Wed Oct  19 2016

Big data is becoming a big business

 

Businesses have gone data crazy. You can’t blame them. Streaming, real-time data analysis promises to bring the type of predictability that cuts costs, solves problems and grows sales.

That seemed to be the unofficial theme of the Strata + Hadoop World conference held the first week of October in New York. Each year the brightest minds in data science congregate to talk about where the business of data is headed. And the future is bright. Inexpensive sensors are creating massive amounts of data that can be harnessed and manipulated by software in real-time to glean insights. Industry by industry, sector by sector, data-bred ideas are transforming business in profound ways.

Ginni Rometty, chief executive at IBM (IBM) believes Big Data analytics will radically change the way businesses operate and make decisions. “Many more decisions will be based on predictive elements versus gut instincts,” she told the Corporate Conference. She went on to emphasize that all businesses, whether they like it or not, will need to become data driven to compete. If they chose to ignore data analytics they will not surviv

So far, they seem to be heeding her warning. The research company IDC forecasts Big Data and business analytics will grow to $203 billion/year by 2020 from its current $130 billion level. The bulk of the growth will be concentrated in software as reporting and analysis tools take center stage. That will certainly benefit firms that enable software modelling like Splunk (SPLK).

However, convergence with artificial intelligence means there will be room for growth for traditional hardware companies, too.
At the Strata + Hadoop conference Martin Hall, chief data scientist for Big Data solutions at Intel, made that case succinctly, “we now have the data, the analytics and the compute power to deliver more than insights – we can enable intelligence.”

IBM has been one of the leaders in the field and its clients have had a number of big data analytics success stories. T-Mobile, the giant US-based telecommunications firm, used data analytics to provide real-time, actionable insights to make significant improvements in its network.

Seton Healthcare,located in Austin, Texas was able to reduce the number of patients being readmitted to hospitals for congestive heart failure through the analysis of large amounts of unstructured data such as doctor notes, discharge summaries and echocardiogram reports. And Anthem (ANTM) uses Watson, IBM’s artificial intelligence platform, to generate evidence-based recommendations for its nurses.

 

 

Weekend Oct 16, 216

Bob Dylan Wins Nobel Prize for Literature

Bob Dylan, American folk rock musician, lyricist, and author, and generally kind of weird guy, has been named the first musician in the 115 year history to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Please understand that neither Mark Twain nor Robert Frost ever won a Nobel.   But now Dylan joins such luminaries as Vislawa Szymborska, Dario Fo, and Mo Yan. Or as Jeff Foxworthy puts it, I just can’t make this stuff up.

Still I am encouraged.   Yes in my most introspective moments, I have lain awake wondering if all these shared insights among newspaper columns, weblogs, academic papers, podcasts, not to mention television and radio interviews would go unnoticed. But if Dylan can break through, I suspect there is hope for the rest of us.

One of my friends used to say that Bob Dylan was one of those guys that, if you didn’t know who he was you wouldn’t listen to him anyway. Clearly my friend would have never made the cut for the Nobel Committee. And what are some of the pithy thoughts that catapulted Bob to join this elite inner circle including Sir Vldiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul. Here is a sample.

Ah but I was so much older then

I’m younger than that now…

You don’t need a weatherman

To know which way the wind blows

IN the jingle jangle morning

I’ll com followin’ you

Yes words to live by indeed fit for the Nobel list of luminaries as well as your record album collection spanning Peter Paul and Mary and Donovan.

I can see I have been way too conventional. Dylan made it as age 75 so I have a few years to re set my course for the destiny that is surely mine.

Like Hedda Hopper, Bob seems to have an affinity for strange hats and unconventional garments. I guess my Haggar khakis have got to go along with the Ralph Lauren polos.   And I suppose some sort of unusual moniker would help, hmm, how about digital futurist?

Oh and what would be my contribution to the world of literature. How about

Experience is what you get when you are expecting something else.

It is near impossible to stop a bad idea cloaked in good intentions.

Very few people are capable of making a short-term sacrifice to reach a long term goal.

What, did you say, too Erma Bombeck and not enough Toni Morrison (1993 winner)? Well maybe but after all I am just now transitioning to someone more in the Swedish caste of things So give me time here. And clearly I need to begin planning some ‘think-ins, introspective seminars, as well as seminars that challenge one to think organically. Yes we are speeding   towards the digital confluence of human events now happening in nanoseconds rather than years, will we act or be acted upon? (Well hey, it’s a start….)

Meanwhile we have yet another Too Big To Fail TBTF corporate crisis jumping right off the front page. John Stumpf, CEO Wells Fargo, failed to see the growing sentiment against big banks, and their haughty TBTF attitude.

Bernie Sanders had made this a cornerstone of his campaign. Sanders had no idea how to break up the big banks but by golly he and his supporters were all for the idea.

Here is what the Corporate Bigwigs at WFC missed.

Social mood motivates social actions, not the other way around.

Social mood is endogenously (internally) regulated, not prompted by outside forces.

Social Mood is unconscious, unremembered, and constantly fluctuating.

Waves of mood arise when humans interact. This is the herding impulse.

Now connect the dots. The so called recovery since 2009 has been for those big companies who could borrow at zero rates, buy their own stock back, and reward themselves with options.   Both parties are aware of this and hear it from constituents all the time. And so individuals began to react to outrageous fortunes awarded for little to no real accomplishment on the part of corporate executives. And this was happening at the very banks that had been part and parcel of the 2008 melt-down.   Without realizing it, all the Democrats and Republicans felt the same way, their feelings being internally generated. Then the Senate and House members of both parties began herding towards an unconscious, shared belief.

And that is how John Stjumpf lost his job.

Follow Dennis Elam at http://www.themarketperspective.com

Thursday Oct  13, 2016

Caution Political Opinion Follows

When Democrats cannot win at the ballot box, the next best thing is to conjure up a lawsuit against the winning Republican.

Consider

Newt Gingrich

Tom DeLay

Sarah Palin

Rick Perry

Ken Paxton

 

Friday Oct  7, 2016

Defense Secy fired his former top military assistant for improper use of his government credit card.

I was unable to link to the exact story in the Express News so I will type excerpts.

Major General Ronald Lewis  is alleged to have consumed alcohol to excess at the Candy Bar in Seoul and the Chica Chica Boom Bar in Rome running up near $3,000 on his government credit card.

A 51 page Pentagon report accused Lewis of false  official statements, misusing a government

travel card, and carrying out conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

Investigators say he used the government card at the Cica Cica Boom Club which advertises Sexy Show and Lap Dance.

Lewis defense was that his personal card was denied so he had to use the government card.

Apparently Lewis has risen from one to three stars in the last year.

He was had been an attack helicoptor pilot with tours of Iraq and Afghan.

I am guessing he gets a demotion in rank and discharge.

We have been studying ethics in