Big data, big help

We’ve all heard of Big Data.

We all know that it is going to be, well, BIG.

But if you’re like me, and you know this but you can’t actually quote any examples of what the real benefits are, then Bernard Marr’s new book “Big data in practice” is a big help.

In fact, true to its sub-title “How 45 successful companies used big data analytics to deliver extraordinary results”, it provides a range of cases each clearly demonstrating how big data has been used to positive effect.

It’s a great and eclectic selection of cases showing companies as diverse as the giant retailer Walmart to the much smaller local, North London butchers Pendleton & Son. Other cases include John Deere, LinkedIn, the Lotus F1 team, Microsoft, the BBC and US Immigration and Customs.

Each case is set out clearly under section headings for Background, What problem is Big Data trying to Solve, How Big data is used in practice, What were the results, What data was used, What are the technical details, Any challenges that had to be overcome and What are the key learning points and takeaways.

My favourite was perhaps the Netflix case, which explains how via analysing extensive tagging they identified 80,000 micro-genres of films, which help them to better recommend movies to people. Rather than just Horror or Drama they include “comedy films featuring talking animals” or “teen comedy featuring a strong female lead”. The analysis has also helped them decide what content to create:

“Their strategy here has also been driven by their data – which showed that their subscribers had a voracious appetite for content directed by David Fincher and starring Kevin Spacey. After outbidding networks including HBO and ABC for the rights to House of Cards they were so confident it fitted their predictive model for the “perfect TV show” that they bucked the convention of producing a pilot and immediately commissioned two seasons comprising 26 episodes”

If I have a niggle or two, they are small ones - In this era of storytelling these are most definitively case histories.

Though I recognise that the information isn’t probably directed at a luddite like me I’m not sure I needed all the detail on just had many bytes of information are analysed (meta, giga, terra), how many servers in how many countries and whether they used Hadoop or whatever.

Having said that I now have number of examples to talk about if anyone asks me if I believe big data is changing the business world.