Author: Justin Hesser

Much of the conversation surrounding Big Data is about, well, how big it is. The sheer volume of information available is a frequent topic of discussion, and for good reason: an absolutely startling amount of knowledge has been collected, quantities that were once unthinkable. While reasonable, this sort of analysis misses one of the primary benefits of the data revolution. 

Namely, that it's not just about how much information is out there but how much we can do with it. Through use of algorithms — rules that govern computational methodology — researchers can now solve complex problems with just a fraction of the time and energy. 

Consider, for example, Weatherhead University professor Gary King. One of his peers had a mass of information that seemed daunting. He estimated that it would take a highly specialized computer to get through it all, one that could cost up to $2 million. 

Within two hours, King and a group of graduate students came up with a solution. Using nothing more than an algorithm and a laptop, they figured out a way to perform the same task in just 20 minutes. 

"There is a movement of quantification rumbling across fields in academia and science, industry and government and nonprofits," explains King.

While it is undoubtedly exciting how much information can fit into custom database software, the real value in working with a FileMaker developer comes in parsing and analyzing it. Without the right structure in place, having a pile of data can be more confusing than enlightening. With the right support system, however, Big Data can open up the capability for truly stunning feats of insight. 

When it comes to Big Data, many businesses are at something of a crossroads. They have the analytical capabilities afforded by the FileMaker service, but also have decision-making processes in place still heavily tied to instincts. In many organizations, managers are unwilling to forgo their gut feelings in favor of a conclusion suggested by a database, and in such instances wholesale changes are rare. 

One of the major hurdles is that some of the conclusions suggested by FileMaker entail dealing with the unknown. Executives can be reluctant to fully embrace this concept, because they don't often have a personal history to fall back on that suggests that it will work. Thus, they consider it briefly, but ultimately default to processes they've already seen before. 

There's ample evidence to suggest that this is the wrong approach. The key to business success is flexibility and adaptation, and a company that isn't able to move forward with the times runs the risk of being left behind. Speaking to Zdnet.com, Guy Cuthbert, managing director at the visual analytics firm Atheon Analytics, described the potential inherent in programs like FileMaker. 

"I see a huge number of opinion-operated businesses that don't get why decisions could be made on data. I've listened to executives spout all sorts of opinions with no fabric or no substance behind them at all," Cuthbert said. "So if data animators and data scientists can do anything, it's to try and teach the rest of our peers in businesses that there are a fascinating number of facts located in their organization if they just choose to look at them."

Of course, this information is only relevant if it's properly oriented within the greater context of the business's mission and organizational goals: that's where an experienced manager comes in. 

The role of an executive shouldn't be to impede progress or to ignore the developments in technology that could help move his or her company into an industry leadership role. Instead, it's critical that a manager uses the instincts honed by a historical tie with the company to help contextualize new decisions within a greater framework. In that way, Big Data and gut feelings aren't mutually exclusive but rather eminently compatible. When used to support each other, they can help guide a savvy company to sustainable success. 

In a metaphorical sense, the Internet is everywhere. People around the globe share access to the same information, and can communicate with a speed and frequency previously unthinkable. 

However, the Internet is also everywhere in a much more literal sense. With the rise of mobile devices, more consumers have access to to the web from virtually anywhere. In fact, this spread is the catalyst for unprecedented growth in the amount of data that can be shared: estimates indicate that the size of the Internet will double within the next few years. 

This is big news for businesses that are able to take advantage of these changes. Mobile SEO is critical for drawing and retaining customers, and companies that don't keep these lessons in mind are in danger of falling behind: 84 percent of shoppers use their phones while in a physical retail location. 

Managed IT services software will play a big role in a company's ability to seamlessly integrate these lessons. In an article for Silicon Angle, author Ryan Cox highlights the need for this sort of development. 

"Big Data tactics + the drag-net that is required to capture that mobile data is the future of both commerce and communication. And despite being late to the party, search was invited. Mobile SEO is going to become the gateway to being discovered by the '80 percent' customer base of the future. With every passing day mobile SEO is becoming increasingly important to your bottom line, whether you realize it or not," Cox writes. 

If you're not considering how to use Big Data to engage customers, they could be gone before you realize it. 

Like Kant in the 18th century, Big Data could shift the entire framework of how we discuss and solve problems. 

Kant's primary contention was that there were two forms of understanding: analytic and synthetic. The former comprises facts that are axiomatic and based on nothing more than logic. Two and two will always sum four, even when you have no other evidence. Synthetic truths, however, are only realizable through access to external data, and can't simply be "figured out" logically. 

Until recently, computers were very good at the first sort of calculation. Given enough time and memory, they could solve incredibly complex problems, as long as the parameters were entered correctly and each step logically followed the next. 

It's the rise of custom database software that has begun to allow computers to excel at synthetic analysis. By creating the infrastructure for machines to collect and analyze data, we've garnered an ability to harness their power and apply it to the sort of complex problem solving once the exclusive domain of humans. 

Writing for VentureBeat, Venture Capitalist Zavain Dar explored this new possibility. 

"Fundamentally, we're seeing a shift in how we approach problems. By removing ourselves from the intellectual and perhaps philosophical burden of positing structures and axioms, we no longer rely on step function driven analytical insights. Rather, we're seeing widespread infrastructural adoption to accelerate the adoption of synthetic problem solving," Dar explained. 

If your business isn't at least considering a custom web application to help with its problem solving, it could be at a serious disadvantage. 

One of the most fundamental facets of police work is information collection. After a crime is committed, an officer usually has a very limited window to gather as much knowledge as possible to build a compelling case and arrest those responsible. To do so, they have to rely on every tool at their disposal, as well as their own intuition and experience. 

More and more, analytics are becoming a valuable part of that skillset. Not only can custom database software help catch crooks, it could even prevent crime before it occurs. 

There are several ways that Big Data can help in law enforcement efforts. For one, it can help departments figure out where best to deploy officers through sophisticated analysis of crime patterns. It can also help find information more much more quickly, an important benefit when collaboration is necessary. In addition, analytics can help precincts figure out how best to deploy their money and time, which can lead to big savings that can be allocated elsewhere or passed on to the taxpayers. 

Most importantly, it works. Once the LAPD installed PredPol analytics software, property crime rates dropped 12 percent in half a year. Memphis used a similar system and found a 30 percent decrease in serious crime between 2006 and 2010. 

An article in Information Week highlights the value of these sorts of initiatives. 

"Analytics above all is part of a new wave of disruptive technologies that help law enforcement agencies combat crime. It has the power to give even modest-sized operations real-time intelligence about their communities, helping better equip police officers in the field. And it promises to help law enforcement leaders develop more effective police services for the future," explains author Wai-Ming Yu. 

For any forward-thinking government agency, analytics has to be a consideration. 

When people list the things that they're most afraid of, going to the dentist often ranks somewhere near the top. There's something about lying motionless and slack-jawed in a converted office chair while a person wields sharp instruments in your mouth that gives a lot of people serious anxiety. That makes the sales process even more important. 

For a task that critical, Henry Schein Dental turned to FileMaker help. One of the major hurdles for the company was the sheer volume of products and services it offers. The practice provides tens of thousands of tools for both patients and physicians, from overheard lights to sterilization equipment, so consultants have a lot to remember when it comes to connecting with potential customers. 

And it's not just enough to know what something is called. When somebody is going to be poking something in their or somebody else's mouth, they're going to have a few questions about it. Carrying around bulky binders full of information was cumbersome and slowed the process down immeasurably. Instead, FileMaker lets sales executives have access to visuals and information about different products, as well as create PDFs and pertinent sales materials on the spot.

The change to this sort of custom database software also helped the company on the back-end. By parsing the information automatically compiled by FileMaker, representatives can easily see which items are selling the best and kept in constant stock. Having this information constantly available helps to streamline the product process, and saves tens of thousands of dollars in brochure costs for rarely-used products. 

Joe Baucom, Director of Marketing, Equipment and Techonology Group for the company, raved about the possibilities offered by using this kind of technology. 

"With the FileMaker Platform and FileMaker Go for iPad, our sales consultants have the right information, at the right time, for the right customer, every day," said Baucom. "The time savings from having 24-hour access to all literature, photos and catalogs has allowed our sales team to become more efficient and productive."

Henry Schein Dental might not ever be able to make going to the dentist as fun as a day at the amusement park. But with the help of FileMaker, they're definitely making the process of selling and marketing related tools as painless as possible. 

If you're a retailer, it's important to know what your customers are saying about your product. You should be soliciting direct feedback from them when they actually make purchases, but it's also critical to keep in mind what they say to each other. A lot of those consumer-to-consumer conversations happen via social media platforms, a reality that many companies haven't properly adapted their Big Data strategies to. 

A social discovery company called 8thBridge investigated these findings in a survey of over 800 retailers. The businesses were judged based on their usage of seven different social platforms, namely : Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Google+ and Vine. For evaluating how well the companies questioned were leveraging social media, 8thBridge looked at traffic, brand awareness and social lift to get a picture of just how much customers were taking to the web to engage the brand. 

What researchers found was the companies were still failing to collect enough social information to make a move to Big Data plausible. While most companies have a Facebook presence, virtually none are deriving any real traffic from Instagram and Twitter: under 10 percent saw a spike in visits from the latter, and barely 6 percent saw a bump from the former. This suggests that there is a large gap between the potential of social media engagement and the reality. 

For an enterprising company, this information represents an opportunity. Oversights by your competitors in adoption of Big Data mean that working with FileMaker developers could have an even more profound effect on your ability to convert sales. There is a strong inherent value of being first in your field, so adopting these principles early could mean big profits. 

A Connecticut FileMaker developer won't just provide your company with answers to business-related problems. It could also raise some fascinating questions. 

Consider, for example, the outcome of an argument between Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich and economist Julian Simon. In 1968, Ehrlich, an entomologist by trade who had spent time studying the population density of butterflies, wrote a book called "The Population Bomb." In it, he surmised that, at the rate the Earth was being filled up, humans were headed for a collapse. The environmental movement wholeheartedly embraced his research and used it as a tentpole for their platform. 

Simon, on the other hand, was difficult to convince. He thought that humanity was imminently adaptable, and that we would endure collapse by finding new resources or changing the ways we used the ones we currently have. He offered to back up his rhetoric with a commodities bet: in 1980 they agreed to wager on what the market price for five different metals would be in a decade's time. If the price jumped wildly, it would signal that resources were strained. If not, it would mean that society had successfully navigated population growth. 

Simon won the bet easily. Not only did the price not soar, it actually decreased significantly. 

And yet, Ehrlich remains convinced that his hypothesis was correct, regarding the need for environmental awareness. What was supposed to be an empirically provable fact turned out to lead to further contention, not less. Speaking to Planet Money, Ehrlich doubled down on his original stance, despite the fact that Simon had been proved right in one specific case.

"[Simon] knew absolutely nothing about anything important," he said. "[The bet has] become what's technically known in science as a pain in the [rear]."

There are two valuable lessons in here for managers looking to turn to Big Data. One, that the parameters that you set before you gather data are important.  While both men thought that their commodities bet would be the best way to solve their dispute, that optimism later turned out to be incorrect. 

Secondly, Big Data isn't something you can simply plug in and forget about. Your business should be constantly adapting and altering its strategies, to continue to get the most out of its analytical initiatives. It turns out, a lot can change in a decade. 

Add some more room in the Executive Suite: Big Data experts are moving in. 

According to analyst Gartner, 17 percent of companies will have hired a Chief Data Officer (CDO) by years end, an acknowledgement of the growing importance that information analytics have in business. While in the past, these responsibilities could have been handled by a Chief Information Officer (CIO), the proliferation of Big Data has made managing it an important full-time job. 

Gartner senior analyst Debra Logan explained this necessity. 

"The CIO role is overloaded with expectations and responsibilities," said Logan. "CIOs are expected to have hands-on experience in technology, leading change management programs and project management."

Thus, to offset some of that burden and help CIOs manage their other goals, this new position has been rising in popularity. The role of the Chief Data Officer is more than just teaching your employees how to use FileMaker. Rather, the position helps organize and guide your company's analytical and information-based efforts. While having access to vast amounts of data is a potentially powerful tool, it's equally important to use it in a productive and judicious manner. 

It's important that the information doesn't end with the CDO. Instead, this role can be a valuable connector of different departments, and should become a useful liaison between the piles of numbers you're able to collect, and the financial officers who have to make sense of it all. This person could potentially serve as an advisor and an analyst, somebody who can make sense of what could otherwise be misleading data. 

Big Data has some powerful potential benefits, but in order to fully take advantage of them, managers must understand their implications. The proliferation of such a vast amount of information has changed the very currency of business: now, knowledge plays a huge role in how effective companies can be. 

And that knowledge doesn't always have to come from expertise anymore. Tasks which used to take a skilled technician to complete can now be almost entirely automated. Let's say, for example, that you manage a fleet of vehicles. In the not-so-distant past, you'd have to have a mechanic readily available for regular maintenance visits. Now, however, there are hundreds of data points that can be automatically collected and sent to you, thus cutting down significantly on the need for an expert consultation. 

Instead, the role of the technician comes in how the systems are designed and analyzed. While FileMaker development can help you identify what's wrong with your cars, it can't actually get its hands under the hood. It also needs to be "told" which parameters to look out for, something that comes from personal input. Thus, human and technological capital have to work in tandem. 

This capability also means that data, and the access to it, is a form of currency all its own. Consider the case of Google, which has built a billion dollar company based on its ability to both connect users with the information that they seek and gather data from those same consumers. If your business isn't considering the financial implications of knowing considerably more about potential customers, you're doing yourself a serious disservice. 

At the same time, privacy and security concerns have to be at the forefront of all the decisions you make. It's important to let people know exactly what sorts of information you're collecting about them, and for what intended purpose. Then, once you have it, it's critical to take steps to ensure that none of that data gets leaked. If people suspect that their personal information is vulnerable when given to you, your brand could suffer irreparable damage. 

Like anything else, you will get out of Big Data only what you put into it. If you're willing to invest heavily and learn more about how it can help you, the benefits could potentially be massive.