Note the date change!

Yes, due to unforeseen circumstances, the January meeting of Chicago Big Data will actually be held in February. Sorry for the late notice, and hope to see all of you in a couple of weeks!

Beyond the Hoopla - a Consultant's View on the State of Big Data

Join us for our first meeting of the new year on Thursday, January 19th at Orbitz Worldwide HQ, where group member David Douglas will share insights gleaned from consulting with customers across a range of industries. Hope to see everyone there!

Description: 

Listening to the hoopla surrounding Big Data, you might come to the conclusion that it will solve most of your problems, place your company miles ahead of your competition, drive your Net Promoter Scores through the roof, and fall just short of solving world hunger (ok…maybe not that far). Well it just might…if done correctly.

And one can’t blame you if you think all one needs to do is install the Hadoop ecosystem of products, conjure up some possible business use cases, throw some commodity hardware into the mix, attend some training, automate loading all the data you can think of and PRESTO, you have arrived and can enjoy the fruits of your Big Data efforts. 

With tongue firmly planted in cheek, the reality is vastly different. This talk is partially a reality check on Big Data implementation strategies - starting with Big Data is easy, becoming proficient is hard, fully integrating into a broader enterprise data strategy is very hard – and partially an information sharing session on what we’re learning as we talk to customers in various industries about Big Data: use cases they want to explore, successes and failures they’ve had, skill sets they need, executive support required, lessons learned, and points of confusion.

About the Speaker

David Douglas is a member of Chicago Hadoop User Group and Chicago Big Data, and co-founder of CrinLogic, a Big Data consulting services company taking a Lean Start-up approach to this space. He has over 17 years of IT consulting experience with concentration in Business Intelligence, Agile and Lean software development, and large program implementations. He is a passionate believer in Big Data and the enormous possibilities it offers.