Popular Software Skills in Data Science Job postings

This exercise was done to understand the software skills that are in high demand for Data Science. Analysis was done by extracting the job postings from popular online websites. The findings are interesting. R continues to be the most popular skill, found in 70% of the postings. Python follows as a close second. Surprisingly, in spite all the talk about "Big Data Science", SQL comes up third. This shows that traditional RDBMS still continue to be the base for machine learning work today

Article from Kumaran Ponnambalam.

Bank CEOs Fear Data-Driven Decisions

 Do bank CEOs fear analytics?

A recent study found that analytics are underused at banks and that senior executives are cold to the technology: a scant 20% said that if it were up to them their organization would be highly data driven.

Article from +Information Management

Teradata, MapR Unite Hadoop and Data Warehouses

Big Data technologies like Hadoop and NoSQL could be coming to a data warehouse near you -- thanks to Teradata and MapR. The two companies have inked a partnership to ensure MapR's Hadoop and NoSQL capabilities integrate with Teradata's data warehousing portfolio.

Article from +Information Management

How Artificial Intelligence Will Solve IoT's Big Data Challenges

If IoT is going to deliver on its transformational promise, it will have to provide greater value and importance than a single internet enabled sensor such as a wearable device

Read more at this blog by +Isaac Sacolick

How We Can Grow Analytics Intelligently in the Year Ahead

As analytics continues to capture the attention of the business world, we contemplate a distinct field that uses newly available data to make better decisions. In the coming year, we must pay attention to our university analytics degrees, our continuing education, certifying competent practitioners, and organization-wide evaluations to make sure that our field grows and we bring greater benefit to those who seek our insights.

Article from +Data Informed

Internet of Things: 25B IoT Devices By 2020 Says Gartner

Some 4.9 billion connected “things” will be in use in 2015, up 30% from 2014, and will reach 25 billion by 2020, according to recent research from Gartner Inc. The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a powerful force for business transformation, the firm says, and its disruptive impact will be felt across all industries and all areas of society.

Article from +Information Management

Time for Data-Driven Intuition

The book The House Advantage: Playing the Odds to Win Big In Business (Jeffrey Ma) should be required reading for anyone working in the data management and business intelligence fields where we often oversimplify the business decision-making process by saying it’s either data-driven or intuition-driven—and strongly emphasizing that using data is always better than using intuition. Although Ma is definitely an advocate for data-driven decision making, toward the end of his book he also acknowledges that there are times when somewhat of a middle ground between data and intuition is called for.

Article from +Information Management

Data science: 'Machines do analytics. Humans do analysis'

Summary: Two leaders of +Booz Allen's data science team talk talent, building a data science team and the machine-human link in analytics.

Article from +ZDNet

Nine Steps to Unlock Big Data's Hidden Value

No matter where you look, the numbers on big data are staggering. Among estimates of its potential benefits are productivity-led savings: $300 billion a year for the US healthcare industry; €250 billion for the European public sector; a 60 percent potential increase in retailers’ operating margins; and $600 billion in economic surplus for services enabled by personal-location data. However, these are just the early calculations coming in from a few sectors; they could well go higher.

Article from +Information Management

HP Unveils Vertica for SQL on Hadoop

Hewlett-Packard is building a bridge between traditional SQL database analytics and Big Data on Hadoop systems. The result is HP Vertica for SQL on Hadoop.

HP officially unveiled the new offering today -- though reports about the offering (previously code-named Dragline) surfaced in May 2014.

Article from +Information Management

Moneyball For Music: Why Streaming Services Are Betting On Analytics

Amid a bitter feud between music artists and streaming services over royalties for online music, Pandora appears to be extending the olive branch.

In an attempt to lure musicians back to the site, the streaming radio service recently announced its new Artist Marketing Platform, which provides listener data to music artists who are being played on Pandora.

Article from +BusinessIntelligence.com

Four Ways Big Data Will Make You Happy

We are at the beginning of a data revolution, where every data source will be connected with each other and as such provide valuable insights. These insights can be used by organisations to reduce costs or increase their revenue, but it can also help in making consumers happier. Connecting data sources is called the semantic web and it is often quoted as the next phase of the Internet. The semantic web will allow us to easily share and re-use data across applications, communities and enterprise boundaries. The next phase will be the smart web, when techniques such as machine learning will apply smart algorithms to the semantic web. The result will be insights that can help us and make us happy.

Article from Big Data Startups

SQL SERVER – What are Hypothetical Indexes?

If you ever thought this is some sort of trick to bring you to the blog, well you are wrong. This infact is something worth a look and interesting thing to know. Before I start to explain you the finer details, let me tell you that this is NOT a new feature for performance improvement of the SQL Server Engine.

Blog from +Pinal Dave

Welcome to the Big Data Economy

So much of the American identity is tied up in the iconic image: the ability to move freely,
to experience a wider array of goods than when they were regionally locked by limited infrastructure, and the opportunity to pursue wildly different dreams than what were possible before these paths to prosperity were laid.

Article from Radhika Subramanian on Smart Data Collective

Big Data Can Guess Who You Are Based on Your Zip Code

In the era of Big Data, your zip code is a window into what you can afford to buy, but it also reveals how you spend time—and, in essence, who you are.

That's according to software company Esri, which mapped zip codes across the United States and linked them to one of 67 profiles of American market segments.

Article from +The Atlantic

Volkswagen: Big Data Doesn’t Have to Mean Big Brother

Given the vast amounts of data that will be collected by the cars of the future, strict protections are needed to prevent government intrusion, the chairman of Volkswagen Group said on Sunday.

Article from +Re/code

Data Governance and MDM – The 80/20 Rule

I attended once a session with a Gartner analyst, who declared that the closest thing to the work he was doing when helping customers with data governance was “Family Counseling”. This statement expressed perfectly the complexity of the topic, and highlighted the strong focus on people and processes that apply to the Data Governance field.

When people ask me what is the relation between MDM and Data Governance, I oversimplify and say: “Governance is about making decisions, and MDM is about making them real”.

Blog from +Semarchy

SLIDESHOW: 10 Big Data Career Killers

Data scientists are in high demand. The Big Data market will grow anywhere from 20 percent to 40 percent annually through 2017, depending on the market forecast you trust most. But even an industry boom doesn't guarantee job security. Here are 10 missteps that can stop your Big Data career in its tracks.

Slideshow from +Information Management

Is It Time to End Screen Scraping?

As the industry works to improve the way online banking information is shared with personal financial management apps, a debate is brewing over whether to end the decades-old practice of screen scraping.

Article from +Information Management

Customer Service & Social Media: Tools, Analytical Wealth and Brand Perception Decoded

Social media customer service is fast moving into mainstream enterprise strategies owing to the hype created amongst brands. Customer relationship management had been an age old concept for brands wherein the brand resolved customer issues and complaints after a product or service was bought. Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM) on the other hand is creating a balance in the social media ecosystem, between marketing and other departments of a business, while also solving customer issues.

Article from +B2C

Cost, integration issues halting big data projects

25 per cent of organisations with more than 20 staff are using big data apps and services

Big data projects are being held back by the high cost of setting up infrastructure to support the capturing of potentially hundreds of millions of data points each day.

Article from +CIO

Big Data ROI: Does the Payoff match the Potential?

How do you accurately measure return on investment (ROI) of big data? This question is continually asked by marketers and big data experts alike, yet the answer seems to constantly elude them all. It reminds me of when everyone asked the same question about social media. In that case, I am not sure marketers ever really gave a satisfactory answer, but it’s possible to find one for big data.

Article from +Data Informed

Where Do Big Data, Internet of Things Intersect?

What if two of the biggest technology trends -- Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT) -- actually converged or intersected? Actually, they are -- spanning everything from kitchen appliances to smart buildings. Not by coincidence, technology giants and  startups are seeking to help data chiefs, CIOs and CFOs make sense of the convergence.

Article from +Information Management

The Three Pillars Of Insurance Analytics

The insurance industry is all about assessing risk and managing the same successfully. Life insurance industry operates intrinsically by balancing risk assessment and risk management. Compiled with a large volume of data the insurance industry operates with, arriving at meaningful information can be a challenging task. Also, the insurance industry is growing competitive with each passing year and numbers of insurance service providers are constantly on the rise. In such a scenario only those companies that can increase their top and bottom growth line can stay competitive and profitable in the long run. Blog from +Aureus Analytics

The next frontier in IT leadership: 'Actionizing' real-time big data

Companies need to start thinking about how analysts or business managers will be tasked with "actionizing" real-time data in ways that affect real-time decisions.

Article from +TechRepublic

22 tips for better data science

These tips are provided by +Vincent Granville  in his blog, who brings 20 years of varied data-intensive experience working with successful start-ups, small companies across various industries, and eBay, Visa, Microsoft, GE and Wells Fargo.

Red Pill or Blue Pill? Choosing Between SQL & NoSQL

Pain is often the stimulus behind innovations. This is particularly true in software development, in what we endearingly call Pain Driven Development (PDD). Starting from the 1980s, we have all known how to handle relational data – simply put it in a Relational DataBase Management System (RDBMS) and use SQL to work with the data. For the past few years however, our industry has seen an increasing trend towards the usage of NoSQL databases, where data just isn’t stored like in relational databases.

Article from +Telerik

5 Strategies for Recruiting and Training Decision Science Talent

A career in decision sciences/analytics continues to be one of the sexiest jobs of the 21st century, but the supply of analytics talent threatens to limit the promise of decision sciences. A report by McKinsey and Company estimates a shortfall of 140,000 to 190,000 data scientists and 1.5 million managers who have the skills needed to use the insights to drive decisions. And Gartner predicts that by 2015, big data will create 4.4 million jobs globally. Data scientists are in short supply, but the dearth of decision scientists – the rare breed that combines the interdisciplinary prowess of math, business, technology, behavioral sciences, and design thinking – is even more alarming. For this reason, there needs to be an increased emphasis on recruiting and training as opposed to relying on acquisition,

Article from +Data Informed

Amazon Conference Attracts Big Data Cloud Companies

When Amazon's AWS re:invent 2014 conference kicks off Nov. 11 in Las Vegas, numerous Big Data cloud companies will be in the house. Among the businesses to watch: Blacklight Solutions, Intel, MediaMath, Numenta and Yellowfin (among others). Here's why.

Article from +Information Management

4 Big Data Trends Emerging in 2015 to Keep You Ahead of the Game

We are now in the last quarter of 2014. As we look ahead to 2015, you probably wonder what will be the future of Big Data for the coming year.

Blog from +Infinit Datum

Big Data in No Time: Getting Started with Big Data Quickly (Video)

Summary: Tony Baer, IT Analyst at Ovum, and Ashish Thusoo, co-creator of Apache Hive and CEO of Qubole, discuss common hurdles to Hadoop and big data and how mainstream enterprises can get started with Hadoop quickly via the cloud.

Video from +Qubole- Big Data in the Cloud

Gartner's top 10 technology trends for 2015: All about the cloud

Gartner analysts suggest you keep a close eye on the items listed in its latest trend report. Michael Kassner examines the technologies on the list and finds a common thread: cloud.

Article on +TechRepublic

Big Data and Quantified Self-Awareness

Big data raises, and rightfully so, data privacy concerns. We fear big data will expose our secrets to the world. But even if big data remained private, it could still expose our secrets to ourselves. In addition to its impact on our privacy, we should be concerned about how big data will impact our self-awareness.

Article from +Information Management 

Four tips for putting business users in touch with Hadoop

The Global Hadoop market was valued at $1.5 billion in 2012 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 58.2 percent, to reach $50.2 billion by 2020, according to a Hadoop Market Analysis report prepared by Allied Market Research.

Blog from +sas voice

Google Flu Trends: Underlying issues of big data

A Google software engineer took to an official company blog last Friday to announce that the tech firm was changing its Flu Trends tool for the 2014-15 flu season. That's potentially good news for healthcare for at least two reasons. First, it presumably means that the healthcare community will be getting more accurate data about flu incidence. Second, it provides a good opportunity to think about some of the challenges posed by the use of so-called big data, massive data bases combed through by computer power rather than human brain power, for healthcare's future.

Article from +Big Data Made Simple

Beyond Big Data: Understanding Social MDM Reference Architecture free book chapter

Reference architectures encapsulate architectural best practices harvested and harnessed from a series of implementations. In this chapter from Beyond Big Data: Using Social MDM to Drive Deep Customer Insight, the authors introduce the Social MDM Reference Architecture regarding its key capabilities based on the capability framework.

Book chapter from +InformIT

Monetizing Big Data: A Q&A with Wells Fargo's Data Chief

A. Charles Thomas is a rare bird in banking circles.

Nine months ago Wells Fargo made him its first chief data officer, and one of only a handful of such jobholders at banks nationwide. Thomas, who previously held a similar role at USAA, has a doctorate in behavioral science and manages a $100 million budget and a "small team" of 600 people.

Article from +Information Management

Hadoop 'No Longer Optional,' Says Forrester

Forrester says economics will make Hadoop "mandatory," predicts new roles, new software sources, and an end to skills shortage by 2015.

"Hadooponomics" will make Apache's open-source big data platform a "must have for large enterprises."

Article from +InformationWeek

What you need to know about keeping your cloud data safe

The first reaction many corporate users – even those who are quite technically aware – have when considering a migration to cloud computing is to worry about data security.

It is a fairly natural emotional response of course; you are effectively surrendering a kind of ownership of your data over to a third party.

Article from +The Register

Surveys: Big Data Is Mainstream, But ROI Varies Greatly

Big Data has gone mainstream. But is it succeeding? Results from two recent surveys (conducted by NewVantage Partners and Wikibon, respectively) show some key ROI (return on investment) challenges facing Big Data projects.

Article from +Information Management

Update on CA ERwin Data Modeling Business

NEW YORK, November 3, 2014 – CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) today announced that the agreement to sell its CA ERwin® data modeling business to Embarcadero, announced on March 13, 2014, has been terminated. It is anticipated that the transaction would not receive required regulatory approvals in a timely fashion, and therefore would not meet certain closing conditions.

CA is highly focused on supporting and driving value for CA ERwin customers, partners and employees.  The company will continue to invest in and execute on product development, marketing and sales plans.  Mark Lukianchuk, a 17-year CA veteran, has been appointed to lead the CA ERwin business. Key members of the leadership team will remain in place.

The award-winning CA ERwin is the most-used data modeling tool among data professionals, and is sold almost exclusively through more than 500 partners in over 70 countries. In August 2014, CA ERwin was named “Best Modeling Solution” in the inaugural Database Trends and Applications (DBTA) magazine Readers’ Choice Awards.

For financial accounting purposes, CA Technologies will continue to recognize the CA ERwin business as discontinued operations.

Announcement from here.

Cloudera Labs Incubates Big Data Analytics Tools

Cloudera, the fast-growing Big Data and analytics company, is now striving to incubate an industry around itself. The company, focused on Apache Hadoop, has launched Cloudera Labs -- which aims to "fast track" promising open source initiatives.

Article from +Information Management

Look at what Google and Amazon are doing with databases: That's your future

It may seem unlikely that ordinary firms will ever be able to emulate the resource-rich web giants when it comes to data architectures. But that possibility may be closer than you think, says +Neo Technology Services, LLC  CEO +Emil Eifrém

Article from +ZDNet

Big Data Meets the Ballot Box

Just as industries like retail and health care are harnessing the power of big data to more effectively reach consumers, so too are political advertisers.

Campaigns and outside groups made use of mountains of data about voters as they spent more than $1 billion on televised political advertisements this midterm cycle, according to an estimate from the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks political TV advertising. Campaigns love the ability to target narrower groups of voters, but some argue the practice could feed into the polarized political climate in the U.S.

Article in +US News & World Report

NewVantage Big Data Executive Survey 2014: Corporate Big Data Investment Surges Forward

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NewVantage Partners, advisors and consultants to Fortune 1000 business and technology executives improving business insights with data and analytics, has released the results of its Big Data Executive Survey 2014: An Update on the State of Big Data in the Large Corporate World.

“Big Data was a new topic just a few years ago, with many companies grappling with its role in their organization”

Survey respondents are Fortune 1000 senior business and technology executives who have a vested interest in the success of an organization’s data and analytics, and Big Data initiatives. This third annual survey by NewVantage Partners takes an in-depth look at the forces driving business investment in Big Data.

Article from +Business Wire

Google’s Big Data to Help Auction.com Predict Homebuying Trends

Auction.com LLC, which got a $50 million investment from Google Inc. in March, said it will use the Internet-search company’s big-data capabilities to try to predict U.S. home sales and other trends ahead of competitors.

The new product, known as Auction.com Real Estate Nowcast, based on Google Trends information and other data, predicts that existing homes will sell at an annual pace of 5.18 million in October, according to a statement today. That estimate is ready about four weeks before the National Association of Realtors reports its seasonally adjusted annual sales rate, which was 5.17 million last month and 5.13 million in October 2013.

Article from +Information Management

Defining Data Scientists & Their Tools

My thoughts of the day involve reactions to two blog entries. The first is titled, “Data Scientists Must Also Be Research Methodology Scientists." The second is "SAS vs. R (vs. Python) – which tool should I learn?" Here's Steve Miller's take on it on +Information Management

How To Become A Data-Driven Information-Centric Company

In the fast moving world of today, data is being created at lightning speed. Data comes from an infinite variety of sources and all this data can be used to discover valuable business insights. Combining internal and external data can enable organisations to beat the competition, as the analysis will provide valuable insights. The more business users that work with such insights, the better your organisation will become. Organisations should therefore strive for a data-driven, information-centric culture, where every business user makes decisions based on data.  Article from Big Data Startups

5 Big Mistakes You’re Doing with Big Data

Much has been written about Big Data. Companies nowadays are already aware that it is crucial to collect data to facilitate better decision-making. Better decisions, of course, can result to more efficient operations, reduction of costs, greater customer satisfaction and higher profits. The question is: do these companies know how to make the most out of their data in order to enjoy these benefits? Blog from +Infinit Datum

Exploring 5 big data training programs

With big data expertise in high demand, both universities and private companies are ramping up their education programs and big data training. Gartner expects that the BDA market will have 4.4 million jobs available by 2015, but only about one-third of them will be filled.  Article from +RCR Wireless News

Everything You Need To Know About The Internet Of Things

A few months ago I wrote a post called, A Simple Explanation Of The Internet Of Things where I tried to provide some clarity around what this new connected world means for all of us. In the article I mentioned some of the driving forces behind this.  Article from +Forbes

Plugging in to Hadoop

Even if it’s not where they end up, Hadoop can be a great starting platform for a data-driven software company. That’s what San Francisco- and Taipei-based Fliptop found in 2009 when they launched a social media identity matching engine, ultimately employed by such companies as MailChimp, Dell, Toyota, Oracle and Nordstrom. Article from +SD Times

IBM Bolsters Big Data, Cognos Cloud Offerings

IBM is preparing to add multiple analytics applications to the IBM Cloud Marketplace -- an online mall featuring on-demand software from Big Blue and its partners. The new cloud additions will include Cognos Business Intelligence, SPSS predictive analytics platforms and the recently announced Watson Analytics offering. Article from +Information Management

The Ultimate Guide to Using Big Data in the Healthcare Industry [E-Book]

In the United States, Big Data is now seen as an essential tool in delivering treatment and predicting health trends. While in the UK, studies show that data analytics can improve efficiency of its healthcare sector by 60% and save millions. There’s no doubt that Big Data in Healthcare is now a major consideration for improvement and healthcare transformation, especially in providing high-quality services to everyone. Downloadable e-book from +Infinit Healthcare

Big Data Taking Industries by Storm

No one cares about technology for technology’s sake. Well, probably some deep-drive gearheads do, but no CIO is going to get a board to finance a huge technology purchase without some clear use case.

Article from +Forbes

Data Driven Strategy Execution

Data driven strategy execution is the key to building value for all stakeholders in a business over time.  Measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) are essential to value creation.  Value creation for capital providers is the ultimate mission of every business. Blog from +Gabriel Lowy

Introduction to HBase, the NoSQL Database for Hadoop

HBase is called the Hadoop database because it is a NoSQL database that runs on top of Hadoop. It combines the scalability of Hadoop by running on the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), with real-time data access as a key/value store and deep analytic capabilities of Map Reduce. This article from +InformIT  introduces HBase and describes how it organizes and manages data and then demonstrates how to set up a local HBase environment and interact with data using the HBase shell.

The Big Data Industry in Detail: Biggest Players, Biggest Revenues and More [Infographic]

In the big data game, there are hundreds of players. From startups including Umbel and Hortonworks to legacy brands including IBM and Oracle, the race to reach the monetization of big data for clients first is on. Whether these companies build out platforms for retail, healthcare, sports, publishing, finance or all the above, all big data companies have one goal in common: help these industries realize big data's big potential. Blog from +Umbel

How to Keep Your Data Scientists (And Keep Them Happy)

Big Data and Analytics are all the rage. And, as we all depend upon analytics to drive business – and stay competitive – hiring, developing, and retaining analytical and big data talent is becoming more critical. Over the past year, much of this conversation has spotlighted on the data scientist, that sexy elusive fantastical beast of legend. But, we’ve spent so much time trying to figure out who the data scientist is, that we haven’t yet asked the next logical question: Once we find him or her, how to we keep him or her? Article from +Information Management

Find all triggers in a SQL Server Database

Do you know what triggers lurk in your database?

Triggers can be implemented to enforce business rules or referential data integrity in database applications.

There are even triggers that allow data modifications to multiple base tables of a view. I have actually used this in the past when working with 3rd party encryption tools prior to SQL 2005’s native encryption options.

Interesting blog from +SQLServerCentral

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Internals: Special Storage

This sample chapter from Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Internals looks at how SQL Server stores data that doesn't use the typical FixedVar record format and data that doesn't fit into the usual 8 KB data page.