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10 Use
Cases Everyone Must Read
Imagine being an avid skier and receiving customized invitations from your favorite resort
when there's fresh powder on your favorite run, or text alerts letting you know when the lift
lines are shortest. They've also taken the data to the people, providing websites and apps that
will display your day's stats, from how many runs you slalomed to how many vertical feet you
traversed, which you can then share on social media or use to compete with family and
friends.
Even government election campaigns can be optimized using big data analytics. Some believe
Obama's win after the 2012 presidential election campaign was due to his team's superior
ability to use big data analytics.
bracelets. Take the Up band from Jawbone as an example: the armband collects data on our
calorie consumption, activity levels, and our sleep patterns. While it gives individuals rich
insights, the real value is in analyzing the collective data.
In Jawbone's case, the company now collects 60 years worth of sleep data every night.
Analyzing such volumes of data will bring entirely new insights that it can feed back to
individual users.
The other area where we benefit from big data analytics is finding love - online this is. Most
online dating sites apply big data tools and algorithms to find us the most appropriate
matches.
golf clubs allows us to get feedback (via smart phones and cloud servers) on our game and
how to improve it. Many elite sports teams also track athletes outside of the sporting
environment - using smart technology to track nutrition and sleep, as well as social media
conversations to monitor emotional wellbeing.
The NFL has developed its own platform of applications to assist all 32 teams in making the
best decisions based on everything from the condition of the grass on the field, to the weather,
to statistics about an individual player's performance while in university. It is all in the name
of strategy as well as reducing player injuries.
One of the really cool new things I have come across is a smart yoga mat: sensors embedded
in the mat will be able to provide feedback on your postures, score your practice, and even
guide you through an at-home practice.
Big data is applied heavily in improving security and enabling law enforcement. I am sure
you are aware of the revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA) in the U.S. uses big
data analytics to foil terrorist plots (and maybe spy on us). Others use big data techniques to
detect and prevent cyber attacks. Police forces use big data tools to catch criminals and even
predict criminal activity and credit card companies use big data use it to detect fraudulent
transactions.
In February 2014, the Chicago Police Department sent uniformed officers to make "custom
notification" visits to individuals they had identified as likely to commit a crime through a
computer generated list. The idea was to prevent crime by providing certain individuals with
information about job training programs, or let them know about increased penalties for
people with certain backgrounds. But many community groups cried foul and called the
practice profiling.
Computers are programmed with complex algorithms that scan markets for a set of
customizable conditions and search for trading opportunities. The programs can be designed
to work with no human interaction or with human interaction, depending on the needs and
desires of the client.
The most sophisticated of these programs are now also designed to change as markets change,
rather than being hardcoded.
For me, the 10 categories I have outlined here represent the areas in which big data is applied
the most. Of course there are so many other applications of big data and there will be many
new categories as the tools become more widespread.
You might also be interested in reading my latest case study collection: Big Data Case Study
Collection: 7 Amazing Companies That Really Get Big Data as well as my book Big Data:
Using SMART Big Data, Analytics and Metrics To Make Better Decisions and Improve
Performance