A data error on the Nasdeq exchange caused chaos last week Monday, as the introduction of test data into the live systems vastly impacted the shares prices of a number of tech companies. Two notable examples: Amazon prices crashed by 87%, while Zynga bounced up by an amazing 3,292% In this case, the error can…
I think it is fair to say that we are seeing a world in flux. In particular, Britain’s exist from the European Union (or Brexit) signals a shift in the world order that most of us have known since the 1970’s. The Brexit happened in spite of polls showing that Britain would remain in the…
When Forbes coined the phrase “sexiest job of the 21st century” to describe data science, way back in 2012, the role was in its infancy. At the time, the ability to discover new insights from data, using a combination of statistics, machine learning and computer programming, was expected to be thew new competitive differentiator. Data…
Last month I was invited to speak at the 2017 ITWeb Cloud Summit on the topic – Cloud Architecture for Big Data Analytics. The presentation was scheduled for the last slot of the day – 17:00 to 17:35 – in spite of which we had quite a good audience and, I hope, an informative and…
I recently attended the first Africa Data Forum in Johannesburg – a three day event focusing on data science and skills development. Data governance was a key theme of the first day of the event. Research shows that data scientists typically spend an average of 60% of their time simply trying to find and prepare the…
Consider this figure: $136 billion per year. That’s the research firm IDC’s estimate of the size of the big data market, worldwide, in 2016. This figure should surprise no one with an interest in big data. But here’s another number: $3.1 trillion, IBM’s estimate of the yearly cost of poor quality data, in the US…
Cloud is one of the trends that is shaping the data industry. This year’s ITWeb Cloud Summit is just three weeks away. The summit will examine issues such as how the cloud affects people within organisations and how to facilitate cultural and behavioural change in adopting disruptive digital technology. We will examine ways in which…
