There is serious buzz surrounding big data that may make one wonder if it really is all that we hope. Fortunately, there are plenty of scenarios that showcase how big data makes a significant impact in the daily lives of just about everyone. Let’s take a look at a few…

 Competitive Big Data

* Photo by infocux Technologies on Flickr and used here with Creative Commons license.

Football, or soccer as it’s known in the U.S., is the most popular sport in the world, making the 2014 World Cup one of the most important sporting events of the year. It will be watched by millions as Brazil and Croatia go head to head. Many of those avid fans won’t even stop to think about what is behind their ability to access information regarding the spectacle that is sure to be the World Cup. But it’s a lot of planning and preparation. Think of it this way:

Joseph and his buddy Sam are in Ireland, betting on the game with their friend Luke, who was lucky enough to attend. They are all posting on social media, gathering statistics on the two teams, the players and the weather. After all, outdoor sports are definitely impacted by weather. The three buddies are able to gather all this information at the “touch of their fingertips” because somewhere, someone thought to gather the information, parse into usable bits and serve it up for anyone to access.

Let’s review another scenario – professional sports are big, global business. An important aspect of that is recruiting. Just how much data would you have to collect in order to have a player’s stats just to see if he’s worth the money he wants. Now apply that business. There are massive amounts of data we want to harvest. Unfortunately, most of that data is unstructured. Fortunately, there are bigger and better servers to crunch that data into something usable. Couple that with services provided by experts such as the team at NEC, and you can really make big data work for you.

Speaking of NEC and the FIFA World Cup, the company will provide information and communications technologies to the Arena da Curitiba in Brazil, including security via technologically-advanced monitoring, IP and wireless infrastructure for telephone, as well as sophisticated sound systems, giant screens, lighting and air conditioning. These systems are all fully integrated by NEC, whose know-how in providing integrated solutions for stadiums is supported by projects spanning a variety of countries.

 Little Monsters of Big Data

When we think about big data it conjures up images of large conglomerations churning away at all sorts of analytics in order to build a better mousetrap. But “business” is not necessarily corporate, suit-and-tie, in-office operations. In fact, there are interesting uses for big data cropping up everywhere. Case in point, Lady Gaga’s business manager, Troy Carter, is a big data fan. In fact, he created a fan-centric community called www.littlemonsters.com by mining the singer’s 31 million plus fans on Twitter and 51 million on Facebook.

Big Data Bring Back My Internet!

There you are, rushing around to update your web site with the latest, communicate with your store, and ensure that not only are customers served, but you have plenty of product in stock when BAM! Everything goes dark. No, it’s not the next zombie apocalypse; it’s just another service outage. But, what if, before you even called your service provider company, it knew about the outage. How? Big data. It is the hope of many communications industry leaders that appropriate mining of big data will help manage outages and even disasters. By looking for other patterns when customers begin to notify them of a problem, or even mining social media, it is possible for these providers to become more proactive. This spells fewer outages and more control for the communications companies to provide better service. Not to mention less interruption of your digital life and your bottom line.

Bottom line – big data impacts just about every company, organization, law enforcement agency and gaming company on the planet. Because gamers are so engaged, being able to mine their data provides interesting information regarding their behaviors. In fact, that is the very business model of Badgeville, which sells gamification technology for measuring and influence user behavior. The truth is the more they know about your behavior, the better companies can fulfill your needs, wants and desires.

Big Data Means Finding the Right Partner

The truth about big data is its immense power when in the right hands. This requires major computing power, as well as a partner that can ensure the large amounts of unstructured data are compiled into a meaningful metric. Fortunately, NEC has solutions for your big data needs that fully encompass the requirements to make the most of your big data. You can find more information on NEC’s big data solutions here.