James Drogan

In How Do You Talk to Big Data? I take up matters of big data and analytics (BDA), ideas behind IBM's Deep Quesion Answering concepts (Deep QA), and their potential impact on what and how we teach.  On page 7 of that note I begin the description of a business problem that would seem to lend itself well to these two techniques.

The image to the left is from the front page of the December 15 Financial Times and represents a real problem.

If I were anywhere in the associated, complex, far flung supply chain I would want to know how these actions by China are likely to impact my business and what would be the alternative response I might be able to make to minimize the impact.

Of course, it would have been even better if I had prior information such that I could have more proactive in my response.

Resolving an issue of this nature is extremely complex requiring the availability of a diverse set of interrelating information and a symbiotic decision support system (man and machine) to provide assistance.  The key to this, I believe, is human capacity and capability.  Building that, of course, is what education is all about.