Making Mountains out of Mole Hills
Association of Government Accountants (AGA)
Central PA Chapter
Spring Seminar
Condor International Advisors,
LLC
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Challenges Facing Public Managers
Branding & Strategy
New Media
Information Overload
E-Government
Governing Outside the Box - Hoteling, Telework, Teaming
Security & World is Really Flat - Threat from Within
Performance Metrics & Results - Balance Score Card
Big Data - Big Risks
Presented by Condor International Advisors, LLC
Washington, DC
Challenges Facing Public Managers
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Challenges Facing Public Managers
The current reassessment of the functions of the public managers arises from two major sources:
1) One is globalization and its impacts on what governments must do to adapt and respond to
rapidly changing international economic, social, political and technological trends;
2) The other is increasing dissatisfaction among U.S. citizens with the functions of
government and the services that public administrations provide.
Today public managers face demanding
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constituencies,
interest groups,
and advocacy groups with legitimate but conflicting interests,
as well as aggressive media scrutiny.
Global, national, and local forces demand higher levels of
1)Transparency
2)Accountability
3)Performance
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Challenges Facing Public Managers (cont.)
The federal government is navigating several significant human capital challenges:
• Declining budgets,
• high employee turnover,
• inadequate succession planning,
• lack of key HR competencies,
•retirement caused gaps in agency leadership skills
These comprise the sector's top workforce management challenges.
Today, organizations are becoming less structured, increasingly complex and, in many
cases, highly fluid in nature, while the tasks which they seek to accomplish are becoming
ever more difficult. Consequently, there is a need for much higher levels of individual
adaptability and flexibility in contemporary government. This puts even more emphasis
upon the ability to manage relationships as a key activity of the future.
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How Do Public Managers Function Effectively in a Globalizing World?
In order to meet these challenges, current and future governmental leaders will need to be better equipped in
the following areas:
1. Conveying Complex Ideas effectively (Orally, In writing, and Graphically)
2. Adapting Rapidly to Change and Complexity (Tweet and United Airline)
3. Fostering Effective Collaboration (Matrix Management)
4. Seeing Situations as Others See Them (Politically sensitive)
5. Building Democratic Institutions (Inclusion, Diverse workforce)
6. Fostering Ethical Awareness and Sensitivity (GSA scandal)
7. Enhanced Self Management Capability (Optics)
8. Entrepreneurialism and Risk-taking Ability (entrepreneurship)
9. Strategic Planning Capability (Job Security vis a vis Employment Security)
10.Ability to Facilitate Effective Staff Professional and Personal Development (Leadership Development,
COOP, Succession Planning)
11. Capacity to Build and Nurture Harmonious Multi-ethnic, Multi-cultural, Gender Equitable Environments
(The world is flat)
12.Ability to Focus in an Increasingly Diffuse Environment (Ability to handle vagueness — black and white
in a continuum)
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Branding & Strategy
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Why Build a Personal Brand?
You already know it is a different world -- one in which 40-year job security is a distant memory. These days, there is
no loyalty anywhere including in government; you are as apt to be laid off at the first economic hiccup as you are to
be promoted. Now, whether it is just you or you have a small office and a few employees, here is a new question:
How do you create your own security?
Job Security v.s. Employment Security
Job security involves knowing that you will retain employment for a specific company during a certain
amount of time. However, because of the number of layoffs that occur annually it is almost a fact that
most people cannot rely on such a thing as job security any longer. Otherwise, you are leaving your wellbeing at the mercy of others whose self interest is not the same as yours.
Instead, you want to create Employment Security which means that you have the skills needed by
others so that you can find a position/career, during any economy, with undue stress. People want you
because of your skill sets and not just a warm body.
The fearlessness that comes with employment security rather than job security allows you to relax with
the fact that you can spend any number of years in one occupation while acquiring the skills you need to
move on when the time is right. Every position has a defined life cycle. If two people are competing for
promotion, it’s the “best time” to find a new position.
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What is a Personal Brand?
Outside your immediate circle of friends and family, people know you primarily by your personality, reputation and
past performance. In a sense, they know you by your Personal Brand.
Your Personal Brand is the powerful, clear, positive idea that comes to mind whenever other people think of you.
It is what you stand for -- the values, abilities and actions that others associate with you.
It is a professional alter ego designed for the purpose of influencing how others perceive you, and turning that
perception into opportunity. It does by telling your audience three things:
1. Who you are
2. What you do
3. What makes you different, or how you create value for your target market
Imagine the benefit of consciously crafting your Personal Brand to powerfully convey your value to people you
want to work with, and who can influence others to work with you.
That’s why it’s so important that you should use every opportunity that flies in front of you at work.
To present yourself better, to network through colleagues during coffee breaks, and to show your boss what you
are capable of.
Example: Follically, Vertically, and Chronologically Challenged American by choice
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What a Personal Brand does?
A Personal Brand is all about persona resulting influence. It influences how the people among
your stakeholders perceive you. An effective Personal Brand must evoke three basic
perceptions in the minds of your stakeholders:
1. You are unique. (If you can’t be seen as unique, you are replaceable.)
2. Your are better. (Being seen as a leader in your field is critical to gaining the confidence
of people who don’t know you personally.)
3. You are authentic. (Let people see your intrinsic value that is built on the truth of what
your core competence and skill discriminator )
When you have the courage to admit being a fake sometimes, you have demonstrated
authenticity — synthetic authenticity theory.
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The Dream Society by Rolf Jesen
I highly recommend this book to everyone here. This is a book that talks about the future and how to be successful in the
21st century. The author points out that in the following generation, entrepreneurs no longer compete for the lowest
production cost, they don’t’ compete for cheap labor wage. The world market and resources will be so well-saturated that
consumers will have plenty of choices for reasonably high-quality products.
What will the consumer look for?
They look for products that have ideas – dreams that fulfill people’s imaginations and expectations in life.
Products with a story behind their labels will attract consumers to buy them. Your story is the foundation of your brand
and a strategy for future growth.
Story is how Starbucks created a whole new coffee category and elevated itself above its competitors. That story is the
reason people would drive 4 kilometers, passing Dunkin Donuts and 7 Eleven on the way to pay three times more for a
cup of coffee every morning.
Be the best of what you can be
I always tell my children to be the best of what they can be, not what they want to be, but the best of what they can be.
I always think that it’s better to be the best butcher than the worst lawyer. For example, to be the best in your class is
more important than which class you are in.
I am sure that each of you here today has either a great academic background or a technical expertise, but all of you
are here today because you want to be the best of what you can be.
And I think each of you has a great potential to achieve whatever goal you have, but you need to start thinking about
the concept of branding. Unless you start to know how to sell your ideas and how to package your image, your dream
is just a dream.
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New Media
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What is New Media?
•New
Media is a 21st Century catchall term used to define all that is related to the internet and the interplay
between technology, images and sound.
•New
Media evolves and morphs continuously.
•New
Media allows people to connect and engage with their audiences like never before.
•Since
Wikipedia has become one of the most popular storehouses of knowledge in the new media age, it would
be beneficial to begin there:
“New media refers to on-demand access to content anytime, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as
interactive user feedback, and creative participation.
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New Media in Today’s Society: The Evolution of Phones
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I believe that most of us here still remember how back in the old days if we wanted to call someone, the only
option was to dial a telephone number from a landline.
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Telephones have changed dramatically since Alexander Graham Bell spoke the first words into a telephone on
March 10, 1876. Motorola then introduced some of its first cell phones during the 1980s. Those phones were
completely different from the devices we have today since from no side they were cost effective and handy.
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Nowadays, almost everyone has a mobile phone, and many of us here are even using smartphones.
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The first call was made from an army radio phone was made 70 years ago. Now with your smartphones, you can
do every possible thing.
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Example of Island invasion story.
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Information Overload
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What is Information Overload?
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The first recorded use of the phrase “information overload” was used by the futurologist Alvin Toffler in 1970, when he
predicted that the rapidly increasing amounts of information being produced would eventually cause people problems.
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Now in the workplace, Information Overload means when you are trying to deal with more information than you are able to
process to make sensible decisions. The result is either that you delay making decisions, or that you make the wrong
decisions.
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With the advent of modern computers that the ability to create, duplicate and access vast amounts of information has
created Information Overload amongst the general population. On the surface, it seems that this kind of one-click access
would make us smarter and more productive. But in reality, the data deluge is having the opposite effect causing a loss in
productivity and motivation.
Some of the causes of Information Overload include:
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The widespread access to the Web
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The ease of sending e-mail messages to large numbers of people
• As information can be duplicated for free, there is no variable cost in
producing more copies – people send reports and information to people who may
need to know, rather than definitely need to know.
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Poorly created information sources (especially online), which:
are not simplified or filtered to make them shorter
are not written clearly, so people have to spend more time understanding them
contain factual errors or inconsistencies – requiring further research
Do not become an overpaid “traffic” policeman — best way to lose a job!
Beware of confusing “cut & paste” with research!
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How the Problem Spread?
Solutions to Information Overload…
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The root of the problem is that, although computer processing and memory is increasing all the time, the humans that must
use the information are not getting any faster. Effectively, the human mind acts as a bottleneck in the process.
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In an office, the problem of Information Overload spreads like a virus.
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If one person is suffering information overload, they tend not to process the information they are handling very well.
Rather than summarizing a report or document, they just pass on the whole thing to everyone in the office.
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Now, the rest of the office must wade through 80 pages to find the few key pieces of information that are relevant to their
jobs and the decisions they need to make.
Solutions
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Spending less time on gaining information that is nice to know and more time on things that we need to know now.
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Focusing on quality of information, rather than quantity. A short concise e-mail is more valuable than a long e-mail.
• Learning how to create better information (this is what Infogineering is about). Be direct in what you ask people, so that
they can provide short precise answers.
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Single-tasking, and keeping the mind focused on one issue at a time.
• Spending parts of the day disconnected from interruptions (e.g. switch off e-mail, telephones, Web, etc.) so you can
fully concentrate for a significant period of time on one thing.
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E-Government
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What is E-Government?
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The world is already online, and that includes our public governmental agencies.
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Let me begin with a working definition:
“E-government is the use of information technology to support government operations,
engage citizens, and provide government services.”
Five key dimensions reflecting the functions of government itself:
• E-services
-- the electronic delivery of government information, programs, and services often (but not exclusively)
over the Internet.
• E-democracy
-- the use of electronic communications to increase citizen participation in the public decision-making
process.
• E-commerce
-- the electronic exchange of money for goods and services such as citizens paying taxes and utility
bills, renewing vehicle registrations, and paying for recreation programs, or government buying supplies and
auctioning surplus equipment.
• E-management
-- the use of information technology to improve the management of government, from streamlining
business processes to maintaining electronic records, to improving the flow and integration of information, including
work flaw.
• E-archival
and Cloud
Cyber Security Threats?
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Pros of E-Government
1.Cheaper
• Very
cost-effective way to exchange information, both for its owner and its users.
• For instance, a website can reduce the number of enquiries agency staff has to deal with, by providing answers to
the most common questions or FAQs it normally receives, and therefore reduce the amount of staff effort and cost
needed to respond to them.
• Less trees being cut
• Less pollution
• Less energy use
2.Quicker
• Web
publishing is immediate.
• Fast release of news and other information items to the public, e.g. respond to promptings from the media, or act in
moments of crisis.
• Conduct transactions (e.g. requesting a license) outside working hours and/or without visiting government offices.
• Reputation, etc (Example of CEARS)
•New
• A new,
additional point of contact for the international audiences (e.g. donors, international institutions, and
governments of other countries)
• The use of e-mail and/or online forms through a website also offers a fast and efficient alternative communication
method for those who prefer indirect contact to communicating in person or on the phone (for time or personal
reasons).
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Cons of E-Government
The main disadvantage of an e-government is to move the government services into an electronic
based system. This system
1)loses the person to person interaction which is valued by a lot of people. In addition, the
implementation of an e-government service is that, with many technology based services, it is
2)often easy to make the excuse (e.g. the server has gone down) that problems with the service
provided are because of the technology. The implementation of an e-government does have certain
constraints.
3)Literacy of the users and the ability to use the computer, users who do not know how to read and
write would need assistance.
An example would be the senior citizens. In general, senior citizens do not have much education and
they would have to approach a customer service officer for assistance.
•Lastly, even though the level of confidence in the security offered by government web sites are high,
the public are still concerned over security, fear of spam from providing email addresses, and
government retention of transaction or interaction history. Email never goes away. Most criminal
conviction within the government are based on Email and phone records.
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Pros & Cons of E-Government
V.S
For example, in early days, we use file cabinets to store most of the documents. It requires a lot of office space, labor work, and
time commitment.
Nowadays, people use USB drive, Google Drive, Cloud and email to store information which are most efficient, cost-effective,
and easier.
In the old days, I bought hundreds of Christmas cards three months in advance and hired three staff to write, print, fold and send
the Christmas cards to my clients and friends. It is not only laborious and tedious work for my staff, but also a waste of time and
money.
Nowadays, with E-cards, I don’t even need to hire three staff to do all the Christmas cards work for me -- I only need to hire one
staff to send all the Christmas cards through emails in 30 minutes. It saves me time and postage fees.
However, with emails and Google Drive, there is one big issue: the information you’ve stored in your email or Google Drive never
goes away. There is no way that you can destroy or get rid of that important piece of message as you do with papers.
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Governing Outside the Box
— Hoteling, Telework, Teaming
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What is Hoteling?
Hoteling is a recent trend described as a method of supporting unassigned seating in an office environment by
setting aside an area where external employees have rotating shared desks.
For example, you are a visiting employee searching for a spare desk, a free conference room or hopefully using
the office of someone out at a meeting. If there’s no desk, you will wind up setting your laptop in the lobby or
pantry. So how do you handle those employees who come in, but you don’t have the spare cube or office?
Hoteling!
The hoteling systems I’ve experienced allowed me to reserve a small cubicle somewhere in the office for a
single day. These systems ran on a first-come, first-serve basis. After all, getting your work done is not about
having a dedicated desk, but having access to the right kind of office setup for getting the work done.
Con: Your office is always with you.
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What is Telework?
•To
use IT and telecommunications to replace work-related travel.
•Teleworking
allows employees work at home or at a local telework center one or more days per week using
communication tools, such as such as phone, fax, modem, Internet teleconferencing, e-mail or IM, to perform
work duties from a remote location.
•About
28 million American workers do at least part of their jobs from home offices, telework centers, or other
remote locations.
How can IT managers stay on top of teleworker productivity and company profitability?
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Challenge No. 1: Managing remote workers
If the organization already has a weak management policy, the policy should be updated before teleworking
begins.
Creating an effective telework environment requires a blending of soft skills with modern management
techniques, plus a telework-influenced framework.
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Challenge No. 2: Managing the technology
IT managers must overcome a host of technical challenges to implement successful remote operations.
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The Importance of Teaming
• In
today's complex and volatile business environment, corporations and organizations also win or lose by creating
wholes that are greater than the sum of their parts.
• Teaming is essential to an organization's ability to respond to opportunities and to improve internal processes.
Best Practices: Teaming Matrix organizations instead of Pyramids
•A matrix
organization is one where functional leaders are responsible for more than one area. Employees report to
both their immediate manager and a cross function leader.
•A hierarchy
organization is where one person manages direct reports and those reports manage direct reports in
a cascading responsibility.
•Matrix
organizations utilizes a cross functional approach. Cross functional teams work with shared responsibility
for both projects and traditional tasks.
For example, a buyer in a hierarchy organization works in a procurement department and reports directly to the purchasing
manager. In a matrix organization, the buyer would report to two bosses. One would be the traditional purchasing manager
and the other may be the manager of a project the buyer is assigned to.
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Security & World is Really Flat
— Threat from Within
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The article “Federal agencies embrace new technology and strategies to find the enemy
within” from the Washington Post on March 8, 2014
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This article foreshadowed how the U.S. government is now focusing like laser beam on
"threats from within" - employees inside the system who can do harm to their employers.
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In the past, the federal government was more concerned about threats from outside like
foreign countries, non U.S. corporations, enemy agents, etc. Due to the Manning/Snowden
scandals, the conclusion now is that people from inside merit intensified scrutiny and they
could be bigger "threat" at the end.
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The article talked about the detail monitoring thats going on now within the government and
companies over their employees and contractors.
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It also talked about "sentiment analysis" of targeted employees/contractors. Frequently, these
surveillance/investigations bring to light other violations that would have gone unnoticed, such
as ethics violation, contract fraud, mis use of government resources, breach of policies, etc.
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It goes without saying any employee/contractor/interns who acted improperly, especially when
perceived as betrayal of trust, will be charged and be dealt with severely by courts to send a
message and to set a tone.
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Big Brother is here?
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It is therefore very important that all of you read that article and not
to put yourself in the cross hair of these issues, especially during
national election cycles.
I strongly urge you to be familiar with all relevant ethics rules and
policies and never allow yourself be in even an optic situation.
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Big Data
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Big Data: Why Should You Care?
2012’s Presidential election was largely won by
the effective use of Big Data
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Big Data is Real
Big Data ≠ Fad/Trend/Buzzword
The use of Big Data has
allowed businesses
to improve their revenue
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Big Data as a Management Tool
McKinsey & Company Survey:
•2/3 of C-suite executives surveyed considered leveraging
Big Data to be a top priority
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What is Big Data?
Big Data is still too new to be defined consistently but generally,
Big Data is a collection of data sets so large and complex that it
becomes difficult to process using on-hand database
management tools or traditional data processing applications.
But coupled with current data analytic tools, it can yield a fuller
picture with all the relevant information to enable decision
makers to target more effectively in a cost efficient way
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Examples of Big Data
• Wal-Mart: Customer data and weather showed that
people buy more flashlights AND Pop-tarts before
storms
• New York City: Data scientists were able to predict
where owners were illegally subdividing houses and
apartments. Along with reports of rodents,
inspectors were able to efficiently filter complaints
and found dangerous conditions 70% of the time
they inspected
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Big Data as an Asset
Value of Big Data is an unrecorded asset on a
corporation’s balance sheet
Example:
•Life Magazine and it’s pictures
•Airline dynamic pricing leads to better profit margin
and volume load distribution and staffing pattern
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Big Data as a Challenge: The Data Boom
Creating A Mountain Out of Molehills
1950s: John Hancock600 Megabytes
In the 50s, insurance companies had the biggest data hoards as they collected and stored
information about policyholders. John Hancock was a pioneer in digitizing customer
information and storing data from two-million life-insurance policies.
In the 60s, American Airlines developed Sabre, a flight reservation system, allowing the
1960s: American Airlines
Sabre- 807 Megabytes airline to keep track of an immense matrix of reservations, flight schedules and seat
inventories.
1970s: Federal Express Federal Express Cosmos system allowed the company to scan and track its huge volume of
Cosmos- 80 Gigabytes packages being shipped around the world.
1980s: CitiCorp’s NAIB- In the 80s, banks were at the forefront of data growth with the use of ATMs and bank focus
on collecting and analyzing transaction data for all their businesses
450 Gigabytes
1990s: Wal-Mart- 180
Terabytes
In the 90s, Wal-Mart became the largest bricks-and-mortar retail operation, and, it is believed,
had the biggest commercial data warehouse in the world.
2000s: Google- 25
Petabytes
The Internet set the stage for Web-based companies to emerge as the global leaders in big
data.
2010s: Facebook- 100
Petabytes
User content makes up more than 100 petabytes of stored photos and video. Analyzing that
data generates about 500 terabytes of new information EVERY DAY.
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Big Data: A Privacy Issue?
• In China, Big Data inadvertently available due to their
extensive surveillance process to block protests and
assist in preventive arrest of dissidents
• In the U.S., there are many concerns of privacy issues
related to the Patriot Act and related citizen
information gathering.
• E.g. Edward Snowden and NSA
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Our Government’s Responsibility
• Establish rules to prevent misuse of Big Data
before it becomes too big to suppress or manage
• Try to find a workable balance between the
needs of the government and the rights of the
citizens.
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Big Data
Those Who Failed To Do So:
• WANG Computer
• Xerox
• F.W. Woolworth
• Kodak
• REA
• Sylvania
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Q&A
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Condor International Advisors, LLC
805 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
Email: condordc1@yahoo.com
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