Loraine Lawson

Harnessing the Power of Big Data with Geospatial Mapping Analytics as a service seems perfect for small- and mid-size businesses. Certainly that’s where I’ve noticed vendors targeting their pitches. We all know Big Data analytics isn’t for the faint of heart. You have the Big Data infrastructure, the integration work, and as if that’s not […]

Harnessing the Power of Big Data with Geospatial Mapping Are concerns about personal data a sign of privilege? Daniel Castro argues that they are, especially as the Internet of Things (IoT) comes online and data constantly streams from high-tech, high-cost gadgets. Poor people don’t own Fitbits. Rather inconveniently for data, they also are born, grow […]

How to Monetize Data in Five Steps If people aren’t paying, they’re not customers: They’re users, and users are there to be used, one expert recently told me. It’s a troubling maxim in this data-driven age, but let’s be honest:  Facebook is practically printing money using it as a business model. That dynamic among user, […]

How to Monetize Data in Five Steps The Internet of Things is often talked about in terms of consumers and business strategy. Instead, maybe we should be focusing on something that’s much more applicable now: using the IoT for cost savings. In a recent Harvard Business School Review column, Rob Day explains how companies can […]

If you’re tinkering with Cloudera and Hortonworks Hadoop distributions in a sandbox, you can now experiment with Informatica’s Big Data Edition for free. Informatica announced Wednesday that its Big Data Edition will now come pre-installed on these distributions. You can also download the 60-day trial from Informatica’s Marketplace. The trial version can run inside a […]

How to Monetize Data in Five Steps Integrated data and analytics tools are changing all aspects of business, but perhaps none more than the marketing department. Marketing is so vested in Big Data, Gartner predicts that within four years, the chief marketing officer’s IT budget could be larger than the CIO’s budget, and most CMOs […]

How the Cloud Is Changing the Way We Work MeriTalk surveyed federal government IT professionals about their use of cloud computing. It turns out 89 percent out of 153 surveyed expressed “some apprehension about losing control of their IT services,” according to MeriTalk. Yes, well, after reading what the survey says about their data integration, […]

Ten Cool Companies That Are Monetizing IoT and How You Can Too! My preschool son has suddenly become captivated by volcanoes. Honestly, I’m not even sure how he found out about volcanoes, but he does seem to have a natural affinity for destruction and chaos. During yet another volcano documentary, I learned that Harvard researchers […]

How to Monetize Data in Five Steps Integration and data aren’t exactly what you’d call “controversial” topics, but occasionally, folks do get their dander up. Recently, we’ve seen some heated words about the concept of data lakes. Data lakes are a Big Data idea, which basically means you pump all of your data into one […]

How the Cloud Is Changing the Way We Work IT likes the idea of cloud-based analytics. In a study by Ventana Research, 40 percent of respondents cited lowered costs as a top benefit, with improved efficiency a close second at 39 percent. Better communication and knowledge sharing also ranked highly, at 34 percent. There are […]

Six Big Business Intelligence Mistakes Of all the analytics buzz words today, I have to think predictive analytics would be the most puzzling for business managers. One reason I say this is that executives tend to trust their own instincts over analytics, despite research showing they’re wrong to do so. A little mistrust may not […]

How to Monetize Data in Five Steps I wish a fat ton of organizations knew more about data governance and its role in data quality. Still, it’s hard to think of too many organizations that could make or break the economy just by failing at data governance. If I had to name those companies, though, […]