Is Analytics a Noun or a Verb?

English: The syntax tree of noun phrase "my neighbour's daughter-in-law" with layered determiner analysis. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Is Analytics the name of your department, or do you actually "do" Analytics?

Doing analytics requires you to look at your data, apply some logic, and make or support making a decision with the data.


For many years I have built and maintained analytical platforms. These platforms had the core of a Business Intelligence architecture with some one-offs for the occasional "sophisticated" analysis as needed. I was not specifically doing analytics during this time. I knew many of the tools and techniques that were being applied. At times, I was even the one writing the SQL queries to pull the data together to load into SAS for statistical modeling. However, I rarely took it so far as to actually do the Analytics myself. That was not my role.

Now I am in a position where I am the one doing the Analytics, and I see and recognize the impedance mismatch that occurs when I use the term analytics, versus when some people use the same term.

Data Analytics is a very overloaded term in today's environment.  Yet as sophisticated as we may be in evolving from our ancestors simple things still make a big difference.


Using incredibly simple definitions:
A Noun is a person, place or thing.

A Verb is an action, or state of being.


Analytics can be a noun. "I am in charge of the Analytics department!"

Analytics can also be a verb. "I applied Analytics to the data until it gave me the answer!"

Analysis, or analytical thinking is a way of learning from and understanding the data that we have available to us in order to solve a specific problem or answer a specific question.

I think how this word evolved to be a noun is that there have been times where people with analytical skills(verb) were gathered together in one place. In order to have a question answered you had to go to the Analytics department (now it is a noun - place.)

As this place evolved, the people doing the analysis needed support, programmers, managers, project managers, special coders,etc.

Now you can say you work in Analytics and mean the department. This carries some clout with it, because it sounds as if you have the skills and capabilities of those doing the analysis.

Not necessarily. You may learn some valuable things, and through the natural sequence of apprenticeship you may be able to be the one "doing analytics" at some point.

To me, Analytics is a Verb, and it should only be a verb. Using it in any other context is a disservice to the word.

Related articles

• Co-design for Data Analytics And Machine Learning
• Big Data Career Opportunities
• Business Analytics vs. Data Analytics: What You Need to Know
• Big Data Analytical firm wanting a professional logo
• INFORMS New Associate CAP Certification

The-First-Data-Scientist?

Was Charles Eppes the first fictional Data Scientist? 

 

Sherlock Holmes is the most well known fictional detective, although many students of literature will tell you Holmes was not the actual first consulting detective.

A recent conversation about detectives, and data scientists led me to wonder who could be considered the first fictional Data Scientist.

To answer this question we should consider what a data scientist is and what they do.

They work with data gathered in the real world, do some analysis, derive a model that can represent the data, explain the model and data to others, add new data to the model, perform some type of prediction, refine results, then test in the real world.

While their are many definitions, and I feel like the definition of the term Data Scientist changes on an ongoing basis, for the purpose of this article I think these general thoughts are sufficient.

On the show Numb3rs, Charles Eppes, played by David Krumholtz was a mathematician who had a brother in the F.B.I. in California. Through a number of seasons Charlie, as he was affectionately known, worked through "doing the math" of these hard problems helping his brother and his team both solve crimes, as well as understand the math behind his explanation. By taking things this next step, actually explaining through analogy that non-mathematicians could understand he was able to provide them insight into the crime and the criminal.

For those of you that have attended any of my presentations on data science, you know that I consider Johannes Kepler to be one of the first true data scientists. Like Charlie, Johannes gathered data from the real world, (painstakingly collected over years by Tycho Brahe), did some analysis, derived a model to represent the data, then began to explain the model and the data to others. As new data came in, Kepler refined his model until all the data points fit with his model. From there Kepler was able to make predictions, refine his results and show others how the real world worked.

There are many other shows that apply the principles of Forensics to solving crime, some of them are quite interesting, although I am not sure  of the veracity of the capabilities of crime solvers to do some of the things that their Television counterparts do on a weekly basis.

Numb3rs, to me will always be about using Data Science to solve real world problems.If you haven't seen an episode, the whole series is on Netflix.


After all, isn't that what the data we work with on a daily basis represents? Something in the "real world" ?

Related articles

• MR. HOLMES Trailer: An Old Sherlock Solves One Last Case
• Uncovering the Truth: The Reality of Criminal Profiling
• News Post: The Wisdom Of Crowds
• Letter: DNA and the F.B.I.

Analytical Skills?

One particular skill listed on many job descriptions I have seen gives me more questions than answers.

The skill they would like the candidate to have is listed as : Analytical Skills


How is this quantified? How do you know that someone has analytical skills?


Wiki defines Analysis as the ability to break down a complex topic or substance into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of it.

To what level of detail does this particular job need Analytical Skills? Will the candidate need to analyze the Enterprise accounting functions? Does it need to be the analysis of the physical server infrastructure? Does it need to be organizational layout? Will the candidate be analyzing forensic evidence?

Analytical skill is such a broad topic, and once a person does their analysis what happens to it? Is this a position that has the ability to not just analyze data, but also act on it? Is the analysis required in the position for recommendation purposes, educational purposes, or will the candidate be making decisions based on data provided by others?

Many people have analytical skills, but do they have good analytical skills? Do decision makers listen to and follow their recommendations after an analysis is done?

Data Management professionals are constantly analyzing data. The raw data can represent many diverse topics. Some of the key topics for analysis that come to mind are People, Processes and Things.

People

The analysis of people, their motivations, and their interactions is covered by subjects like anthropology, psychology, sociology and other behavioral sciences. Some people are naturally gifted people readers and can understand others with limited formal training. The analysis of people is useful to many groups within an organization, human resources, marketing, sales, even executive leadership.

Process

There are many types of processes in our lives, a process for getting a drivers license, getting married, fulfilling a product order, shipping a product, and many others. Understanding and recommending improvements to the nature of the processes that we interact with on a daily basis can be very valuable.

Things

Things can be companies, human languages, computer languages, web pages, corporate ledgers, computers, cars, religions, money, inventories, nature. Every "thing" can be studied and analyzed. The more we understand things the more data we generate about those things in order to contribute to human knowledge, self knowledge or our corporate enterprise.

Data

All things that are analyzed have one thing in common. Data. In all analysis data is what is collected, stored, manipulated, reported, recommended and decided upon.

There are best-practices for data management that can assist every type of analysis of every subject. "Pure" analytical skill is seldom used in a vacuum. Databases store data, operational systems collect data, a data warehouse helps in the correlation of data amongst multiple systems that are gathering data. Data Management by its very nature is an analytical skill.

When I see a position for a data management professional that requires analytical skills, I still find it humorous. Because the analytical skills that we can provide in both our own analysis and in guiding the analysis of others should go without saying.

Related articles

• List of Business Skills (thinkup.waldenu.edu)
• Growing need for data heads (flowingdata.com)
• Top Job Skills for 2011 (careerworksfoxvalley.wordpress.com)
• Analytics a potential jobs growth area in Ireland (jobcontax.wordpress.com)
• BI vs. Analytics: Understanding the Role of Each in Making Informed Decisions (Part 1) (customerthink.com)