Week of July 1st.

Completed Items:  Required reading
	•	"Introduction," in The Numerati, pp. 1-16.  Big Data and You: People Still Matter Demystifying Big Data: How Retailers Can Use Information to Drive Sales
Required viewing
AdditionalMaterial	•	Brief History of the Internet You Tube video ·         Report: The World's Most Valuable Brands. Who's Most Engaged?

Business Model Canvas Assignment

One of the main topics for this week is Big Data. The article Demystifying Big Data  really help me realize the enormous amounts of data that companies have to deal with.  The graphic with all the examples of data was pretty overwhelming.  Retailers need focus on how they plan to use this data being collected.  The smartphone has really drove this increase in data.  One of the biggest improvements that retailers will focus on in the future is using the data for personalizing marketing communications.  I also thought that it was interesting in this article that the goals for using big data were conflicting in where retailers plan focus and then where they plan to deploy their first projects.

The Numerati was also an interesting read.  I'm sure it will make most people paranoid reading this.  It is an interesting topic, especially with the news a few weeks go about the government obtaining phone records for everyone.  Also this past spring the Obama administration announced a $200M project that involved six Federal departments and agencies that promise to greatly improve the tools and techniques needed to access, organize, and glean discoveries from huge volumes of digital data.  What will they use these new tools for?