Why I dismiss most “Big Data” surveys out of hand.

There is rampant misunderstanding of what Big Data really is.  I’ve met too many people (and organizations) that believe Big Data is anything that doesn’t fit into an Excel spreadsheet.  When I see a new report that says Big Data has been implemented at 65% of firms, I immediately wonder whether the companies that responded actually understood the question.  And for those thinking that this isn’t an issue because IT are the ones answering – do you really think that all IT groups understand this idea (or would admit to not understanding it)?

Misunderstanding of an idea is fine but too many companies are invested in these studies that quote big numbers regardless of their accuracy.  I’d love to know what percentage of respondents also know what Hadoop is and how it works (even if only vaguely).  In my experience if you don’t know what Hadoop is (or at least that it exists) you can’t possible understand the idea of Big Data.