Big Data Buzzword Alert: Thick Data
April 14, 2014
I read “Your Big Data Is Worthless if You Don’t Bring It Into the Real World.” The article points out some often overlooked issues with Big Data. Now that the meaning of the phrase “Big Data” has morphed into a glory phrase, new wordsmithing is needed. This article uses the phrase “thick data.”
The article points out:
To really understand people, we must also understand the aspects of our experience — what anthropologists refer to as thick data. Thick data captures not just facts but the context of facts.
And then notes:
Rather than seeking to understand us simply based on what we do as in the case of big data, thick data seeks to understand us in terms of how we relate to the many different worlds we inhabit. Only by understanding our worlds can anyone really understand “the world” as a whole, which is precisely what companies like Google and Facebook say they want to do.
Will the phrase “thick data” add clarity to the explanations of the analytics frenzy evident in many vendors’ marketing materials? Will search vendor like IBM use the phrase to explain how Watson adds value to information processing?
Interesting semantic shift from “big” to “thick.”
Stephen E Arnold, April 14, 2014
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