Big Data Is Not About the Data! The Power of Modern Analytics

The spectacular progress the media describes as “big data” has little to do with the data. Data, after all, is becoming commoditized, less expensive, and an automatic byproduct of other changes in organizations and society. More data alone doesn’t generate insights; it often merely makes data analysis harder. The real revolution isn’t about the data, it is about the stunning progress in the statistical and other methods of extracting insights from the data. We illustrate these points with a wide range of examples from his research, including forecasting the solvency of Social Security; reverse engineering Chinese censorship; estimating causes of death in developing countries; automated text analysis of billions of social media posts; how humans are horrible at choosing keywords and what to do about it, among others.