One of the most thought provoking pieces I have read about Big Data is by Sandy Pentland HERE on the Edge website.
The first few paragraphs of this piece;
I believe that the power of Big Data is that it is information about people's behavior instead of information about their beliefs.
It's about the behavior of customers, employees, and prospects for your new business.
It's not about the things you post on Facebook, and it's not about your searches on Google, which is what most people think about, and it's not data from internal company processes and RFIDs.
This sort of Big Data comes from things like location data off of your cell phone or credit card, it's the little data breadcrumbs that you leave behind you as you move around in the world.
What those breadcrumbs tell is the story of your life.
It tells what you've chosen to do.
That's very different than what you put on Facebook.
What you put on Facebook is what you would like to tell people, edited according to the standards of the day.
Who you actually are is determined by where you spend time, and which things you buy.
Big data is increasingly about real behavior, and by analyzing this sort of data, scientists can tell an enormous amount about you.
They can tell whether you are the sort of person who will pay back loans.
They can tell you if you're likely to get diabetes
They can do this because the sort of person you are is largely determined by your social context, so if I can see some of your behaviors, I can infer the rest, just by comparing you to the people in your crowd.
For more on the Trail of Breadcrumbs see HERE
The first few paragraphs of this piece;
I believe that the power of Big Data is that it is information about people's behavior instead of information about their beliefs.
It's about the behavior of customers, employees, and prospects for your new business.
It's not about the things you post on Facebook, and it's not about your searches on Google, which is what most people think about, and it's not data from internal company processes and RFIDs.
This sort of Big Data comes from things like location data off of your cell phone or credit card, it's the little data breadcrumbs that you leave behind you as you move around in the world.
What those breadcrumbs tell is the story of your life.
It tells what you've chosen to do.
That's very different than what you put on Facebook.
What you put on Facebook is what you would like to tell people, edited according to the standards of the day.
Who you actually are is determined by where you spend time, and which things you buy.
Big data is increasingly about real behavior, and by analyzing this sort of data, scientists can tell an enormous amount about you.
They can tell whether you are the sort of person who will pay back loans.
They can tell you if you're likely to get diabetes
They can do this because the sort of person you are is largely determined by your social context, so if I can see some of your behaviors, I can infer the rest, just by comparing you to the people in your crowd.
For more on the Trail of Breadcrumbs see HERE
