Big data offers ways to better understand a complex world, but the most important contribution will be to help improve decision making. And here lies a practical challenge. When it's time to make the really big, strategic decisions that determine the future of an organization, today's leaders often rely on analogical reasoning and storytelling for guidance. Big data analytics proposes doing away with such “imprecise” methods in favor of "facts" and discipline. The stage is set for a decision making culture clash. Can these methods and mindsets get along? We believe that for high stakes strategic decisions analogical reasoning and big data can and should be used together, and propose a framework for doing so in a constructive way that uses the strengths of each in concert.
Big Data? Bigger Decisions!
Steven Weber is a specialist in international relations with expertise in international and national security; the impact of technology on national systems of innovation, defense, and deterrence; and the political economy of knowledge-intensive industries particularly software and pharmaceuticals.
Weber’s major publications include The Success of Open Source, Cooperation and Discord in U.S.-Soviet Arms Control, and the edited book Globalization and the European Political Economy; and numerous articles and chapters in the areas of U.S. foreign policy, the political economy of trade and technology, politics of the post-Cold War world, and European integration. With colleague and co-author Bruce Jentleson at Duke, Weber directs the "New Era Foreign Policy Project". Weber and Jentleson's new book is The End of Arrogance: America in the Global Competition of Ideas (2010).
Andy Brooks is a scholar of information networks: how we interact with these networks, the effects of network design on communication and behavior, and how these networks emerge alongside and interact with existing networks. Before beginning his doctoral studies, Brooks worked with Yahoo! Research's Internet Experiences Group, where he explored how people, businesses, and advertisers use Internet-based information networks.