Big Data has been holding my
attention for a while, as it might by now be obvious. I was lucky enough to accompany
a group of C-level executives from Germany on an East Coast trip to industry
leaders in Big Data to gain a glimpse at the cutting edge this spring.
The question I think is less,
what Big Data is, but where Big Data is, because it’s
everywhere, literally. Think George
Orwell’s 1984 on steroids times
infinity plus one. Big Data is the information the NSA requested from Verizon,
Big Data is the advertising pushed to your screen after doing research for blue
socks. You get to see are blue socks for the next few days, until your next
search and then you see LED light bulbs everywhere. Big Data is all the
information we output all the time with the many devices we use and the endless
apps on them. Keep a training log online? Play solitaire on your iPhone? Upload
your photos with geo-tagging, as default, courtesy of your camera? Your metro
card? Your built-in car GPS? And that’s just the simplest of lists from our
consumer world.
