In his recently published book, Think Bigger: Developing a Successful Big Data Strategy for Your Business, Mark van Rijmenam observes, “Many different aspects of Big Data affect a big data strategy and how your organization should deal with it. [More specifically,] each type of data affects what analyses you can perform and what tools you can use. Most of these factors involve the technical aspect of Big Data, but some trends will affect your strategy and also impact your organization as a whole. Therefore, it is important to look at them closely.”

Here are seven of those trends:

1. The Mobile Revolution: Each day, there are millions of new online connections worldwide via computers and smartphones. “In addition, the rise in tablet sales is enormous. Mobile devices require a different approach when dealing with Big Data.”

2. Real-time Big Data’s Value to Organizations: “The ability to analyze terabytes of data from various sources is interesting and can provide lots of insights, but analyzing terabytes of data the moment they are created anywhere in the world offers even greater possibilities.”

3. “The Internet of Things”: This is probably the biggest trend, the most significant trend within Big Data. “When we connect the unconnected, completely new possibilities will arise that were previously never thought of. In such a misconnected world, even the smallest things will have big implications.”

4. The Quantified Self: “The quantified-self movement is to consumers what Big Data is to organizations. Not only do organizations want to know what is going on, consumers also want to know what they are doing and how they can improve their behavior.”

5. Big Social Data: Big social data focus “focuses on the vast amounts of data created on social networks. There are hundreds of social websites that continue to increase in membership. All those members generate massive amounts of data that can be analyzed by companies to provide additional insights.”

6. Access to Public Data: “The availability of public data is a trend that cannot — must not — be underestimated. Governments around the world are seeing the advantages of Big Data. They are opening up databases that were funded with public money.”

7. Potentialities of Gamification: These “can help organizations generate vast amounts of data in a user-friendly and engaging environment.” Later, he observes, “The gamification of business is not just a tool for effective marketing campaigns. Gamification will revolutionize the way organizations connect with consumers, and it will create extremely valuable Big Data that can enhance a company’s database.”

“Normally, trends last only a few years. While Big Data is the megatrend [or paradigm shift], these seven trends form a crucial part of how organizations should address the challenge of Big Data. They will continue to exist in the coming decade and should form n important consideration in creating any Big Data strategy.”

He discusses all this in much greater detail in Chapter 3 of Think Bigger, published by AMACOM (April 2014).

Mark van Rijeka is founder of the online big data knowledge platform BigData-Startups.com, which aims to become the central point of big data on the web. BigData-Startups.com a platform with trends, best practices, information, open source tools and big data startups for organizations developing a big data strategy. The objective of the platform is to help organizations develop a big data strategy and to find the right big data technology vendor for that strategy. The platform attracts an important niche of consumers, job seekers, organizations and governments interested in big data. He lives in The Hague, Netherlands. To learn more about him and his work, please click here.