Data Makes the World Go 'Round

Introduction

For the past 30 years, I have had the privilege of working in the data and analytics space. I have been at the center of the field’s evolution—from relational databases and data mining to the transformative power of artificial intelligence (AI) that we see today.

I began my data career at AT&T Bell Laboratories, working in a Center of Excellence that brought together experts from diverse fields—economists, computer scientists, operations researchers, statisticians, geophysicists (like me), and even psychologists. Our mission was clear: to find innovative ways to solve business problems using data. One example was pioneering the continuous audit of online systems, a concept that is now foundational in modern auditing and compliance. I also had the opportunity to work with Bell Labs research teams to bring early machine learning models into practical business use. At the time, we could predict customer churn with decent accuracy, but deploying those models in production was a different story. Operational constraints made it nearly impossible.

Since then, I have spent more than two decades as a practitioner, industry analyst, thought leader, and researcher. I’ve had the opportunity to help organizations navigate and capitalize on the most transformative waves, from the rise of e-commerce and the dot-com bubble to the cloud computing revolution, big data, and now AI. I’ve been an industry analyst. I’ve coauthored books on cloud computing and big data. For the past ...