William Seeley and Lauren Zajac (Team 1)
Topic Overview
The readings this week spent a great deal of time unveiling the potential, power and promise of big data including
what McKinsey and Company referred to as:
“the new frontier for innovation, competition and productivity”.
Big data has the promise to drive changes as profound as the industrial revolution according to GE and in 2017 the Economist
stated that:
“Data is to this century what oil was to the last century: a driver of growth and change”.
One of the key insights in the readings this week is that information overload, or too much information, can be as bad as a lack of information. Industries and companies who can utilize data specialists and new technology and tools to work with the data will have a
competitive edge.
Chapter Summaries
Social Physics CH1 From Ideas to Action
Alex Pentland examined the tremendous potential of the new frontier of big data during chapter 1, entitled
“From Ideas to Actions” when he presented his concept of social physics. He contends that while the
internet makes our lives more connected, they also make things go faster, and that we are “drowning in information,
so much that we don’t know what items to pay attention to, and what to ignore” (p. 2). This overwhelming volume and speed of
information forms virtual crowds across the world in minutes, leading to catastrophic events like stock market crashes and
downfall of governments (p.2). He recognizes that people can no longer be seen as independent decision makers, and that the
internet and social media-fueled interactions must be examined to fully explain and predict human behavior.
Social physics is defined as “a quantitative social science that describes reliable, mathematical connections between information
and idea flow… and people’s behavior” (p. 4). We are able to understand how ideas flow between people using social learning,
and how this flow “shapes norms, productivity, creative output” (p. 4). Understanding the information flow and resulting changes
in behavior is critical to understanding social physics. Furthermore, social physics is made possible through Big Data, which
tracks our “digital bread crumbs” of all aspects of our lives and choices (p. 8). In addition to assisting social scientists
with “reality mining” or analyzing patterns within these digital bread crumbs, big data also allows us the opportunity to view
society and its complexity “many orders of magnitude over prior social science sets” (p. 11). Pentland also issues some warnings
on the age of Big Data, and he urges that scholars and researchers follow strict scientific policies to ensure the protection
of privacy at all costs.
Digital Humanitarians CH1 Rise of Digital Humanitarianism
Patrick Meier dives further into the potential of Big Data, and then discusses his own personal entry into Digital
Humanitarianism in Chapter 1, “The Rise of Digital Humanitarianism”. He describes his own personal brush with tragedy
when his wife was in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, conducting research in 2010 when the devastating earthquake hit. Feeling
hopeless and powerless, and struggling with the lack of communication or information, Patrick and his growing network of
friends and contacts and volunteers began to launch a “Crisis Response Map” and became digital humanitarianisms. They
used the power of social networks and big data information to create, publish and maintain this digital map that pinpointed
the worst areas of the disaster and earthquake impact and cries for help in a single map. This was made possible with
thousands of volunteers world-wide who devoted hours for many weeks, translating and posting messages, and the map became
the source of information from the press, emergency response teams, and friends and family members seeking information on
their missing and affected loved ones. Big data and the internet allowed these thousands of volunteers to do something
tangible to help during the crisis, and has forever changed the way we can respond to disasters. Meier cautions that
Big Data and the overflow of information and data can also be “as paralyzing as the absence of data” (p. 18) and needs to be managed.
NYT The Age of Big Data
Steve Lohr continues this explanation of the power and promise of Big Data in his 2012 Article, “The Age of Big Data” published
in the New York Times. He states that Big Data is a “new economic asset, like currency or gold”. Big Data has given rise
to a fast growing career field of data consultants who are available and adept at analyzing the data to help industries “make
decisions, trim costs and lift sales” using Big Data (p.2). And this Big Data is growing, as it “more than doubles every
two years”, and creates an “on-line fishbowl…into the real time behavior of huge numbers of people” (p. 6).
Lohr goes on to provide a number of illustrations on how pervasive the use of Big Data is by presenting a number of
examples in all industries, including business, sports, governments, and academics. Big Data has also fueled the growth
of new computer technologies to harness and analyze the data, including artificial intelligence, natural language processing,
pattern recognition and machine learning. Lohr also mentions that there is a feedback loop and that additional data
actually helps make these tools better. Finally, Lohr also cautions that there are some drawbacks to the data, including
false discoveries, all of the data makes as it is hard to focus on what is meaningful, biased fact finding, where people
look for data that support their theory, and limits to statistical and mathematical modeling. But drawbacks aside,
Big Data has caused a revolution and paradigm shift. People are no longer relying on intuition or feelings in their industries,
but are rather focused on the data and analysis.
Key Take-Aways (for Yellowdig)
https://voicethread.com/myvoice/thread/11963613/71077645/66681745
Discussion Questions
-
Meier cautions that Big Data and the “overflow of information and data” can also be “as paralyzing as the absence of data” (p. 18). Describe a time when you encountered “too much of a good thing (data)” and what were some strategies you used to overcome the problem?
-
In his article, “The age of Big Data”, Lohr mentions that enthusiasts say that the Big Data has the potential to be “humanity’s dashboard” with numerous helpful and positive uses, while critics argue that it is just “Big Brother” invading people’s privacy. What is your feeling on Big Data?
-
Meier talks about the tangible results (Digital Humanitarianism!) That they found from the use of big data, is there a time that you used data and had immediate results?
References
- Pentland, A. (2015). Social Physics: How social networks can make us smarter. Penguin. CH1 From Ideas to Action
- Meier, P. (2015). Digital humanitarians: how big data is changing the face of humanitarian response. Routledge. CH1 Rise of Digital Humanitarianism
- The Age of Big Data: New York Times LINK