Strata Conference in London 2013: Mark Madsen Perception is Key: "Telescopes, Microscopes and Data"

http://strataconf.com/strataeu2013/public/schedule/detail/32351

We hear stories of how big data is unprecedented and about the latest disruptive products to hit the market, products that are totally different and will change everything. Yet looking at the underlying concepts, most of these aren’t all that new and the ones that are new are being explained in the terms of the old, in the same way cars were described as “horseless carriages.” Framing the new as a simple variation on the old misses the areas of real disruption.

This is an age-old problem rooted in the over-emphasis of technology and ignoring the way it changes people and practices. The more important changes are in perception: what is now possible, what is probable, what actual tradeoffs are being made as new supplants old. The big data market is in the midst of such a shift, with many clear technical examples.

It is also worth stepping back from the details of this market and looking at the abstractions of data processing over a longer time span. The kinds of decisions we make, what we automate and how we process data have been changing, from simple retrieval to deterministic systems and now to non-deterministic systems. It is this context that drives what we need to build, and the tradeoffs we must consider as we build.
Photo of Mark Madsen
Mark Madsen
Third Nature

I design and build analysis and decision support systems, and building data management and access infrastructure. Research focus these days is on analysis techniques, emerging technology and practices in analytics, BI, information management, user experience for data access & delivery applications. I speak at a lot of conferences on anything data, with a bunch of history of science and technology mixed in.

I focus on two types of work: using data to make decisions and manage organizations, and building data technology infrastructure. A big part of making decisions and using data in a corporate setting is ensuring that the right data capture and data delivery infrastructure is in place to manage the business. As a result, I do as much information strategy and IT architecture work as I do performance management and decision support.

My spare-time projects involve research on history of communication technology adoption and fieldwork in ecology, specializing in botany.

Twitter: @markmadsen