This article explores the vice of sloth. This 'sin' usually manifests as greed, according to the author.
He informed us of what this looks like in context:
To be sure, on information management (IM) projects, the ultimate effects of sloth often resemble those of greed–i.e., work just doesn’t get done in a timely manner, if at all. Alternatively, work is just sloppy. However, the motivations behind sloth and greed are typically quite different. Greed inheres a certain defiance and even anger. For instance, consider Barry, an employee who isn’t happy that his job is changing. No one asked him what he thought.
Sure, a break in the repertoire of discussion on technological challenges of information management may be welcome. However, the fact is that some project managers may not have employee information greed as their primary concern: there is often a lack of connectors in enterprise infrastructure. Fortunately, there is a fix because PolySpot delivers information straight to each and every user's computer.
Megan Feil, October 12, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
]]>Despite the lack of barriers in open source, API’s limited accessibility has surpassed it in popularity. However, open source and API’s actually correlate and combining the two can increase the chance of success:
The advent of loosely coupled applications for exchanging data is giving proprietary software providers the opportunity to maintain that open APIs have more importance than open source. It’s not a black and white issue. Open APIs do provide a way for companies with proprietary platforms to open up its technologies to a legion of third party partners and developers. But open source remains critical as the foundation for development with companies that build open platforms, proprietary technologies or a mixture of both.
Open source will continue to provide a stable foundation but API limitations may lesson in the near future as their popularity increases. Businesses that use an agile infrastructure solution that can adapt to a variety of applications while preserving a simple, coherent architecture will discover the most benefit in either situation. Open search or API, the goal is to put information intelligence to work in order to increase efficiency and ROI in the future.
Jennifer Shockley, October 12, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
]]>Here are the five most common integration strategy mistakes that can prevent future integration problems:
*Misidentifying Metadata Definitions- Concept identifiers retain communication but avoid ambiguous tags that can get lost in integration.
*Missing the “Machine” Behind the Business- Give data as much value as the tools and hardware.
*Taking Document Architecture for Granted- Consider all architecture during an integration roll-out.
*Mistaking Data Needs with Latest Hype- Utilize an extensive integration or BI program instead of the latest trend.
*Loading Based Solely on Cost- Break coding and ETL options down by productivity, methodology and documentation rather than a cost-first approach.
In order to improve efficiency and generate ROI with Big Data, companies must evaluate all their options and implement a structured business plan. The most secure strategy is to embrace information management software to quickly and efficiently evaluate, separate and store data while providing enterprise wide access in a secure environment. Information intelligence will improve efficiency by eliminating many of the basic IT functions and ultimately lead to smooth data integration and a sustainable ROI.
Jennifer Shockley, October 12, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
]]>The goal of the competition is to crowd source solutions to the increasing fragmented and incompatible federal data issues. The announcement was made in GigaOM’s article “NASA Tries to Free Creativity with Big Data Challenge”, along with the first challenge question for participants:
How can we make heterogeneous (dissimilar and incompatible) data sets homogeneous (uniformly accessible, compatible, able to be grouped and/or matched) so usable information can be extracted? How can information then be converted into real knowledge that can inform critical decisions and solve societal challenges?
Variances in government software platforms have caused data solutions to be elusive or inefficient:
The dream of creating spectacular algorithms, beautiful visualizations and uncovering hidden insights often only comes after untold man-hours spent cleaning and munging data (often with Hadoop) into formats that a software system can work with.
The Big Data challenge should prove quite efficient since no one is tracking man-hours, however challenges could be avoided were NASA utilizing software with an insight enabling infrastructure that puts Big Data information to work. Government security is of the utmost importance and this technology provides secure, enterprise wide access to relevant information while continuing to break down fragmented or incompatible data. Challenge completed.
Jennifer Shockley, October 11, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
]]>This polls comes a year after President Barack Obama signed a memorandum that pushed for a 21st century information management to be developed and implemented.
In the article, learned of the struggles that government workers have dealt with:
Several managers said the use of paper records rather than digital solutions hampered agency record-keeping. Inadequate resources were deemed the largest obstacle to agencies in their efforts to overhaul information management. Another roadblock was the absence of a comprehensive strategy: 66 percent of managers said information management requires an agencywide approach. Despite the heavy focus on paper in the federal government, some agencies have pushed forward on their digitalizing efforts in hopes of seeing an IT transformation, the survey report noted.
The kicker comes when data has been digitized and users must locate and analyze data to make decisions. Organizations, whether in the business or government sector need information delivered in near real-time. Solutions from innnovative firms like PolySpot are the software packages to keep in mind.
Megan Feil, October 11, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
]]>It is no surprise that the increasing data is causing a substantial growth in storage needs:
Businesses are growing their data storage by 35 percent to 40 percent a year which are likely to rise with the increasing number of data-collecting sensors and captured Web clicks.
Ironically, Oracles warnings of Big Data woe lead into a pitch for their new product:
New data storage technologies, like the one Oracle is offering will shrink data storage by close to 90 percent. And once the data is stored, Oracle’s analysis software will be deployed to improve how businesses find and interact with customers.
Big Data is big business and the hardest decision companies are making now is which information intelligence platform to utilize. Polyspot is a well-established provider that developed an infrastructure solution that keeps increasing amounts of data centralized and divvied out through proper channels, increasing efficiency and generating ROI. Developers with a proven record in information management like this will protect entrepreneurs against Oracle’s prophecy of Big Data woes.
Jennifer Shockley, October 11, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
]]>Trifacta is a group of computer scientists that united, formed a company and started re-evaluating the way humans, software and data interact. Now they are preparing for a big release that will drastically simplify Big Data according to TechCrunch’s article“Accel Partners Big Data Fund Invests $4.3 Million In Trifacta”.
The newly formed Trifacta is creating a flexible interface that functions with a variety of platforms like Hadoop clusters and relational Databases:
The user will be able to pull a data set, or perhaps just a sample of it, into memory and use Trifacta to explore the through an interface that includes different ways of visualizing the data. The application will suggest different operations you might want to perform and there will previews of what the effects of a particular operation might be. Once you’ve decided on the operations you want to perform, the code or queries are generated.
Businesses need reliable software with a flexible platform that can handle data collection with information distribution and Trifacta talks a good game. However, there are well established information management providers that have been delegating Big Data solutions for a decade. Entrepreneurs that use proven information intelligence software with the latest in semantic tools achieve relevant results, increasing both efficiency and ROI.
Jennifer Shockley, October 10, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
]]>They suggest three steps for testing Big Data potential:
1. Define a few relatively simple analytics that won't take much time or data to run.
2. Instead of setting up formal processes to capture, process, and analyze all of the data all of the time, capture some of the data in a one-off fashion.
3. Turn analytic professionals loose on the data. They are used to dealing with raw data in an unfriendly format.
The full effort will now be less risky because data is better understood and the value is partially proven.
Timidly skimming the Big Data surface sounds cost effective but the time and efforts needed to decipher data by an analytics team could quickly eliminate initial savings. Businesses would benefit more from a Big Data solution that specializes in storing and breaking down insights and opportunities from Big Data using insight enabling infrastructures. Intelligent software like this empowers the user with a friendly interface and customizable features which can increase company efficiency and generate ROI.
Jennifer Shockley, October 10, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
]]>The Zero Overhead Principle says that no feature may add training costs to the user. Similarly, this idea has essentially been discussed previously as the consumerization of IT.
The article describes the rationale behind this movement:
The real challenge for analysts is that they are already overloaded and tend to ignore additional tools that require training (remember these guys have real time pressure). So we had to adopt a different mindset. Our products had to work naturally with the analysts’ work styles. Period. That’s the Zero Overhead Principle. Put another way, our products had to teach the user as they went along. In essence, we were really just building enterprise products with a consumer mindset.
The emphasis on the user experience has greatly aided productivity for enterprise users, but what has helped even more are out-of-the-box information management solutions such as Information at Work from PolySpot.
Megan Feil, October 10, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
]]>Mark Sherwood, senior director of Cisco's emerging technology IT group told Streaming Media:
Everybody says 'I absolutely want video on my smartphone. I want it on my tablet.' What we see is that with video-on-demand, people who are using these devices, it's a fairly short video, two, three minutes. For streaming events, there's a lot of people who had requested it, they say 'I absolutely want to watch a company meeting on a device like this.' So, we end up doing some proof of concepts, and we'll put out an HLS streaming server, and there's not that much usage on it. People try it for a few minutes and it's really small.
When it comes to making new apps and mobile functions available to users in the enterprise, IT does not have an unlimited budget. For this reason, it is important that IT departments concentrate on building up a connected infrastructure that ensures accessibility to enterprise information for users who need it.
Megan Feil, October 9, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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