Seven (yes, seven!) years ago, AIIM published “The Big Data Balancing Act - Too much yin and not enough yang?” The author of the report was none other than Nuxeo’s David Jones, who worked as a business analyst for AIIM at the time.
The premise of the report -- published at the height of the Big Data hype cycle -- was that only part of the Big Data story was being told. Everyone was focused on big data technology and on the exploding opportunities for data scientists. The opportunities were so overwhelming that parents of rising university students everywhere immediately tried to: a) figure out what a data scientist actually was; and b) how to get their university student to embrace becoming one.
Data Scientists were the Yin in our analysis of Big Data and how it would impact business models. What was missing from the equation was the Yang -- the people who would put all of this Big Data to some sort of business use. We called them “Data Entrepreneurs.”
It seems to me that we’re in the middle of the same phenomenon right now with regards to AI and Machine Learning — a preoccupation with technology. And that's the topic of a recent tip sheet from AIIM - The Artificial Intelligence “Yin” Needs a Business “Yang”.
The big data advice that we gave seven years ago about business users and business relevance is directly relevant to the exploding opportunities that surround AI and machine learning:
No matter how well a data scientist “understands” business, the most valuable insights that can be derived from the big data project all require intimate knowledge of the specific business areas of an organization; a combination of detailed subject matter knowledge and experience, awareness of what questions need to be asked, and how the subsequent results can be deployed.
