In the early days of the big data era (at the peak of the big data hype), we would often hear about the 3 V’s of big data (Volume, Variety, and Velocity). Then, people started adding more V’s, including Veracity and Value, plus many more! I was guilty of adding several more in my article “Top 10 Big Data Challenges – A Serious Look at 10 Big Data V’s“.
Through the years, I have decided on the following “4 V’s of Big Data” summary in my own presentations:
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Volume = the most annoying V
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Velocity = the most challenging V
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Variety = the most rich V for insights discovery, innovation, and better decisions
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Value = the most important V
As Dez Blanchfield once said, “You don’t need a data scientist to tell you big data is valuable. You need one to show its value.”
A series of articles that drive home the all-important value of data is being published on the DataMakesPossible.com site. The site’s domain name says it all: Data Makes Possible!
What does data make possible? I occasionally discuss these things in articles that I write for the MapR blog series, where I have summarized the big data value proposition very simply in my own list of the 3 D2D‘s of big data:
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Data-to-Discovery (Class Discovery, Correlation Discovery, Novelty Discovery, Association Discovery)
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Data-to-Decisions
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Data-to-Dollars (or Data-to-Dividends)
The story is richer and much more impactful these days than those trivial 1-letter (V) or 3-letter (D2D) mnemonics would suggest. We are far past the peak of inflated expectations in the big data hype cycle, and we are even beyond the trough of disillusionment. We have truly entered the plateau of productivity from data in our organizations, though the analytics-driven culture is still going through growing pains.
So, what does data make possible? I document our progress toward deriving big value from big data in a series of articles that I am writing (with more to come) for the DataMakesPossible.com site. These articles include:
But don’t stop there! There are many more fabulous articles, insights, case studies, and impactful stories at DataMakesPossible.com — visit the site often, as there are new posts every week.
Let’s improve our world together through the insights and discoveries that large, comprehensive data collections can provide! That’s what data scientists love to do.
Follow Kirk Borne on Twitter @KirkDBorne
