We are all pumped about the Strata Summit next week (9/20-21) here in New York City. A.) It’s in our town, B.) one of our brightest minds was asked to speak, and C.) we are exhibiting. The theme is “the business of data,” which makes it a natural for us, and “Big Data” is all over the agenda. Double natch.

It’s an O’Reilly conference, but not for developers like most are. The presenters include thought leaders from McKinsey, the Economist, MIT Media Lab, the Guardian, Amazon, and Google; and the audience is mostly business execs of the kind that might watch the occasional TED video – our kind of folks.

There is a number of good sessions and interesting exhibitors on deck (including ours and us, of course), so here are some of the must sees, IOHO.

1010data‘s own Robert Leftkowitz, A.K.A. “r0ml” (long story) will be giving a talk on Tuesday at 10:50 a.m. entitled “Turning Their Data Into Your Money (And Vice Versa).” The talk will examine how Big Data is driving the emergence of a new business ecosystem linking data owners, analysts, and business decision makers in new and interesting ways. r0ml is one of O’Reilly’s highest rated conference speakers, so it should be a great talk.

In the 1010data demo pod, we will be showing the latest version of our cloud-based analytical platform (A.K.A. the Trillion-Row Spreadsheet™), munching on billions of rows of business data and spitting out fascinating insights with breathtaking speed. If you are a data person, your spine will tingle. If you are a businessperson, your mind might be blown.

Looking through the program, there are tons more good stuff at the show that we are also looking forward to.

Big Thinker Alert

The opening session, featuring McKinsey’s Michael Chui is titled “Big Data: The Next Frontier” and follows up on the great recent landmark Big Data study by McKinsey Global Institute by looking at “data innovation, challenges and competitive advantages.”

Attention, Sports Quants

One such recent competitive data innovation is the use of analytics in professional sports.  It was the subject the very witty Michael Lewis book Moneyball and the eponymous Brad Pitt movie premiering next week. The Tuesday afternoon keynoter Paul DePodesta is one of the actual Moneyball guys.  He’s a Cum Laude Harvard economics grad that, with Billy Beane, (Brad Pitt), pioneered the use of statistical analysis in baseball scouting, team management, and, most importantly, winning games. His talk will show a riveting example of a team gaining competitive advantage through data analytics.

Big Data Lessons Learned

If you don’t ask a good question, you won’t get a good answer, of course. But, how do business analysts know if they are asking the right questions? Not so obvious. Monica Rogati of LinkedIn is giving what should be an enlightening talk on this topic entitled, “Lies, Damned Lies, and the Data Scientist.” She will discuss some of lessons learned about how to carefully ask Big Data questions.

Crystal Ballin’

Big Data, like much of IT, is constantly changing. As the colossal volume of data continues to grow, companies are sprouting up to harness it with innovation. One such company, PeopleBrowsr is using Big Data to take on Nielsen. It’s founder, Jodee Rich, is giving an interesting talk on how they are doing it.

There will also be a number of compelling Big Data analytics company presenting and attending the summit as part of the Startup Launchpad.

Overall, it shapes up to be an incredible event. Whether you are a CIO of a company beginning to learn about Big Data or an executive who has been discussing data equity for years, we hope to see you at the Strata Summit.

Don’t forget to stop by and listen to r0ml at 10:50 on Tuesday, as well as come to our exhibit, booth number 14, and say hi.