Let’s start with a short story;
The History of Ice
In the early 1800’s one of the thriving industries was that of Ice Harvesting. The only method to freeze foods or chill beverages was with ice cut from frozen lakes and rivers. It took one hundred years for a man called Frederic Tudor to develop a market and to master the trade of ice harvesting.
Ice Factories were created around 1920. With them, there was no need to wait for winter and for lakes or rivers to freeze, by then ice was made in large amounts, using a manufacturing process in a place closer to the final consumer.
But, it only took a few more years, for the first Refrigerators to appear. Now, everyone could own their Ice Factory at home. Ice was available on demand.If we look at the Ice Industry, it took three iterations to develop and mature, all of this was possible by aligning technology to an increasing need for ice in our day-to-day life. The most interesting part of this story, though, is that none of the Ice Harvesting businesses became Ice Factories and none of the Ice Factories became manufacturers of Refrigerators.
Reference: The Surprisingly Cool History of Ice
The Era of Cloud, IoT, Big Data and Machine Learning
Technology is around us in different forms and shapes. It advances at speeds we never thought possible before; all with the intention of making our lives better by introducing different ways to solve a problem with a more efficient and effective use of resources.
For us, Data Professionals (or Technologists in general), technology provides the tools required to automate the work we used to do manually and more options to implement our solutions efficiently.
In the era of Big Data and Machine Learning, we have the advantage of having enormous amounts of data available to us; data we can use to learn about a particular business process, and even more data to validate all of our findings. The creation of data will continue growing, and more intelligence will be available to apply and learn from it. We used to think Big Data was the right of a few, but nowadays every individual is generating tonnes of data from mobile devices to fit trackers and social media. Some people think all the information and knowledge produced from the data is only the tip of the iceberg, there is plenty more to do, and the opportunities are countless.
With IoT, we can gather information from remote devices, monitor their operation and act on them making do whatever we want them to do. The story repeats, in the old days this technology was the right of only those who had the money to spend in real-time data processing and reporting. Nowadays, every hardware manufacturer can include IoT modules in their products with minimal costs. In a few years, IoT modules will be a default feature and not a feature used to differentiate from the competition.
And finally, Cloud opens an entirely new world of options for people wanting to use technology on demand. It provides alternatives to scale up and out the systems used to run our operations. We also have the availability of thousands or even millions of services we can integrate into the software applications we build. For example, very specialised services, such as cognitive services, are now available to everyone. And the best part, the setup of any cloud-based technology is simple, and with a few clicks, you are ready to start.
So, Who is the Winner in this World of Technology?
Be Creative…
Technology is changing the shape of our careers and how they will evolve in the future. For example, self-service BI is making your report development skills unnecessary most of the times. Similarly, cloud-based databases already provide all the management (such as maintenance plans and ongoing performance tuning) required to support these systems, work that was previously part of the domain of a DBA.
Based on your current expertise or role, I suggest you perform a thorough analysis and define how you will approach an environment full of new technologies, how you will redesign your career/role.
- Technology will help those individuals or organisations who can develop the most innovative solutions. The same technology is available to everyone, the challenge is to create something different.
- Benchmark other people or organisations using technology. Don’t copy, instead use their success using technology as your baseline to develop something bigger, something better.
- As a technologist, start developing conceptual knowledge in all of its forms (architectures, solution designs, models, etc.). Then, use technology to build your solution. Concepts first, technology or tools last, always!