The digital revolution is continually moving tech processes away from infrastructure and toward the value of data in its ability to impact business decisions. As the mass and utility of data expands, tech strategists are adamant that companies need to focus hiring efforts on experts, so-called data visionaries, who can both analyze data and implement it to create measurable results.

“It’s time that companies really look to put data visionaries … in place that understand … what we could do with the information that we do gather,” said Matt Watts (pictured, left), director of technology and strategy at NetApp Inc.

These data analysts must not only be able to understand raw data, but contextualize it, tease out its value, and translate it into actionable steps to bridge the gap between a rapidly evolving tech frontier and outdated, siloed business processes.

Watts and Kenneth Cukier (pictured, right), data editor of The Economist, spoke with Rebecca Knight (@knightrm) and Peter Burris (@plburris), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the NetApp Insight event in Berlin, Germany. They discussed the imminent need for trained data visionaries across industries and some of the risks of falling behind in the data revolution. (* Disclosure below.)

Visions of a hybrid world

While the need for specialized data experts is not an entirely new development, Watts and Cukier are insistent it is one we can no longer afford to ignore. Cukier spoke passionately of the need for improvements in the medical field, as risks in the industry and many others are ultimately avoidable through the appropriate use of existing data.

“We should no longer be operating trial and error,” he said.

Of particular interest to NetApp is the potential that lies in the interplay between machine-generated data and human analysis, with data visionaries uncovering insights others lack the experience to detect. “You really want the intellectual ambition and the thirst for risk-taking of the human being that defies the data with an instinct,” Watts said.

Looking ahead, Watts and Cukier see a future focused less on products and services and more on what can be done with the data gathered from them.

“We’re going to live in a hybrid world in which we’re going to have human beings using data in much more impressive ways than they’ve ever done it before,” Cukier concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of NetApp Insight Berlin. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the NetApp Insight Berlin event. Neither NetApp Inc., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE