The new IP: all data may not be equal, but it may be equally important.(Reality Check)

BIG DATA seems to be the flavor of the month, perhaps of the year, and with good reason. We're awash in it. But there's data and then there's data, and the quantity is less important than you might think. At least sometimes. The kind of data that concerns you most will definitely affect your thinking about what's important in managing it.

For example, no one doubts that a difference exists among the data that shows a video, the data that customers emit almost like radioactivity, and the bedrock data that says someone owes us money. Yet the conversation rarely goes so deep, because lots of people with different needs have a tendency to get excited and talk across each other. …