Taming The Big Data Tidal Wave: Finding Opportunities in Huge Data Streams with Advanced Analytics

CHAPTER 8

What Makes a Great Analytic Professional?

Before we get into the chapter, you’re going to take a little quiz. It’s a very simple quiz, so don’t stress out. What you need to do is sit back and think for a few minutes about what the most important traits are in a world-class advanced analytics professional. We’ll call such a person an analytic professional for our discussion. Think of the kind of person who will be capable of creating the great analysis discussed in Chapter 7 and taming big data. These are the highly skilled, trained professionals who build predictive models, create forecasts, and similar activities, as opposed to those who mainly build complex spreadsheets or reports. Develop a list of the three to five traits that you would consider most important. What are they? Your list can contain anything you think is important. Once you’ve got your list together, continue reading.

Most of the readers of this book probably got the answer at least partially wrong. The reason for that is that there are some very common assumptions made about what’s most important in a great analytic professional, and many of those assumptions are incomplete, if not just plain wrong! This chapter will delve into why this is true, and will discuss the traits that differentiate a great analytic professional from the rest of the pack. First, let’s define in more detail what we mean by the term analytic professional.

WHO IS THE ANALYTIC PROFESSIONAL?

The people who fall under the umbrella ...