I came across an article on Slashdot today, which spoke of the problems facing Scientists dealing with large datasets.
Where do I file it?
The author was hit by a barrage of criticism for suggesting that Science is the only field which deals with what he called Internet-Sized datasets. In the context of teaching students to think big numbers, he talked about using the “Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, the largest public data set in the world. The telescope takes detailed images of large chunks of the sky and produces about 30 terabytes of data each night.”
Well okay, that is big.
But we’re all faced with this problem these days, as many comments to the article pointed out. My comment suggested that it’s not a field-specific problem; it’s a data management problem. The kind of problem solved by Database Administrators, Hardware and Software Engineers, and all the people it takes to run a disk farm these days.
Obviously, I also pointed out that the field of Inbound Marketing now thinks in terms of billions and millions instead of thousands or hundreds, too. All those clicks, blogs, social nets, A/B test results, Google Analytics… And all to be dealt with while spending the regular marketing day creating innovative and strategic campaigns aimed at boosting market share.
Several of our blog posts have already addressed this area in one way or another, but in essence the solution is the same regardless of which field you play in. Automate or die. It truly is that simple.
We have been devising technology to overcome human limitations since that ape threw a bone up into the air in the movie 2001 a Space Odyssey. He understood what it meant to his tribe when the bone came down and smashed the bone underneath it to little chips. A few short scenes further into the movie and our intelligent ape is using the bone to smash-in other ape’s heads. Seems some things never change, do they?
And so it goes with Inbound Marketing and automatic sales lead and demand generation systems. Without marketing automation to filter, sort, categorize, analyze, chart and slice and dice, we’d be buried under an avalanche of facts and figures. But with sophisticated software tools and reliable and secure data management technology in place, we’re able to derive insight where before it was grey and dark.
So go ahead, it’s okay. You don’t have to be a Rocket Scientist: Boldly amass your mountain of data – we’re ready for it.
Bit-by-Bit #8, from Eric.
Tags: Demand Generation, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Automation
