You may have noticed by now that simplifying Big Data is a challenging proposition for most companies. Even as software developers introduce tools that promise to automate processes and make analytics easier, sources of incoming data continue to multiply and the need for human intelligence to figure out what to do with them is growing. Perhaps the equation will become more data + simpler tools = fewer data scientists + a single Chief Data Officer (CDO).

Stu Miniman (@stu) and Paul Gillin (@pgillin), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, spoke live from the MIT CDOIQ Symposium at the MIT Campus in Cambridge, MA, about the evolving role of the CDO.

Miniman argued that it’s hard to overstate the role of data in digitization. “As companies go into the digital transformation, of course, data is one of the most important assets that people have,” he said. “I mean it’s your people and your data — those are two of the cornerstones that you’re going to make your company out of.”

Your people and your data

Today MIT announced the debut of its Institute for Chief Data Officers. The institute has 100 members who will confer with each other on what should be expected from CDOs, what kind of tasks they are capable of and what value they can bring to companies.

Gillin called the institute “the first effort we’ve seen to bring together people around this evolving title to try to give it some definition and some staying power within organizations.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the MIT CDOIQ Symposium.

Photo by SiliconANGLE