Fail Fast, Learn Faster

3Insight and Knowledge: Data, Science, and Facts

“Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

—Mark Twain

• “World drowning in oceans of data” – BBC News, October 31, 2003
• “Digital universe doubling every 18 months” – IDC, May 19, 2009
• “Here comes the zettabyte age” – Wired, April 30, 2010
• “90% of world's data generated over the last two years” – Science, May 22, 2013
• “One-fifth of organizations store more than 1 petabyte of data” – CIO, February 13, 2015

Several years ago, after the term Big Data had been popularized, an old friend from a very different line of work, a jazz musician, commented to me, “So, if there is all of this new data, how come it doesn't look like anyone is getting any smarter?” I had to think about that one, and I am still thinking.

Albert Einstein once remarked, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” As companies think about the vast amounts of data at their fingertips, they might be advised to pause and step back for a few moments to consider that having the most data seldom makes one the wisest or the fastest. Big insights often come from simple events. Isaac Newton developed his big insight from a single data point – an apple falling from a tree onto his head. The path to wisdom and insight is seldom easy, even for data-rich organizations.

As recent years have shown, there is now, more than ever, a growing importance and urgency attached to data, analytics, and expertise. The rush to understand the nature ...