The 76th Installment
Predicting the Future with Big Data

by Sanggyu Shin,
Assistant Professor, Master Program of Information Systems Architecture

　　Our lives are undergoing tremendous change along with the development of IT technology. Not everyone needs to be aware of these changes, but our daily lives are already inseparable from IT. As persons who do IT-related work, we must at least work to not fall behind on the major trends underlying these changes. One of the largest trends at the moment is data science, and I’d like to talk about one particular aspect: big data.

　　You’ve probably heard the term “big data” here and there over the past several years. When did this specialized research and engineering term become a major topic that even the general public is aware of?

　　More than 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies are using, or plan to use, big data. However, there are few actual stories of big data successfully being used in real life.

　　One of those examples comes from politics. In preparing for re-election, former US President Barack Obama sought the advice of Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt and other IT leaders to create a big data election strategy: historically unprecedented use of the data of 200 million people, with up to 1,000 pieces of information about each of those people, compiled into a database for analysis and forecasting. The results were used to carry out cutting-edge election campaign activities such as ranking and cataloguing which voters should be appealed to.

　　Up until that point, many decisions seem to have been made by experts with knowledge in specific fields or based on the experience of top management. In the same vein, for many people in the field of marketing, it would seems that experts and management would often make decisions based on the most efficient past data. We called this “leadership” or “insight.” Naturally, such intuition is important. But now, such intuiting is done under the name of data science: gathering and analyzing data and making predictions thereof. It’s like progressing from the delivery of a one-directional message such as a television commercial to listening to the stories (needs) of individuals.

　　For the needs of our rapidly changing world, we have already started living in a time where various tasks begin with collecting data for purposes such as quicker responses and predicting the market based on individual needs.

　　If you are going to try using IT for marketing and development, the example of President Obama’s success shows that data will only continue to grow in importance.

　　One of the core factors that will decide future winners in the IT world will be how well you can process and analyze certain data and predict the future. So don’t only receive information, but find your own analysis and prediction methods in the large currents of information flowing in the world.