I couldn’t have said it better than Jeanne Ross, research scientist at MIT; ‘Getting to one version of the truth doesn’t have anything to do with accuracy, it has everything to do with declaring it’. For a business, not having one version of the truth could mean not knowing if there’s a problem, how big it is, what the cause is. It could mean a team is doing redundant work or not doing enough based on the information they’re being given. The lack of vital, reliable information could prove fatal for a business. Collaboration across and within teams is key,... Continue reading

Disclaimer: I didn’t make this image, cartoon credit to Timo Elliott Ronald Coase, Nobel Prize winning Economist, said that ‘if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything’. Data analysts are under constant pressure to make the data fit the decisions, rather than letting the data speak for itself. This thankless task means having to rework the data and tweak the narrative to present the answer that the people in charge want to see. Working around this type of confirmation bias can be detrimental to an organisation. You’d have to ask yourself, what insights are you really... Continue reading

Do you know what the term “big data” means? If you’re a data geek, chances are you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. But I’ll admit, when I first came across the term I thought it simply meant a greater amount of data than usual. But it’s not that obvious, the size of data is relative, and for the most part I was wrong. So despite the name, one would characterise big data not by its size, but what it is used for. The best way to understand is to draw comparisons againt traditional data. Big Data vs Traditional Data... Continue reading