Andrew Brust is Research Director for Big Data and Analytics at Gigaom Research. Andrew is co-author of "Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2012" (Microsoft Press); an advisor to NYTECH, the New York Technology Council; serves as Microsoft Regional Director and MVP; writes the Redmond Review column for VisualStudioMagazine.com; and serves as co-chair of the Visual Studio Live! developer conference. He also served on Microsoft’s BI Partner Advisory Council (PAC) for five years.
Andrew will be speaking on the topic of Using Hadoop with Excel and Power BI, Plus Data Discovery 101 at the PASS Business Analytics Conference in Santa Clara, CA, April 20-22.
Recently, we sat down with Hyoun to learn about his views on the analytics industry today.
Tell us your data story: How did you first become interested in working with data, and what path did you take to where you are now?
My first career-oriented job involved creating make-shift databases in Lotus 1-2-3 at the NYC Parks Department! From there they moved me to creating applications in dBase II. Six years or so later I started working with SQL Server at a big bank. And when OLAP Services was added to SQL Server 7, I was hooked.
What would 1990s’ you, working in the early age of business intelligence, find most exciting in today’s world of business and data analytics?
The 1990s me would be excited to see that analytics had finally entered the industry mainstream and, perhaps more important, captured the public’s imagination.
As a Research Director for Big Data and Analytics, what one thing would you tell data professionals to put at the top of their to-learn list this year?
Probably Apache Spark, but I’d also advise them to be wary of the hype around it, and to keep current with Hadoop.
How is the increasing rise of Cloud solutions transforming the world of analytics?
In two ways: first, at the risk of stating the obvious, it makes huge clusters of powerful machines available, affordably, for the ephemeral requirements that demand them. But perhaps more important, the ease of provisioning lets technologists get hands-on with the newest technologies very quickly. The barrier to entry is now correlated with aptitude, instead of access to resources.
What’s the biggest roadblock to enabling more self-service analytics and empowering business users with the data they need to make better decisions?
A few things: (1) Hadoop needs to become more embedded as an engine, and less directly exposed as a tool; (2) Predictive Analytics needs to become far more automated, and integrated with mainstream BI/data discovery tools and (3) There needs to be a better “upgrade” path for self-service solutions into Enterprise ones – the engines and tools are too segregated now. IT needs to be in the loop, even if they’re not driving; right now they’re rather cut off.
If you were hiring an analytics professional today, what knowledge, skills, and characteristics would you look for?
Clearly, I’d look for someone who had at least basic competency with BI and Big Data platforms and tools. Beyond that though, I’d look for someone who really found analyzing and working with data to be fun, and was passionate about learning new technologies as they shot out of the fire hose. But then these are my criteria for hiring technologists of almost any stripe.
Who is your data hero and why?
Bill Baker, who used to head up BI at Microsoft; in fact he brought BI to Microsoft. Bill led the Microsoft BI Partner Advisory Council (PAC) when I was invited to join it, and he taught me a lot about the discipline – and the business – of BI. In fact, Bill is the person most responsible for getting me to look beyond the Microsoft stack, think like an analyst and to become one.
Learn more with Andrew – catch his session Using Hadoop with Excel and Power BI, Plus Data Discovery 101 at the PASS Business Analytics Conference in Santa Clara, CA, April 20-22.