I must confess that I am a bit of a foodie so I’m always anxious to try new things.  Recently, I was having dinner with a couple of colleagues in Minneapolis after visiting with a prospect and something on the menu caught my interest – Lobster Corn Dogs.

While I certainly like lobster and have had my share of corn dogs over the years, I’ve never had the two combined in one dish much less even had them served at the same restaurant.  I asked our waiter about them and of course he said they were fantastic.  (I’m sure I would have ordered them no matter what he said.)

As we waited for our food to arrive, I realized that we often have conversations with our business partners about evaluating tools and technologies or data archival, but typically as independent topics.  However, while thinking back on the prospect meeting we had earlier in the day, I realized they are inexorably linked.

It turns out that this prospect, a healthcare provider, had specific data retention needs due to regulatory requirements and was looking for a consolidated data archival solution to meet this challenge.  The current state included a number of data retention solutions including off-the-shelf, custom development, and some proprietary to the source application.

While we knew this would be a challenge, I was confident my team could provide this prospect with great benefits by bringing most of their historical data onto a single archival solution that would create a repeatable process, simplify maintenance, and reduce the total cost of ownership.  This part was a no-brainer.

Then, the prospect asked me if I had a checklist that I could provide them with that could ensure the new applications they added to their technology footprint in the future could easily have their data extracted and loaded to the data retention solution.  Of course I could come up with such a list, but I hadn’t previously thought about these two topics at the same time.

When considering a new application where data will be created and maintained, we should also focus on the end of the lifecycle for that new source of data including the archive and purge.  Two things I hadn’t previously thought about combining actually belong together and can absolutely improve the Information Lifecycle Management within a given organization.

So, when the Lobster Corn Dogs arrived at the table on the end of bamboo skewers arranged in a vase like a bouquet of edible flowers, I couldn’t wait to try one.  The crunchy golden-brown bite size bits of cornmeal surrounding the rich lobster meat proved to be a fantastic combination.

Remember – as I was reminded – that data is everywhere in your organization and virtually every new decision regarding people, process, or technology has the potential for affecting that data in some way.  So, when making these decisions, always add data as part of the conversation.

Global IT consulting practice opens New York office to keep up with explosive demand for big data expertise

AUSTIN, Texas – Feb. 6^th,  2013 – InterSys Consulting, a leading IT services organization that specializes in business intelligence, data warehousing and application development, today announced that it has opened a new office in New York and is hiring more than 50 positions there and in other parts of the world this year.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, InterSys Consulting employs more than 110 developers, project managers, business analysts and data management specialists who help businesses and organizations uncover value in their data that improves decision making and business processes for better products and services to their customers.

Explosive demand for big data expertise has fueled much of InterSys’ growth as companies and organizations analyze data collected from a variety of sources to make business decisions about marketing, product development, pricing and a wide range of processes. Industry analysts predict big data will drive $232 billion in spending  through 2016 and create 4.4 million IT jobs around the world, with nearly 2 million in the U.S.  Experts also foresee a shortage of more than 1.5 million data scientists in the U.S. by 2018.

“As more organizations are compelled to leverage data to meet customer demands , the industry has witnessed a surge in demand for experts who can deliver complete, accurate and timely information to drive results,” said J.R. Carter, InterSys CEO. “This demand has driven significant growth in our Austin office and for remote employees in the New York area.  We are already running multiple projects in the New York area for clients, including leading global digital advertising firms. It’s a natural progression that we establish a physical office there. We are actively recruiting and hiring new consultants in that area with backgrounds in business intelligence, data warehousing and application development.”

InterSys helps achieve value through big data with experts who have deep business intelligence backgrounds needed to collect, analyze and report data for insight into areas such as customer buying habits, scientific research or energy management.

In addition to business intelligence, InterSys also helps organizations build data warehouses to store and manage massive amounts of data that is expected to grow 44 fold in the next 10 years.  InterSys consultants help create data warehouses from the ground up to serve thousands of users who need their data to be complete, accurate, on time and there when they need it.

InterSys also helps customers develop custom applications from development to deployment including areas such as Java/J2EE, .NET, and mobile applications.

About InterSys Consulting

InterSys Consulting is a leading business intelligence, data warehousing and application development professional services organization focused on providing solutions with real business value. InterSys brings the right mix of skills, experience and methodology along with a customer-focused approach to build an authentic partnership with clients. Follow the company on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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All this demand and so few resources to meet it. It doesn’t help that the few real Big Data scientists are tied up with companies like Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and the likes of other companies who live on Big Data analytics. At the same time, many universities have yet to offer degrees designed to develop Big Data scientists.

As we build our team we are looking across disciplines for raw talent.  We think our next star data scientist may be a physicist, an actuary or an economist today. One way of meeting your organization’s business intelligence demands is to build a Big Data team from within.  Here are a few suggestions on how to build your bench from within.

• Start by recruiting an established data scientist to help build and lead your team. In most cases, these experts will be closely guarded by their current employers. However, it’s possible to recruit them with the offer of allowing them to build and lead their own team, with a possible seat at the C-level table, demonstrating your belief that data is truly strategic.
• Recruit your internal candidates broadly across the organization for a mix of experts who can create statistical models and connect the information to sales, service and operations. In essence, you’re building a right brain/left brain organization that can analyze and communicate.  This means adding non-technical disciplines to the team, such as marketing, distribution and customer service.
• Train your internal teams with new tools that teach how to collect and analyze data. Seek out programs offered by the companies that develop Big Data tools. For example, Cloudera provides online course work for Hadoop certification.
• Mine the universities for upcoming talent by offering internships that can lead to permanent jobs after graduation.

Until the universities begin churning out Big Data scientists in volume, finding the talent you need to make your data strategic will be challenging.  For now though, start from within. Maybe your own data scientist has yet to be discovered.

As the year comes to a close we’re launching our new website that will be an intersection of our industry’s challenges and the thought leadership of the best minds inside our company. Expect some fun and levity, in addition to insight. Above all it must be an authentic expression of who we are.

We have a point of view and plenty of serious discussion to raise about how to leverage data and analytics in service of customers.  But while we take our work seriously, we won’t take ourselves too seriously.  Roger Wahman, VP of our Data Warehouse Practice, says he’s posting a first blog called “Lobster Corn Dogs.” I don’t know what that means. Hopefully it’s not a Big Data buzzword that I’ve missed.

Right now my wife Anne, my daughter Bea and I are on an airplane headed to Colorado for our Christmas holiday. I’m done with most of the day-to-day for the rest of the year. I’m looking forward to time with my family and some relaxed time for reflection and planning for next year. Looking back I am amazed at what we accomplished this year.

• Launched strategic projects with new clients GroupM, Clearesult, Cenpatico, and Catalina Marketing.
• Delivered one of the earliest Microsoft SQL Server PDW web analytics implementations in the world for our friends at Mediacom.
• Began a partnership with Microsoft as a service provider for SQL Server PDW.
• Deepened our longtime relationship with Dell, becoming Dell Services’ implementation partner for their Big Data offerings.
• Hired our first New York employee. Opened our new office in New York!
• Brought 38 new or returning consultants on board.
• Continued to deliver results for our long time High Tech clients in spite of some headwinds in the PC industry.
• Grew our relationship with MicroStrategy to include collaboration on services for a key visualization client.
• Hired our first Data Scientist.

What I am most proud of is that we truly became a great team this year.  The collaboration of our now fully developed management team and our delivery teams made it all happen.  I am very grateful to this team not only for their success but for their support. I put some new boundaries around my work schedule this year because I wanted consistent time at home after Bea was born in January. It didn’t slow us down AT ALL!

Welcome to the new site. As CEO I don’t believe we need to think about our website and social presence in terms of traditional marketing.  I have one question only when I think about how we show up out here: will people with a genuine interest in what we do want to collaborate with us?  Hopefully we are on to something.

J.R. 

“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.”
-Max De Pree