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It’s great that more data is being brought to us (see the Economist on the data deluge) but in all honesty I am also a little cautious.
If human behaviour was a physics experiment then I might be keen on the remourseless march of empiricism: the past perfectly predicting the future. But I do not believe this. More data for me simply does not equal better insight.
A nice creative idea, a new way of doing things that previously hadn’t been done before, a ‘Black Swan’ of innovation perhaps, simply takes this apart. I would be cautious of even the notion that statistics is in some ways a fixed science rather than art; to quote Professor Daniel Kahneman, ’The rational model is one in which the beliefs and the desires are supposed to be determined. We were real believers in decision analysis 30 years ago, and now we must admit that decision analysis hasn’t held up.’
For me data is a startpoint not an endpoint, there is plenty of room for intuition: so don’t lose it.
Steven Walden
Steven Walden is Head of Research at Customer Experience Consultancy, Beyond Philosophy. He has worked in Management Consultancy for the last 14 years including boutique and large strategy houses providing advice and guidance to a cross-industry range of businesses on market planning and consumer behaviour. Within his current role and working closely with leading business schools he has focused on designing measures of emotion and the sub-conscious using techniques from consumer psychology. He is also co-author of a new book coming out in Spring 2010 on Customer Experience Management.Recent Posts
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