Intuition 2016: 5 things we learned this year

What is Intuition?

Saama’s annual Big Data and Analytics event Intuition saw record breaking numbers of attendees and presenters from top companies like Cisco, Salesforce, Booz Allen Hamilton, CSAA Insurance Group, Microsoft, attend this year. Chris Surdak (@CSurdak), Big Data expert, delivered his views on disruption and also gave away his award-winning book, Data Crush. Saama’s customers, partners, top industry thought leaders, experts and data scientists from around the world look ahead to key insights in the analytics space, including predictions, trends, disruptive ideas, and game-changing outcomes at Intuition.

What did we found out?

Data science is an exciting and ever changing paradigm. As we saw at Intuition 2016, companies in this space are making significant improvements in the way data is analyzed, continuously looking out for opportunities for analytics advantage through better customer engagement, increased sales, and streamlined costs. Below are some of the key takeaways;

1. 1. #Intuition2016: Cognitive systems is the new black 
      
      As we saw in Saama CEO Suresh Katta’s keynote, we have moved from an era of merely transactional systems to one of cognitive systems.  These are loosely coupled and work with machine learning (M2M), Artificial Intelligence, and Natural Language Processing. Cognitive systems use analytics to get closer to human beings and help enhance our cognitive capabilities.
   2. #Intuition2016: From Conceptualization to Consumption
      
      Early days of analytics saw people spending months working on data models and data warehouses to bind data and render it in future. The new wave of on-demand data binding on a continuous basis is here. Binding the data at the time of consumption is drastically reducing time and effort, and provides analytics capabilities that are relevant at the time of maximum impact.
   3. #Intuition2016: This is the era of “Outcomes”
      
      Gone are the days when businesses required point systems. They now need specific business outcomes. At Saama, Outcomes is the 2016 theme too. Business leaders don’t just want “predictive systems” or “machine learning systems”. They want to see outcomes that lead to success.
   4. #Intuition2016: Un-joinables can be joined irrespective of type
      
      Today we are moving away from just joining common forms of data. Now, irrespective of the type of data tag, we can join them together. Multiple attributes can be joined at the time of consumption and need not be pre-joined, thus giving flexibility to analysts to create reports on the fly and “join the un-joinable” for better business outcomes.
   5. #Intuition2016: Life is fluid
      
      …so should the systems we use. Fluid systems should deliver information when needed, in the moment, in the shortest time possible.  And in keeping with the democratization of data and the “data citizen” theme, all should be able to leverage the massive amounts of available data in order to drive customer success.  If implemented well, fluid analytics can deliver up to 7X impact to the overall business outcomes.

Did we miss out on anything? Did you learn more? Please share your notes and comments with us. We will publish an infographic shortly summing up the event too.