For all the geeks out there who love math and computing and know the power of both to solve important problems -- your time has come and you are truly cool now.
We are now in the era of big data in which knowing and applying the right analytical tools from operations research to statistical data mining can transform decision-making.
The applications are immense and range from business to social sciences to healthcare, political science, and even policy analysis.
Steve Lohr has a terrific article in The New York Times, The Age of Big Data, which states:
If you can see patterns and make sense of the explosion of data, you are the future.
In addition, according to the article, in order to exploit the data flood, the US will need many analysts with a deep knowledge and appreciation for numbers, data, and how to extract and apply the information that is now available from web traffic to GPS data to sensor data. A report last year by the McKinsey Global Institute, the research arm of the consulting firm, projected that the United States needs 140,000 to 190,000 more workers with “deep analytical” expertise and 1.5 million more data-literate managers, whether retrained or hired.
To really know how to make use of the data for better decision-making one needs mathematical models and algorithms, and, hence, education in operations research and management science (OR/MS) is now more important than ever.
Pick your favorite area of application and with an OR/MS education and skill set you can make a difference (and have so much data at your fingertips to work with).
Showing posts with label data deluge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label data deluge. Show all posts
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Monday, November 7, 2011
Data and Analytics Are the New Currency
The science of analytics, coupled with massive amounts of data, is transforming the world that we live in.
Cyber-physical systems, which we have been calling Supernetworks for a decade now, are impacting transportation, the electric grid, health care, complex supply chains, and provide promise for smart cities.
The EE Times has a marvelous article which notes that: According to the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, such “cyber-physical systems” will eventually constitute 50 percent of all electronics worldwide, making them a U.S. strategic asset.
Cyber-physical systems, which we have been calling Supernetworks for a decade now, are impacting transportation, the electric grid, health care, complex supply chains, and provide promise for smart cities.
The EE Times has a marvelous article which notes that: According to the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, such “cyber-physical systems” will eventually constitute 50 percent of all electronics worldwide, making them a U.S. strategic asset.
In response, the National Institute of Standards and Technology recently announced a standardization effort to define interfaces for interoperability, as well as metrics and methods for measuring and comparing performance among smart systems. Such efforts set the stage for U.S. entrepreneurs to build successful smart systems from homegrown designs, but to realize those designs with electronics that are manufactured at low cost overseas.
Mr. Mario Morales of International Data Corp. (IDC) has a great quote in the article: "Data is the new currency" and he proceeds to say that "Enterprises have yet to figure out how to monetize all this data, but there is a tremendous opportunity here."
I would say that Data and Analytics Are the New Currency, since without analytics not much sense can be made of the massive data streams now available.
Our latest National Science Foundation project, "Network Innovation Through Choice," will, we expect, drive innovation in network choices and options through novel payment systems that monetarize performance based on reputation and success.
Monday, March 1, 2010
The Economist on the Data Deluge
The Economist has a special report on the volumes of data that is now being regularly generated with a 2008 study by the International Data Corp (IDC) reporting that about 1,200 exabytes of digital data (equivalent to 10 million copies of The Economist) will be generated this year.
With the world becoming increasingly digital, the analysis of the data, and its aggregation, is expected to bring many benefits to different fields, from healthcare, to government, to the business processes and supply chains, to name just a few. Because of the tremendous amounts of data that are now becoming increasingly available through sensors, mobile technologies, cameras, computers, social networking sites, etc., business intelligence techniques, coupled with analytics, that can yield insights from statistical analyses are becoming very important. The deluge of data is so large that it is starting to overwhelm storage capacities of computers (not to mention the ability of humans to process).
Of course, as the report notes, the IT industry is diving deep into business intelligence and notes such companies as Accenture, IBM, and SAP.
I would have liked to have seen in this special report a greater emphasis given to optimization, although it did mention revenue and yield management. The writeup on the visualization of data was especially interesting to me and it highlighted the classic book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by Edward Tuffe. Those of us who work in network analysis have long appreciated the power of networks to represent and depict numerous systems and phenomena.
With the world becoming increasingly digital, the analysis of the data, and its aggregation, is expected to bring many benefits to different fields, from healthcare, to government, to the business processes and supply chains, to name just a few. Because of the tremendous amounts of data that are now becoming increasingly available through sensors, mobile technologies, cameras, computers, social networking sites, etc., business intelligence techniques, coupled with analytics, that can yield insights from statistical analyses are becoming very important. The deluge of data is so large that it is starting to overwhelm storage capacities of computers (not to mention the ability of humans to process).
Of course, as the report notes, the IT industry is diving deep into business intelligence and notes such companies as Accenture, IBM, and SAP.
I would have liked to have seen in this special report a greater emphasis given to optimization, although it did mention revenue and yield management. The writeup on the visualization of data was especially interesting to me and it highlighted the classic book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by Edward Tuffe. Those of us who work in network analysis have long appreciated the power of networks to represent and depict numerous systems and phenomena.
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