Data science? Yes, please. Data scientist? Meh.

I wrote a post a while ago about not being sure if I wanted to call myself a data scientist. The post was less about what title I wanted to ascribe myself and more about the many divergent ways “data science” seems to be defined. At the time, I wrote:

Bottom-up creation of data-driven capabilities: weak supporters *10 = strong support

My previous post addressed the scenario of executives or managers saying they want data-driven capabilities but not accepting data-driven analyses when the findings are presented to them. As I discussed in that post, I think the best first step in such a situation is to regroup and streamline your workflow, automating as much of your more repetitive tasks as possible, in order to free up your time so you can devote more attention to bringing those managers on board. This post focuses on one of many possible next steps: building up support in a wide variety of seemingly trivial areas of your organization.

Big Data of all sizes: how to turn a regular organization into a data-driven organization

Everyone’s talking about Big Data lately. It’s being touted as a “revolution” for organizational decision making. I generally think more reliance on data is a very good thing, and I’m glad that people who traditionally haven’t thought much about data are now thinking about it more. That being said, I’ve been struck at the differences between the ways the actual term Big Data seems to be used by practitioners, as opposed to the ways the term is used by the executives and managers who supposedly want Big Data to work for them.

Social scientists sometimes have kind of a weird view of their own relevance

I came across this piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education a little while ago. The author’s opening caught my attention – a vignette about someone asking for his advice and then asking how much she owed him for his time – because I had that same experience for the first time not too long ago. I work in the private sector, not academia, and the offer still caught me off guard. It never occurred to me that I might charge someone for my advice. -I guess that means I should be careful about pursuing a consulting career.

When to imitate, and when to experiment

Take a look at this picture:

It’s a picture of an iPhone next to a picture of several Samsung phones. It was submitted by Apple as evidence in a lawsuit claiming Samsung copied Apple’s design.