The dangers of Cortana Analytics and poor data

Microsoft has recently introduced Cortana Analytics — an Azure-based service that allow users to perform predictive analysis through natural language, by just asking a question either via text, or by speech. While I believe Cortana Analytics to be amazing and I look forward not only to use it, but to implement it to our customers, I am concerned on the dangers imposed in relying on this technology. And no, Microsoft is not the one at fault this time. It is the users who I am worried about. Read more >>

2014: Goodbye marketing hypes, welcome reason

2014 is finally here, and there is a lot of talk about on what to expect in the IT and technology sector for this year. Yet, I was hoping that we could take a break from marketing hypes, fads and other coolhunting nonsense that the media insisted on talking about in the past year. In this post I cover two topics that are at the top of my hype list: BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and big data. Read more >>

Big data – bad, bad data!

Ah, big data! Cloud computing is so 2012! Last year’s [2013] buzzword was big data, and there is a lot of use (and misuse) of it in the media. Consequently there are a lot of organisations interested in the subject and how it can help them improve their businesses. The problem is, the vast majority of people that I came across who talk about big data have little to no merit to discuss the subject.

Last year I read two articles in particular, both the cover of important international publications, on the subject of big data. One article was the cover of Foreign Affairs, and the other the cover of VEJA. While both articles have their merits, they also helped to perpetuate a lot of misconceptions, which I am tackling in this post.