Twenty-first International Conference on Knowledge, Culture, and Change in Organizations

Abstract

Ninety-percent of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years. With the increase of mobile devices, social media networks, and the sharing of digital photos and videos, we are continuing to grow the world’s data at an astounding pace. According to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, every two days we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003. Data is big…and getting bigger. Unprecedented access to information and emerging technology (allowing us to harness different types of data – both structured and unstructured) have resulted in the rise of big data analytics, which holds the promise of helping companies and governments make more informed decisions by enabling individuals to analyze large volumes of data. However, success in achieving this goal is often elusive. There is no shortage of challenges – technical, cultural, organizational, operational – associated with addressing this daunting issue. In this session we explore the question of how do we extract big knowledge from big data and avoid the pitfalls that have confounded so many organizations. We use case studies from both the commercial and government sectors, and call on experience in leading the business intelligence/knowledge management functions at six leading international organizations to facilitate an interactive discussion on this important topic.