Forget big data, little data is the big deal

by: Karen Gordon

Big data is a nebulous topic. There has been much hype about the subject over the past several years. While it is a difficult task for financial institutions to tackle, there are ways to find success. Not boiling the ocean is a good place to start. Little data holds great promise with the right focus and the right people to manage it.

Implementing a useful data program means understanding what you want to gain from it, having access to the data, and bringing together the talent to make it work. I heard a stat at a recent industry event that data scientists spend about 70 percent of their time wrangling data. It is therefore important to manage expectations and allow them time to find its meaning and usefulness. The return is going to be worth the wait.

Analytic tools like Hadoop and Cassandra are just one element of the big data picture. On the people side, the talent needs to be inquisitive, challenging, and disrupting but they also need to be ingrained in the business so they understand what the needs are. Only then can they find the gold nuggets in their mining efforts. It is also critical for an institution to be willing to step out of their comfort zone. Risk management is important, but being bold with data is necessary to see success.

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