Shiji: Big Data is soil

"The big data is the soil, the Open data is the river on the land, the river flows, it will breed the developed data civilization." "Shiji, an information management expert, said in an interview with reporters about the top of the data.

Shiji columnist, information management expert, graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, and received a master's degree in Information Technology science and public administration.

Current discussion of large data is also limited to conceptual and technical aspects

Liberation Weekend: "Top of the data" is your second book after the big data, still focusing on big data. When did you start paying attention to the big data?

Shiji: It's about my personal experience. I majored in computer science and worked with data after graduation. More than 10 years ago, my first job in China was to be a database programmer, and then to the United States to work on data warehouse development and design, to provide some government departments in the United States data management, analysis solutions. As the term "database" becomes "Data Warehouse", the volume and importance of data is increasing. Out of professional sensitivity, I realized and began to think about it. Since 2012, the "Big data" phenomenon has aroused global concern and discussion.

Liberation Weekend: 2012, your "Big Data" book published less than six months on the printed 7 times. Since then, known as the "Big Data commercial applications first" Schoenberg and other foreign experts related works successively in the domestic translation and publication. After several years of hot debate, the big data has become a well-known concept, in various situations are constantly mentioned, so that people are somewhat tired.

Shiji: The reason for boredom is that the discussion of big data is limited to the conceptual and technical aspects. I think it's time to go further and think about the culture and the idea of why we lag behind in data governance.

Discovering "Data Presidents", "Data Generals" and "Data Heroes" in American history with a new perspective

Liberation Weekend: You have made an interesting attempt in this new book to dig up and read the history of the United States for more than more than 200 years from the point of view of data. There seems to be no precedent for combing American history in such a way.

Shiji: No one has ever written American history like that. In writing this book, I have seen the history of census, economic statistics, agricultural statistics and industrial statistics in the United States, combing the history of the United States from the point of view of data, trying to show how the data culture is formed under the big picture of history, and how the idea of managing the state of data is deeply rooted.

Liberation Weekend: The book shows the key role of data culture in the political, economic and even military development of the United States.

Shiji: The Rise of America is closely related to data culture. For example, the 20th President of the United States, Garfield is called "Data President", he in 1869 to the United States Census of the modernization, and found that the data not only contains the law of social development, but also provides a more objective and broad historical writing style. "Data General" Sherman, in the American Civil War with data as a beacon, successfully planned the 60,000 troops 35 days March more than 300 kilometers and do not bring any supplies of the expedition route, creating a military miracle.

In the business world, the American film "Gone With the Wind" was the first film in history to be shot and released by data, creating a box-office marvel and setting a benchmark for future cultural product marketing models.

There have also been some "data heroes" emerging in the United States. They found that the data provided by the Government was incorrect, spent years of tracking and visiting, and eventually found the cause of the data error, and the spirit of the blood-intensive data was well worth thinking and learning.

What should really be explored is whether the "ruler" is designed reasonably

The weekend of Liberation: an in-depth inquiry into the American data culture is ultimately to take care of ourselves. In your preface, you came straight to the sermon: the lack of data culture is an important reason for China's backwardness. So what does data culture mean?

Shiji: I have a definition of data culture, there are three main elements: first, it is a culture of respect for the facts. Data is a record of objective facts, and if it is not respected, data is treated as "a little girl who can dress arbitrarily"; second, it is a culture that pursues precision. We can use patterns, sounds, words to depict the facts, and the facts described by the data is the most accurate, the most sharp; third, it is a culture that advocates rationality and logic. With data to be calculated, computation is closely related to logic and rationality.

The weekend of Liberation: these three points are precisely the weaker aspects of our traditional culture.

Shiji: Mr. Yan Fu said: "The disadvantages of the Chinese wind begin with perjury." "It is a major drawback of Chinese culture, that is, keen to fake, do not respect the facts." Mr. Hu Shih wrote a "nearly biography of Mr", deeply worried about the Chinese people's willingness to be "almost" and refusing to be precise.

Of course, China's traditional culture in the doctrine of moderation, freehand features also have a good side, but the culture must keep pace with the times. Today we have come to an era of accurate data, in order to adapt to the development of the new era, we must give our cultural genes to inject data culture this new factor.

The weekend of Liberation: In recent years, with the "big data" widely known, the people pay more and more attention to the data, more and more precision. But such a reference to "the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has been completed 62.74%" seems to be hard to accept.

Shiji: I personally think that the public's laughter and criticism of this matter has not hit the point, most people are questioning how the national renaissance can be quantified. In fact, scholars around the world are trying to quantify social phenomena. Social research is scientific because it can be quantified. Quantification is the measurement of social phenomena by designing a ruler. What we should really explore is whether the "ruler" is designed to be reasonable. In this new book, I have made a concrete exposition and criticism of this question.

The new civilization of mankind will grow on the soil of large data.

Liberation Weekend: In the preface, Guo Wei, chairman of the digital director of Shenzhou, said that China is already a data power, but not a powerful data country. What do you think?

Shiji: The data big powers will certainly be in the future, but the data powers are certainly not. At present, our data analysis, integration capacity is still very weak. However, we still have a post advantage.

A lot of people say big data is gold, it's mineral, I say, big data is soil, the new civilization of mankind will grow up on the soil of big data. and open, active data is like a river in the soil, where rivers flow, it breeds developed data civilization. That's why I'm once again wasting my energy talking about big data to my countrymen.