Schoenberg: What big Data means to the economy and what it means to business

June 19 Morning News, the 12th session of China International Software and information Services Fair opened in Dalian World Expo Plaza. This meeting is June 19-22nd, focusing on intelligent city, cloud computing, Internet of things and other technical hotspots and product services, the theme of "Smart City, Cool life."

Victor Maire Schoenberg: One of the first data scientists to have insight into the trends of the big data age, and one of the most respected and authoritative spokesmen. He has taught at several of the world's most famous internet research institutions. He is a professor of Internet governance and supervision at the University of Oxford, the head of the Information supervision and research program at Harvard University's Kennedy Institute, and head of the network supervision program at the Harvard National Center for Electronic Commerce, and director of the Center for Information and innovation strategies at the Lee Kuan Yew College of Singapore National University. He also served as a visiting professor at Yale University, University of Chicago, University of Virginia, University of San Diego and University of Vienna. More than 100 papers have been published in famous academic journals such as science, nature, and he is also a special commentator at Harvard University Press, MIT Press, Communications Policy Journal, American Journal of Sociology and many other publishing agencies. The author of the Big Data age.

The following is the full text of Schoenberg's speech in the General Assembly:

Thank you very much for giving me such an opportunity to introduce myself to you, I am very glad to be able to come to Dalian to talk to you about the importance of large data, because before we talked about the rapid changes in the cloud, in the past a period of time to change our lives, I would like to say a big data on the economy and the meaning of business.

Everyone is talking big data, how big is the big data? How much information about ZB Byte, we say 10 of 21 Times Square, what does this mean? What does it mean? How does it work? Let's take a look at this picture, which shows us the trend of data loss over time, and let's look at the story behind it. 1987, also very long, at that time I was in college, the 1987 data world has not reached 3 billion GB, this is the size of 1987, 2007 time to increase to 300 billion GB, so 20 years the number of data increased by 100 times times. If you go back to history, once again, data like this rapid growth, that time is the data doubled, that is, 50, because the printing revolution, brought about by the growth of data, 20 years, this is history, we look at the color, dark is digital information, light is analogy information.

What this means for us, let's take a look at our pictures, and if every minute we took a picture of the horse, it would be that way if you took a picture of the horse every second. If it is one-sixtieth seconds to take a photo, there will be continuous action, so we created the film.

New understanding of the world, we have more massive data and related data linked, I also want to explain to you, this more means what? That means more data related or problem-related data, we can talk to the data, how do we know that? How do you really understand it? Let's think about the photo again, if I'm going to take a picture now and get everyone involved, I have to focus, I have to choose what is important to me, is the first row or the back row, if I focus on the first row of people, it is regrettable that the people in the back row will not see, so I have to make a choice , currently in the collection of data to choose, what is important, what is not important, but many times I do not know what is important, what is not important, in this case, some data loss, we have to consider.

This photo is my four-year-old son, this is not a normal picture, is a big data picture, it was a big-picture camera, so my son focused, I could focus on my son, and focus on my toothbrush, because I collected all the data, I could talk to the data, and I could use the data to answer questions. , or answer questions that I didn't have before, and once I collected the data, we can do this because we've collected all the data, I've got so much data, I can do some work, because I've lost something in some ways, I've got something in some ways, we have to think about the world with a whole new perspective.

In the past, when we thought about the world, we thought about the world in a causal relationship, when I was young, my parents told me that in the winter, go out and put on a hat or catch a cold, so he created a causal relationship, that is, not wearing a hat will catch a cold, although not so, there are some viruses can cause colds, Instead of wearing a hat causes a cold. This is the time of the past when people want to understand that the world is connected by causality, and we want to know what the reason behind things is to understand the world. We want to know why, even though we don't know what's going on, we can see what's going on in the big Data age.

Wal-Mart can analyze the data collected for example, if a hurricane hits a place, it may affect them, such as people will buy some corn flowers, Americans often buy corn flowers, but now do not know why to buy corn flowers, but they take this thing out, can see sales increased by 30%, There is more correlation between the data, because these sellers have a better understanding of the data, analyze the data, understand its location, and the location may not be easy to obtain such information. Now in Japan, researchers have an analysis of our posture, why do they do that? It seems that the posture is very unique, and can be used to him, to extract data, how to do? Can be used to prevent thieves, a thief into a car, hand movements, we analyze this aspect of which is the thief.

This is Google's glasses, the first edition is not so powerful, the second edition can have more information, we can share, this data value is very large, we can understand, she looked at something, she looked is the advertising board? Look at a certain mall, look at a certain person, we can see the data. In other words, the data gives us some data sources, and what is the result? The first result is how we do marketing, how we sell our stuff better, Amazon makes good use of it, we all know about Amazon, and we know it's a recommendation, he'll give you a recommendation, he has the recommended software, we might be surprised, but at first, Amazon hired engineers to design it, the engineer designed the recommended engine, which is based on the buyer's 30 different behavior recommendations, recommended by the previously defined category, Amazon engineers said it was a disaster, as if you go shopping, as if a very stupid people do not know how to go shopping, Amazon says it will shift from small data to big data thinking, and not a pre-defined category, no longer doing so, what do we look like in the context of big data leaders? We're going to make it a recommendation, which now accounts for about 30% of Amazon's sales, is to get the data to talk, and it's a new change for us, like in manufacturing, we can think of 100 years ago, Henry Ford made Ford's car, which was a great innovation, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, now has red, Blue or white cars, Henry Ford said there could be any color, as long as the color is black, because they can only produce black cars, mass production and manufacturing, at that time Henry Ford's factory did not have buyers data, they do not know what color of the car, that is, the production industry can be a great change, That is, flexible production, that is, tailor-made to customers, produce what they need, not just the production of the only thing, the customer has no options.

The third shift or change is the value of our understanding of the data. We used to use data to help sell more products, in the age of large data, the data itself is a resource, which changes the way we do business, even in traditional manufacturing companies, such as Rolls-Royce, which used to be aircraft-makers, with high turnover and high profits, But then with the development of the aircraft, they have some software and hardware to improve the engine, so they can get a lot of data, they now have some resources, Rolls-Royce changed its business model, used to sell products of the company, now the company sells services, That is, fixed-cost maintenance services, especially for flight companies around the globe, and companies that produce aircraft, so if you can understand it well, the data itself can be a resource and can bring value.

We look at the mobile phone company, we see this picture, this is not a mobile phone tower, the telecommunications industry is now facing great difficulties, mainly the price problem, because the price competition is very fierce, we do not want to compete by price, we want to compete through the value, how to do? Should realize what kind of opportunities and resources you have, a mobile phone operator, in the Netherlands there is a good example, the intensity of information is not the same, because the weather is not the same, the transmitter signal strength is not the same, we can use the signal changes to predict the weather, such as rain or humidity, we have a lot of such towers , they suddenly think that there are many such weather forecasts, really realize real-time transmission of weather information, basically free. Now there is an interesting observation that no country in the world, in addition to the United Kingdom, Britain is interested in the weather, everyone will be interested in the local, in addition to the United Kingdom, Britain is interested in national weather, the Dutch mobile phone operators have a new business model, may become the world's best weather service provider

Create a new value, or new resources, and we can see the cell phone's beacon Towers, they will have constant signals that this is the new business model, the launch tower is a platform for gathering information to collect information at very low cost, so there are many new opportunities, and there will be new competitors, no business areas , are new, because there will always be new people to join, so you won't always stay in the new state.

We look at the automotive industry, the development of automobiles, and the speed of revolution in the development of the past few years the biggest innovation is? Driverless cars, Google is developing very fast in this area, there have been hundreds of thousands of of the process, and became the expert in this field, the first time when the traffic lights stopped, there was an impact, because the driver decided to turn off the computer to drive their own, or 0 accidents, why is the BMW research and development? Not Mercedes-Benz? Because they don't see new opportunities, Google has become a new competitor, seeing new opportunities and, of course, new competition.

And then look at health and health care, which was the result of a very sophisticated industry, if I have a cold, if I take aspirin, I either eat more, or not enough, because the dosage is for the average patient, I and the average patient is not the same, we are different, everyone is not the same, have different DNA, different metabolism, There are different levels of severity, but we eat the same dosage, why? Because there is no data in the medical profession, so that he can be more customized, with large data, we can move towards personalization, personalized medical care, not only can prolong our life, but also improve the quality of our lives, can make us faster access to medical care.

Consider another aspect, before the impact of large data is not thought, that is, human learning. We are now testing the students, how well they learn, how stupid, what we do not think of is that we look at their learning methods, our books, the teaching methods we use, we have not tested these teaching methods, we have used the teaching methods used in the past 200, we know whether it is effective? Do not know the validity, why continue to use it? Because we don't have data, we don't know, this point is going to change, and it's going to change faster than you think.

We have this application that was used by millions of people, this application can help you learn language, very beautiful, very interesting, is a game, very interesting, because there are tens users, save the data, they know how the Spanish learning English, how the Chinese people learn English, with such data, they found that The Spanish teach English which methods are wrong, should change these methods, change the method can quickly improve the results of learning, this is a result-oriented approach.

There's a man called an expert, a self-styled expert, as we all know, we know this kind of people, generally older, sitting there, voice very loud, I know the correct answer is what, believe me, sometimes they just pretend, but no one dares to say, no one dares to challenge them, because they have authority, You don't have any data to refute, and the situation will change in the future.

For example, there is a company you must have heard called Google, 41 different blue, they have a lead designer, testing to choose a color for design, about two pixels, he said it must be this blue, why? The boss said there was no data analysis, the designer said I was a designer, I know, the boss said I do not believe you, I want to test, the designer said you want to force me to do data analysis I quit, because I am a designer I just know, so this designer's boss said your resignation report I accepted, you were fired, 41 different kinds of blue, he found that the difference is very small, can create more clicks, and finally can increase the annual turnover of millions of dollars, he really dismissed the designer, so to remember this.

How do you change an organization or institution in the future? Big data is the new angle of view of reality, not only change marketing, change manufacturing, change the way we engage in business, because the data no longer say you can do it, but the data itself is the only resource, it becomes a valuable resource, a source, which means new business opportunities for us, No industry has such a competitive immune capacity, will be affected by this, including medical care, including learning, all institutions, no one spared, must be able to adapt to large data, he really said is a revolution, so to continue to learn, thank you!

From Sina Technology

(Responsible editor: Mengyishan)