????許多坐擁海量數(shù)據(jù)的組織正面臨一個(gè)問(wèn)題：如何理解這些數(shù)據(jù)的真實(shí)含義。

????三年前，當(dāng)時(shí)還在反恐咨詢機(jī)構(gòu)A-T Solutions公司擔(dān)任副總裁的帕梅拉?艾莉亞就發(fā)現(xiàn)了這個(gè)問(wèn)題，同時(shí)意識(shí)到了其中蘊(yùn)含的商機(jī)。她解釋說(shuō)：“我們注意到，盡管越來(lái)越多的人正在制造越來(lái)越多的傳感器來(lái)采集數(shù)據(jù)，盡管現(xiàn)在有許多系統(tǒng)，盡管我們想方設(shè)法地理解這些數(shù)據(jù)，但我們意識(shí)到，現(xiàn)有的系統(tǒng)并不是很敏捷，無(wú)法真正跟上這個(gè)世界的變化速度。”

????于是，她攜手 IT工程師斯科特?齊默一起創(chuàng)建了Optensity公司。他們的目標(biāo)是：打造一個(gè)系統(tǒng)，以協(xié)助分析師和數(shù)據(jù)科學(xué)家迅速?zèng)Q策，而且無(wú)需擔(dān)憂數(shù)據(jù)的位置、格式化方式和演變方式。Optensity公司推出的第一款產(chǎn)品AppSymphony主要被應(yīng)用于情報(bào)監(jiān)視和偵察社區(qū)（Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance，簡(jiǎn)稱ISR），目前已有三家客戶正在用它剖析監(jiān)測(cè)數(shù)據(jù)。

????本周，50歲的艾莉亞將在財(cái)富頭腦風(fēng)暴技術(shù)會(huì)議（Brainstorm Tech Conference，7月22日至24日在科羅拉多州阿斯彭研究所召開）上，與4位其他選手共同角逐本年度創(chuàng)業(yè)偶像大賽（Startup Idol）的桂冠。我們提前問(wèn)了她幾個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單的問(wèn)題。

????問(wèn)：假設(shè)現(xiàn)在你正站在講臺(tái)上向評(píng)委們推介你的公司。請(qǐng)用一句話簡(jiǎn)短地介紹一下你的產(chǎn)品。

????讓大數(shù)據(jù)給用戶“歌唱”。

????問(wèn)：早在大數(shù)據(jù)成為業(yè)界術(shù)語(yǔ)之前，你們就已經(jīng)開始從事這方面的研究了。你是否認(rèn)為已經(jīng)成為口頭禪的“大數(shù)據(jù)”正在像“云”概念那樣遭到濫用？

????我并不認(rèn)為它正在被濫用，但我認(rèn)為人們很容易對(duì)它產(chǎn)生誤解，因?yàn)橐粋€(gè)人的“大數(shù)據(jù)”可能是另一個(gè)人的“小數(shù)據(jù)”。所以有人會(huì)說(shuō)，我擁有大數(shù)據(jù)。你仔細(xì)審查后就會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)，它遠(yuǎn)不及別人的大數(shù)據(jù)問(wèn)題的規(guī)模。由于這個(gè)原因，不同的解決方案是好還是壞，的確取決于數(shù)據(jù)的大小。一些人最終就是這樣陷于困境的，因?yàn)樗麄兛傉J(rèn)為自己碰到了一個(gè)真正的大數(shù)據(jù)問(wèn)題，其實(shí)某種其他工具可能更加有效，但沒(méi)有人愿意聽別人說(shuō)他們的數(shù)據(jù)其實(shí)并沒(méi)有那么大。大數(shù)據(jù)并不是那么性感，對(duì)吧？（笑）所以說(shuō)這是一個(gè)問(wèn)題。

????問(wèn)：你認(rèn)為Optensity公司還會(huì)在哪些領(lǐng)域發(fā)揮作用？

????一個(gè)突然涌現(xiàn)的事物就是所謂的“物聯(lián)網(wǎng)”（Internet of Things）。我認(rèn)為，我們的工具未來(lái)有可能在這個(gè)領(lǐng)域發(fā)揮作用。因?yàn)槲锫?lián)網(wǎng)基本上是一個(gè)由傳感器構(gòu)成的世界，當(dāng)數(shù)據(jù)開始擺脫傳感器，發(fā)現(xiàn)有趣的事情時(shí)，人們可以在傳感器上計(jì)算。嘿，房間里好長(zhǎng)時(shí)間沒(méi)人了，但空調(diào)還在轉(zhuǎn)。就是這類事情。所以我們需要在那里安置兩個(gè)傳感器：一個(gè)物理傳感器，顯示沒(méi)有人在走動(dòng)。另一個(gè)傳感器說(shuō)空調(diào)正在運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)。所以我們認(rèn)為，這類問(wèn)題是數(shù)據(jù)在未來(lái)可以大顯身手的領(lǐng)域。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：任文科

????The problem facing many organizations sitting atop massive amounts of data is how to make any sense of it.

????Three years ago, Pamela Arya, then a vice president at the counterterrorism firm A-T Solutions, recognized the problem and saw an opportunity. "We noticed that even though more and more people were building more and more sensors to capture data, the systems, and the way we make sense of that data, we realized the existing systems weren't very agile and couldn't really keep up with the rate of change in our world," she explains.

????So along with IT engineer Scott Zimmer, she co-founded Optensity. Their goal: build a system to assist analysts and data scientists in making decisions quickly without worrying about where the data is located, how it's formatted, and how it's changing. Optensity's first product, AppSymphony, is largely being used within the Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance, or "ISR," community by three clients to make sense of surveillance data.

????Next week, Arya, 50, will vie as one of five contestants for the mantle of this year's Startup Idol competition at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference, at the Aspen Institute in Colorado. We caught up with her beforehand for a few quick questions.

????Let's say it's next week, and you're onstage selling your company to the judges. Give us your elevator pitch in one sentence.

????Making big data "sing" to its users.

????You guys were working on big data before it became industry parlance. Do you think "big data" as a catch phrase is now being abused the way, say, "cloud" was?

????I don't think it's being abused, but I think it's very easy to have misunderstandings because one person's "big data" is another person's "small data." So someone will say, I have big data. When you look at it, it's nowhere near the size of someone else's big data problem. Because of that, different solutions are better or worse depending really on the size of that data. That's how people can end up having problems because they think, Oh, we've got a really big data problem, when some kind of other tool would work better ... But nobody wants to hear that their data really isn't that big. Big data isn't that sexy, is it? [laughs] So that's a problem.

????How else do you see Optensity becoming useful?

????One thing popping up is called the "Internet of Things." That's an example where we think our tool could be really useful in the future. Because the Internet of Things is basically a world of sensors, where you would compute on the sensor as the data is throwing off the sensor to find out interesting things. Hey, nobody's been in the house for a while, but the air conditioner is still running. That kind of thing. So you needs two sensors there: a physical sensor. No one's moving around. Another sensor saying the air conditioning's running. So those kinds of problems are where we see the future of where data is going.