[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]I was recently asked to “outline a vision of what big data may do in the future” for a book published by Dave Coplin, Microsoft’s Chief Envisioning Officer. Yes, I agree that it is time for a new vision – but not on big data, on small data.

Data is nothing new, despite the hype we have seen recently. We have been creating data for centuries. For example, the Incas measured time using two pillars of stone in the 15th century to know when to plant their crops. (Read more about this in “The Archaeology of Measurement” by Iain Morley and Colin Renfrew)

(photo by marcel )

What has changed since the times of the Incas? The amount of data we produce! Everything from a simple e-mail to the onboard computers in our cars leave a broad trail of data nowadays. We are living in a mind blowing world of big data: exabytes of daily information created, trending ever upwards.

DATA CHANGES OUR WORLD

We hear lots of inspiring stories about the value of this data. The police will soon be able to predict crime before it happens (read more here about Georg Mohler’s work). Health checks will predict illnesses before they reach us and US army could have known the position of Osama Bin Laden just through text-mining traditional news media (read more about Kalev Leetaru’s work)

The data evolution is indeed creating new opportunities that are changing ecosystems as a whole. Take the media industry as an example. The demand for media has not changed. I have been arguing for a while that the media industry is doing better than ever, only that the traditional players are losing their revenue stakes (see this talk). However, new business models are appearing that have not existed before and are only made possible through data.

WE WANT SMALL DATA

More data alone does not mean more business models or more insights. We all know this from personal experience – ever since we began digitalizing our personal photos, we have seen 10x to 100x more of them. These photos need to be stored, tagged, and sorted… Which is actually more work than was when we had only a few real prints to sort.

Your personal issues with too many photos to sort through translate into business as well. More data means more of a pain. It means more issues in handling the data and finding what you really want to look at. Let’s look back at the Incas. They wanted to know only one thing: when to plant the crops. This is not big data. This is a binary decision: yes or no. This has not changed. You as a leader need to make binary decisions as well. Should I buy this company or not? Should we run this marketing campaign or not? Should we hire someone or not? What you want is small data, not big data. We want information!

Thus should we then dismiss all of those big data discussions? No, not at all. Some things only work because we have big data. LinkedIn can only recommend a company with certain values or certain types of jobs to a person because we have big data. Many of the services we offer today to 300 million members would not have been possible with just 10 million. This long tail of data is important.

However, the important part is being able to reduce big data so you are looking at the right metric. I have seen many companies mistake data-driven decisions with an obsession with numbers. (tweet now: “#DataDriven is not being Number Obsessed.”) Those companies take all the possible metrics they can measure, cram it into a dashboard, and ask their management to review it daily. Bigger is not better here: most businesses have only a few focus points, and keeping it simple is a good rule for dealing with data.

ASK – MEASURE – LEARN

What is a simple way of steering your business through massive amounts of data? It is this three step approach:

• Ask the right question.
• Use the right data and measures, and
• Learn in order to take action upon them.

Sounds simple, right? It isn’t. Do you remember AltaVista – the search engine? They measured URLs in many ways. They were proud that they could classify different parts of the internet, but it was Google’s Page Rank’s simple metric that halved their business in just 12 months. AltaVista had failed to both ASK the right question and to MEASURE the right metrics.

Thus, as simple as this framework sounds, it is not easy to do. Read more examples on how to use this framework across different industries in the book Ask-Measure-Learn, or get a free chapter here.

If you follow these rules, the future of data is promising. You will be able to create data-driven products. Here are some examples:

• Benchmarking performance – For example, which marketing campaign performed better?
• Recommendations – Such as, who you might know at LinkedIn?
• Predictions –Target, for example, uses their loyalty card data to predict whether or not someone is pregnant and markets directly to them.

If you use data effectively in any of these three areas, you might change or discover entirely new business models. If you can do this, your future will be bright. Because one thing has not changed since the time of the Incas: the one who knows how to create value – whether it is when to plant maize or how to target customers – becomes the ruler.

Go out and rule the world made out of data – small data.

—

This is a slightly adapted version of a chapter of the book: “The Rise of the Humans: How to outsmart the digital deluge” by Dave Coplin.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]I was recently asked to “outline a vision of what big data may do in the future” for a book published by Dave Coplin, Microsoft’s Chief Envisioning Officer. Yes, I agree that it’s time for a vision – but not on big data, on Small Data.

Data is nothing new, despite the hype we have seen recently. We have been creating data for centuries. For example, the Incas measured time using two pillars of stone in the 15th century to know when to plant their crops. (Read more about this in “The Archaeology of Measurement” by Iain Morley and Colin Renfrew)

(photo by marcel )

What has changed since the times of the Incas? The amount of data we produce! Everything from a simple e-mail to the onboard computers in our cars leave a broad trail of data nowadays. We are living in a mind blowing world of big data: exabytes of daily information created, trending ever upwards.

DATA CHANGES OUR WORLD

We hear lots of inspiring stories about the value of this data. The police will soon be able to predict crime before it happens (read more here about Georg Mohler’s work). Health checks will predict illnesses before they reach us and US army could have known the position of Osama Bin Laden just through text-mining traditional news media (read more about Kalev Leetaru’s work)

The data evolution is indeed creating new opportunities that are changing ecosystems as a whole. Take the media industry as an example. The demand for media has not changed. I have been arguing for a while that the media industry is doing better than ever, only that the traditional players are losing their revenue stakes (see this talk). However, new business models are appearing that have not existed before and are only made possible through data.

WE WANT SMALL DATA

More data alone does not mean more business models or more insights. We all know this from personal experience – ever since we began digitalizing our personal photos, we have seen 10x to 100x more of them. These photos need to be stored, tagged, and sorted… Which is actually more work than was when we had only a few real prints to sort.

Your personal issues with too many photos to sort through translate into business as well. More data means more of a pain. It means more issues in handling the data and finding what you really want to look at. Let’s look back at the Incas. They wanted to know only one thing: when to plant the crops. This is not big data. This is a binary decision: yes or no. This has not changed. You as a leader need to make binary decisions as well. Should I buy this company or not? Should we run this marketing campaign or not? Should we hire someone or not? What you want is small data, not big data. We want information!

Thus should we then dismiss all of those big data discussions? No, not at all. Some things only work because we have big data. LinkedIn can only recommend a company with certain values or certain types of jobs to a person because we have big data. Many of the services we offer today to 300 million members would not have been possible with just 10 million. This long tail of data is important.

However, the important part is being able to reduce big data so you are looking at the right metric. I have seen many companies mistake data-driven decisions with an obsession with numbers. (tweet now: “#DataDriven is not being Number Obsessed.”) Those companies take all the possible metrics they can measure, cram it into a dashboard, and ask their management to review it daily. Bigger is not better here: most businesses have only a few focus points, and keeping it simple is a good rule for dealing with data.

ASK – MEASURE – LEARN

What is a simple way of steering your business through massive amounts of data? It is this three step approach:

• Ask the right question.
• Use the right data and measures, and
• Learn in order to take action upon them.

Sounds simple, right? It isn’t. Do you remember AltaVista – the search engine? They measured URLs in many ways. They were proud that they could classify different parts of the internet, but it was Google’s Page Rank’s simple metric that halved their business in just 12 months. AltaVista had failed to both ASK the right question and to MEASURE the right metrics.

Thus, as simple as this framework sounds, it is not easy to do. Read more examples on how to use this framework across different industries in the book Ask-Measure-Learn, or get a free chapter here.

If you follow these rules, the future of data is promising. You will be able to create data-driven products. Here are some examples:

• Benchmarking performance – For example, which marketing campaign performed better?
• Recommendations – Such as, who you might know at LinkedIn?
• Predictions –Target, for example, uses their loyalty card data to predict whether or not someone is pregnant and markets directly to them.

If you use data effectively in any of these three areas, you might change or discover entirely new business models. If you can do this, your future will be bright. Because one thing has not changed since the time of the Incas: the one who knows how to create value – whether it is when to plant maize or how to target customers – becomes the ruler.

Go out and rule the world made out of data – small data.

—

This is a slightly adapted version of a chapter of the book: “The Rise of the Humans: How to outsmart the digital deluge” by Dave Coplin.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]I was recently asked to “outline a vision of what Big Data may do in the future” for a book published by Dave Coplin – Microsoft’s Chief Envisioning Officer. Yes, it’s time for a vision but not on Big but on Small Data.

Data is nothing new, despite the hype we recently see. We have been creating data for centuries. For example, the Incas measured time using two pillars of stone in the 15th century, to know when to plant their crops. (Read more in “The Archaeology of Measurement” by Iain Morley and Colin Renfrew)

(photo by marcel )

What has changed since the times of the Inkas? The amount of data we produce! Everything from a simple e-mail to the onboard computers in our cars leaves a broad trail of data nowadays. We are living in a mind blowing world of big data: exabytes of daily information trending ever upwards.

DATA CHANGES OUR WORLD

We hear lots of inspiring stories about the value in this data. The police will be able to predict crime before it happens (read more here about Georg Mohler’s work). Health checks will predict illnesses before they reach us and US army could have known the position of Osama Bin Laden just through text-mining traditional news media (read more about Kalev Leetaru’s work)

The data evolution is indeed creating new opportunities that are changing whole ecosystems. Take the media industry as an example. The demand for media has not changed. I have argued for a while that the media industry is doing better than ever, only the traditional players are losing their revenue stake (see this talk). But new business models are appearing that did not exist before and are only made possible through data.

WE WANT SMALL DATA

But more data alone does not mean more business models or more insights. We all know this from personal experience. Since we digitalized our personal photos we now have 10x or 100x more of them. However these photos need to be stored, tagged, and sorted… which is actually more work than the old times where we had only a few real prints.

Your personal issues with too many photos are true for business as well. More data means more pain. It means more issues in handling the data and finding what you really want. Let’s look back at the Incas. They wanted to know only one thing: when to plant the crops. This is not big data. This is a binary decision. Yes or no. This has not changed. You as a leader need to make binary decisions as well. Should I buy this company or not? Should we run this marketing campaign or not? Should we hire someone or not? What you want is small data, not big data. We want information!

Thus should we then dismiss all of those big data discussions? No, not at all. Some things only work because we have big data. LinkedIn can only recommend a company with certain values or certain types of jobs to a person because we have big data. Many of the services we offer today with 300 million members would not have been possible with just 10 million. This long tail of data is important.

However, the important part is to reduce this data so you are looking at the right metric. I have seen many companies mistake data-driven decisions for an obsession with numbers. (tweet now: “#DataDriven is not being Number Obsessed.”) Those companies take all the possible metrics they can measure, cram it into a dashboard, and ask their management to review it daily. More is not better here: most businesses have only a few focus points, and keeping it simple is a good rule for dealing with data.

ASK – MEASURE – LEARN

How do we get to a simple way of steering your business through massive amounts of data? It is a three step approach:

• Ask the right question.
• Use the right data & measures and
• Learn and take actions upon them.

Sounds simple? Right? But it is not. Do you remember AltaVista – the search engine? They measured many things about URLs. They were proud to classify much of the online web. But it was the simple metric of Google’s Page Rank that halved their business in just 12 months. AltaVista had failed to either ASK the right question or to MEASURE the right metrics.

Thus as simple as this framework sounds, it is not easy to do. Read more examples on how to use this framework across different industries in the book Ask-Measure-Learn or get a free chapter here.

If you follow these rules, the future of data is promising. You will be able to create data driven products. Here are some examples:

• Benchmarking performance – For example, which marketing campaign performed better?
• Recommendations – such as who you might know at LinkedIn?
• Prediction –Target, for example, uses their loyalty card data to predict whether someone is pregnant and market directly to them.

If you use data effectively for any of these three areas you might find new or change existing business models. And if you do so your future will be bright. Because one thing has not changed since the time of the Incas: the one who knows how to create value – whether it is when to plant maize or how to target customers – becomes the ruler.

Go and rule the world made out of data – small data.

—

This is a slightly adapted version of a chapter in the book: “The Rise of the Humans: How to outsmart the digital deluge” by Dave Coplin.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]I was recently asked to “outline a vision of what big data may do in the future” for a book published by Dave Coplin, Microsoft’s Chief Envisioning Officer. Yes, I agree that it’s time for a vision – but not on big data, on Small Data.

Data is nothing new, despite the hype we have seen recently. We have been creating data for centuries. For example, the Incas measured time using two pillars of stone in the 15th century to know when to plant their crops. (Read more about this in “The Archaeology of Measurement” by Iain Morley and Colin Renfrew)

(photo by marcel )

What has changed since the times of the Incas? The amount of data we produce! Everything from a simple e-mail to the onboard computers in our cars leave a broad trail of data nowadays. We are living in a mind blowing world of big data: exabytes of daily information created, trending ever upwards.

DATA CHANGES OUR WORLD

We hear lots of inspiring stories about the value of this data. The police will soon be able to predict crime before it happens (read more here about Georg Mohler’s work). Health checks will predict illnesses before they reach us and US army could have known the position of Osama Bin Laden just through text-mining traditional news media (read more about Kalev Leetaru’s work)

The data evolution is indeed creating new opportunities that are changing ecosystems as a whole. Take the media industry as an example. The demand for media has not changed. I have been arguing for a while that the media industry is doing better than ever, only that the traditional players are losing their revenue stakes (see this talk). However, new business models are appearing that have not existed before and are only made possible through data.

WE WANT SMALL DATA

More data alone does not mean more business models or more insights. We all know this from personal experience – ever since we began digitalizing our personal photos, we have seen 10x to 100x more of them. These photos need to be stored, tagged, and sorted… Which is actually more work than was when we had only a few real prints to sort.

Your personal issues with too many photos to sort through translate into business as well. More data means more of a pain. It means more issues in handling the data and finding what you really want to look at. Let’s look back at the Incas. They wanted to know only one thing: when to plant the crops. This is not big data. This is a binary decision: yes or no. This has not changed. You as a leader need to make binary decisions as well. Should I buy this company or not? Should we run this marketing campaign or not? Should we hire someone or not? What you want is small data, not big data. We want information!

Thus should we then dismiss all of those big data discussions? No, not at all. Some things only work because we have big data. LinkedIn can only recommend a company with certain values or certain types of jobs to a person because we have big data. Many of the services we offer today to 300 million members would not have been possible with just 10 million. This long tail of data is important.

However, the important part is being able to reduce big data so you are looking at the right metric. I have seen many companies mistake data-driven decisions with an obsession with numbers. (tweet now: “#DataDriven is not being Number Obsessed.”) Those companies take all the possible metrics they can measure, cram it into a dashboard, and ask their management to review it daily. Bigger is not better here: most businesses have only a few focus points, and keeping it simple is a good rule for dealing with data.

ASK – MEASURE – LEARN

What is a simple way of steering your business through massive amounts of data? It is this three step approach:

• Ask the right question.
• Use the right data and measures, and
• Learn in order to take action upon them.

Sounds simple, right? It isn’t. Do you remember AltaVista – the search engine? They measured URLs in many ways. They were proud that they could classify different parts of the internet, but it was Google’s Page Rank’s simple metric that halved their business in just 12 months. AltaVista had failed to both ASK the right question and to MEASURE the right metrics.

Thus, as simple as this framework sounds, it is not easy to do. Read more examples on how to use this framework across different industries in the book Ask-Measure-Learn, or get a free chapter here.

If you follow these rules, the future of data is promising. You will be able to create data-driven products. Here are some examples:

• Benchmarking performance – For example, which marketing campaign performed better?
• Recommendations – Such as, who you might know at LinkedIn?
• Predictions –Target, for example, uses their loyalty card data to predict whether or not someone is pregnant and markets directly to them.

If you use data effectively in any of these three areas, you might change or discover entirely new business models. If you can do this, your future will be bright. Because one thing has not changed since the time of the Incas: the one who knows how to create value – whether it is when to plant maize or how to target customers – becomes the ruler.

Go out and rule the world made out of data – small data.

—

This is a slightly adapted version of a chapter of the book: “The Rise of the Humans: How to outsmart the digital deluge” by Dave Coplin.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]I was recently asked to “outline a vision of what Big Data may do in the future” for a book published by Dave Coplin – Microsoft’s Chief Envisioning Officer. Yes, it’s time for a vision but not on Big but on Small Data.

Data is nothing new, despite the hype we recently see. We have been creating data for centuries. For example, the Incas measured time using two pillars of stone in the 15th century, to know when to plant their crops. (Read more in “The Archaeology of Measurement” by Iain Morley and Colin Renfrew)

(photo by marcel )

What has changed since the times of the Inkas? The amount of data we produce! Everything from a simple e-mail to the onboard computers in our cars leaves a broad trail of data nowadays. We are living in a mind blowing world of big data: exabytes of daily information trending ever upwards.

DATA CHANGES OUR WORLD

We hear lots of inspiring stories about the value in this data. The police will be able to predict crime before it happens (read more here about Georg Mohler’s work). Health checks will predict illnesses before they reach us and US army could have known the position of Osama Bin Laden just through text-mining traditional news media (read more about Kalev Leetaru’s work)

The data evolution is indeed creating new opportunities that are changing whole ecosystems. Take the media industry as an example. The demand for media has not changed. I have argued for a while that the media industry is doing better than ever, only the traditional players are losing their revenue stake (see this talk). But new business models are appearing that did not exist before and are only made possible through data.

WE WANT SMALL DATA

But more data alone does not mean more business models or more insights. We all know this from personal experience. Since we digitalized our personal photos we now have 10x or 100x more of them. However these photos need to be stored, tagged, and sorted… which is actually more work than the old times where we had only a few real prints.

Your personal issues with too many photos are true for business as well. More data means more pain. It means more issues in handling the data and finding what you really want. Let’s look back at the Incas. They wanted to know only one thing: when to plant the crops. This is not big data. This is a binary decision. Yes or no. This has not changed. You as a leader need to make binary decisions as well. Should I buy this company or not? Should we run this marketing campaign or not? Should we hire someone or not? What you want is small data, not big data. We want information!

Thus should we then dismiss all of those big data discussions? No, not at all. Some things only work because we have big data. LinkedIn can only recommend a company with certain values or certain types of jobs to a person because we have big data. Many of the services we offer today with 300 million members would not have been possible with just 10 million. This long tail of data is important.

However, the important part is to reduce this data so you are looking at the right metric. I have seen many companies mistake data-driven decisions for an obsession with numbers. (tweet now: “#DataDriven is not being Number Obsessed.”) Those companies take all the possible metrics they can measure, cram it into a dashboard, and ask their management to review it daily. More is not better here: most businesses have only a few focus points, and keeping it simple is a good rule for dealing with data.

ASK – MEASURE – LEARN

How do we get to a simple way of steering your business through massive amounts of data? It is a three step approach:

• Ask the right question.
• Use the right data & measures and
• Learn and take actions upon them.

Sounds simple? Right? But it is not. Do you remember AltaVista – the search engine? They measured many things about URLs. They were proud to classify much of the online web. But it was the simple metric of Google’s Page Rank that halved their business in just 12 months. AltaVista had failed to either ASK the right question or to MEASURE the right metrics.

Thus as simple as this framework sounds, it is not easy to do. Read more examples on how to use this framework across different industries in the book Ask-Measure-Learn or get a free chapter here.

If you follow these rules, the future of data is promising. You will be able to create data driven products. Here are some examples:

• Benchmarking performance – For example, which marketing campaign performed better?
• Recommendations – such as who you might know at LinkedIn?
• Prediction –Target, for example, uses their loyalty card data to predict whether someone is pregnant and market directly to them.

If you use data effectively for any of these three areas you might find new or change existing business models. And if you do so your future will be bright. Because one thing has not changed since the time of the Incas: the one who knows how to create value – whether it is when to plant maize or how to target customers – becomes the ruler.

Go and rule the world made out of data – small data.

—

This is a slightly adapted version of a chapter in the book: “The Rise of the Humans: How to outsmart the digital deluge” by Dave Coplin.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]