"Network of Intelligence and Collaboration"
This final blog post will be on the Week 9 topic New Media, Big Data and Telemetrics by Darryl Woodford (2014). In this blog post I’ll review what big data is and provide an example on how big data is used currently and how important and powerful a tool it is in our modern times. Every time we click on a website or make a purchase we are generating a piece of data. As Siegel (2013) suggests, that data is a priceless collection of experience from which to learn from. Big data is collating that information and understanding customers more confidently and accurately on a much larger scale. According to SAS (2014), the mainstream definition of big data includes the three V’s: volume (the amount of data being collected), velocity (the speed at which data travels) and variety (which includes data in all types of formats). But one particular online visual that stood out to me was this notion, and almost likening Big Data to the planet developing a nervous system – meaning that Big Data has the ability to measure, analyse, visualise and then respond to what’s happening all around the world in real time. I’ve learnt that big data has many universal meanings, and the YouTube video on blackboard ”What is big data?” really outlines what big data means to a business professional in today’s society. Some definitions included: a means to running a better business for customers, providing global access to all the possible information about human response and human innovation, and providing a more accurate analysis that can lead to confident decision making and reduced risks. While I was browsing the web I came across a YouTube video “What Big Data Says About You,” where photographer and journalist Rick Smolan talks about Big Data and mentions an interesting example. In his interview, Rick talks about the Gates Foundation who has being trying to eradicate polio in Nigeria. Looking at satellite maps they found that there were villages in Nigeria that nobody knew existed (they didn’t exist on any known map). So, the Gates Foundation gave out ten thousand GPS enabled cell phones to polio inoculation workers to make sure they go to every single hut (and visit every single family and child). Unless you inoculate everybody you can’t eradicate it, so this idea of using satellites combined with cell phones to eradicate polio is an example of how big data can be used to help people (especially in developing countries). I guess it’s not something that leaps to mind when you talk about big data, but this human story really helped me understand big data in a different way (a way that most of the definitions provided didn’t). In closing, Darryl (2014) covered New Media, Big Data and Telemetrics in the week 9 lecture in depth. Most importantly, it was reiterated that big data is perhaps one of the most important frameworks of our generation. No longer are we an information age but a network of intelligence and collaboration. References Seigel, Eric. 2013 “Introduction- The Prediction Effect.” In Predictive Analytics, 1-16. Hobroken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons Inc. Accessed May 10, 2014. Statistical analysis system (SAS). 2014. “Big Data – What it is and why it matters.” Accessed May 10, 2014. http://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/big-data/what-is-big-data.html Woodford, Darryl. 2014 “New Media: Big Data and Telemetrics: Week 9 lecture notes.” Accessed May 10, 2014. Youtube. “Polio’s Last Percent – Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.” Accessed May 7, 2014. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU3Lw7Nn3qg Youtube. “What is Big Data.” 2012. Accessed May 7, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahZGEusG13A Youtube. “What Big Data Says About You.” 2013. Accessed May 7, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc1zBNC9wNY











