Chuck's Blog

Charting The Digital Universe: IDC's 6th Annual Study

Climate change has been hotly debated for well over a decade now. 

The evidence is largely in, what remains is a discussion around root causes, and what -- if anything -- can be done. 

Personally, the topic became particularly urgent when I saw a recent documentary ("Chasing Ice") which features stunning time-lapse photography of massive glaciers and ice sheets melting before your very eyes.

Seeing is believing.  Our world is changing, faster than we thought.

In many ways, the most recent IDC Digital Universe study provides clear evidence that our world is also changing from a physical one to a digital one, and much faster than we previously thought.  In addition to attempting to quantify and forecast how much information we collectively generate and consume, it highlights particular "big picture" topics of concern to many.

Many of us now live our lives primarily in a digital world.  We work digitally, socialize digitally and spend our off hours digitally. 

Our children are being raised and educated largely in a digital world.  Businesses are in hot pursuit to re-invent themselves in this digital world, followed closely by public sector.  "IRL" (in real life) has started to become the exception rather than the norm.

Our world is changing, faster than we thought.

But unlike climate change, our digital world is mostly good for all involved -- a major leap forward for us as a society: richer lives, better answers to social problems, and -- above all -- easier access to the information riches the world now has to offer.  Like all transformations, it presents its own unique challenge.

In many regards, I see the IDC study as useful and important -- it measures the "digital footprint" of this unprecedented transformation.  And, as in past years, there's much more insight to be gained other than just appreciating some really big numbers.

When Big Data Changed Marketing At EMC

The premise is simple: big data has the power to fundamentally change almost everything we do. 

No industry or function appears to be immune from the tantalizing power of predictive models.

There are thousands of great stories out there about how big data analytics is changing how business is done.  And one of those stories involves EMC and how we do marketing.

There's a clear "before" and "after" -- and our story serves as just one great case study on how organizations can re-invent themselves around these new-found capabilities. 

To be clear, marketing is just one of the many functions at EMC being transformed by predictive analytics, and EMC is just one of many companies learning how to build a superior business through this new style of data-driven management.

You may not have much interest in marketing (or even EMC) but this story is quite illustrative as it clearly demonstrates so many of the common themes I see across industries, geographies and functions.

When Big Data Changed Radiology

This week is the annual gathering of the RSNA -- the Radiological Society of North America.  And for many of us, it's not just another industry trade show: it's a microcosm of the powerful forces that will inevitably play out in industry after industry as we move to pure digital business models.

The underlying premise of a digital business model is simple: it's a complete re-invention of the value proposition along digital principles vs. simply automating familiar physical activities.  And, in health care, the business at hand is delivering better patient outcomes far more effectively and efficiently.

Within the broad spectrum of healthcare, radiology in particular is at ground zero for this transformation.  Modern radiology has become an entirely digital proposition for the most part, and -- in the process -- radiology itself has been transformed.

And, like so many things, there are lessons to be learned from what's happening in radiology -- not only within healthcare itself, but more broadly when looking at a wide range of professions that haven't been sucked into the digital vortex – yet.

Greenplum: Pushing The Boundaries Of The New Data Science

By now, the storyline ought to be familiar.

Around the globe, leaders in both the private and public sector are clearly besmitten with the amazing power of big data and predictive analytics.

Much has been written so far, with more coming -- two of my favorite pieces are here and here.

In this new hegemony, the ascendant rock star is the data science professional, or -- if you prefer -- the data scientist. Much has also been written about this realtively new and essential caste of knowledge worker -- for example, this piece I did a while ago.

EMC, through our Greenplum division, is "all in" on this fundamental shift on how data is being used to create new insights and new value.  That's a rather bold position, as I still routinely encounter people who are still firmly entrenched in the comfortable and familiar world of data warehousing and business reporting, and can't understand what all the fuss might be about.

But I'm not despairing.  I meet more than enough people around the globe who are extremly  motivated by the unfolding new world of big data, predictive analytics and data science.  And these people are likely to be paying close attention to what  Greenplum is doing.

From enabling technology to investing in the data science communit Greenplum is among a small handful of vendors actively bringing the future into the here-and-now for so many of our customers.

And with today's announcements, you'll see clear evidence of that strategy in action: more investments towards building the industry's most powerful ecosystem for exploiting big data analytics.

The CIO Survey: Big Data Is Hotter Than You Might Think

We here at EMC tend to care greatly about what IT leaders around the globe are thinking about -- no surprise. 

We spend a great deal of time in face-to-face settings.  We subscribe to a wide range of analyst publications and surveys to broaden our perspectives.

But, sometimes, we feel the need to invest in our own surveys around important questions we believe deserve more detailed answers.

Working with CIO Magazine, we were able to uncover some useful insights around how IT leaders in larger enterprises around the globe are thinking about big data, security and cloud. 

We also found some surprising differences between US perspectives and more global ones.

Doing Business In A Digital World

I've spent the last few posts exploring digital business models, and everything that comes along with them.  It's easy to spot a digital business model: a company has fundamentally re-created their value proposition for a new world.

Now that my radar is on, I'm finding these everywhere.  And there are many, many stories to be told and learned from.

Today's story comes from Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), and how they successfully re-invented one of their core business processes (designing and manufacturing vehicles) using a digital business model. 

They were able to bring a very successful SUV to market (the Evoque) faster/better/cheaper by creating powerful simulations around 100% of their processes.

By making the leap to a digital, they were able to suddenly compete with the big boys.

The common pattern?  Don't simply automate physical processes using technology; re-invent them. 

And that's what JLR did.

EMC And Big Data: An Overview

Like many of you, I set filters on various social platforms to track topics of interest -- like big data. 

About two months ago, I had to go around and turn them all of them off -- just too much pouring through the floodgates on the topic, overwhelming me.  There seem to be an awful lot of people out there trying to make sense of it all.

Sort of like the whole topic itself, if you think about it :)

As one of my projects, I tried to create a clear-eyed, non-marketing synopsis of what EMC was doing around the topic: how we saw the opportunity, the challenges and where we were investing as a company.

Much like a previous piece I shared (EMC And Cloud: An Overview), the result doesn't make for an thrilling narrative, but it does serve as a handy summary of just how many of the pieces we've brought together so far.

Like any overview, I will inevitably forget to discuss one aspect or another -- but there's still a surprising amount we've done on the topic.

The Tantalizing Prospect Of Open Data

EMC's deep involvement with the Human Face Of Big Data project has given me ample time to reflect on this new era we're about to enter as a society and a species. 

We can now measure the world with growing impunity. 

We can use those measurements to extract deep insights about ourselves and the world around us.

And we can act on those insights to improve our businesses, our society, our planet and the lives of each and every one of us.

Heady stuff, indeed.  A new "golden age" is potentially upon us.

But one has to ask -- what role could public policy play in all of this?  Accelerate the good, avoid the bad?

And the discussion quickly focuses on the notion of "open data" (#opendata on Twitter) -- a set of progressive policies and investments to make these valuable data sets more freely available.

The Business Wants Big Data: Are You Ready?

It was gratifying to see the widespread attention from yesterday's announcement of the Human Face Of Big Data Project: articles, blog posts, tweets at #HFOBD, etc.  It's good to see that there are lot of people who understand that big data will play a big role in their personal lives, and they want to get engaged.

And now, back to the more pragmatic world of corporations, businesses and that all-important task of making money ...

I came across a fascinating blog post on the Harvard Business Review site, basically confirming what I had long suspected: business people are starting to understand the amazing power of this stuff; the IT folks aren't quite sure what to do about it.

The article is polite and gently makes statements around "better alignment".  

From my perspective, IT isn't a monopoly, and hasn't been for a while.  If business people want something important -- and they can't find it internally -- they'll find a way to get it externally.

And, ultimately, that's not going to be good for the business, and certainly not good for the IT team.

The Human Face Of Big Data

Call it serendipity, call it whatever.

About a year ago, we all here at EMC were getting completely blown away with the amazing potential of big data and predictive analytics.

It could change business.  It could change government.  It could change research, and education, and healthcare, and ...

Heck, it could change the world we all live in.  Wow.

Enter Rick Smolan.  Five minutes with him and you quickly realize you're talking to a completely out-of-the-box thinker.  Big ideas pour out of him like a firehose.

Rick had come to the same point we had.  This big data stuff was really really big, what to do about it?

His proposal was simple: a massive and innovative project to humanize what this stuff was really all about, and the great potential that lay ahead.   The message: big data was going to improve all of our lives -- on a very personal level -- before long. 

It's something to be embraced, not feared.

He and his company (Against All Odds Productions) had a proposal to do just that.  He christened the effort "The Human Face Of Big Data".  It was bold, to be sure.

Would the team at EMC be interested?  You bet!