Alistair Croll
Alistair is an entrepreneur with a background in web performance, analytics, cloud computing, and business strategy. In 2001, he co-founded Coradiant (acquired by BMC in 2011) and has since helped launch Rednod, CloudOps, Bitcurrent, Year One Labs, and several other early-stage companies. He works with startups on business acceleration, and advises a number of larger companies on innovation and technology.
A sought-after public speaker on data-driven innovation and the impact of technology on society, Alistair has founded and run a variety of conferences, including Cloud Connect, Bitnorth, and the International Startup Festival. He’s the chair O'Reilly's Strata + Hadoop World conference. He has written several books on technology and business, including the best-selling Lean Analytics.
Alistair tries to mitigate chronic ADD by writing about far too many things at "Solve For Interesting”.
The feedback economy
Companies that employ data feedback loops are poised to dominate their industries.
We're moving beyond an information economy. The efficiencies and optimizations that come from constant and iterative feedback will soon become the norm for businesses and governments.
Cooking the data
In a world of full disclosure, cooking the data is the new cooking the books.
Open data and transparency aren't enough: we need True Data, not Big Data, as well as regulators and lawmakers willing to act on it.
The Meat to Math ratio
The ability to augment people (meat) with data and processes (math) is a key to success.
Successful companies find ways to augment their employees, allowing them to operate at scale with customers. Big data, machine learning, and an iterative, experimental mindset are essential — and increasingly, company valuations are tied to the efficiency with which firms put information to work.
There’s no such thing as big data
Even if you have petabyes of data, you still need to know how to ask the right questions to apply it.
Today's big companies are losing to small upstarts simply because those firms ask better questions. To compete, large enterprises need to learn how to harvest the data they have on customers, markets, competitors, and products.
There's no such thing as big data
Even if you have petabyes of data, you still need to know how to ask the right questions to apply it.
Today's big companies are losing to small upstarts simply because those firms ask better questions. To compete, large enterprises need to learn how to harvest the data they have on customers, markets, competitors, and products.
Everyone loves a science fair
Get your submission in for the Strata Conference Science Fair by January 14.
Strata's science fair will showcase the creative edges of big data. If you have an interesting tool or technology to show — the more beta, the better — let us know.
Tablets, education, and unions
Tablets can help students and track teachers, but not everyone is on board.
Tablet computing can help reverse the decline of U.S. education, but there's a side effect. Because tablets are digital, we can analyze how students learn and examine teachers' competence. It opens the question: What happens when the digital classroom challenges powerful teachers' unions?
Big business for big data
What IBM's acquisition of Netezza means for enterprises.
Netezza sprinkled an appliance philosophy over a complex suite of technologies, making it easier for enterprises to get started. But the real reason for IBM's offer was that the company reset the price/performance equation for enterprise data analysis.
On the performance of clouds
A study ran cloud providers through four tests. Here's some of the results.
Bitcurrent and Webmetrics ran five cloud providers through a series of tests: a small object, a large object, a million calculations, and a 500,000-row table scan. Here's some of the results and lessons learned.