Twenty five years ago, to ask a company if they were on the internet was a legitimate question. Today, even the most Luddite companies have a web presence.

Ten years ago, to ask a company if they deploy BIG DATA to drive their decisions was also a legitimate question. But today, BIG DATA is as ubiquitous as the internet, and while people today would not ask if a company uses either the internet or BIG DATA – of course they do! – investors and employers alike are asking how well they are using BIG DATA.

But when asked what BIG DATA is, all too often we hear how it must be about lots of data. We have always been surrounded by data, so there must be something more to it, no?

In eighteen minutes, learn the least you need to know about datafication – a word so new that most spell checks still deem it a misspelled word. In a few minutes, understand enough about BIG DATA to explain it to others, including the three most fundamental shifts manifested by BIG DATA:

  • From small to all
  • From clean to messy
  • From causation to correlation.

Learn about how to apply Big Data in business.

Vincent Suppa works with startups and investors and teaches graduate courses at New York University. His email is suppa@suppa.org.

© Vincent Suppa 2016