Big Data and Better Data Big Data is big news. It is the focus
of stories in The New York Times and the subject of technology
blogs, business forums, and economic studies. This column
describes how statisticians can prepare for opportunities in Big
Data and explains the distinctive value our profession can
provide. What’s Different About Big Data? For years,
statisticians have been working with large volumes of data in
fields as diverse as astronomy, bioinformatics, and data mining.
Big Data is different because it is generated on a massive scale
by countless online interactions among people, transactions
between people and systems, and sensor-enabled machinery. Big
Data is newsworthy because it promises to answer big questions.
The potential of Big Data lies in innovative ways it can be
linked, related, and integrated to provide more detailed and
personalized information than is possible with data from a
single source. These innovations make it possible for banks to
introduce individually tailored services,