Big Data: Massive Ado about ... Nothing?

Some of the hype circulating right now around the topics of data science and big data are really annoying me - used to find it amusing, but now it's starting to make me angry. There is a lot too the movements of data science and big data - don't get me wrong - but a lot of what's being said is just plain wrong and doomed to fail.

My main issue is the complete ignorance of history that is shown by people talking up the concepts. They show - often - that they know nothing of the history of work in the area. The most important thing that they miss in doing that is the hard earned lesson that normative approaches to decision making simply don't work unless they are applied collaboratively, with decision makers understanding the models developed. The conceptual frameworks developed for data science and big data at the moment totally ignore human decision making. They assume more data is better for decision making - it's not. Time to take deep breath I think and build a better and reasoned critique of what missing and why it won't work (I'll post here when I've calmed down).

POD (sitting in a "big data" panel session at a major academic conference, fuming)
Just saw a "big data" process model that ignored decision making, and had developing a business case as step 5 of 6. OMG

Here is a link to my ppt slide deck: https://app.box.com/s/yd9i9fh1go1pbbr4cvwzj62i3yboq3mk

A reading list relevant to his Mastering SAP BA presentation soon.

POD

Peter O’Donnell, a lecturer in Monash University’s Decision Support Systems laboratory, along with Masters student Yasmine AL Ahmadi, is running a project aimed at improving medical reporting. The idea is to apply BI design techniques to reports containing medical test results. If you can spare 5 to 10 minutes you can help. Click the link below to find out more about the project.

If you participate in the study you simply use a browser to access a Web-based system that will take you through the “experiment”. After answering some some simple demographic questions (you remain anonymous), and then you will be shown a series of reports showing some medical test results. You will be asked answer three simple questions about each report. It should take no longer than 5 to 10 minutes to complete the task.

We would greatly appreciate it if you could help us conduct this project either by participating in the study yourself, or letting others who you think would like to participate know about the project. For further information about the study please access the following URL:

http://www.bipathology.com

Thank you
Peter and Yasmine