Asking the Right Questions in Big Data

Extracted 17AUG2011 from http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/08/theres-no-such-thing-as-big-da.html

Large companies with entrenched business models tend to cling to their buggy-whips. They have a hard time breaking their own business models, as Clay Christensen so clearly stated in "The Innovator’s Dilemma," but it's too easy to point the finger at simple complacency.

Early-stage companies have a second advantage over more established ones: they can ask for forgiveness instead of permission. Because they have less to lose, they can make risky bets...

At a big data conference run by The Economist this spring, one of the speakers made a great point: Archimedes had taken baths before... The speaker’s point was this: it was the question that prompted Archimedes’ realization...

In a recent study, McKinsey found that by 2018, the U.S. will face a shortage of 1.5 million managers who are fluent in data-based decision making. It’s a lesson not lost on leading business schools: several of them are introducing business courses in analytics...

In a world flooded by too much data and too many answers, tomorrow's business leaders need to learn how to ask the right questions.