Lance Greenfield's Blog, page 92
February 13, 2015
Big Data – The Genie is out of the Bottle!
Companies who are serious about their future success need to be serious about their most valuable resources. It has long been recognized that people are a top resource for many companies. Some have already recognized that big data is also high value, so much so that it becomes their life-blood. These companies will surge ahead of their competitors who do not recognize this fact.
My recommendation is that businesses should show buy-in at the very highest level, and appoint themselves a Chief Data Officer with a seat on the board. That person mist be connected first of all to the strategic business goals of his or her company, ahead of the enabling technologies that allow optimal exploitation of the huge mass of available complex data. Looking at it the other way around, “What data do we have and how can we put it to best use?”, is starting at the wrong end of the track, in my opinion. Knowing your business goals, then being able to collect the right data and analyse quickly to come up with the correct answers fast, makes you a winner.
The data that you need for your business is somewhere out there in the IOT. You just need to know how to get at it and how to use it.
Chip’s article really gets you thinking. Well worth a read.
Originally posted on Things that I find interesting... (and you may too):
Back in early 2011 myself and 15 other members of the Executive team at Ingres were taking a bet on the future of our company. We knew that we needed to do something big and bold, and decided to build what we thought the standard data platform would be in 5-7 years. A small minority of the people on that team did not believe this was possible and left, while the rest of us focused on making that happen. There were three strategic acquisitions to fill-in the gaps on our Big Data platform. Today (as Actian) we have nearly achieved our goal. It was a leap of faith back then, but our vision turned out to be spot-on and our gamble is paying off today.
Every day my mailbox is filled with stories, seminars, white papers, etc. about Big Data. While it feels like this is becoming more mainstream, it…
View original 1,031 more words
February 11, 2015
Fast running is as deadly as sitting on couch, scientists find. REALLY?!
In response to a recent article by the The Telegraph’s Science Editor, world-beating British athelete David Moorcroft had the following letter published in the same newspaper.
Need for speed: the benefits of running fast
SIR – As someone who used to run considerably faster than 7mph (I once held the 5,000 metres world record), I read with some trepidation Sarah Knapton’s report on new research which suggests that fast running is as deadly as sitting on the sofa.
I’m happy to be able to reassure your readers that I, like many faster runners, am alive and enjoying the numerous and well-documented benefits of running. These include improved emotional and mental health, reduced risk of cancer, strengthened joints and the prevention of a host of unpleasant conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke. While I admit to having a dodgy knee, the health and wellbeing benefits far outweigh my few aches and pains.
One of the joys of the 50-plus years that I have been involved in athletics is to see the hundreds of thousands of people of all shapes, sizes, abilities and ages who have discovered a love of running.
Organisations for runners of all sorts are working hard to help more people enjoy the benefits of this free, simple and accessible sport. Whether people run on their own, with friends, participate in group events like Parkrun and Race For Life, or compete for a club, running is a positive, life-affirming activity.
While I agree that “jogging a few times a week at a moderate pace” is great, running has benefits regardless of the speed you go. But I’ll be sure to warn my faster contemporaries – Seb Coe, Steve Cram, Steve Ovett – that they may soon wish they hadn’t broken all those world records.
David Moorcroft
Coventry
Review: Azincourt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I just love good historical fiction! It brings history to life for me in a way that those boring history lessons at school never did. My favourite writers in this genre are Conn Iggulden and Bernard Cornwell, although there are many others who light up all of my lights.
There are many books about the Battle of Agincourt, but this has to rate as one of the best. That is unless you want the non-fiction, factual version of events. But who is to say what is factual? There is even much disagreement amongst the scholars of the period.
The story, as told by Cornwell, follows the life of an archer, Nick Hook. He is outlawed early in the narration for hitting a priest. The priest deserved much more than a punch in the stomach for what he did, but Hook would’ve been caught and hung had he meted out the correct justice.
Nick is a brilliant archer, and soon finds himself in France, in Soissons, where he witnesses some horrendous betrayal and violence, but those events lead to one positive outcome: he meets the lady who is eventually to become his wife.
I can’t say much more without giving away the whole story, and I don’t want to spoil it for you.
There is a lot of graphic violence in this book, but it is, I believe, the reality of that age.
(There was a spoiler here, regarding a piece that I found totally unbelievable. I would add it in to this post as a clickable spoiler alert, but I don’t know how. If you want to take a sneaky look at that you could hop across to my original review on Goodreads)
The narrative was generally fast flowing, but there were occasions when there was just too much detail, and that slowed the whole story down and irritated me somewhat.
I also felt that the book could really have benefited from the inclusion of a glossary of definitions of armoury, clothing, weaponry and other terms of the age. I don’t wish to interrupt my enjoyment of the story by breaking off to consult my dictionary or encyclopaedia.
This small criticism aside, this is a really great read, and I would recommend it to all fans of historical fiction and Bernard Cornwell.
Note: You may well ask, “Why Azincourt rather that Agincourt?” The answer is that this is, and was, the correct spelling of the name of the nearby village which gave its name to the famous battle.
February 10, 2015
The 7 Most Data-Rich Companies In The World?
Here’s a very interesting article on the power of big data and how some big companies are putting it to good use.
It appeared in LinkedIn with credit to Bernard Marr, Best-Selling Author, Keynote Speaker and Leading Business and Data Expert.
Some companies really get big data. Not only do they realise size matters – they understand you also have to know what to do with it. Here’s a list of seven companies I think are at the top of the game, when it comes to cutting-edge use of data to strategically achieve business goals. If you run a business yourself and are interested in big data projects, there is something to be learned from every one of these. So in no particular order …
General Electric
GE – with its fingers in every pie from finance to aviation to power, is perfectly positioned to benefit from its championing of “The internet of things”. They clearly see that IOT – the concept that every device can be networked and learn to communicate with other devices in the same way that computers do – is key to huge efficiency savings and potentially revolutionary business change.
As a result they are heavily investing in what they call the Industrial Internet – the subset of IOT dedicated to industrial devices and equipment. Aircraft engines are being fitted with arrays of sensors capable of detecting and measuring the slightest changes, meaning that fine-tuning for efficiency is possible to a higher standard than ever before. And the same is just as true with their medical equipment and power station turbines. In 2012 the company announced it was investing $1 billion into its data projects over four years.
Like other companies mentioned here, it also makes the technology driving its data operations available to other businesses, by licencing its GE Predictivity services. For more on GE see my article: How GE Is Using Big Data To Drive Business Performance.
IBM
In 2003 50,000 IBM staff took part in online interviews where they were asked about key business issues, and the direction they thought the company should be heading in. Those interviews were fed into textual analysis software designed to pick out the most common phrases and themes, which became new company objectives.
This was forward-thinking in many ways and encapsulates the idea of a company transforming itself into a data enterprise. Those at the top had come to the conclusion that data in most fields will always trump opinion – even their opinion – and surrendered themselves to something of a destruction of the ego; “letting go” (temporarily) of the reigns and seeing what direction the company would head, steered by science and statistics, rather than the possibly jaded or entrenched ideas and opinions of directors and senior managers.
Since then IBM has reinvented itself as a data powerhouse, at the forefront of the current boom in business-to-business data infrastructure services. It offers hardware and software for maintaining big databases, such as its DB2 database application and SPSS analytics application, among many other products and services.
It has also become an ambassador for the concept of big data, publishing several papers on how companies can exploit its potential for innovation and increased profits. Books have been written on the turbulent history of this particular tech giant, but by embracing big data with such enthusiasm, they are entering a new chapter.
Amazon
Amazon not only brought big data to the masses, it made it personal – and customer service was changed forever. One of the shortfalls of online shopping for early adopters of the habit was the lack of a sales assistant or shopkeeper to explain the products and, by getting to know you, helping you find whatever it is you need to solve a particular problem in your life.
With its recommendations and reviews-base structure, Amazon introduced us to the super-powered sales assistant – equipped with a super memory retaining every customer transaction and able to offer lightning-quick, and most importantly accurate, suggestions. In fact, it’s got so good at this that according to rumor (based on patent applications) it is planning to begin predictive shipping – automatically sending out parcels of books, DVDs, videogames and gadgets based on what it thinks its users will want to pay for.
Amazon is clearly not blind to the vital role data has played in its success, and has used the vast revenues (if not profits) built up by pioneering online retailing to invest in also providing data services. Much like IBM mentioned above it provides infrastructure to allow other businesses to capitalize on data gathering, storage and analysis enterprises. For more on Amazon, see my posts How Amazon Uses Big Data to Boost It’s Performance and Amazon: Using Big Data To Read Your Mind.
Facebook has revolutionized the way we communicate with each other, from staying in touch with relatives to organizing weekend activities with friends. There was instant messaging and email before it, but Facebook invited users to build the world’s largest directory of people. It then made them all accessible to each other – depending, in theory, on privacy settings determined by each user. With 1.32 billion active users, it is still by far the world’s largest social network.
In the process, it has collected probably the biggest database of personal information in the history of the world. Its users upload 30 billion pieces of content between them every day, resulting in over 300 petabytes (3 million gigabytes) of information. It has used this information to draw in advertisers, generating $2.68 million in advertising revenue during the last quarter.
This year the company made moves in an unexpected direction by purchasing the upcoming Oculus Rift virtual reality technology for $2 billion. Speculation says the company is looking ahead to times when we want to be able to experience greater levels of interaction with our data (or our friends, in their Facebook digitized form) than current flat screen technology allows. For more on Facebook, see my postFacebook’s Big Data: Equal Parts Exciting and Terrifying.
No list of the top big data businesses would be complete without mentioning the still-undisputed king of search. Like Facebook, it turned data collection and analysis into a business model by providing a service ostensibly for free, then selling on information it gathers about us by monitoring the way we use that service.
Search is still the key service it provides – and since the early days when its algorithms were first recognized for their superiority at matching what the user is typing, with what they are looking for, they have continued to evolve – moving towards a standard of “natural language processing” which is planned to one day let us converse with computers as easily as with people.
Its activities have often caught the public imagination. From the blistering speeds that it reports (“smugly” as one comedian described it) it has trawled millions of web pages to find what you’re looking for, to the breathtaking scope of Google Earth, consistently providing services that people want to use – for education, business or just passing time.
Google offers a range of services – now collected at the Business Hub – to aid with promotion, and has also moved firmly into providing more heavyweight big data services to businesses. These include BigQuery – its analysis engine, and Google Cloud Storage services. For more on Google, see my article: Wow! Big Data At Google.
Cloudera
Less well-known than the other companies I’ve mentioned here, Cloudera has emerged in recent years as one of the most prominent suppliers of Apache Hadoop solutions. Apache Hadoop, as I’ve mentioned before is a suite of software applications designed for running big data enterprise operations. Although open-source (free) in its raw state, an industry has sprung up providing companies with custom-configured systems, intended to simplify the process of data gathering and analysis. Cloudera is a leader in this field, and clearly realises the obligation it owes to the free technology on which it is built, returning a share of its profits to the voluntary foundation which maintains Hadoop. For more on Hadoop, see may article: What’s Hadoop? Here’s a Simple Explanation For Everyone.
Kaggle
Another newcomer – built from the ground up as a big data business, rather than a dinosaur forcing itself to evolve. Kaggle pioneered data science as competition – offering rewards for solving various challenges faced by industry.
Companies post problems they are attempting to overcome – for example, to match movies on a streaming service with what the customer may want to watch next, alongside sample data sets. Prize money is then awarded to the solution which most comprehensively trumps their existing methods.
Clients who have benefited from the 150,000-strong army of data scientists – some professional, some amateur – Kaggle can call for help with any problem, include NASA, Google, Wikipedia and Microsoft. For more on Kaggle, see my article: The Amazing Big Data World of Kaggle and the Crowd-Sourced Data Scientist.
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As always, I hope you enjoyed my post. I’d love to hear from you about any other companies you would add to this list or indeed any other comment you might have on the topic.
If you want to read my future big data articles then please click ‘Follow‘ and send me a invite. And, of course, feel free to also connect via Twitter,Facebookand The Advanced Performance Institute.
To get a quick overview of big data, have a look at this video:
You might also be interested in my new book ‘Big Data: Using Smart Big Data, Analytics and Metrics To Make Better Decisions and Improve Performance‘. You can read a free sample chapter here
Finally, here are some other recent posts I have written on the topic:
Big Data: 25 Eye-Opening Facts Everyone Should Know
Big Data: The Predictions For 2015
Big Data: The Key Vocabulary Everyone Should Understand
Big Data: The Key Skills Businesses Need
Big Data: The 4 Layers Everyone Must Know
10 Awesome Ways Big Data Is Used Today To Change Our World
About : Bernard Marr is a globally recognized expert in business data. His new book is: Big Data: Using Smart Big Data, Analytics and Metrics To Make Better Decisions and Improve Performance
February 6, 2015
Hockey [field] – great result for Diamonds!
The veterans team for which I play, Andover Diamonds, achieved a great result last Saturday against United Services Portsmouth. These guys used to beat us by eight or ten goals not so many seasons ago. Even better, I scored two of our four goals!
Here’s the match report from the local newspaper (Andover Advertiser).
Yes. I am the Lance Mitchell mentioned in the report, for my full name is Lance Greenfield Mitchell. It’s a long story!
February 5, 2015
Green Party in Winchester and NW Hampshire
The Green Party haven’t had a parliamentary candidate in Winchester or NW Hampshire in this millennium! It is about time that voters had a real alternative, with decent values, to the main three Parties. I say “decent values”, because I consider those of the trending UKIP to be absolutely appalling. The UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, appears to me to be a modern day reincarnation of Enoch Powell and Reginald Molesley. It is very scary that he is able to drum up such support through a campaign of misinformation.
Those of you who take the time to scrutinize the values and pledges of the political Parties will discover that most of you are closest to those of the Green Party. So, by rights, they should win the general election.
The biggest problem for the Green Party is funding. Whilst the other Parties can rely upon large personal and corporate donations, the Green Party rely upon much smaller donations from grass root members.
Please watch this video and help my two local constituencies if you live anywhere near me, or decide to help out your own local Green Party.
February 4, 2015
My Adoring Gardener
As many of you know, poetry is not my
forte, but I sometimes give it a go.
Please Let me know what you think.
Oh, when can you come?
To prune these sagging branches.
To take away these drooping petals.
To remove this browning foliage.
Yet to leave these living buds,
From which my honeyed bouquet
Still exudes, sweetly into the air.
Will you hold, till I expire,
My badly bruised body?
As I devote my sundown years,
To you, my adoring gardener.
Never regret our brief encounter,
Or the years of our entwined breathing lives.
Paint my life, with broad black brush strokes.
Add the splashes of the colour that you brought to me.
My heart is flickering now.
It will soon stop.
Let us not sleep until
You have told me all.
Those foreign lands,
Those rugged highlands and streams,
Those dawns and sunsets,
And the people that you met.
I will love you forever.
And as I fall asleep,
I will love you again.
I am at peace. I have no guilt.
Oh, when can you come?
To prune these sagging branches.
To take away these drooping petals.
To remove this browning foliage.
Yet to leave these living buds,
From which my honeyed bouquet
Still exudes, sweetly into the air.
I’ll also post this on to my Titbits page.
February 3, 2015
Review: Oliver Fibbs 1: The Attack of the Alien Brain
Oliver Fibbs 1: The Attack of the Alien Brain by Steve Hartley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really did love this book, although I think that the reading experience may have been better in papaerback rather than Kindle. There are a lot of graphics, and I had to keep expanding them to allow me to view them with ease.
The story itself is great. A lot of imagination has gone into the writing. It is told from the point of view of Oliver Tibbs, aka Oliver Fibbs.
The poor boy is surrounded by BRILLIANT people. His whole family is BRILLIANT. His Mum is a brain surgeon. His Dad is an architect. His little brother is a chess champion. His twin sisters are BRILLIANT at ballet dancing. Almost all of his classmates at school are BRILLIANT at something or other. Oliver is judged by his peers to be DAB: Dull And Boring.
You’ll understand why I put the word BRILLIANT in CAPS and BOLD when you read the book.
The only person who is anything like Oliver is his best friend, Peaches Mazimba.
Oliver is BRILLIANT at fibbing and he has a BRILLIANT imagination.
I have read books along the same lines as this, but nothing exactly like this.
You can read it in one sitting, and I guarantee that it will make you laugh and will not challenge too many of those neurons inside your head. Read it and have fun!
The Upsetting Reality Of Modern Day Poverty
This is Great Britain today.
It is an very well written article which cannot fail to touch you.
Our politicians, and the TV chefs, seem to live in a parallel universe. The meal plans that they propose for a single “cheap” meal, require a budget which some families have to live on for a week! Please read the article.
At the forthcoming general election we should all divert our votes away from Labour, Coservative and Liberal Democrat. And to vote for UKIP and their leader, who is the modern day Reginald Molesley, would be even worse than the aforementioned three!
I would urge you to look very closely at what the independents are saying. Some of them are pushing agenda which are much more meaningful to people like Kathleen Kerridge, and to you and me. Listening to those independent candidates may prove to be worthwhile for you.
For me, the Green Party will get my X. They appear to be the only major political party left with values anywhere near my own.
Originally posted on kathleen kerridge:
This is a post about a subject very close to home. My home. It is about politicians who wouldn’t know poverty if it chewed on their overpaid arses.
It’s about Jamie Oliver.
Now, to put this out there, I loved Jamie. For years and years, I idolised the man. He taught me to cook, when I could barely operate a Pot Noodle and we lived off Smash (dehydrated potatoes) and pasta (we even overcooked that). I would watch all his shows and learn, slowly, from the TV. In less than a year, I was able to cook a three course meal for 15 people. Gourmet became easy and I was soon laughing my way through 3 meat roasts and cooked-from-scratch curries. I owe my skill in the kitchen to Jamie. I have a lot to thank him for.
Jamie Oliver was good to watch, when I had money. Before I had…
View original 1,428 more words
The Upsetting Reality Of Modern Day Poverty.
This is Great Britain today. The politicians, and the TV chefs, live in a parallel universe. At the forthcoming general election we should divert our votes away from Labour, Coservative and Liberal Democrat. To vote for UKIP and the modern day Reginald Molesley would be even worse than the aforementioned three. Look closely at what the independents are saying. It may be worthwhile. For me, the Green Party will get my X.
Originally posted on kathleen kerridge:
This is a post about a subject very close to home. My home. It is about politicians who wouldn’t know poverty if it chewed on their overpaid arses.
It’s about Jamie Oliver.
Now, to put this out there, I loved Jamie. For years and years, I idolised the man. He taught me to cook, when I could barely operate a Pot Noodle and we lived off Smash (dehydrated potatoes) and pasta (we even overcooked that). I would watch all his shows and learn, slowly, from the TV. In less than a year, I was able to cook a three course meal for 15 people. Gourmet became easy and I was soon laughing my way through 3 meat roasts and cooked-from-scratch curries. I owe my skill in the kitchen to Jamie. I have a lot to thank him for.
Jamie Oliver was good to watch, when I had money. Before I had…
View original 1,428 more words
