The debate over quality versus quantity of data has raged for a number of years, and various industry leaders have questioned whether we should wait on implementing big data strategies until we figure out how to effectively manage that information. An article in Health Data Management echoes that sentiment, saying that big data can't truly be effective because we don't yet know what to do with all our information.
Brian Hopkins, the article's author, implies that we are going about creating big data all wrong.
"Here is what I mean. We all know that big data is getting bigger," he writes. "Awesome, but so what? Most firms I talk to have only a vague notion of what could be done with all this data, yet they are ramping up big investments in big data hoping to capture insight from new social and mobile data sets. After six months to a year of dinking around and being disappointed with their 'build big data and they will come' strategy, the business will stop funding things and IT will get another black eye. Nobody needs that."
He stresses that big data isn't really something that an organization implements, but rather a way of doing business that grows gradually. Slowly maximizing the value of information and allowing it to grow organically in a manageable environment is the key to long-term success.
Ultimately, the way to maximize the potential of your data management initiatives is to utilize the information you do have to the best of your ability. Even if you aren't exactly jumping in to collect massive volumes of data, you can still improve your operations by implementing solutions that capture what you do have. This can be done with a custom database software system.