From Big Data to Smart Data

Preface

This book offers a journey through the new informational “space–time” that is revolutionizing the way we look at information through the study of Big and Smart Data for a zero-latency-connected world, in which the ability to act or react (in a pertinent and permanent way), regardless of the spatiotemporal context of our digitized and connected universe, becomes key.

Data (elementary particles of information) are constantly in motion (the Internet never sleeps), and once it is filtered, sorted, organized, analyzed, presented, etc., it feeds a continuous cycle of decision-making and actions. Crucial for this are the relationships between the data (their characteristics, format, temporality, etc.) and their value (ability to analyze and integrate it into an operational cycle of decision-making and actions), whether it is monitored by a “human” or an “automated” process (via software agents and other recommendation engines).

The world is in motion, and it will continue to move at an increasingly faster pace. Businesses must keep up with this movement and not fall behind (their competitiveness depends on it): the key to doing so is understanding and becoming an expert on the economic environment, which since the advent of the internet has become global.

Big Data was created relatively recently (less than five years ago) and is currently establishing itself in the same way Business Intelligence (technical and human methods for managing internal and external business data to improve ...