The last couple of years a discussion around the information society has started. Since more people enter data around their lives as well our planet, it was obvious that business start to leverage this trend and added more data; like Google scanned the library of Congress, mapped the planet including the oceans. Nowadays this is topped. Data combination and new streams of information are provided, some free some for purchase.

Now in the Star Trek series the chief scientist, called Spock, has the task to gather as many as possible data streams delivered on the starship, combine it with the knowledge of a huge computer library and dr

Vulcan (Star Trek) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

aw conclusions of it, in real-time. In this series the logic and an ability to draw fast conclusions for the captain to make relevant decisions where key for survival.

In modern business the survival of companies depend on fast, exact, agile conclusions.  Modern technologies like the Chorus a product of Greenplum enables businesses of all sizes to gain insight on markets, customers, competition etc. was it in the past that this could be done on a long time frame today’s businesses move toward a continuous optimization and adoption of the GTM and their portfolios.

To enable an agile business process leader of companies have to gather as many streams of data around your business combine it with insight knowledge and make the tough decisions.

Specialists that turn this data into information where decisions will be drawn from so called data analyst, while the identifying of relevant data streams out of white noise is the job of a data scientist.

Of course today the time between analyze and decision-making is not quite short like it was often at the Enterprise, but the trend of more and faster data generation as well as access, more agile business grow as startups and compete with the established ones.

Looking on trends in IT departments of enterprises of all kinds, the desire for more agility leads to a cloud approach. This is only the first step, the last state is to be in the middle of the data universe and navigate their Enterprise thru the business solar system. The input will be overwhelming, new processes for sensors input needed to be developed and the crew aligned to the new command structure.

The engineering section, we would call it infrastructure, has to offer flexible and agile systems to answer the requests fast and right. One Key to success is automation, orchestration and standardization, and not dictation and a silo approach. Scotty will most probably fit into a data scientist role.

Star Trek: Phase II (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CIO´s will more become like captains to understand the challenges in this new space and align the crew and the rest of the ship to needs of the next decade. When cloud computing is the engine for agility, Big Data is the survival kit for the enterprise in the future. So Spock and Scotty are the two main assets of modern Enterprises  and James T. Kirk has drawn the right decisions from them, always.

Related articles

• Big Data: From Meme To Marketplace (chucksblog.emc.com)
• Op-Ed: What Scientists Under Pressure Can Learn From Spock (wired.com)
• EMC Marries Social Networking And Big Data (informationweek.com)