Thought Leaders in Big Data: Interview with JR Reagan, Federal Chief Innovation Officer at Deloitte Services (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: This is obviously a serious issue, and there are people working on it already. Who is working on it and who has good ideas?

JR Reagan: The good work is happening all over the place. You see the National Labs in the U.S. and other government organizations outside the U.S. that are doing some great work on the pattern types of stuff. There is serious analytics going on that is going to feed this once it is ready. Then there are the typical vendors out there that are starting to tune their platforms to accommodate big data in faster cycles. I would say a lot of great work around visualization and analytics is happening in places like Silicon Valley, academia, etc. But it is not necessarily geared toward cyber yet. That is what I think is going to be very interesting. Once people start to turn their heads to this approach or tool that I can use to solve cyber security, it will be an inflection point for us. >>>

Thought Leaders in Big Data: Interview with Chris Carter, CEO of Approyo (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: It sounds like this is a use case that is something you could do for many other verticals because this includes energy costs savings, for example, which most companies with facilities tend to need.

Chris Carter: That is correct. We have been able to take that specific use case and move it to other industries. We have been working with manufacturing plants and hotel chains to see how they could bring forth a bit more to the bottom line. It has moved very nicely into other areas, and it can scale into those other industries very cleanly and easily. >>>

Thought Leaders in Big Data: Interview with JR Reagan, Federal Chief Innovation Officer at Deloitte Services (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What do you think is the state of the union vis-à-vis visualization technologies? I heard from several people that there are gaps in visualization technologies. You are saying you are primarily using open source technologies, and you have developed your own internal framework. Talk about what is driving those choices and what you are trying to accomplish.

JR Reagan: The good news is that we have seen a lot of tools, and the ability to use them getting democratized really fast. Tableau is a great example of one that people can learn pretty quickly and do amazing things with. That side of the house – the analysts, cheaper tools, the tools that can do things quicker – is progressing well. >>>

Thought Leaders in Big Data: Interview with Chris Carter, CEO of Approyo (Part 1)

Chris Carter is the chief executive officer of Approyo, a company specializing in big data analytics. He is also member of the SAP Startup Focus Program, and a premium member of the 1M/1M program. In this interview Chris talks about Approyo’s view on big data and presents several use cases from various industry verticals, specifying how the company generates big data insights that help drive better business outcomes and ROI. Approyo focuses on SAP’s Hana platform, and is a good example of the platform eco-system trend that we’re seeing everywhere in the technology industry right now. This interview also touches upon Approyo’s evolution from a horizontal Hana solution provider to a more advanced developer of vertical solutions with real domain insight in industry segments such as energy management at hospital facilities.

Sramana Mitra: Chris, let’s talk about your company and about your background. >>>

Thought Leaders in Big Data: Interview with JR Reagan, Federal Chief Innovation Officer at Deloitte Services (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Your lab is now basically one that specializes in data visualization across different verticals.

JR Reagan: Yes. With innovation, we started getting called in to being more than just analytics. Now we are asked to come up with the next idea around the use of certain technologies in different ways – 3-D printing, for example. A lot of it revolves around analytics, but the innovation aspect comes in all different flavors, even in things like cyber security these days. >>>

Thought Leaders in Big Data: Interview with JR Reagan, Federal Chief Innovation Officer at Deloitte Services (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s take use cases of real customer problems and how you are using large-scale visualization to add value to those problems and generate solutions.

JR Reagan: One unique problem we thought was interesting comes from one of the large global retailers. Around the time of Hurricane Irene [in August 2011] they called us up on a Friday at noon and said, “What we need quickly is to have the ability to see what is happening from where our stores are located as well as where the hurricane is going to impact us in lots of different ways – where roads are being closed, where curfews are, where the supply chain is going to be impacted, etc.” >>>

Thought Leaders in Big Data: Interview with JR Reagan, Federal Chief Innovation Officer at Deloitte Services (Part 1)

JR Reagan is the chief innovation officer for the federal practice at Deloitte Services. He teaches innovation and creativity at John Hopkins University and holds a masters in management information systems from Bowie State University and a BA in sociology from the State University of New York. In this interview he talks about Deloitte’s creative environment and how the company creates big data visualization. Furthermore, he talks about his vision of the future of the visualization space and open problems that need to be addressed.

Sramana Mitra: JR, let’s start by telling our readers about yourself and the program you run at Deloitte.

JR Reagan: I am a partner in our federal practice at Deloitte. I am our chief innovation officer for the federal practice, but I also run a unique center called HIVE (highly immersive visual environment). >>>

Thought Leaders in Big Data: Interview with David Gibson, VP of Marketing at Varonis (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: There is a lot of data out there that is not organized with the right metadata for that particular function – whatever that function may be. In your case, it is access control and IT governance. In somebody else’s case, it is customer data related to recommendation engines. Whatever is the business logic of it, to be able to do this right, you need to understand the business function really well. IT is a business function as well.

David Gibson: I would even extend it to collaboration as a function. It is hard to understand collaboration if you don’t know who is collaborating with whom, what the data is, and what it contains. >>>