Quotes About Data

You can't make evidence-based policy decisions without evidence.

Supercookies are legal, but I don't think they should be.

ArcGIS includes a Living Atlas of the World. It's like a large living library of geographic information.

Listen: women lie, men lie, but numbers don't lie, guy.

There's a very low amount of data literacy around people.

I see social media mainly just talked about as if it has just changed us technologically and in terms of data. I think it has changed absolutely everything. It has changed truth, it has changed culture. It has certainly changed the way that we relate to each other and in a very short amount of time.

FBI data show that more men from this community have joined, or sought to join, a foreign terrorist organization over the last dozen years there than in any other jurisdiction in the nation. From this community alone, 45 members left to join either the Somalia-based insurgency al-Shabab or the Iraqi and Syrian wing of ISIS.37

He knew time and day of week and wondered when such scraps of data would begin to feel disposable.

It just means you are the sum total of your data. No man escapes that.

There were no laptops or handheld devices in class. Ilgauskas didn't exclude them; we did, sort of, unspokenly. Some of us could barely complete a thought without touch pads or scroll buttons, but we understood that high-speed data systems did not belong here. They were an assault on the environment, which was defined by length, width, and depth, with time drawn out, computed in heartbeats.

But I only said, "Terrifying data is now an industry in itself. Different firms compete to see how badly they can scare us.

What do you think the afterlife is, a body of facts just waiting to be uncovered? Do you think the U.S. Air Force is secretly gathering data on the afterlife and keeping it under wraps because we're not mature enough to accept the findings? The findings would cause a panic? No. I'll tell you what the afterlife is. it's a sweet and terribly touching idea. You can take it or leave it.

We are the sum total of our data, I told her, just as we are the sum total of our chemical impulses. I

This was the eloquence of alphabets and numeric systems, now fully realized in electronic form, in the zero-oneness of the world, the digital imperative that defined every breath of the planet's living billions.

In fact, soon billions of smart things in the physical world will be sensing, responding, communicating, buying their own electricity and sharing important data, doing everything

Companies such as Unilever or Prudential are coming to us and saying, 'We're very interested in building better data relationships. Can we leverage your platform? We're very interested in reducing our data liability.' They're seeing that data is increasingly a toxic asset inside of corporations.

the real problem is that numerical correlations say nothing of people's real needs, of their desires, and of the reasons for their activities. As a result, these numerical data can give a false impression of people. But the use of big data and market analytics is seductive: no travel, little expense, and huge numbers, sexy charts, and impressive statistics, all very persuasive to the executive team trying to decide which new products to develop.

Customer research is a tradeoff: deep insights on real needs from a tiny set of people, versus broad, reliable purchasing data from a wide range and large number of people. We need both. Designers understand what people really need. Marketing understands what people actually buy. These are not the same things, which is why both approaches are required: marketing and design researchers should work together in complementary teams.

We live in an uncertain world. We must recognize that our original plan was based on noisy data, viewed from a long time-horizon.

Most marketing agents believe marketing is an art, not a science. We disagree. While there is art involved, it is very much a science. A science you can learn.

Including Statistics Speaks to the Authority You Have

What was it Sherlock Holmes said about theories?" "'It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data,'" I rattled off. And as I continued, Dad chimed in so we were reciting in unison. "'Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.'" Sherlockian

In science, having more data is always preferred. In life, secrets and lies make society manageable.

In 1992, the internet carried 100 gigabytes of data per day. By 2007, when the iPhone was released, it carried 2,000 gigabytes per second. Today, it's moving beyond 150,000 gigabytes per second.