Quote to Note: Big Data Skill and Value Linked
February 6, 2014
Tucked in “The Morning Ledger: Companies Seek Help Putting Big Data to Work” was a quote attributed to SAS, a vendor of statistical solutions and software. The quote:
David Ginsberg, chief data scientist at SAP, said communication skills are critically important in the field, and that a key player on his big-data team is a “guy who can translate Ph.D. to English. Those are the hardest people to find.”
I have been working through patent documents from some interesting companies involved in Big Data. The math is somewhat repetitive, but the combination of numerical ingredients makes the “invention” it seems.
One common thread runs through the information I have reviewed in preparation for my lectures in Dubai in early March 2014. Fancy software needs humans to:
- Verify the transforms are within acceptable limits
- Configure thresholds
- Specify outputs often using old fashioned methods like SQL and Boolean
- Figure out what the outputs “mean”.
With search and content processing vendors asserting that their systems make it easy for end users to tap the power of Big Data, I have some doubts. With most “analysts” working in Excel, a leap to the types of systems disclosed in open source patent documents will be at the outer edge of end users’ current skills.
Big Data requires much of skilled humans. When there are too few human Big Data experts, Big Data may not deliver much, if any, value to those looking for a silver bullet for their business.
Stephen E Arnold, February 6, 2014
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