Although this course starts in a very simple way with the business analogy, it moves into deeper functions of languages, character sets, registers, types of memory, etc. Thus this is an intermediate course. It attempts to give in a short time a foundation needed for participating in a big data project. It might be worthwhile to review the contents of this course a few times to ensure understanding.

A companion textbook is available covering most of the topics in hundreds of videos in Conversations with Kip. This course covers topics in Part 2, Chapter 4-Computers, and most of Part 3, particularly Chapter 17-Programming. It can be ordered, either ebook or paperback, here: Balancing Act: A Practical Approach to Business Event Based Insights

Computers can seem quite mysterious, but they needn't be. A simple business meeting analogy can make them much more transparent. Understanding how a computer works become even more important when dealing with a lot of data or big data which causes computers to perform poorly.

The course is an introductory course to the larger topic of estimating big data projects. It begins quite simply but moves rapidly into the very heart of computers, and some fairly advanced topics. It concludes with some thoughts about how these topics related to big data projects.

With this background, you'll be ready to perform business analysis or contribute to a big data systems development project.

So let's get started.