What is big data? The first step to understanding the potential of big data is to sidestep the technical descriptions of what it is and realise that big data is a term can be applied to any broad dataset.

Data Science is a discipline that, while established in academia and industrial research, is comparatively new to the business world. It offers powerful tools for evidence–based decision–making and can be a highly effective way for a business to become more profitable.

Jorge Luis Borges wrote of the Library of Babel; an infinite span of hexagonal rooms lined on every side with books, containing within them every possible ordering of symbols in the Latin alphabet. Within this library lies everything that is known, can be known, that cannot be known and is yet true, that once was known and is now forgotten and that will someday be known but is at present not.

Text analytics combined with survey data reveals how reputation plays a role in building positive and memorable branded experiences.

When it comes to big data New Zealand businesses may already be sitting on a gold mine – they just need to know how to extract the precious metal, and the profits will flow.