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First sip of Context Relevant hints at a winner

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Most product vendors can talk for half an hour without even one specific case. But Stephen Purpura, CEO of the predictive analytics startup Context Relevant, actually had a story about something useful — the time his system used scant data to correctly point to a barely known winemaker.

Spotting the wine started with a sip, of course. But as you might imagine, Purpura then fed it to his prediction machine.

Context Relevant’s critical edge is speed, he explained. That comes from good caching; the better you cache, the faster you retrieve, and the faster you can work through questions and arrive at answers you can act on.… Read the rest “First sip of Context Relevant hints at a winner”

No, you’re not a data storyteller yet

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The designer Stefan Sagmeister has a message for those who would presume to call themselves a “storyteller” when they’re not really: “No, fuckhead, you’re not a storyteller.” I agree, except for one word: yet. Many could become one.

Some of us in the data industry can identify. We’ve shouted something like this at our monitors as we’ve read about supposed “big data.” No, fuckhead, it’s just data! Now comes data storytelling, and we find ourselves shouting again.

Another annoyance is the idea that stories occur only in certain media. Sagmeister makes that mistake. “People who actually tell stories,” he says, “meaning people who write novels and make feature films…”

No, Sag, a story is just a structure.… Read the rest “No, you’re not a data storyteller yet”

Big data comes of age

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It’s too easy these days to be tired of big data, with all the defining and redefining, marketing, and Hadooping. I can’t help but think to myself, “Just shut up and do it!” Of course, some organizations have gone and done it. Now a new report from TDWI Research describes the common stages they go through on the way to making big data a permanent part of their toolset.