Database Reference
In-Depth Information
8
The Evolving Role
of the Data Scientist
“The world is one big data problem.”
- Andrew McAfee,
Center for Digital Business, MIT/Sloan
“Without Big Data, you are blind and deaf in the middle of a freeway.”
- Geoffrey Moore
Data Science - once a new and novel niche in the enterprise - has now emerged as a
driving force in the enterprise: a key component (if not
the
key component) of BI, overall
strategic planning, and knowledge gathering.
Let's look at the timeline.
Data Science started out and had its infancy in the domain of academia, especially the
social sciences. Academic researchers developed skills and algorithms for detecting eco-
nomic, housing, and medical trends in specified populations. Their work was generally fun-
ded by grants. Their focus was on soft, non-commercial questions regarding quality of life
and related issues, these questions addressed using traditional structured database models.
Following this, Data Science moved into corporate culture with the simple role of solv-
ing “point problems” - specifically-enunciated questions needing precise quantitative an-
swers, these answers nearly always derived from one narrow, pre-defined source of
struc-
tured
data.
With the dawn of Big Data capabilities, Data Science emerged as a broadly defined en-
deavor breaking new ground, exploring the rapidly exploding and constantly flowing fonts
of unstructured digital information in order to
generate new questions, define new pathways
of BI, and become a force unto itself creatively driving and expanding the knowledge-base
of the enterprise
.
And what of the future? Olly Downs, chief Data Scientist at the analytics firm Globys,
says: “The way the Data Science role is migrating is that you don't just need to know your
