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There's a lot of chatter on blogs about Big Data and how to use it. Most of the excitement is generated by big business, which already collects big data and has the big bucks to make sense of it leading to the generation of even bigger bucks. There’s also a lack of precision about what the phenomena is and hype enough in the media that flash mobs can’t be far behind.
It's no surprise that IBM has teamed up with Citi Bank to experiment with how the former's Watson cognitive computer can figure stuff out, not by searching, but by collecting mind-boggling troves of data to answer specific questions. Watson, as you may recall, handily beat two champions from the TV game show Jeopardy. It did so because IBM scientists taught it to. Will it one day be able to learn? Let’s not go there.
Breathless proponents insist that the world will not be the same when the power of cognitive computing, hiding safely in the cloud, places amazing analytical tools into the hands, or Google glasses, of everyone.
Does size matter? It all depends what questions you want to ask. Your company may already collect plenty of data, which sits on your hard drives in different folders, in copies of emails and in the heads of staff--mostly lacking a good analytical eye. You don't need super computers or expensive consultants to aggregate and make sense of.|
You need not wait until Watson finishes digesting even more of the world's information. Big Data tools and analytical capabilities are already available to those of us without computer science degrees, huge IT budgets, or that didn't know what a Watson was until yesterday.
We can use Google key words, for example, to find out how many Turks searched for the word hat. If you sell berets, you can enter that word to narrow the possibilities. You can narrow further by geographic areas within Turkey. Depending on results, you can use this data to help get a better understanding of how your hats may appeal to this market. For more on such tools, consult this video. It’s presented by young Googlers, who haven’t quite thought out the trade implications but seem to be on to something.
Then you can look at weather data in Turkey to see how temperatures might affect purchasing patterns. You can also go to social media sites, such as your embassies’ Facebook pages in a country that you are interested in selling to. What are people complaining about? What do they like? Does the chatter suggest business ideas? Something missing? Something that’s being done badly by a competitor?
The social media sites sell data to big data companies. If you’re looking for something specific, you may be able to buy it, though not cheaply.
At some point, someone will invent an app that will bring multiple data points and sources together, performing computations in minutes that used to take people days if they could be done at all. It’s not here yet.
But that doesn’t stop people from experimenting. One example from the blogs is a roofing company that gets a repair call. The owner then uses Google maps to zoom in on the neighbors’ roofs, spot potential problems, and launch a target mail campaign complete with an endorsement from the original customer.
The intriguing aspect of Norman and Google is that they welcome developers who do know programming to create apps using the open source code. Things will need to be monetized, but with enough users the costs should be affordable to the small business.
And you don't need to wait to figure out how to use big data when you may already be sitting on not small data that your business doesn't know what to do with. You have web trends here, sales data there, and supply chain info someplace else. There's an app somewhere for that or one that could be created for an affordable price.
First come the apps for businesses focused on analyzing their domestic customers. Next will come apps for small business to focus on generating and retaining international customers.
| Product Model | Inside Diameter | Outside Diameter | Thickness |
| LVCR25-2LS bearing | 25 | 40 | 40 |
| LVCR20-2LS bearing | 20 | 32 | 28 |