Books on Data, Big Data and Related Topics

By November 21, 2014Technology

Looking for some reading material to keep you up to date on the latest topics and trends in the big data space? We’ve got a list of five books you should consider checking out.

Information Dashboard Design: Display Data for At-a-Glance Monitoring Written by Stephen Few, a leader in the world of data visualization, this book explores one of the most popular methods to get “at a glance” data: the dashboard.

Few explores topics like designing dashboards, presenting data, engaging users visually and efficiently displaying large amounts of data. He also explains he psychological ideas behind his design decisions so developers can understand not only how to design, but why they should be making design decisions based on how users experience the dashboard.

The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win The Phoenix Project bookEver been in the position to have 90 days to fix an IT project, or your whole department will be replaced? That is just the predicament our fictional hero Bill finds himself in.

Follow him on his journey to complete his over budget, behind schedule, critical IT initiative code named: The Phoenix Project.

Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One Is Looking) The idea of privacy in the age of social media is changing. Where once polls were taken to predict and study human behavior, they have now been replaced by people reporting their own personal data online.

Author Christian Rudder explores the impact of things like Facebook “likes” or Twitter trends. He also discusses how this information can be used to predict everything from a person’s sexual orientation, to the migration patterns of people from small towns to big cities.

Data Virtualization: Going Beyond Traditional Data Integration to Achieve Business Agility Yes, the title is a mouthful. This is your book if you are looking for a collection of data virtualization case studies. Starting off by discussing data virtualization and how it relates to business agility, the book takes ten in depth case studies and describes how they adopted data virtualization to increase their own business agility.

Topics like why to use data virtualization, how it works, and methods of adoption are discussed as a backdrop for the case studies.

Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think Big Data bookBig Data is a term thrown around a lot in the media. Just what is big data, and how does it affect us? Authors Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier dive into the topic, looking at all aspects of big data and its effect on culture, science and business. Topics like how algorithms are written to leverage big data, and big data’s impact on our privacy and security are covered.

A well-written book on the subject of big data, it is a must read for anyone looking for a cogent explanation of data and its effect on us personally and professionally.