Best business intelligence and data articles, 26 January - 2 February

Embracing an R&D project management style may be the key to profiting from big data.

'Big Data' is one of those topics we can't escape - and with good reason. With the increasing amount of data available to us today, understanding and leveraging big data has become more important than ever.

Privacy and security is a hot topic at the moment. From heartbleed to the NSA and from government spying to Obama's State of the Union address , it seems everyone is keen to have their say on what they think security and privacy in the online world should look like.

The use of big data to rapidly analyze costs, understand public behaviors and anticipate security threats continues to attract the interest of government agencies that see the technology as a way to gain measurable insights into their most demanding problems. Nowhere are researchers more active in exploring the uses of big data than in government health care organizations, where data scientists are working toward creating reliable tools for predicting a patient's risk of disease or a virus's path of infection.

A power shift in business intelligence (BI) will result in disruption for organisations, a new study has indicated. Research from Gartner found that, by 2017, the majority of business users and analysts in organisations will be able to access self-service tools in order to prepare data effectively for analysis.

Howard Dresner, President and Founder Dresner Advisory Services Editor's note: Is the growth of mobile business intelligence flat, ready for takeoff or growing beyond expectations? What are the current business preferences for the various mobile apps and platforms? How is cloud computing impacting mobile BI?

Between 2012 and 2014, mobile BI adoption shot up: Forrester survey data shows that the percentage of technology decision-makers who make some BI applications available on mobile devices has nearly quadrupled, and the percentage who state that BI is delivered exclusively via mobile devices has risen

It's almost time for the big game-the one and only, Super Bowl. As diehard and casual fans alike pick up the snacks and set up the living room for their Super Bowl parties, sports experts are spending hours on end pontificating on the minutiae of the tiniest details happening on and off the field, all in an effort to predict the winner between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots.

Big data has infiltrated almost every aspect of our day-to-day lives and education is no exception. Big data is changing the way students learn and receive instruction in and out of the classroom. Algorithms analyze behavior as well as performance on tests, quizzes, papers and all other aspects of school.

Traditional business intelligence (BI) and analytics models are being disrupted as the balance of power shifts from IT to the business, according to Gartner. The rise of data discovery, access to multi-structured data, data preparation tools and smart capabilities will further democratise access to analytics and stress the need for governance.

We're a pretty suspicious lot here in the UK. Britain has the potential to be the world leader in Healthcare Big Data. We have (more or less) centralized NHS records dating back to the 1940s, and we have normalized personal data for each patient, which is far less fragmented than for the US, for example.

Similar to years past, data quality may yet again win the superlative award for the most discussed topic in the business intelligence industry. Unfortunately, it's becoming about as boring to read as the usual "Top X Things NOT to do in BI Projects."

The news yesterday that YouTube has dropped Flash in favor of HTML5 for its default video player is clearly another nail in Flash's coffin. YouTube engineer Richard Leider was reported saying "the time had come to ditch the aging Flash in favor of HTML5".

It's never been more important for business people throughout your organizations to have access to relevant business information to make informed decisions. But today, with data stored not only on premise but increasingly in the cloud too (e.g. Salesforce, Marketo, Eloqua, Google Analytics), how do you access all of this data to create a consolidated view of your business?