{"id":12387,"date":"2014-01-29T18:35:20","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T17:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/?p=6330"},"modified":"2014-01-29T18:35:20","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T17:35:20","slug":"interview-big-data-into-big-insight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/interview-big-data-into-big-insight.html","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Big Data Into Big Insight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Big<\/p>\n

\"AdrianSimpson02small2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Database industry veteran Adrian Simpson<\/a> will be presenting a session entitled Big Data Into Big Insight<\/a> at the UK SAP Innovation Forum<\/a> on March 11th in London. I took the opportunity to catch up with him and ask some questions on his session and other big data trends.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your background?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My career has been in two twelve-year segments. I spent the first twelve years working with large-scale, high-transaction database systems, at a company called Computer Corporation of America. Despite the grand title it was a small privately-held company, focused on technology to support \u201cbig volume\u201d transactions, with a system that knocked the spots off Oracle at the time.<\/p>\n

So you were one of the earliest \u201cbig data\u201d people?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I suppose so! We dealt with problems that people couldn\u2019t solve at the time with their relational databases. We used a variety of clever techniques, with lots of indexes and bitmap pages to speed up querying. Our big differentiator was that we didn\u2019t have to do full table scans to answer queries.<\/p>\n

And the second twelve years?<\/strong><\/p>\n

First I had a quick jump to a dot com that came out of the Boo.com fiasco<\/a>. Boo.com was an online retailer in the UK in the late 90s — it had huge amounts of investment, but wasn\u2019t making any money. When the bubble exploded, I joined one of the companies that came out of the ashes of boo.com \u2013 but it also had a relatively short life span.<\/p>\n

Since then I\u2019ve been with SAP. I joined SAP Portals just after the acquisition of Top Tier<\/a>. Then I worked with NetWeaver, SOA, master data, etc. in various global roles in EMEA, and I joined SAP UK in 2009.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your role now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m the Chief Innovation Officer for SAP UK and Ireland. It\u2019s a role that allows me to talk about SAP\u2019s innovation strategy and how SAP is changing as a company. The goal is to help our partners, customers, and employees catch with the speed SAP\u2019s moving when it comes to innovation.<\/p>\n

What is your presentation at the Innovation Forum about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the first session in the \u201cinnovation opportunity\u201d track around Big Data. The goal is to paint the picture about the reality of where Big Data can be used by our customers. I won\u2019t be covering what Big Data is, the technology, or the evolution of the size of data. Instead, we\u2019re going to turn it around: \u201cif you work in this industry, how would Big data matter to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

My intention is to try to tell that through examples of existing reference customers who have made a leap of faith with SAP technology.<\/p>\n

What are some of the Big Data trends you\u2019re seeing in the UK?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Companies are starting to take it more seriously. We\u2019re a little weary of the \u201cbig data\u201d terminology, but there\u2019s a lot of interest in data scientists. The scarcity of those people is generating some discussion about how seriously companies need to take data science. It\u2019s a role for the future that is starting now: demand is building, but it\u2019s outstripping supply at the moment. There\u2019s lots of chatter around questions like \u201chow do people coming into the workplace market now bring the data science skills that organizations are going to need so much in the next few years\u201d<\/p>\n

What other trends do you find interesting?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about the machine-to-machine \u201cinternet of things\u201d. There are lots of interesting perceptions on how useful or not it is going to be to have machines talking to each other during the day. The reaction has been \u201cif I\u2019m sitting on the couch, I don\u2019t need an alert from the fridge telling me that I\u2019ve run out of beer \u2013 you\u2019ll need a more interesting use case!\u201d I think machine-to-machine connectivity will be much more relevant to businesses than to consumers. It will happen outside of the customers\u2019 experience, but it will be an opportunity make the overall experience much better.<\/p>\n

More details about Adrian\u2019s SAP Innovation Forum presentation information: Big Data to Big Insight:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Big Data – the real-time collection, analysis, and visualization of vast amounts of raw information – not only enables organizations to focus on what’s actually happening, but also to become proactive rather than reactive. <\/em><\/p>\n

It’s not just for business: Big Data is finding use cases in academia, government, healthcare and pretty much any walk of everyday life you can think of. Some fascinating success stories are emerging involving Big Data initiatives as diverse as early warning systems for volcanic eruptions, detecting fraudulent transactions, predicting what customers will buy next, and anticipating and avoiding traffic congestion. <\/em><\/p>\n

Speed and precision are undoubtedly a competitive advantage for commercial entities, but can be a key determinant of outcomes in the fields of clinical research, healthcare and emergency response. Using Big Data to knock years off a pharmaceutical trial can enable a life sciences company to go to market faster, but being able to more accurately determine the drug’s effectiveness or side-effect profile among certain user groups can have a life-changing impact on patients. <\/em><\/p>\n

Join this session where Adrian Simpson, Chief Innovation Officer, SAP will talk through real life examples of how companies are transforming big data into big insight.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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