At 50 Powerful Statistics About Tech Mega Trends Affecting Every Business from ValaAfshar, I ran across one of those odd factoids that will be repeated.
2.5 billion gigabytes (2.5 Exabytes) of data are created every day. That number doubles every month. -IBM
I don’t know that anyone at IBM actually said that but it sounds like an IBM-like statement. 😉
Admittedly, that’s a lot of data.
But don’t go running out to subscribe to one of those $299/year technology newsletters because a lot of data is created everyday.
Think about all the sources of data and how many of them are relevant to you.
Traffic cameras and traffic lights are generating data, 24×7.
Rental car companies are generating data, including tracking data on cars.
Cell phone services are generating data, including data to pinpoint your location for the NSA. (Alleged to be stopped. Yeah, like they were not supposed to be spying on U.S. citizens. Right.)
Not to mention ATMs, weather data (down for the government shutdown), space data (also closed for government shutdown), plus a number of other data sources you could name off the top of your head.
All that data is included in the “2.5 billion gigabytes (2.5 Exabytes)” quoted above.
You may impress your brother-in-law by knowing that factoid but it’s not much use in planning an IT strategy.
A better starting place would be to ask, “What data is relevant to my product or market?”
Make out a list of data that is relevant today, may be relevant in a month and in a year.
With that beginning, you can start to measure the benefit of adding data versus the cost of adding it.
You may get to the “big data” stage but unlike some ventures, you will be making money along the way.