Don’t just call it “Big Data”

Don’t just call it “Big Data”

 

 

 

Whenever a new idea or method of improving a company is very successful many people begin to use the term for everything so that it will look like their company is up to date on the latest technology. Unfortunately, this has begun to occur with big data analysis as well. Several companies have started calling all of their data analysis big data.  Some of this is just because they don’t know better and some are doing it because they want to appear even with their competitors.   

Once a new idea is successful and everyone starts using it the idea starts to lose some of its meaning. This isn’t because it isn’t a great tool but many misuse the terminology and this results in many overlooking the significance of real big data analysis.

Many experts have even started to turn against big data because of its misuse.  I found a great article on this topic and some of the expert statements are below:

• “Every so often a term becomes so beloved by media that it moves from ‘instructive’ to ‘hackneyed’ to ‘worthless,’ and Big Data is one of those terms….” Roger Ehrenberg
• “Every product by every vendor supports big data… and every ‘industry leader’ with every talk needs to include the phrase in the title of their talk and repeat it as many times as possible. So every data warehouse pitch is rehashed as a big data pitch, every data governance, master data management, OLAP, data mining, everything is now big data.” Rob Klopp
• “Big data as a technological category is becoming an increasingly meaningless name.” Barry Devlin

You can read more from this article at:

http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/22/big-data-is-dead-whats-next/#DkcKIEkTsLcvJE5p.99

 

As you can tell by the comments above that the thought is that everyone is using big data now so we need to move onto a new topic. I think that this could prevent many great things from happening because the companies using big data analysis correctly are experiencing great improvements in all aspects of their company.

 

I have to disagree with the article above though.  They say big data is dead but I think that it is truly just beginning. However, if we continue with the current path of everything being labeled as big data then it may survive but will be titled something different in order to make it look like something new.

A great article supporting my theory can be read at:
http://blogs.sas.com/content/corneroffice/2012/02/03/is-big-data-over-hyped/

 

This article shows that big data is here to stay and that it is getting bigger every day. The benefits are just too great for a company to pass up. Many companies may be scared away but the ones that use it now understand the vast amount of information that can be gained and will continue to use it.