Big Data, Big Dupe: A little book about a big bunch of nonsense - Softcover

Few, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1938377109 ISBN 13: 9781938377105

Publisher: Analytics Press, 2018

Synopsis

Big Data, Big Dupe is a little book about a big bunch of nonsense. The story of David and Goliath inspires us to hope that something little, when armed with truth, can topple something big that is a lie. This is the author's hope. While others have written about the dangers of Big Data, Stephen Few reveals the deceit that belies its illusory nature. If "data is the new oil," Big Data is the new snake oil. It isn't real. It's a marketing campaign that has distracted us for years from the real and important work of deriving value from data.
Big Data, Big Dupe gives a voice to the small army of data professionals who work silently and unheralded in the trenches to make sense of data. Data professionals (data analysts, statisticians, etc.) struggle to maintain focus amidst the constant distraction of Big Data nonsense. They recognize Big Data for what it is: a meaningless term, but also a well-funded marketing campaign that sends organizations on costly and wasteful pursuits. As IT vendors, consultants, and many academics sing the praises of Big Data, the real work of data sensemaking is being done by seasoned professionals using skills that they developed through years of study and practice. These skills existed long before the nonsense of Big Data arose. 

If you're one of these seasoned data professionals, buy this book, confirm that it speaks your truth, and then place copies on the desks of those whose foolish IT strategy and purchasing decisions are wasting your time and subverting your efforts. Data holds great promise, but that promise will forever remain unfulfilled by those who pursue the Big Data illusion rather than investing in the time-proven skills and hard work of data sensemaking.

About this title

About the Author:

Stephen Few is the founder of the IT consultancy Perceptual Edge. With 35 years of experience in the field, he harbors an ardent love/hate relationship with IT. The world is inundated with far too many unneeded and poorly designed IT products. The great promise of IT is being undermined by an irresponsible industry and poorly skilled practitioners. He advocates a more thoughtful, ethical, human-focused, skills-based, and design-oriented revolution in IT to reduce the waste, prevent further harm, and set our feet once and for all on the path to an "information age" worthy of the name. He speaks, teaches, and consults around the world and is the author of four other books: Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten, Information Dashboard Design: Displaying Data for At-a-Glance Monitoring, Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis, and Signal: Understanding What Matters in a World of Noise.

Review:

"Few gives a wonderfully elegant deconstruction of the current media buzz-phrase 'big data,' showing it to be smoke and mirrors containing nothing new beyond a deeper level of hype."-David Hand, Professor at Imperial College, London and author of The Improbability Principle

"A concise and welcome exposé on Big Data. Big Data, Big Dupe is a timely reminder to ask the right questions before buying into any illusion of magnitude or importance."-Cheryl Wilson, Strategic Marketing Consultant

"Stephen Few has written a brave and important book."-Dale Lehman, Professor of Business at Loras College

"This is a must-read book for anyone considering big data, or feeling their organisation being drawn into it."-Stacey Barr, Author of Prove It!

About this edition

• Publisher: Analytics Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1938377109
• ISBN 13: 9781938377105
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96