Australian Open - This is Big, This is Data

What does big data mean anyway? While the techie world argues about whether data is big or small, others are inclined to embrace its use in the real world. In a nutshell, with the availability of cloud, we're able to process a lot more data in a much shorter period of time and that's pretty exciting.

I got to experience this first hand at the Australian Open this week in Melbourne as
a VIP guest of IBM and although I'd hoped to see a win from Wawrinka last night I was not disappointed by the excitement behind the scenes. IBM has an enormous presence at the event and wanted to show off their cloud technology and analytics capability. All those stats on players you see on the screen in real time - chances are that's IBM. An article you just read about Djokovic that includes info about his previous wins and losses - that journalist was probably using one of many touch screen terminals at the event to retrieve that information for their story. And here I thought every sports journalist just knew that stuff off the top of their head.

Despite this player data being collected for over 8 years from every major tournament, it's only now really coming in to play in a useful way because of the speed in which cloud can process the information.

Big Dashboards

My fascination with dashboards and analytics has - up until now - been limited to the organisational dashboard. But seeing IBMs Watson Tournament Dashboard (pictured above) highlighted for me just how far we have come, and possibly how far we are likely to go when it comes to analytics technology.

A live touch screen in several backstage tents shows everything from the number of tweets being made about the event - as of yesterday more than 1 million tweets with the #AusOpen hashtag - through to the measured positivity or negativity of each tweet - 94% positive for Andy Murray, 78% Nadal. A kind of social leaderboard that might interest many.

What's in a #Hashtag?

But are tweet and Instagram statistics valuable? It's not for everyone - yet for marketers and advertisers it's a real-time goldmine that allows them to act dynamically based on what is trending in order to weave their own brand messaging in to the flow. But for merchandisers at the #ausopen the real power is in the data coming from the crowd itself. The entire Rod Laver arena and surrounding areas are populated with wifi base stations and even if you aren't using the free wifi offered throughout the venue, your phone is continuously responding to ping signals. This information is pulled together in real time to show where the crowd is heading - or not heading. That makes venue management far more elastic than it used to be. 10,000 people are headed toward the Heineken tent? We need more security and more beer presumably. Andy Murray is in one of the practice courts? - alert the nearby merchandisers as the crowd streams in that direction.

Of course real time big and small data is exciting, but it's also used for traditional post event decisions in an attempt to rectify what went wrong and what to change for future events.

Before Cloud

One of our guides joked that as little as a few years ago none of this was possible without significant behind the scenes chaos. For example, a sudden swarm of millions to one of the many websites run by IBM would usually result in a swarm of executives and technicians on the phone ordering more servers. They were literally plugging in more computers to meet the statistical demand of the event. With cloud, the capacity is provisioned as needed and within an instant.

Behind the Scenes

Behind the scenes was a fascinating look in to just how much is involved in collecting player data. Perhaps next time you're watching you'll notice in the corner of your eye that the umpire is in fact holding a small handheld device. This is where the score is kept, and although up close these PDAs look somewhat bigger and clunkier than the sleek smartphones we are used to, they pack a simplistic punch, immediately feeding score data back to the IBM control room wirelessly and within milliseconds to your TV or web browser. These devices are pre-programmed with game rules to assist the umpire in determining the correct scoring decision.

You would expect to find an army of technicians in the control room but the culture seems to be geared toward what is simpler is better. The humble room under the seats of the arena houses perhaps 3 or 4 technicians monitoring the systems and are surrounded by spare parts, yet some of the most critical factors of tracking the game are still run on a couple of old laptops. When asked why they weren't upgraded to powerful servers or touch screen tablets - the answer? Because the laptops still work.

The Future is Dashboards and Analytics

Much of what was on display at the Open was a fascinating insight in to how analytics are shaping our decisions (especially our buying decisions). It won't be long before the advertising at these events are specifically targeted to your profile, pushed to your phone or presented on interactive screens around you. Likewise, if you're in business, the technology is already within your reach to leverage big events like this to promote your products and services.

For players, they can't get enough. In a fascinating chat with Thomas Johannson he explained that he and his legendary colleagues have an insatiable thirst for data. I asked if it was information overload and he set me straight. "you want to know everything about yourself and your opponents if you want to win".

For these players, getting information about a game from 3 years ago might be important, but getting it correlated with real time data is equally if not more important than ever. Just like in your business, knowing what is happening right now and acting on it is imperative.

I'm looking forward to tonight's final with Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic. While the two of them plan and prepare for their win - undoubtedly tapping in to whatever information they can to gain an advantage - I'll be thinking about the ways in which big or small data can improve our businesses.

Happy computing,

James