March, 2013 - Data Analytics

There’s Gold in Them Thar Servers

New Scientist reviews the latest Big Data book released called “Big Data: A revolution that will transform how we live, work and think“. Although I believe that there are plenty of major business opportunities in this approach lately termed “Big Data”, I think some are overhyping and overdramatising its impacts on society in general. Data is still messy and patchy in many parts of the world. So, although there will be many clever exploitations, it is still opportunistic at the moment and, at least, will remain so in the near term. The all seeing Big Brother and all-powerful Marketing Analyst is certainly closer than thought possible just 10 years ago, but it is coming in an evolutionary rather than revolutionary pace.

Opening the Vault: Qld Govt Open Data

The Queensland Government is launching its Open Data Initiative on the 3rd April in Brisbane. Its called “Open the Vault“. Open Data is a great initiative being pursued by major governments all around the world (see US here, UK here, UN here, EU here and Australia here) that presumes that government data is owned by the public because they paid for it. Therefore, with a nod to privacy and national security concerns, all government data by default should be freely available to the public to review, disseminate, analyse or use for their enterprise.

Data Analytics will be at Queensland’s Open the Vault event as will many of the other key players in the analytics space from around Australia and the world. Unfortunately tickets are currently sold out, but you can register for the possible release of new tickets or you can still enter a competition by putting in an idea for using Queensland Government Open Data in a beneficial manner. The competition closes at midnight tonight (24/03/2012) Qld time. If your idea is selected as a finalist you can attend and present at the conference and possibly even win a cash prize. Hopefully I’ll see some of you there.