San Francisco Mining

Mining for data, that is...

I'm headed up to The City this week for a three day workshop with Stephen Few of Perceptual Edge. There are eight of us going from KT, so it should be fun.

We'll be at Fort Mason, under the shadow of the Golden Gate, across from Alcatraz. Sourdough, chowder, and Anchor Steam are on my 'to-do' list.

Pictures to follow!

Freakonomics and the Real World

"Knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes a complicated world much less so."
-Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

Interviews for strategic planning reveal that many executives believe they lack
a) 'enough data' and/or
b) 'useful data'

Really?
This seems, to me, to just be an admission that they can't figure out what the data means.
Will more data help? Doubt it...
And what is 'useful data'? A proven answer?

Why don't more companies hire statisticians?
Probably the same reason why they don't hire philosophers and anthropologists.

"We kill what we fear, and we fear what we don't understand"