big data: big resistance

Big Data: Big Resistance

Phil Simonauthor of Too Big to Ignore: The Business Case for Big DataTop Coder ConferenceHouston, TXMarch 12, 2013

Who am I?• Award-winning author

of five books, including Too Big to Ignore: The Business Case for Big Data

• Speaker, consultant, and technology expert

@philsimon, 2

Are we all really open to Big Data and Open Innovation?

“Some men you just can't reach.”—from Cool Hand Luke

@philsimon, 3

Open Innovation and Big Data

• They both often threaten the status quo

• They both take people out of their comfort zones

• They both often meet with resistance—and lots of it

• They both are essential to the future of business @philsimon, 4

Doctors vs. PilotsWhy do pilots always listen to data but doctors so often ignore it?

@philsimon, 5

Big Data: Major Characteristics

• The 3 v’s• Mostly unstructured data• Mostly external to the enterprise• Increasingly generated by machines,

not people

@philsimon, 6

Big Data: Major Characteristics

• Inherently “unmanageable” in the traditional sense

• Augments Small Data• Doesn’t play nice with SQL

@philsimon, 7

Big Data: Real-Life Examples

@philsimon, 8

Real-Life Dataphobes

• A director of recruiting• A VP of HR• An editor at a prestigious

publisher

@philsimon, 9

Resistance is Common

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”—Upton Sinclair

@philsimon, 10

My Simple View of the World

@philsimon, 11

Three Types of People• The Dataphiles: those that get it• The Open-Minded (aka, the

convertible): those that don’t get it but want to get it

• The Dataphobes: those that don’t get it and don’t want to get it

@philsimon, 12

Why do so many of us reject Big Data?

@philsimon, 13

Big Data manifests our own limitations• We don’t know nearly as much as

we think we know• We’re not as good as we think we

are at making even simple decisions• Ariely, Kahneman, Simon



@philsimon, 14

• Maybe this is all hype• Many employees don’t like working

with data• Busy employees don’t have time to

deal with Big Data


@philsimon, 15

• Big Data forces us—and others—to constantly question what we know

• Big Data threatens title, rank, and expertise


@philsimon, 16

• Information overload• Big Data never “ends”• Relatively few of us possess Big Data

skills• Dearth of data scientists

• Organizations are often loathe to invest in technologies that may prove to be fads

@philsimon, 17

Recommendations

Recommendations

@philsimon, 18

• Focus on the open-minded and the dataphiles

• Aim for little victories• Start small and organically; no

need for the entire enterprise to approve

Recommendations

@philsimon, 19

• Manage expectations, under-promise, and over-deliver

• Build internal momentum• Communicate victories• Make the skeptics and dataphiles

come to you

Connect with me

www.philsimon.com

@philsimon

@philsimon, 20

Questions?

• Insert bullets

@philsimon, 21