Last week Andrew C. Oliver, manager of technical enablement at Lucidworks and InfoWorld columnist, shared his 12 New Year’s Resolutions for Your Data. He has some good ideas about better handling your data (his introduction via the mainframes-through-Hadoop-journey made me smile). The main focus of the article talks about ways to better understand how data…

Businesses using big data to win a competitive edge over their competition is nothing new. Rarely are there functions within organizations that don’t have a data component to them. Easily-quantifiable areas of business like sales, marketing, and operations have long used customized analytical systems to tweak business processes, planning, and procedures with the goal of…

Big Data changes things. We know that. We use big data when doing even the simplest things like commuting to work or shopping for groceries. As data-savvy professionals doing our daily jobs, we are often faced with the challenge of sharing our stories with powerful and convincing use of data, and these days, Big Data….

We’ve got data. It’s everywhere today. From presidential debates to self driving cars to habits around celebrating Halloween. We are surrounded by data and we continue creating more and more every day. Data isn’t the problem. People are the problem. Yes, people. That’s why we kick off season three of our Hadooponomics podcast series with…

While controversies continue to develop with regard to the surprising results of the United Kingdom referendum to determine whether or not to stay within the European Union, we are more interested in visualizing and exploring the data surrounding the vote. Our first post on the Brexit showed you the mechanics of how you can connect…

The United Kingdom referendum to determine whether or not to stay within the European Union, commonly referred to as the Brexit, had people talking about one question: Stay or Leave? Let’s take the next step, and use visualization to let the data do the talking. Talking dominated the runup to the vote, with a flood…

Beginning with the ‘Data Lake’ concept, Big Data and Hadoop have often earned a reputation as a place where data goes, not where data comes from.  IT drives the economies of infrastructure; business end-users drive  the value of data with ‘self-service’. Divergence or convergence? In the summer season finale Episode 12 of the Hadooponomics Podcast,…

Much ink has been spilled on discussions of factors behind the vote earlier this summer for the UK to separate from the EU, known as Brexit. To better understand the referendum results, and the voters behind it, we built a visual data application with Arcadia Instant. In the video below, we’ll show you how you can…

Sampling is at the heart of statistical methods. Sample bias, a.k.a. “the wrong denominator”, is also one of the biggest risks. While it’s easy to point fingers at sampling errors, we’d all be wise to remember the joke about the late-night drunk looking for a lost key in the glow of the streetlamp because that’s…

As news goes, the data scientist shortage isn’t really news. The rapid acceleration of data supply (and demand) has really strained the available pipeline of capable technologists all along the data supply chain, from statisticians to developers to data wranglers to you-name-it. We need to look beyond the skill shortage. We’re fond of pointing out…

Two young fish swimming along happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?” —…