KDD

Both Sides Now — The Value of Data Exploration

Over the last several months I have authored a number of stillborn articles that just did not live up to the standards that I set for this blog site. After all, sometimes we just have nothing important to add to the conversation. In a world dominated by narcissism, it is not necessary to constantly have something to say. Some reflection and consideration are necessary, especially if one is to be as succinct as possible.

A quote ascribed to Woodrow Wilson, which may be apocryphal, though it does appear in two of his biographies, was in response to being lauded by someone for making a number of short, succinct, and informative speeches. When asked how he was able to do this, President Wilson is supposed to have replied:

“It depends. If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.”

An undisciplined mind has a lot to say about nothing in particular with varying degrees of fidelity to fact or truth. When in normal conversation we most often free ourselves from the discipline expected for more rigorous thinking. This is not necessarily a bad thing if we are saying nothing of consequence and there are gradations, of course. Even the most disciplined mind gets things wrong. We all need editors and fact checkers.

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Don’t Know Much…–Knowledge Discovery in Data

A short while ago I found myself in an odd venue where a question was posed about my being an educated individual, as if it were an accusation.  Yes, I replied, but then, after giving it some thought, I made some qualifications to my response.  Educated regarding what?

It seems that, despite a little more than a century of public education and widespread advanced education having been adopted in the United States, along with the resulting advent of widespread literacy, that we haven’t entirely come to grips with what it means.  For the question of being an “educated person” has its roots in an outmoded concept–an artifact of the 18th and 19th century–where education was delineated, and availability determined, by class and profession.  Perhaps this is the basis for the large strain of anti-intellectualism and science denial in the society at large.

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I Can See Clearly Now — Knowledge Discovery in Databases, Data Scalability, and Data Relevance

I recently returned from a travel and much of the discussion revolved around the issues of scalability and the use of data.  What is clear is that the conversation at the project manager level is shifting from a long-running focus on reports and metrics to one focused on data and what can be learned from it.  As with any technology, information technology exploits what is presented before it.  Most recently, accelerated improvements in hardware and communications technology has allowed us to begin to collect and use ever larger sets of data.

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Do You Believe in Magic? — Big Data, Buzz Phrases, and Keeping Feet Planted Firmly on the Ground

My alternative title for this post was “Money for Nothing,” which is along the same lines.  I have been engaged in discussions regarding Big Data, which has become a bit of a buzz phrase of late in both business and government.  Under the current drive to maximize the value of existing data, every data source, stream, lake, and repository (and the list goes on) has been subsumed by this concept.  So, at the risk of being a killjoy, let me point out that not all large collections of data is “Big Data.”  Furthermore, once a category of data gets tagged as Big Data, the further one seems to depart from the world of reality in determining how to approach and use the data.  So for of you who find yourself in this situation, let’s take a collective deep breath and engage our critical thinking skills.

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