Measuring is the new knowing
For the article “ The Age of Big Data ” in The New York Times, MIT researcher Erik Brynjolfsson was interviewed by journalist Steve Lohr. The conversation was prompted by the new book “Race Against the Machine” by Brynjolfson and co-author Andrew McAfee, in which both authors discuss the transformation that the information age is bringing about in the economy. In particular, the enormous amount of raw data – or Big Data – that people and machines produce, and the new technologies to analyze and interpret all this data, are causing a change in the way we are used to doing business.
“To grasp the impact of Big Data, look to the microscope, invented four centuries ago italy telegram data It allowed people to see and measure things as never before. Data measurement is the modern equivalent of the microscope.”
In an earlier article “ The Big Data Boom Is the Innovation Story of Our Time ” in The Atlantic magazine, Brynjolfsson and McAfee put it this way:
“[The discovery of the microscope] represents a fundamental theme of discovery. Breakthroughs in innovation often rely on breakthroughs in measurement.”