Big Data Reduction 3: From Descriptive to Prescriptive

Thanks for the reply Michael.

I've always been one to see the magic of thinking big, VERY BIG. 

I would say that amazon, and to some degree, I know they are already working on this, are focused on real time for precisely the reasons you indicate are NOT important.  Today, following the NetFiix approach, Amazon uses "Descriptive" analytics to process what you have purchased in the past, to predict what books, videos, and things you might like in the future following patterns of other like individuals. (this is your vision of Amazon).  

An example of my vision of Amazon's future will be to "sense" when one goes to the movies, identifies the particular movie you are watching (there are multiple ways to do this already - but suffice it to say that your smart phone can be located to with in 5 meters, or less, depending on technology used) Hence, if Amazon knows "real time data about YOU", they can offer you something relevant to your immediate experience. In the example of the movie, they can offer you the opportunity to purchase the book of that movie, pre-order the DVD when it comes out, send you to a restuarant of the genre that matches the movie you "just experienced"..., and more. This "prescriptive analytics" approach is far more powerful than the NetFlix "like others" descriptive approach.  Amazon plans to "prescribe" things that you might like based on your real-time experience.  

FWIW, Groupon will do this too, they have the right people there (some ex Amazon executives...)

Four years ago I published an article  about "Position and Movement Analytics" a better description of "location analytics" or LBS as it takes directly into account the dynamics of movement, which is relative to "time"..., 

Real Time, is, of course, relative to the problem you are looking at. It could be the last 30 seconds, as in healthcare when a tool is telling a physician about your heart's arythmia changes at that moment.  Or in the Amazon example, it could be 2 hours, the length of the movie you are watching. The faster we can get the "experts" off of their legacy cost-focus of Big Data, storage, management, access..., and so on, and on to building solutions that create value.... Well, that's the future we all want!

In any event, I don't see "time" at all related to "descriptive analytics". That is simple processing and dashboarding of history. History is static, it does't change.  Predictive has a factor of time - refering to scenario possibilitiies in the future. But Prescriptive is ALL based on time. 

My son studying actuarial science at the university level already has learned to apply simple calculus and limit theory to these cases I describe. the next generation is going to do some very interesting things pushing the limits of Prescriptive much farther.  

Gotta' think much BIGGER..., I believe.