

The Curse of Analytics and the Big Data Hype - edhallen
http://www.klaviyo.com/blog/2012/07/16/the-curse-analytics-big-data-hype/

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k3n
I'm getting a little tired of these succinct blog posts which I think I'm
going to start calling "toilet confessionals"; someone gets some grandiose
epiphany while sitting on the can, and then bangs out a few paragraphs for a
blog -- complete with massive hand-waving and over-simplifications (such as
using shallow metaphors like comparing a business activity to a Snickers bar)
-- and then pats themself on the back before calling it a done deal.

> Here’s the problem – analytics are expensive. They take time, they take
> knowledge, they take investment in analysis tools and data systems, and
> crucially, they require we be willing to change our behavior based on what
> we learn.

VERY broad generalization here; "analytics" is arguably the cheapest thing
that you can do, unless you go and buy million-dollar software packages to do
it for you. Nothing about analytics says that you must have your own private
server farm, an enterprise copy of MicroStrategy (or w/e), and a building full
of PHD's to get results.

> Moreover, analytics without purpose and no tie to decisions keep us from
> focusing on the most important tasks ahead of us.

Oh, come on. Replace "analytics" with 1000 other words and the quip still
fits; this isn't a revelation on analytics, it's a fact of productivity:
you'll never get to where you're going if you don't know where it is that you
want to end up.

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einhverfr
Certainly this reminds me of many of my past experiences in larger businesses.
Analytics using bad methodology, producing untrustworthy statistics for the
sake of having statistics. What a waste of money and productivity that is.

However, just because we think we know the answer doesn't mean we actually do,
so I would strike that consideration off the list. Often it is good to measure
what we already think we know so we can be sure we actually have evidence to
back it up.

