Big Data Needs to Scale

Big Data Organizational Stack
If you think Big Data is about processing terabytes of data, gigabytes of data per hour, and a healthy mix of structured and unstructured data to get insights either algorithmically or from the relatively few talented data scientists, then you are missing the point.

 

Big Data Needs to Scale

What I mean by scale is, the tools, data and insights need to be available and presented in such a way that provide new intelligence deep into the organization and beyond the data scientist. Is your data being used to influence executive decision making? Is it being used to adjust operational priorities? Is it influencing product managers on what products to develop, features to prioritize, or marketing strategies to focus on? Is the average salesperson adjusting their sales pitch or prioritizing prospects differently based on all the data available? Is finance using data beyond financial benchmarks in their forecasts?

My first two posts on Big Data provide some of my insights. First, Big Data is not just about data management, e.g., volume, velocity, and variety of data. My post, Top Five Tools of Big Data Analytics covers tools such as visualization, predictive, data quality and master data management.

Big Data is a Big CIO Opportunity. First, the CIO has to make the right IT investments in data management requiring new technologies, talent and skills. Then the CIO needs to select and scale usage of an appropriate set of Big Data Analytic tools.

And then, the CIO needs to help Big Data scale and help the organization become more data driven.

 

A Significant Challenge

As I scan the media coverage and blog posts on Big Data, this challenge is largely ignored. Consider that every enterprise system - ERP, CRM has built in reporting and analytic capabilities. Think about all the capabilities in web analytics available to track sources of traffic, segment users, pipeline activity, and track goals. Consider all the reports developed in enterprise business intelligence systems,then consider adoption, usage, and maturity around these tools and analytics. How much of it is used? How much reporting is still done using Office apps and performed by spreadsheet jockeys?

As a CIO, I'm tasked to draw attention to problems, but also provide solutions. So more to come!
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Executive Presentations: Presenting Status vs. Strategy

Earlier this year, I posted, CIO Advice: Listen, Answer The Question, Provide Insights to provide CIOs (and really all executives and managers) some basic advice on how to respond to questions from senior executives.

This post follows up with some basic guidelines on creating presentations for CIOs and other senior executives. Now there are many posts providing general presentation advice, for example, these 7 tips include KISS (keep it simple) and know the audience and these 5 tips include selling a vision and storytelling. Here's a good post for Business Analysts on presenting project status. If you're making an investor presentation, there are many, many posts including these 10 tips and pitching VCs (the dry version, more/better details, the more colorful version),  

All good tips. Surprisingly, there are few tips on developing a presentation to CIOs, and more generally, to other executives that either have operational responsibilities, are analytical and data-driven, or have direct responsibilities in developing products.

For these meetings, it is important to recognize the "type" of the meeting rather than just the audience. Here are two examples

The Executive Status Presentation


The goal for general, executive presentations is to "update" executives. They are used to communicate status and share both information and conclusions. Executives see many of these presentations, so it's important for them to be crisp - get your message out quickly or the executives will tune out. For these presentations, I recommend:

  • Present the problem statement - Ideally 1-2 slides
  • Present conclusions - Ideally 1-2 slides
  • Present the supporting details - Pick your best 2-4 slides that highlight the most important data and facts.
This rather simple formula is key to getting the key (but not necessarily all) executives to tune in. Also, since this is a status meeting, you should take control and present conclusions early.  

The Brainstorm or Strategy Presentation


Brainstorming sessions (ones where you want participants to contribute) or strategy sessions (sessions that tend to bring out opinions) require a slightly different format. Good presenters often (and should) already have conclusions, but the job of the presenter to bring the audience "on board", capture differences of opinion, and drive decisions. For these presentations, I recommend:
  • Present the scope of the problem - Ideally, 1-2 slides that should include both what is in scope, and what is out of scope.
  • Present the facts - Ideally, these should be data-driven.
  • Present insights and conclusions
By the time you present any insights, the executive has been given some time to think through the underlying facts and data. Your conclusions have a lot more context, and the presentation of facts prepares the executive to contribute to the discussion.

The Hard Part - What Meeting Are You In?


When an executive sits for a presentation, they may not know whether the goal is to provide a status update or a strategy. If you're presenting strategy but the executive is expecting status, you'll lose her interest by presenting facts. If they are expecting strategy, leading him with conclusions may create friction if he already has biases and doesn't know the underlying facts.

I would suggest announcing this verbally, rather than being explicit in the presentation. You can say things like:
  • Today, let me bring you up to speed on our research project (Status Presentation)
  • Today, we will share results from our research and present recommendations on a go-forward strategy (Strategy Presentation)
 Good luck
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My Advice to Engineering Undergraduate Students

Over the last month, I had the opportunity to provide advice to students entering there second, third, and fourth year of engineering school. Some were part of McGraw-Hill's summer intern program and some were family friends, but I decided to write some of my core tidbits of advice in a blog post.

So with the start of the school year, many engineering students are selecting their specialties and others are considering career paths. Here is some advice

1) Follow your passion - Engineering school is hard. In my Bachelor program, I think I took only a handful of non-core engineering classes (including math, science, and other requirements). So when students ask me whether electrical, mechanical, computer or other specialty is "better", I tell them to follow their passion. Look at the list of courses and pick the engineering discipline where they find classes more interesting. With the workload as hard as it is, passion for the subject matter can make the difference in better understanding a problem or just wanting to spend more time studying and working on solutions.

2) Engineering is about Problem Solving - Ultimately, what you learn in engineering is how to define a problem, research options, understand capabilities and components, and implement (execute) solutions. Achieving this core skill, applied to as many different problem spaces that one can develop expertise on is ultimately what makes an engineering student capable and employable. Make sure to fully understand the mathematics and physics and invest effort in classes and with professors that force you to problem solve.

3) Develop a career path early - I remember first realizing that many jobs in robotics were in manufacturing and military applications - industries I wasn't passionate about. If I was interested in semiconductor design, much of this work was available in Texas, San Diego, Portland, and other cities where the big semiconductor companies opened fabs - less in New York, Boston, or San Francisco where I wanted to live. Engineering students have many options and choices to make about industry, specialties, and job functions, so its best to start learning about job and career options early. 

4) Investigate Emerging Technologies - The investigation will, at minimal gives a better understanding of the newest, more challenging problems being solved in a field. More importantly, emerging technologies are often multidisciplinary, so recognizing a passion for nanotechnology requires one to go deeper to understand what specific types of problems are being solved in what engineering disciplines, and by whom.

5) Practice and Develop Communication Skills - If problem solving is the primary skill engineering students must attain, strong communication skills is a very close second. My best experience in my undergraduate program was to work in a physics lab one summer and an engineering lab the second summer. Both projects were successful and I was a coauthor in publishing the results. Also, I took on leadership roles at IEEE, and Eta Kappa Nu which forced me to develop presentation and organization skills. Developing communication skills can be intimidating for the undergraduate engineering student, but practice is the best way to break through the fear, develop a style, and make it a personal strength.
 
Good luck.

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About Isaac Sacolick

Isaac Sacolick is President of StarCIO, a technology leadership company that guides organizations on building digital transformation core competencies. He is the author of Digital Trailblazer and the Amazon bestseller Driving Digital and speaks about agile planning, devops, data science, product management, and other digital transformation best practices. Sacolick is a recognized top social CIO, a digital transformation influencer, and has over 900 articles published at InfoWorld, CIO.com, his blog Social, Agile, and Transformation, and other sites. You can find him sharing new insights @NYIke on Twitter, his Driving Digital Standup YouTube channel, or during the Coffee with Digital Trailblazers.