Gartner’s Data & Analytics Summit is a marquee show where IT leaders learn about major data and analytics trends. And as the CMO of a graph database company, this year is special.
Graph technology is getting an enormous amount of attention at the event, with a number of sessions focused on graph technology and several others touching upon the topic.
I’ve attended a lot of Gartner shows since my first job at Oracle in the 1990’s, but I’ve never looked forward to one like this. The pace of change is extreme right now, and I empathize with any IT leader trying to formulate an analytics strategy that addresses today’s challenges while also attempting to get “future-proof” in an uncertain world.
Sponsoring the summit was an obvious choice for Neo4j. Gartner’s coverage of graphs more than doubled from 2019 to 2020, responding to surging subscriber inquiries around graphs for a wide range of use cases – notably AI and machine learning.
Gartner’s analysts have been writing a lot of thoughtful pieces on graph technology and the future of data and analytics. My take, from reading recent research and talking to our customers, is that in times of disruption businesses lean hard on data and analytics to inform strategy, drive smart decisions, and execute with precision for effective improvement.
Graph techniques and thinking show up in many of the sessions and tracks, both directly (e.g. graphs for AI), and indirectly (e.g. data fabrics that use graphs).
For those of you looking to learn more about graphs, many of the sessions at the summit will talk about how IT leaders can apply graphs and other technology to:
- Accelerate operationalization of AI in their organization
- Form a strong data fabric with knowledge graphs
- Drive smart decisions with contextualized analytics and visualization
- Use graph technology to improve explainability in AI and machine learning
- Deepen the impact of data analytics as a core business function
I “grew up” professionally on the analytics, or “offensive” side, at companies like Business Objects and Pentaho, and there are lots of graphy analytic use cases. But Neo4j also gets a lot of use for the governance and compliance elements that are increasingly important as analytics go everywhere.
Aside from that, it’s notable the sessions reflect that we can now drop the “big” in data, cloud is a default mode of operation, and AI, and automation abounds.
With that in mind, the following are the sessions I plan to prioritize, ranging from beginner topics to deeper dives on data analytics.
At the top of the list is Amy Hodler’s session on intelligence in context. Amy manages graph analytics and AI programs for Neo4j while also co-authoring several books, including the O’Reilly book Applied Graph Algorithms in Apache Spark and Neo4j, and the Graph Data Science for Dummies, Neo4j Special Edition.
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Tuesday, May 04, 2021 / 12:30 p.m. – 12:50 p.m. EDT
Neo4j: Anticipate, Shift & Respond – The Era of Contextualized Intelligence
Amy Hodler, Director Graph Analytics and AI Programs, Neo4j
2020 illustrated how truly connected everything is. Attend this session to learn how to best leverage connected data to drive business outcomes. We’ll walk through using connected data to anticipate downstream effects, shifting your approach to data to create context, and how analytics teams can respond to business needs with contextualized intelligence. Get a clear picture of why graphs are the foundation of modern data and analytics practices.
Tuesday, May 04, 2021 / 11:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. EDT
Gartner Opening Keynote: Learn, Unlearn, Relearn: The Key to D&A Success
Gareth Herschel, VP Analyst, Gartner
“You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day, unless you’re too busy. Then you should sit for an hour.” We live in busy times, and we need to take the time to think about what’s important. What’s important in data and analytics is change. If your organization doesn’t need or want change, then you don’t need data and analytics. But it does. So you do. This is what to do to be successful.
Tuesday, May 04, 2021 / 11:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. EDT
The Foundation of a Modern Data and Analytics Strategy
Mike Rollings, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner
“What should my data and analytics strategy look like?” is one of the most common inquiries Gartner’s Data and Analytics research community gets. This is because the role of data and analytics is changing. From being a discipline of itself to becoming a set of capabilities in support of the wider digital strategy or transformation, this presentation will share the best practices that have emerged from hundreds of document reviews and thousands of inquiries.
Tuesday, May 04, 2021 / 01:15 p.m. – 01:45 p.m. EDT
Ask the Expert: Graph 101
Jim Hare, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner
Join this Ask the Expert session to learn more about Graph 101.
Wednesday, May 05, 2021 / 01:15 p.m. – 01:45 p.m. EDT
Connecting the Dots: Why Graph Analytics Are Key to Understanding Human and Machine Misbehavior
Jim Hare, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner
Graph analytics links social, location, and other data to provide business analysts and investigators a more holistic understanding of people, places, and things. In this session, we’ll discuss the types of questions that can be answered when analyzing relationship data compared to traditional analytics. A must-attend session if you need to understand human or machine behaviors.
Thursday, May 06, 2021 / 11:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. EDT
The Future of Data Science and Machine Learning: Critical Trends You Can’t Ignore
Svetlana Sicular, VP Analyst, Gartner
Learn about the current trends influencing the machine learning and data science landscape, including ML automation, MLOps, multi-cloud, synthetic data, and open source. Employ emerging practices to manage and govern data science corporate initiatives, and decide which platforms to choose. We will discuss high-level complexities and how enterprises can become more effective.
Thursday, May 06, 2021 / 01:15 p.m. – 01:45 p.m. EDT
Building Knowledge Graphs to Bridge Data Silos
Sumit Pal, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner Businesses are operating in an ever more connected world, where understanding complex relationships and interdependencies between data points is crucial to decision making. Digital transformation of complex, inter-related data buried across data silos in an organization are best addressed by knowledge graph (KG) or graph-based approach.
This session demystifies the landscape of graph stores, architectures, and problems they solve and also explores how knowledge graphs and knowledge graph platforms are evolving to consolidate data across the silos.
Thursday, May 06, 2021 / 02:45 p.m. – 03:15 p.m. EDT
Future of Data and Analytics: Reengineering the Decision, 2025
Frank Buytendijk, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner
Decision making is a core capability for every organization, and it is becoming more complex. Decisions are becoming more connected, more contextual, and more continuous. D&A leaders must prepare to reengineer decision making, and ultimately make business decision making a competitive differentiator.
Thursday, May 06, 2021 / 03:30 p.m. – 04:00 p.m. EDT
Top Trends in Data and Analytics, 2021
Donald Feinberg, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner, Rita Sallam, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner
AI is not the only thing driving rapid change in data and analytics. From the next generation of augmented user experiences, composing and operationalizing data and analytics at scale, and engineering decision intelligence to enabling data and analytics at the edge, there is a rapid evolution in how and where analysis can be deployed. Understanding the business impact of these changes will allow organizations to optimize resources, accelerate change, drive innovation, and transform society over the next three years.
Learn how data and analytics leaders can leverage these trends into “must-have” investments to anticipate, shift, and accelerate transformation in the face of disruption, uncertainty, and opportunity.
Thursday, May 06, 2021 / 03:30 p.m. – 04:00 p.m. EDT
Ask the Expert: The Direction of Data, Analytics and Artificial Intelligence
Erick Brethenoux, VP Analyst, Gartner, Svetlana Sicular, VP Analyst, Gartner
Join this Ask the Expert session to learn more about the direction of data, analytics, and artificial intelligence.
See the Full Agenda
Ready to speak with a graph tech expert? Registered attendees can book a meeting with someone from Neo4j via our virtual booth. For curious minds not attending this event, please email us directly to schedule a chat at: gartner-dna-2021@neotechnology.com
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