So, the first week of MIS 587, Business Intelligence, is coming to a close.
Quite a bit of introductory/familiarization material and a lot of thinking; more than the other grad classes I've taken so far. And the adjectives that first come to mind are: overwhelming, interesting, mind-boggling, thought-provoking and scary.
So many disparate thoughts that I can't even decide where to start... Is it the sheer volume of data that is being generated and shared and increasing at an alarming rate, the quandary of where the line is drawn between "public" and "private" information, defining who actually owns the tidbits of seemingly useless "personal" data scattered everywhere, or figuring out whether all that data can be used for the betterment of humanity or nefarious purposes. And then there's, "what's next?"
With all this data, what is beyond targeted marketing, purchase trend analysis and understanding how a cold propagates throughout a region and eventually stops? Are we getting near the point of being able to reliably predict whole population behaviors based on conglomerated individual actions? Was the underlying "science" and premise of Asimov's Foundation Series really far-out science-fiction or simply real, undeveloped concepts that we are only now able to understand, quantify and use?
"Big data" analysis and application use almost seems limitless. I hope that this class sheds light on it in a meaningful manner useful in my future; seems that way so far...
It's after midnight (here in Kabul), time to head back to my quarters and get some sleep.
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