Big Data is getting Bigger and Bigger
I attended the 1st Big Data Insight Forum this week where organisations like Microsoft, Teradata, EMC Greenplum and Orange explained more about this 'revolution'.
The take aways for me were quite simple. It's all about the 3 V's:
Volume - the amount of data
Variety - the types of data (text, social network updates, address, behaviour, pictures and so on)
Velocity - the speed of collection, storage and analysis
Simply put, Big Data is not really that new. It's all about analysis of data. The interesting bit is that, thanks to the falling cost of data storage and growth of analytical tools like Hadoop and Splunk, organisations can now get at more of the data that they used to ignore (data exhaust) and make decisions more quickly.
The event was very useful in helping me to inform my decisions on how I can build future products (that while I may not describe them as 'Big') will use lots of different types of data and help users make decisions quickly.
While writing up my notes, I've been doing a little more reading around the topic and have also discovered this great report from BBC Radio 4 that serves as a very nice introduction to Big Data.
So what does Big Data mean for Product Managers?
Well, it's a bit of a dream come true really! Subject to the usual considerations around compliance and morals; the new tools open up a raft of possibilities.
Knowing where your customers are, what they're doing, what they feel about your products/company, how they influence others and how their environment may affect them is hugely powerful for marketing. For customer service, being able to react quickly is also really important.
Social Media is now a hugely powerful tool for customers to share their experiences (good and bad) with friends who may then be persuaded to use your services/products (or not).
Being able to combine this with further insights on these people (e.g. their political views, shopping habits, address etc) on the fly could enable you to nip any bad feedback in the bud very quickly. As a great example, one of the senior chap at Salesforce.com told a story about an airline passenger delayed at an airport.
This passenger was very vocal on Twitter about their dislike for the airline delaying them. However, thanks to the airlines' use of Twitter, they were able to find our more about this person and saw that he happened to like Tennis.
A quick call to their rep at the airport sent a nice new tennis racquet to the customer while he was waiting. This obviously had a dramatic effect on his opinion of the airline and therefore on the opinions of his friends.
This is Big Data in action. Capturing, understanding and using data rapidly to make decisions that have a positive effect for your business and customers.
I think we're going to see a lot more on Big Data soon. While this is still a 'new' industry, we're beginning to understand what it means; just as we did with 'CRM' a few years back.
So while a lot of businesses are still struggling to come to terms with Big Data and decide whether to invest in new tools (or decide whether these new tools have had any impact yet), the savvy product manager will be using what's already at their disposal to begin moving towards a world where structured and unstructured data can be used together to help their customers.
Don't be afraid of it! Do your research and remember that it's just like moving from dial up to broadband. You get more done, more quickly and with access to more videos of cute cats.
The take aways for me were quite simple. It's all about the 3 V's:
Volume - the amount of data
Variety - the types of data (text, social network updates, address, behaviour, pictures and so on)
Velocity - the speed of collection, storage and analysis
Simply put, Big Data is not really that new. It's all about analysis of data. The interesting bit is that, thanks to the falling cost of data storage and growth of analytical tools like Hadoop and Splunk, organisations can now get at more of the data that they used to ignore (data exhaust) and make decisions more quickly.
The event was very useful in helping me to inform my decisions on how I can build future products (that while I may not describe them as 'Big') will use lots of different types of data and help users make decisions quickly.
While writing up my notes, I've been doing a little more reading around the topic and have also discovered this great report from BBC Radio 4 that serves as a very nice introduction to Big Data.
So what does Big Data mean for Product Managers?
Well, it's a bit of a dream come true really! Subject to the usual considerations around compliance and morals; the new tools open up a raft of possibilities.
Knowing where your customers are, what they're doing, what they feel about your products/company, how they influence others and how their environment may affect them is hugely powerful for marketing. For customer service, being able to react quickly is also really important.
Social Media is now a hugely powerful tool for customers to share their experiences (good and bad) with friends who may then be persuaded to use your services/products (or not).
Being able to combine this with further insights on these people (e.g. their political views, shopping habits, address etc) on the fly could enable you to nip any bad feedback in the bud very quickly. As a great example, one of the senior chap at Salesforce.com told a story about an airline passenger delayed at an airport.
This passenger was very vocal on Twitter about their dislike for the airline delaying them. However, thanks to the airlines' use of Twitter, they were able to find our more about this person and saw that he happened to like Tennis.
A quick call to their rep at the airport sent a nice new tennis racquet to the customer while he was waiting. This obviously had a dramatic effect on his opinion of the airline and therefore on the opinions of his friends.
This is Big Data in action. Capturing, understanding and using data rapidly to make decisions that have a positive effect for your business and customers.
I think we're going to see a lot more on Big Data soon. While this is still a 'new' industry, we're beginning to understand what it means; just as we did with 'CRM' a few years back.
So while a lot of businesses are still struggling to come to terms with Big Data and decide whether to invest in new tools (or decide whether these new tools have had any impact yet), the savvy product manager will be using what's already at their disposal to begin moving towards a world where structured and unstructured data can be used together to help their customers.
Don't be afraid of it! Do your research and remember that it's just like moving from dial up to broadband. You get more done, more quickly and with access to more videos of cute cats.
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