<<Research for our just published report on Big Data management technologies, included conversations with teams who are at the forefront of analyzing massive data sets. We were particularly impressed with the work being produced by Linkedin's analytics team. [We have more details on Linkedin's analytics team, in an article in the upcoming issue of Release 2.0.]

At the second Social Web Foo camp, I had a chance to visit with Linkedin's Chief Scientist DJ Patil. As a mathematician specializing in dynamical systems and chaos theory, DJ began his career as a weather forecaster working for the Federal government. Years later, he ended up in an analytics role at Ebay where his prior experience with massive data sets came in handy. In the short video below, DJ shares his observations on how analytics has changed in recent years, especially as Big Data increasingly becomes common. Companies are casting a wider net, and are hiring scientists from fields not traditionally known as fertile recruiting grounds for data intelligence teams.

DJ also talks about his personal journey from mathematics to e-commerce and social networks. Among his previous stints, DJ worked with the DOD and used "... social network analysis to identify terrorists.">>

You can read this and see the accompanying webcast at: http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/04/linkedin-chief-scientist-on-analytics-and-bigdata.html

Gervas