Now that many companies find themselves with expansive data lakes in this era of big data, what should they do to keep these information reservoirs from coagulating into sticky swamps? Scratch that — what if the ship has sailed, and they’re already up a messy, confusing data creek without a paddle? Without further ado (and without further belaboring ...

If a business thinks the weather isn’t its business, it needs to think again. Practically all companies stand to gain or lose from incorporating weather data into their decision making, according to Michelle Boockoff-Bajdek (pictured, left), global head of global marketing, business solutions, at IBM Corp. “There’s something like a half a trillion dollars in economic ...

The cryptocurrency token craze is tumbling ahead at a pace that one might call, well, crazy. That’s because blockchain-ledger security is the foundation of token economics — and the cement is still wet, according to Hartej Sawhney (pictured), co-founder at Hosho.io and adviser at Pink Sky Capital. Hype aside, crypto’s still in the early innings, with ...

A smorgasbord of “internet of things” connected devices — from consumer gizmos to industrial machines — keep flooding in. Do they amount to more than a confusing mess of unsecured things for manufacturers and businesses to manage? They can, if data from the devices is pooled and parsed with machine learning and artificial intelligence. That’s the ...

Does anyone really understand the blockchain’s distributed ledger system or the digital mechanisms of cryptocurrency? Even entrepreneurs knee-deep in technology’s latest emerging markets will confess they are still learning. Perhaps the potential for modern cryptography is best shown and not told. The pros and cons of crypto are beginning to come through as business and social use cases surface in the real world. ...

Speed, agility, cloud-native origins — on the surface, everything about technology startups makes them better equipped for today’s data-driven race. But older enterprises have troves of big data hidden under their tortoise shells that may land them a late-stage upset victory. “Phase one of the data era was really the consumer companions taking over,” said Ed Walsh ...

What do companies banging around the digital-transformation obstacle course need to soothe the contusions? Probably not a technology trial sign-up that asks their mothers’ maiden name. “When users come, you have to give them the best experience possible, because you never get a second chance to make a good first impression,” said Janine Sneed (pictured), chief digital ...

So a manufacturer connects a gadget to a wireless communications network and, suddenly, it’s an “internet of things” device. So what? The power of applied IoT is realized only when data from devices is gathered, juiced and nutrient-fortified for business insights. “It wasn’t long ago where ‘big data’ just meant writing an algorithm and looking across large ...

Companies of all stripes can learn from those laboring under strict data-privacy regulations, like financial institutions. For them, the discipline necessary to govern data can pay dividends — ironically — in the realm of innovation. Well-governed data to loosely governed data is as Lean Cuisine is to a grocery bag full of raw ingredients, according ...

Why cloud-native data warehousing instead of the traditional on-premises breed? Because the later fits like a square peg in the cloud’s round hole of unlimited scalability and elasticity, according to Michael Nixon (pictured, left), senior director of product marketing at Snowflake Computing Inc. What makes Snowflake’s infrastructure unique is how it slices compute, storage and service ...