The eWorld Radar

Big data is not always big insight

Big data is the talk of the town. It converges the themes of data, information, video and social media amongst others to provide the vendors at least with a model to sell more services.

Big data presents a danger in that soon many organisations will be awash with data flowing into the organisation like sewers converging into a pit. With the correct tools and a focused sense of what one is looking for it is possible to extract useful information.

But whilst information is interesting, it is only when it is converted into insight via the process of becoming knowledge does it turn into something useful.

My concern is that organisations are investing heavily in their big data pipes and business intelligence tools, but placing little effort in acquiring / developing the people to turn big data output into corporate insight / value. 

Ade McCormack

Tech – Buzzwords: High Performance Computing

This is a term that was originally associated with mainframe computers around the time of the arrival of the PC. Before that mainframes could be considered high, medium and low performance as they were the sole computing option.

Today HPC is more associated with clusters of servers that work together to act as one virtual super computer. And even in later years this has gone on to become known as grid computing.

HPC is significant because it can be used to study events that would otherwise be expensive to conduct in the real world (crashing a plane) or predicting the outcome of complex systems (the weather, stock prices).

Again it’s not a new concept, but hasn’t yet entered mainstream IT jargon.

As the price of technology drops and the need to model volatility increases, the demand for HPC will increase. Increasingly this will become the domain of Cloud service providers.

IT Demystified - Terms - SoMoClo

What happens when JLo, SuBo and Docomo are smashed into each other at high speeds in an acronym accelerator? You get SoMoClo.

Such an outcome should in the acronym creation industry (aka marketing) be considered an unfortunate mutation and so be instantly discarded. However this one has escaped from the lab and will soon be coming to a cocktail party conversation near you.

I believe it was coined by Aberdeen Group to capture the converging worlds of social media, mobile and the Cloud. And indeed these are all important.

This convergence is particularly important from an enterprise perspective. Organisations that fail to capitalise on all three and fail to integrate their strategies on all three are likely doomed to failure.

It was pointed out to me by one of the Aberdeen guys on Twitter that whilst Apple and Google built out Cloud and social media from mobile, RIM didn’t.

So whilst it is a clumsy acronym and one likely to generate the perception of affectedness in anyone willing to use it in public, it represents a very important technology triad. One that will increasingly underpin the business models of both technology and end user organisations.   

Ade McComack

IT Demystified – Trends: M-Commerce

The concept of conducting financial transactions via one’s mobile phone is nothing new. The practicalities of offering it were held back for a long time because of poor security. Thus banks for example would let you carry out read operations (view/print) but not write (credit/debit account).

Today we can transact quite happily.

The next step now is the wide spread use of near field communications, whereby the mobile device holder can conduct transactions by either touching or waving the mobile device in close proximity to the payment terminal.  

This will be particularly valuable in the world of micro-payments. Newsagents don’t like taking credit cards to pay for newspapers so m-commerce gets around the issue.

The question is who will be the beneficiary of this emerging market. The banks and card companies regard this as their territory. But the mobile phone operators see this as a big opportunity. They can simply extend the use of their billing systems to include items purchased via the device.

Standards have generally held back progress, but with Google launching its Wallet offering in 2011, it looks like 2012 will see massive growth in this area.

Ade McCormack

IT Demystified – Buzzwords - Knowledge Workers

Knowledge worker is not a new term but it is one that is becoming more refined each day.

Traditionally a knowledge worker was someone who used their head and not their hands. So if you had an office job, and latterly used a computer, then you qualified.

In recent years there has been a focus on automating humans out of the loop. Fierce competition from emerging economies is forcing organisations to drive out costs. And humans are costly.

So working at a computer processing information no longer guarantees you a place in the post industrial economy.

So the modern day knowledge worker is more than just an organic extension to a corporate process. They actually deal in what they know (knowledge) rather than what the computer offers (information) knowledge.

The game is to be able to do what computers cannot (yet) do. So the more you are able to apply your knowledge in a creative manner the more likely you are to remain in play.

Ask yourself the question, do people think of you more as a bank clerk (process-oriented) or Salvador Dali (creative). That will give you a clue as to whether you are a knowledge worker or not.

Ade McCormack