Elearning! Magazine: Building Smarter Companies via Learning & Workplace Technologies.
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Business of Learning 16 February / March 2015 Elearning! financial — investing — markets," Willis says. Te perfect use of big data might be intelligent mentoring. Each employee would get his or her own personal computer- based mentor that works around the clock, learns from what the employee inputs and what he or she does. Experiences make the compu-mentor "smarter," and it returns the favor by fnding content that the employee needs or likes and locating relevant human mentors to help solve challenges. In the corporate/organizational setting, Big Data can assist with career planning, learning recommendations and succession planning, among other functions like learning. "We can move beyond SCORM in terms of what learning is tracked, where and how," Willis observes. "We want to capture learning wherever, whenever and however it's occurring. In particular, your LRS (learning record store) needs to be hosted in the Cloud so it's easily accessible and hosted on Big Data technologies. "Learning is shifting toward non-traditional models. You want to make sure that you are positioning things correctly with various stakeholder audiences by communicating actively with them and involving HR and legal teams in terms of how you're capturing the data and what you're doing with it. You must use data for positive purposes, [but] it'll be a process of change." Bruner adds: "We have access to learning data that we can correlate to business data, specifically around hiring, engagement, performance and business outcomes. So [learning professionals should] make sure you are partnering with HR and I.T. folks. You won't be able to convince the CEO to invest in Big Data without doing so. It's how you leverage the investment. It's a co-share. Be an advocate for data-driven decisions to business problems." THE NEWEST RESEARCH SNS Research's latest report indicates that global spending on Big Data technology was expected to reach nearly $30 billion by the end of 2014. Originally used as a term to describe datasets whose size is beyond the ability of traditional databases, the scope of Big Data has significantly expanded over the years. It now not only refers to the data itself but also a set of technologies that capture, store, manage and analyze large and variable collections of data to solve complex problems. Amid the proliferation of real-time data from sources such as mobile devices, Web, social media, sensors, log files and transactional applications, Big Data has found a host of vertical market applications, ranging from fraud detection to R&D.; Despite challenges relating to privacy concerns and organizational resistance, Big Data investments continue to gain momentum throughout the globe. SNS Research estimates that Big Data investments are expected to register a compound annual growth rate of 17 percent over the next six years. —Complete SNS Research report: www.snstelecom.com/bigdata 'Make sure you are partner- ing with HR and I.T. folks. You won't be able to convince the CEO to invest in Big Data without doing so.' —Eric Bruner, GP Strategies