Perspectives on Data Science and Analytics from the Front Lines Jason Hoffman Ars Quanta Inc.

Key Observations

High-Level Observations Information is growing exponentially Cost of disk and processors has gone exponentially down while the power has going has gone exponentially up More touch points with collection of consumer information than ever before People are interacting with information and technology that were unimaginable 50 years ago

Key Observations - Business Big Companies have a disproportionate advantage because of the scale of their data Established small and mid-Market businesses and entire market niches in the are being dis- intermediated by small and rapid emerging tech startups.

Key Observations - Staffing A 2014 Study identified that 6000 companies were planning to hire “data Scientists” this year Less than 1% of the US population get PhDs

Lessons For Analytics Leaders

Lesson #1 Go slow at the very start in order to go fast later with Analytics

Lesson #2 SMEs Best Practices HeuristicsSoftwareAlgorithms Start from where you are tod ay

Lesson #3 Once you have the foundation Analytics program in place, focus on speed of iteration vs. getting everything perfect

Lesson #4 Measurement is destiny

Lesson #5 Step function gains can come from non-low hanging fruit and sophisticated methods

Lesson #6 If you are just beginning your Analytics program, hire generalists first, rather than specialists

Lesson #7 Don’t hire data scientists

Lesson #8 The consumption of analytics is more important than the creation of analytics

Lesson #9 Software helps, but it’s not enough

Lesson #10 Identify your Data ‘posse’; leverage them extensively to build and support your program