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Scott Davis

“Storytelling: Gimmick or Real?” My latest in Information Management

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I’m stalking the data-story story. One of the first stops is with a few smart people I know and trust to have given it thought. Scott Davis, whose name long-time Datadoodle readers will recognize, has thought about it deeply. I talked to him in June, and in August finally wrote it up.

By the way, part of the delay had to do with my attempt to make it into a podcast. That would have been a Datadoodle first, and there was no better way to start off than by hearing Scott say, “I’m going to give you a cliché that’s repeated so often it’s taken as truth, and I’m going to tell you it’s straight up false: Information is not derivative of data.”… Read the rest ““Storytelling: Gimmick or Real?” My latest in Information Management”

My latest in Information Management: “‘Sexy'” Data Science is a Team Sport”

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The word got out last year: data scientist is the “sexiest job,” a late-2012 declaration by the renowned Tom Davenport of “Competing on Analytics” fame. Trouble is, “sexy” goes bad faster than fish.

“Data scientist,” still fresh, is my word of the year. In 2013, the data analysis industry discovered it, many loved or hated it, but most of all, we repeated it. Google Trends shows the mention of it soaring like the 1990s Dow Jones Industrial Average — and you know what happens next.

Alert as data scientists are to patterns, I wonder if many don’t shudder at the “sexy” label.… Read the rest “My latest in Information Management: “‘Sexy'” Data Science is a Team Sport””

Don’t call yourself a “data scientist”

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Someone introduced himself recently as a “data scientist” to a data warehouse pro I know. “I thought he was a fool,” said Interworks consultant Tim Costello. He says it’s a meaningless term — and I believe it’s another one of those distractions thrown around in a roiling industry.

One of the most interesting of the others I’ve heard is Scott Davis, the founder of Lyzasoft. He emailed this week from somewhere on the Caribbean, “Data scientist is just a term someone applied to a set of skills and practices that have existed for a very, very long time. Like, since the invention of the abacus.”… Read the rest “Don’t call yourself a “data scientist””