2. Using All Available
Data
• It is feasible in an increasing number of contexts. But it comes at
a cost.
• Data is fluid, huge, powerful, unpredictable, uncontrollable and
not a scare resource.
• The abundance of data is the result of the instrumentalisation of
the natural, industrial and social worlds.
• A key point about the reality of big data: behind every data point
is a person, and when people get mixed up with technology and
analytics, things get messy.
• So unlocking big data through smart systems have to account for
the very human, very messy Big Ideas that sometimes complicate
things.
5 November 2015 2Big Data
3. Add More Data
Points
• Increasing messiness by combining different types of
information from different sources, which don’t always align
perfectly.
• Messiness can arise when we extract or process the data, since
in doing so we are transforming it, turning it into something
else.
• Messiness itself is messy.
5 November 2015 Big Data 3