What's the big deal about Big Data?

Posted by Gregory Heinz on Apr 1, 2015 3:10:00 PM

Originally published in the March/April issue of AICC Boxscore

As a marketer working in the information technology space, I am constantly challenged by innovations that address key issues in business productivity and data security. I may not always comprehend terms such as big data, business intelligence, fabrics, and cloud computing; they require a little research to uncover their meaning. My goal is to share these findings with you and attempt to explain, in the simplest way possible, how these concepts can impact your business. Today, let’s tackle “big data.”

Wikipedia defines big data as “an all-encompassing term for any collection of data sets so large or complex that it becomes difficult to process using traditional data processing applications.” Further digging reveals that there are two types of data: structured and unstructured. Structured is the traditional data we capture from our business systems and store in databases. Unstructured is everything else—email, social media, website interactions, customer services conversations, etc. The latter makes up nearly 90 percent of all data, which is eye-opening when you consider how much we rely on data to make informed business decisions and how little unstructured data we can comprehend.

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