infopresse montreal feb 6 big data

SOLVEforINTERESTINGOTHERWISE LIFE IS DULL.

DATA AND DISILLUSIONMENT

(Shamelessly: buy this book.)

“We gotthe Internet exactly backwards.”

Breadcrumb trail

http

://w

ww.

flick

r.com

/pho

tos/

jenn

y-pi

cs/3

2396

3849

4/si

zes/

l/

Big Data:It’s people.

A technology shift.

Volume(the “big”

part)

Velocity(the “fast”

part)

Variety(the

“anything” part)

Pickanytwo

Relational

Statistical

BIG

“All your friends are poor” is an awkward conversation.

A force for good.

Ward off disease.Pinpoint disasters.Reveal corruption.Make cities smarter.Improve how we teach.

Big healthcare

Big philanthropy

Big commuting

A force for bad.

Erode our privacy.Justify prejudices.Polarize groups.Leak private truths.

Big prejudice

Audience participation time!

How amusing.

“…nobody notices offers they do not get. And if these absent opportunities start following certain social patterns (for example not offering them to certain races, genders or sexual preferences) they can have a deep civil rights effect.”

Anders Sandberg, Oxford University

Personalization looks a lot like prejudice.

Big radio

0

15

30

2007 2012

Times a song in “heavy rotation”is played each day

Every 4h

Every 55m

Don’t feel bad.

Don’t feel bad.

Even Einstein

had a therapist.

24 months ago, the average person was still afraid of IT.

Today, the average person is terrified of being without it.

So we have a lot of data. Now we’re a smarter

species, right?

“Anyone who values truth should stop worshipping reason.”

(AKA the real world.)

We prefer false positives.

Wooly mammoth

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pong/172438102/sizes/o/

Sun temple

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30787002@N02/3298693694/sizes/l/

Polarizing through tone

Pew and political polarization

We’re bad at this

Mistake correlation for causalitySeek truthiness rather than factFind patterns where they don’t existEasily swayed by toneSide with our tribesDig in and ignore new evidence

Athenian swimming pools

What will be normal tomorrow.

“All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher (1788-1860)

Saturday morning cartoons

Saturday morning cartoons

Saturday morning cartoons

Saturday morning cartoons

Saturday morning cartoons

Our rotation about the sunThe immorality of slaveryA woman’s right to vote

... were once heresy.

Four big bets.

23andme

This explains so much.

How long until it’s cruel not to scan your baby?

Minority report

How long until it’s unethical not to predict mass

murder?

Look at my feed, ye mighty, and despair.

How long until our feed isn’t a matter of record like our Social

Insurance Number?

Google Glass and prosthetic brains

How unfair will it be?

How long until we have a prosthetic brain from birth?

What if, tomorrow,

genetic mapping

predictive arrests

a state-sanctioned life feed

and birth-issued prosthetics

aren’t just normal...

...it’s immoral not to have them?

(Phew.)

“A subjective degree of belief should rationally change to

account for evidence.”

(AKA Bayes’ Theorem.)

Pretty high expectations.Ph

oto

by J

eff P

ang

on F

lickr

. http

://w

ww.

flick

r.com

/pho

tos/

jeffp

ang/

3165

2837

67/

Are they being met?

What would be a perfect industry to capitalize on

Big Data?

Tons of information.

Public and private.

Data collection is inherent.

What’s collected identifies people uniquely.

Structured and unstructured.

Ubiquitous and mobile.

Consumer-facing,tied to loyalty.

Enabled by sensorsand interfaces.

An industry where “the right information in the right place

just changes your life.”

(which was what Stewart Brand said)

The best test:

Photo by Garysan97 on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/16983197@N06/7808610268/

The travel industry is the poster child for Big Data

innovation.

(Show of hands?)

Photo by James Vaughan on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/4567365854/)

Welcome to LA.

http

://w

ww.

flick

r.com

/pho

tos/

soda

niec

hea/

7418

7596

18/

Instead: have a free room!

(Admittedly, these are first-world problems.)

Is this a lackof data?

No, lack of outcomes.

Change is hard.(habits don’t change easily)

“Most organizational change efforts still underperform, fail,

or make things worse.”

Walter McFarland, This is your brain on organizatinal change, October, 2012, Harvard Business Review

“A person’s reaction to organizational change ‘can be so

excessive and immediate, that some researchers have suggested it may be easier to start a completely new organization than to try to

change an existing one.’”Kenneth Thompson and Fred Luthans

Disillusioned?

Maybe disruption requires having nothing to lose?

Amazon & e-books.

Netflix & videos.

Paypal & online payment.

Not a car service.A supply chain optimization platform.

Über & taxi services

Tomorrow’s best ideas are obvious in hindsight.

But to create them, companies need to change radically.

In fact, they need to change how they change.

Legacy companies have all the cards.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/locosphotos/6608106173/

They just don’t know how to play them.

Phot

o by

Pau

l Fal

arda

u on

Flic

kr (h

ttp://

ww

w.fli

ckr.c

om/p

hoto

s/pf

ala/

4189

0616

16/)

SOLVEforINTERESTINGOTHERWISE LIFE IS DULL.

Alistair Croll@acrollwww.solveforinteresting.comalistair@solveforinteresting.comTHANKS!