The Internet of Things is not about the Things.

First published in The Star, January 12, 2016

Certain trends, such as ‘wearables’, get a lot of media attention because of their obvious visibility and relevance to the man in the street. Because of a small electronic bracelet on his wrist, a person can now measure the number of steps he takes in a day, his sleep patterns, his heart rate and a host of other data that always existed but simply didn’t resonate.  

How Much Data Is Big Data?

In January 2015, I was invited to speak at a bank’s Corporate day.  The audience comprised analysts from the Finance industry, drawn from various firms. Their normal job is to look at company financials, speak to other analysts and industry pundits and come up with pronouncements on the future performance of companies’ stocks. 

Since the audience was not from the IT industry but have been subjected to the blizzard of IT terms we in the industry carelessly toss about, I thought I’d give them a layman’s perspective on two frequently-encountered buzzwords:  Big Data and the IoT (Internet of things).

We talk a lot about Big Data as if we grew up with the stuff, but in fact, the truth is far more interesting than this blasé attitude suggests.  There’s lots of data in the world, and 90% of it was created in the last 2 years. You’ve probably heard this before, but what you may not know is that that statement will be true in 2, 3, 5, years time from now and was true last year, and the year before that and the year before. 

What's Big Data?

First Published:  The Star, (Malaysia) May 2014

What does “Big Data” mean? Is there a “Small Data?” Don’t they mean “Lots of Data” rather than “Big Data?” And where’s it all coming from?  (I tell you, these IT folks are just plain weird sometimes…)

Actually, “Big Data” sounds a lot better than “Plenty of Data” or “Lots of Data”, both of which sound terribly mundane.  “Data” is not very useful on its own, its just a fact or a statistic, (for example, a single record of a toaster sale, but data can become useful if we know how many toasters were sold, the combination of colours, and where they were sold, for example, because then we know which coloured toasters to make more of, or if our pricing is right.) At this stage, our data has become “information” because it informs us, so in effect, collections of facts or statistics, meaningless in themselves can be organized or assembled to provide useful ‘information’.