TechAmerica and Big Data in the Public Sector

TechAmerica is a great association of companies driving innovation worldwide. They are a leading voice of the US technology industry with over 1000 member companies worldwide. Member companies span the entire spectrum of technology, from software to semiconductors and from start-up to multi-national. Their companies are key drivers of economic growth and job creation.

TechAmerica is a great association of companies driving innovation worldwide. They are a leading voice of the US technology industry with over 1000 member companies worldwide. Member companies span the entire spectrum of technology, from software to semiconductors and from start-up to multi-national. Their companies are key drivers of economic growth and job creation.

In the public sector, TechAmerica contributes ideas, concepts and collaborative mechanisms designed to help inform policy-makers, member companies and decision-makers in and out of government on key issues. One of the issues TechAmerica is tackling now is Big Data.

I’ll be giving the kickoff briefing at the first meeting of their public sector Big Data Task Force. Things I will talk about will be very consistent with what you have read here over the last year. I look forward to engaging with task force members and hope to recruit a few to be new readers of our Government Big Data Newsletter.

More importantly, I hope to help dialog on how we can keep the meaning of Big Data from being watered down, which is one of my current fears. Today most of us use that term to refer to solutions to a real and growing challenge: datasets that are so large and complex that they become awkward to work with and hard to make sense over unless new approaches are used. Those new approaches are NOT more of the same old stuff. The new approaches are designed to make more data a benefit vice a challenge.

More on this topic soon!