One of my favorite chapters to research and write in my last book was on Analytics – Big Data, Visualization, Pattern Recognition, storage implications and several other angles. And in my next book, I touch on data driven business model innovation, growing privacy concerns as smart devices of all kinds generate an even bigger mountain of data. And, I really enjoyed the recent special issue of Popular Science focused on data. Some great case studies and examples.
But I also feel for CIOs. They are being bombarded by all kinds of analytical propaganda – SAP HANA this and IBM Watson that, Office 365 cloud spreadsheets, digital marketing optimization and master data management. Frankly,we are about to enter a new battle zone of land mines - a proliferation of tools and a scattered, breach-susceptible data landscape.
Most organizations need a data czar. Actually an Alladin of the famous tale from the 1001 Arabian nights. Someone adept at protecting the lamp with the powerful Genie, and knowing how to coax him to good use. That’s a good way to look at the data challenge. And the vendor silver bullet barrage challenge.