Frank Buytendijk, Gartner

Informaion management is not the most exciting field, said Frank Buytendijk, research VP at Gartner, but the hype generated by what Gartner calls the “nexus of forces” has brought emotion to the field. The nexus is a combination of social, cloud computing, information analytics and mobile.

Buytendijk was speaking at Gartner’s recent The Truth About Big Data and Analytics Conference, held in Johannesburg.

One of the emotions, said Buytendijk, is conflict. The conflict is caused by differing approaches of what Buytendijk terms “suits” and “hoodies”. Suits are more conservative – and older – information managers. “The suits have been doing it for ages, and they’re on top of their game.”

The hoodies are a younger crowd. “They created big data, or grew up with it. They work bottom up.”

Hoodies and suits often disagree about how to handle data, but Buytendijk said collaboration between the two groups will lead to business value.

He suggested information be treated as a product, and should, therefore, have a product life cycle. “Use the hoodies for the first part of the life cycle,” he explained. The first stage is gathering information, and creative experimentation. This is where the hoodies are ideal. Then, businesses should task the suits with taking that information and deriving business value from it.

“Eighty-five percent of organisations that embark on big data will not get everything out of it, and that’s because the suits and hoodies are not working together.”

JUST DATA

Gartner defines big data as when “the volume, variety and velocity of information are of such a level that your current infrastructure can’t cope”.

Eventually, he said, when infrastructures improve, big data will just be data. He predicted that by 2016, big data will have outgrown its hype, and massive volumes of data will be business as usual.

Data analysis is invading even our personal lives, explained Buytendijk. He mentioned the “quantified self” movement, whereby people measure things like their heart rate, sleep cycles and daily steps walked, in hopes that the data will enable them to make better decisions and lead better lives.

It’s a small movement, he said, but growing. “This indicates that, as people, we are becoming more data aware. We care more about data, and see it as something that can be of use.”

Companies and individuals are realising the value of data, and should treat it as an asset, he said. It’s possible that, in future, businesses could trade in a bank of information.

“If you decide to share data with others, you get information back. And when you want to use the information of others, you have to share information back.”

With the sharing and collection of data, Buytendijk said, companies must be aware of the “creepy line”, which is when users feel violated by the data collected about them, or the way their data is being used. “As consumers, we’ve become sensitive about what happens to our data,” he said. “By 2016, 25% of organisations will use consumer data for analytics, and will face reputation risk.”

Also speaking at the event was Donald Feinberg, VP and distinguished analyst at Gartner. Feinberg hosted the more technical talks of the day, regarding the use of MapReduce in data warehousing, as well as a comparison of products from SAP and Oracle.