Matters of Life and Data - The Remarkable Journey of a Big Data Visionary Whose Work Impacted Millions (Including You)

Explains and sheds light on the hot but complicated topic of Big Data

Details the building, and growing pains, of a company that Fortune Magazine eventually named "one of the best places to work in America"

Candidly recounts the personal struggle of a business leader determined to keep up with a company threatening to grow beyond his executive ability

The remarkable, inspiring story of a life of problem solving---of trial, error, achievement, and adventure, told by a great storyteller

List of contents

Prologue: The Bad Guys Database
PART ONE: HARDWARE
1. Drive, He Said
2. The Boy Who Might Be Forgotten
3. The Mathematics of Change
PART TWO: SOFTWARE
4. Men in Black
5. Red Sea Change
6. Do or Die
7. Finding the Zone
8. A Theory of Time
PART THREE: BIG DATA
9. Like a Weed
10. Green Fields
11. Marriage on My Mind
12. Turning Points
13. Theater of War
14. Dawn of the Lost Decade
15. The Long Goodbye
Epilogue: Full Circle

About the author

Charlie Morgan grew up in Somerville, Tennessee and worked in banking throughout his 45-year professional career retiring from JP Morgan Chase in 2014. He has a B.S. in Management of Technology and is a Certified information Systems Auditor and Certified Information Security Manager. After retiring, he and his wife began second careers as small business owners. They own and operate two private pre-school franchises located in Texas.
Morgan said, "For years, I heard the stories and read the newspaper accounts of the US Navy exploits of my grandfather Charles Gunner Morgan. Originally, I had only his detailed scrapbook with hundreds of newspaper clippings. Then, I discovered in the bottom of his old sea chest many more documents, and two of those were signed by American presidents. This led me to begin researching his story and searching for a writer to help me tell the story. Eventually, I found my childhood friend Jacque Hillman, author and publisher, and we began the project to tell the story of Gunner Morgan."
Charlie and Paula have four children and three grandchildren.
www.gunnermorgan.com

Summary

“I didn’t set out to become a collector of your and your neighbors’ information. When I was growing up, nobody but egghead scientists talked about ‘data.’ It was the mechanical age, and I was a gadget geek, taking apart my cousin’s toys and trying to put them back together again. I was especially crazy about cars and engines, and had it not been for a fateful encounter during college recruiting season, I might’ve lived my life as a race car mechanic instead of learning about computers at IBM. As it turned out, pursuing Big Data allowed me the resources to become a professional race car driver on the side, competing against the likes of Paul Newman, who makes appearances in these pages as well.
“Such are the wonders of this journey we’re all on. Mine has taken me from the frontier of western Arkansas, where my ancestors owned a hardware store selling iron tools to westbound travelers, to the frontier of the digital age, where room-size computers have become eclipsed by the power of smart phones. And in a sense, the story you’re about to read isn’t so different from those of the colorful adventurers who stocked up their wagons at my family’s hardware emporium and headed west to make their fortunes. Data mining is the new gold rush, and we were there at first strike, dragging with us all our human frailties and foibles. In this book’s cast of characters you’ll find ambition, arrogance, jealousy, pride, fear, recklessness, anger, lust, viciousness, greed, revenge, betrayal, and then some."
“It is a messy story. In the big picture, this could be called a narrative of America since World War II. But in the micro telling, think of it this way: The man who opened your lives to Big Data finally bares his own.”

Foreword

Thanks to Edward Snowden and the N.S.A., “Big Data” is a hot---and controversial---topic these days. In Charles D. Morgan’s lively memoir, "Matters of Life and Data", he shows that data gathering itself is neither good nor bad---it’s how it’s used that matters. But Big Data isn’t the whole story here---Morgan is also a champion race car driver, a jet pilot, and an all-around gadget-geek-turned-business-visionary. Life is about solving the problems we’re faced with, and Charles Morgan’s life has been one of trial, error, and great achievement. His story will inspire all who read it.

Product details

• Authors: Charles Morgan, Charles D. Morgan
• Publisher: Ingram Publishers Services
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 20.01.2015
• EAN: 9781630474652
• ISBN: 978-1-63047-465-2
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Business > General, dictionaries; BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Information Management