The return of the narratives

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India Big Data Week 2014The return of the narratives

www.bigdatainnovation.org

Venkataraman Ramachandran

25th January 2014

Consultant – Information, Media & Entertainment Cognizant Business Consulting

@venkinesiswww.venkinesis.in

www.venkinesis.in

Which is the primary key that unlocks the business value of the data?

A: Big Data

D: Narratives

B: Algorithms

C: Data Visualization

A: Big Data

D: Narratives

Which is the primary key that unlocks the business value of the data?

A: Big Data

D: Narratives

Which is the primary key that unlocks the business value of the data?

“Consulting, a profession grounded in building narratives [and naïve rationalization] “ -

Image courtesy: Wikipedia

content is subservient to context

1. Narratives TakeawayData-grounded narratives

Side-effects

The story of best practices

Narratives

• Spoken or written account of story

• Homo narrans

Balvinder is married, outspoken and deeply engaged with social issues.

Which of the following is more likely?

Balvinder is a bank manager

OR

Balvinder is a bank manager who is an active volunteer at an NGO

Image courtesy: Freedigitalphotos.net

Rockstar hero wakes up to his bad

dream where his uncle is killed

Hero is suffering from <Insert the latest syndrome>

Hero meets the assassin

Hero kills the assassin

Assassin was the hero’s dad’s best

friend

Image Courtesy: IMDB, Wikipedia

There is too much data out

there.

What’s your BIG DATA Strategy??

Follow “the best practices” based on

our tested and proven methodology

Voila! Welcome to Big Data 2.0

Deliver Roadmap and ensure

strategic alignment between business

and IT

2.The story of “Best Practices”Takeaway

Data-grounded narratives

Side-effects

The story of best practices

Narratives

3.Side-effects

• Trapped by cultural voeyurism

• Organizations are the same!

• Strategy ends up in tinkering and IT infrastructure tends to “drift”*

• Denial of complexity

TakeawayData-grounded narratives

Side-effects

The story of best practices

Narratives

*Source: Claudia Cibora 1997 Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems

Image Courtesy: Google Images

Intermission

Content is subservient to contextBig Data narrative

4. The return of the narrativesTakeaway

Data-grounded narratives

Side-effects

The story of best practices

Narratives

Data Facts Angles

Structure

Narrative

Turning Numbers into Narrative for an audience of one

Source: Narrative Science Website

Data Collection, Storage & TransmissionEg. NYSE, Teradata, Hadoop, Market Trends

Vertical search productsEg. Cars.com

Reporting & VisualizationsEg. Tableau,

Cognos, Palantir, Good Data

Value-added data

Eg. Experian, Navteq

Data products ecosystem

Source: Narrative Science – Larry Adams Presentation at Big Data Week

Reality

Media

Data

Algorithm

Narrative

Meaning

New narrative

Reality

Media

Data

Algorithm

Narrative -1

Meaning-1

Narrative-n

Meaning-n

Old narrative What-if realities

The new story of best practicesappropriate

• All answers are statistically significant

• Causality doesn’t equal correlation

• Appropriate practices are debunked until proven

4. Takeaway

4.When does Big Data make(s) sense?

• Can your business model survive data-scarcity?

• Do you see data-ubiquity as a problem or a predicament?

• What’s your meta-narrative??

In a world full of answers, do you have the right question??

Image courtesy: Freedigitalphotos.net

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[email protected]

Venkataraman [email protected]

Thank You

www.bigdatainnovation.org