Feeding "Big Data"

Over at Small Business Survival, Glen Muske has a post called "Using Big Data in your Small Business" that should more accurately be called "What makes up Big Data?"  What it's actually good for is demystifying the concept of big data for newcomers to the conversation.  Muske correctly identifies some really important realities about the process of collecting data for a business, especially this first step:

The first reality is they probably already have the data in the form of sales receipts, inventory, purchasing information and the overall financial records of the business. All of this probably already is stored electronically. Second, they already are “mining” the data when they do their profit and loss statement, cash flow reports, balance sheets, and year-end taxes and reports.

If you've found yourself in the position of not really knowing your position on collecting big data, head over to the full post to get Muske's helpful primer.