Home » Our Blog » Four Things You Need To Know In the Big Data Era
October 9, 2013

Four Things You Need To Know In the Big Data Era

big data era

Big Data era MatrixBig Data has been declared the “sexiest job of the 21st century” and it’s already reshaping corporate decision-making and even talent recruitment. As Phil Simon, author of Too Big to Ignore: The Business Case for Big Data, points out, “In a recent report, McKinsey estimated that the U.S. will soon face a shortage of approximately 175,000 data scientists.” Seemingly everyone wants in on Big Data, a blanket term for the massive amounts of information we generate today. (Simon notes that roughly 80 percent of that information is un-structured – such as tweets, blog posts, Facebook likes, or YouTube videos – as compared to the smaller and easier-to-manage “structured data” that populates spreadsheets.) With the impending rise of wearable technology it appears the pace of data creation will only increase.

In order to get ready, here are four things you need to know about the Era of Big Data.

  • It’s Not Just for Large Companies. “Companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others would not be nearly as effective without Big Data,” says Simon. But it’s not exclusively the province of billion-dollar taste makers. “In the book, I write about a few small companies that have taken advantage of Big Data. Quantcast is one of them. There’s no shortage of myths around Big Data, and one of the most pernicious is that an organization needs thousands of employees and billions in revenue to take advantage of it. Simply not true.”
  • Data Visualization may be the Next Big Thing. You have massive amounts of data – how can you possibly comprehend it? Enter data visualization, which Simon believes is “absolutely essential for organizations…[These tools] are helping employees make sense of the never-ending stream of data hitting them faster than ever. Our brains respond much better to visuals than rows on a spreadsheet. This goes way beyond Excel charts, graphs, or even pivot tables. Companies like Tableau Software have allowed non-technical users to create very interactive and imaginative ways to visually represent information.”
  • Intuition isn’t Dead. It turns out Big Data and the certainty of numbers hasn’t killed intuition, after all. “Contrary to what some people believe,” says Simon, “intuition is as important as ever. When looking at massive, unprecedented data sets, you need some place to start. Intuition is more important than ever precisely because there’s so much data now. We are entering an era in which more and more things can be tested. Big Data has, at least not yet, replaced intuition; the latter merely complements the former. The relationship between the two is a continuum, not a binary.”
  • It Isn’t a Panacea. “When used right,” says Simon, “Big Data can reduce uncertainty, not eliminate it. We can know more about previously unknowable things. This helps us make better predictions and better business decisions.” But it doesn’t mean we can rely solely on the numbers without injecting our knowledge, perspective, and (yes) intuition.

Ready to create some awesome content Google will love?

Get a free Content Audit

Complete the form to download

Don’t you wish you could pay for your morning coffee with just an email address?

    Congrats on the new ebook
    Thanks for downloading it.

    Digital Firefly Marketing is excited about our collection of eBooks.

    That’s because they are conceptualized, planned and written by us drawing from our expertise and experience. That means you get information that doesn’t just sound good, but has been used to actually help our clients.

    Be sure to check out all of our eBooks and contact us if you’d like help developing your website or building your marketing strategy.

    For now, pour yourself a beverage and tuck into our user-friendly eBooks to learn how you can improve your website’s visibility.

    Visit Our Blog

    No, Thanks. I’ll Check out Later.