executives

Does Big Data Kill Big Thinking?

Big Data is a popular term today that references the huge volumes of business and consumer data being collected and stored by organizations, which cannot be effectively data mined due to the limitations of commonly used software tools that capture, manage, or process the data.

While first diagnosed in the science, government, healthcare and military industries, the vast volumes of consumer data being produced through social technologies has landed this reality – and this problem – on the desks of CMOs globally.

Not only is data being produced at lighting speeds, the devices used to produce, broadcast, measure, store and share that data are on the rise, which then fuels further content generation. The cycle is creating a Big Data cyclone that organizations will continue to struggle with.

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Presenting Through the Hourglass

You have 15 minutes to deliver a presentation that was constructed for 45.

We’ve all been there. My first ever professional presentation happened in 1996 and was to convince my then SVP of Sales that we needed to build a Web site for the company. I had a great deck put together. A carefully crafted script and a slew of charts and handouts to make the case over the course of the scheduled hour. The SVP runs in late and says, “Wion. You got ten minutes. Go.” I quickly made the case as best I could. He didn’t bite. Early #fail.

In fact, I’ll never forget his words. “You’ve put together a well thought out proposal based on the amount of paper here. But mark my words…this Internet thing is a fad. In two years, no one will remember what it is.”

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