in 1852, surveyors found it was the highest in the world, and they named it Everest.

As with other significant challenges that we can identify in life, many people have been driven by a passionate desire to conquer peaks all around the world. This is just one illustration of those of us who can identify their significant challenges and rise to them. This sharp focus, determination and courage turns ordinary citizens into people who are invariably on a mission. People who know what they want. Continue reading

Spanish General Elections: Power, Pride and Politesse


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Martyn Richard Jones

Glasgow, 1st May 2016

If we exclude the financial sector, industry and the unions, there are four major political groups in Spanish politics with representation in the national parliament in Madrid. At the top of the list is the Partido Popular (Popular Party), in second place comes the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (the Spanish Socialist Workers Party), in third place Podemos (literally ‘We can’) and in fourth place, we have Ciudadanos (simply translated as ‘Citizens’)

In December of 2015, Spain held general elections, the twelfth democratic general elections celebrated in Spain since the end of the brutal, authoritarian and erstwhile Nazi-sympathising dictatorship of Franco. Continue reading

Getting business value from data? Commercial analytics is where it’s at

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Martyn Richard Jones

Overview

I first became involved in commercial analytics in the eighties. First, through my involvement in customer segmentation and data visualisation, principally in banking but also in energy, manufacturing and the chemical industry. It also emerged later, in conjunction with my activities at the Sperry European Centre for AI, and was centred on pricing and yield management applications developed using a combination of statistical techniques, expert system technology and data centre architectures all tightly integrated within a 4GL development and delivery environment. This provided a comprehensive and seamless scenario building, hypothesis testing and reporting capability. Continue reading

Big Data: And it’s all gone quiet over there!

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Big Data is all pervasive, all seeing and all knowing.

Everyone is doing Big Data, and if they aren’t then they will.  It’s inevitable.

Big Data will revolutionise the worlds of data, decision making and business.

Am I right, or am I right?

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Consider this: Big Data Inertia

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“Half the time she did things not simply, not for themselves; but to make people think this or that; perfect idiocy she knew for no one was ever for a second taken in.”  Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

It’s all very well for the blithering Big Data bullshitter savants to now claim, after a massive exercise in u-turning, that Big Data isn’t after all about data volumes, velocities and varieties, but about some minor variation on the theme of data architecture, management and processing.

But, look at the mess! Continue reading

Yo! Professional networkers! BlankedOut Sucked

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Martyn Richard Jones

Hello, readers.

Before my Aunt Dolly went to a better place she received a handwritten letter from her dear friend and long-time admirer Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling, which was to be passed on to the CEO of, what he called, an interweb professional dating site. My Aunt Dolly didn’t actually give me a precise indication of the intended recipient, this is why I now find myself at a loss. If there’s anyone out there who recognises the person or persons this letter might have been written to, then please let me know. Many thanks in advance.

What follows is Sir Arthur’s text, as relayed to me by my sainted Aunt Dolly. Continue reading

Free Business Analytics Content –Thanks to Wikipedia – Part 5

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Why buy when you can get it for free?

Back at you! Here is the fifth fantastic delivery of an amazing and fabulous selection of free and widely available business analytics learning content, which has been prepared… just for you. Continue reading

Too Much Information

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Martyn Richard Jones

I have questions about data.

Most of us who have more than a cursory knowledge of the English language have heard of the phrase ‘too much information’. We know what it means, even if we don’t always know when to apply it.

For those who don’t know, or are unsure, the Urban Dictionary describes ‘too much information’ as “An expression of exasperation and disgust when a person is divulging personal details of his sex life, toilet habits, or anything the listener finds disgusting, uninteresting, and unwelcome.”[1]

Sum, sum. Just because we know it, doesn’t mean we should share it or even try and remember it, never mind go about analysing the hell out of it.

This is where Big Data comes in. Continue reading