Charities Tune in to Big Data Opportunity for Problem Solving

Posted on by
Reply

Has there been a lack of genuine problem-solving because of the historical lack of demand for data in the social sector? This is the question posed by Tris Lumley in the Guardian article, “It’s Good That Charities Are Interested in Data, But Why Only Now?” The author explains that the sudden excitement over data is fantastic especially for the charity sector. This is taken from the article:

Big data represents a new scale and complexity that might be achieved by combining massive datasets and analysing them to extract insight for charities and social purpose organisations. The Justice Data Lab has already been launched by the Ministry of Justice, working with NPC to explore how charities can use data on reoffending to assess the outcomes of their programmes.

But the author also points out that this late-coming trend deserves further conversation. Lumley poses this question:

If data has the potential to transform the understanding that charities, funders, policymakers and investors have of impact, why has there not been greater demand for data before now?

Lumley says these are important questions so that this data fad doesn’t fade. Instead, cash in on the opportunity and become better at solving problems. The article poses some valid questions and sparks a helpful discussion.

One system that is being used to make major strides in real world applications is Smartlogic. The Semaphore Content Intelligence Platform makes entity extraction possible and is currently being used in healthcare, life sciences, and research-intensive organizations to solve real world problems.

Alice Wilson, May 24, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

As Consumer Data Grows so do the Privacy Concerns

Posted on by
Reply

Knowledge is power. Navin Nagiah relates this idea to big data in the Huffington Post article, “In The Age of Big Data – Data Is Power.” Nagiah shares Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn as example companies that have lots and lots of data about many people. He shares his opinion what this means in terms of powerful companies:

At a fundamental level, these companies are powerful because they have information about you…your background, your likes, your conversations, your actions, your location, your interests, your friends, your travel schedule, your profession, your hobbies, your kids…

With this information, they are able to more accurately suggest which ads and offers might be of interest to you and then sell you to relevant advertisers/product vendors, ultimately profiting from the data they have about you.

The article also makes mention of how a Web site can be a hub for gaining competitive advantage with data collection. Such mass amounts of data about people raises both exciting opportunities and privacy concerns and the article touches on both of these issues. Hopefully a middle ground is found to benefit consumers and maintain security and privacy standards. One big data industry leader that is being used in a variety of sectors, including media and publishing as well as financial services and life sciences, is Smartlogic. While maximizing information and smart content assets, the platform’s security is proven.

Alice Wilson, May 24, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

People Analytics Poised to be Next Big Thing in Big Data

Posted on by
Reply

Ben Waber of Bloomberg Businessweek takes a look at an up and coming trend in big data in his article, “The Next Big Thing in Big Data: People Analytics.” Waber explains that data on the physical world is rapidly growing thanks to the development of wearable sensing technologies. But people analytics – what makes people effective, happy, creative, experts, leaders, followers, early adopters, and so on – has largely relied on observation.

Waber says people analytics is poised for a revolution. Some companies are using this approach to boost business processes, for example, Bank of America analyzed call center operations and revamped how employees took breaks. It lead to increased productivity and reduced turnover. This is taken from the article:

These are just a few examples, but they demonstrate how even slight changes in behavior can make people happier, healthier, and more productive. People analytics transforms our understanding of socialization in the workplace, the impact of office layout, and even concepts as “soft” as creativity.

In the future, we will use this knowledge to create new ways of organizing people that radically improve the way we work.

The author adds that this sort of technology should only be enacted with full disclosure and privacy concerns should be priority. The article gives a glimpse into the innovative – and almost scary – world of people analytics. Turning data into improved business processes is a challenge but with the right tools, entity extraction can be made accessible and easy.

The Semaphore Content Intelligence Platform is a good example of a solution that turns data into smart content for users. The enterprise semantic platform that uniquely captures an organization’s subjects and topics into a taxonomy to deliver a more complete enterprise information management experience. This means that your business data can be turned into actionable insight with semantic technology.

Alice Wilson, May 24, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

Marketers Finding what to Measure in Big Data

Posted on by
Reply

A major challenge with big data is finding what to measure in the vast sea of unstructured data. In “Data Analysis for Marketers: Measuring what Counts, Telling the Story,” the author discusses this challenge and turning data it into a visual story. It is pointed out that all decisions can’t be based on real-time, infallible data. Similarly, companies cannot always attribute sales revenue to social media outreach efforts. Instead, the author shares this advice:

Thus, companies should focus their data analysis efforts on areas that have more readily available measures that can track performance against strategic objectives.

For instance, businesses should consider these questions:

* Compared to other marketing channels, does the company have good reach across its target audience on social media?

* How does the target audience engage with the company’s content compared to how the audience engages with the content of the company’s competitors?

Aligning the data you need alongside your strategic objectives is a big part of the decision making process, according to the article. For those on a marketing team, the article contains a few helpful guide points to consider in your data analytics efforts.

When it comes to enterprise information management, an understanding of entity extraction can be very important for a successful strategy so the article may be a good read. Look for content intelligence tools that use metadata effectively, like Smartlogic. They offer the Semaphore Classification Server which automatically applies consistent and accurate metadata tags to documents using a taxonomy or other controlled vocabulary unique to a business or industry.

Alice Wilson, May 23, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

Nate Silver and his Advice for Successful Analytics Practices

Posted on by
Reply

Nate Silver made headlines with his predictive analytics in the 2012 presidential election. Sharon Machlis shares some of Silver’s advice for successful analytics in the ComputerWorld article, “More Data Isn’t Always Better, says Nate Silver.” Silver says that abundant data can lead to cherry-picking data points that confirm what someone wants to show. The problem is explained:

Abundant data is a notable problem in politics, where many have an interest in the outcome. But it’s also an issue in fields ranging from medicine — where many researchers and journals would rather see studies showing an interesting result than a confirmation of no news — to earthquake prediction.

When it comes to gaining insight from data, Machlis also shares four tips from Silver. For example, Silver says to ‘think probabilisticly’ rather than in terms of absolute. If you are struggling with getting off the ground with data analytics, the article and tips seem to be helpful.

One expert company that understands data analytics is Smartlogic. This company’s mission is to assist with big data initiatives by joining data with content and analyzing that information for the purpose of providing intelligent, valuable information so that reliable methods come into play when making business decisions.

Alice Wilson, May 23, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

Big Data is Being Used to Eradicate Diseases

Posted on by
Reply

We’ve talked before about how big data and analytics are transforming healthcare. Mike Wheatley also weighs in on the topic in the SiliconANGLE article, “3 Ways Big Data’s Helping to Eradicate Disease.” Wheatley starts the article by sharing Google CEO Larry Page’s efforts to gather data from people suffering a condition similar to his – a rare kind of vocal chord paralysis. There is limited amount of data on this condition, but his hope is that by crowdsourcing what is available, researchers can treat and possibly prevent it. The author explains this data strategy in healthcare:

In fact, it’s one of the most visible ways in which Big Data is helping us to gain a better understanding of the more bewildering health problems impacting people’s lives today. From relatively benign conditions like the common cold, to more serious problems like dealing with Cholera epidemics and Parkinson’s disease, crowdsourced Big Data is fast becoming one of the most powerful tools to help us eradicate diseases around the world.

Wheatley also discusses how big data, including structured historical data, can be used to predict disease epidemics. The article seems to be a good read for ways data, both structured and unstructured, is transforming healthcare and life sciences.

To add meaning to enterprise information and big data, look to experts at Smartlogic as a third party solution. The Semaphore Content Intelligence Platform is being used in a variety of industries, such as healthcare, governments, research, and media, to improve business outcomes and overcome challenges.

Alice Wilson, May 23, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

Graph Processing on the Rise to Visualize Analytics

Posted on by
Reply

Graph-processing applications are all the rage. At least according to Derrick Harris in his GigaOM article, “We’re Witnessing the Rise of the Graph in Big Data.” Harris talks about GraphLab Inc., a popular open source project focused on graph analysis and machine learning.

Graph analysis is among the hottest techniques around for making sense of large datasets, primarily by determining how tightly different data points are related or how similar they are. The term “graph” came into the broader lexicon along with social networks, which built social graphs to assess the relationships among their millions of users, but the technique has much broader uses.

The author says, though, that the bigger question is how big a market there will ultimately be for graph-analysis or any other specific technique. The article is a good example of tools available to combine with proper analytics and big data.

One system that is being used to make major strides in enterprise content management and re-purposing data for real world applications is Smartlogic. The Semaphore Content Intelligence Platform makes entity extraction possible and is currently being used in healthcare, life sciences, and research-intensive organizations to extract valuable insights and solve real world problems.

Alice Wilson, May 22, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

Microtargeting and Big Data Analytics in the 2016 Election

Posted on by
Reply

It was made clear how important big data analytics proved in the 2012 United States presidential election. Now, discussion on how it will play out in the 2016 election is already underway. Gurbaksh Chahal comments on the content management strategy in the Wired article, “Election 2016: Marriage of Big Data, Social Data Will Determine the Next President.” According to the Center for Responsive Politics, $6 billion was spent on ads across all media in the 2012 election making it the most expensive in history. That’s big money. The author shares his prediction for 2016:

As our nation ramps up for 2016, the role of big data + social data in influencing election decisions cannot be ignored. Social data drove the 2008 presidential elections and big data drove the 2012 election. In 2016 it will be the marriage of the two that will determine the next President of the United States.

When it comes to 2012′s focus on big data, Chahal says it was all about numbers:

Math quants and data crushers were able to disseminate the mounds of campaign data at their fingertips into actionable targeting information to persuade prospective voters across the nation, and within strategic swing states.

Combining this focus on number crunching with the social media data that is always flowing obviously seems like it can contain valuable and game-changing. The article is an interesting forecast of where politics is heading. These new ways of understanding the public also means marketers and ad-execs will change the art of advertising in the political arena.

Honing in on the right information is challenging for many organizations. To make the process easier, Smartlogic has developed the Semaphore Content Intelligence Platform with entity and subject identification capabilities. Semaphore can read text and extract entities like companies, people, and locations as well as classify content by adding “tags” from several facets or metadata elements.

Alice Wilson, May 22, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

Using Big Data and Location Analytics to Find Underperforming Retail Locations

Posted on by
Reply

Retailers are using big data to identify those outlet locations that are unprofitable. Jeff Bertolucci details the strategy in the article, “Big Data Finds ‘Zombie Stores.’” The need for location analytics is explained:

Poor site selection is an ongoing problem for retailers. Rapid expansion was an ambitious, if sometimes misguided, strategy for many retail chains prior to the global recession of 2009. The end result was often “zombie” stores that were either unprofitable or underperforming.

Simon Thompson, director of commercial solutions for Esri, says that there are two types of ‘zombie stores’ – those that are essentially dead because they don’t meet consumer expectations, like many malls in America, and those that are just underperforming because they are in the wrong place. Focusing in on these stores can help retailers understand a location better thus decide to close it or simply change focus.

Getting your business team the right tools to turn company data into smart content that can be used for decision-making is imperative and Smartlogic is a good tool to look at. The Semaphore Content Intelligence Platform saves “untold man-hours and headaches.” With powerful components, like an ontology manager and classification and text mining server, Semaphore provides features to automatically classify business documents regardless of location or format and streamline workflows.

Alice Wilson, May 22, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

The Need for Data Scientists and the Growing Demand

Posted on by
Reply

Those in the industry have commented before on the lack of adequately trained data scientists for the ever increasing skill demand. But James Kobielus says a growing body of shared knowledge and the up and coming generation of self-taught experts will fill in the gaps. His full comments can be read in the InfoWorld.com article, “There’s No Shortage of Data Science Smarts.” The author explains the important need for data scientists:

Data scientists are among the most important developers in the era of big data. They include statistical analysts, data miners, predictive modelers, computational linguists, and other professionals whose job is to find deep insights in large, complex data sets. You can’t unlock the full value of big data in your business if you don’t bring together your best and brightest data scientists and give them the tools they need to do their job with maximum productivity.

He says that worry of data scientist shortage is misplaced for reasons like open source communities and the growing number of data science centers breeds standardization and collaboration. All of this, he says, will help fill in any skills-gaps.

The author also stresses the importance of giving data teams the right tools. One of these helpful tools is Smartlogic. Smartlogic has helped a number of organizations maximize their information assets and develop smart content from their data. From increasing Web site traffic for media organizations to ensuring accurate and legal compliance of customer content in finance industries, the Semaphore Content Intelligence Platform is a flexible option worth a look.

Alice Wilson, May 21, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search