‘Everydata’: Littlest Data Causes Biggest Impact

Heman Rai

According to the author of this article it is a “new book by authors John Johnson and Mike Gluck, offers tools for better understanding the ‘little data’ in our lives, and reasons for being leery of big data claims that others make. Johnson spoke with InformationWeek about how data is interrupted and misinterpreted all the time.”

Author starts the article with ads that was aired in 1996 by Gerber, a baby food company, that ads states “four out of five pediatricians who recommend baby food recommend Gerber.” Author goes on to explain that the ads actually got their data wrong. In fact, only 12% of the pediatricians Gerber had surveyed that means Gerber got the misinformation. Author explains, “Gerber didn’t just cherry-pick the data. It cherry-picked data that had already been cherry-picked.” Next, author goes on to explain the making sense of data. And learning about the data.

I thought this was very interesting data because it is important to get the right information while talking about data. Gerber probably spent lots of money in their ads. They should have spent money and input more time in their research because they got their data wrong.  I think it is a good example on how not to go about your ads and data. I think the interpretation of data is also important, also the program that comes with it as well. Not all the program is good and making sense of the data is challenging part of the job.  Overall I thought it was good article and the book Everydata: the missing information hidden in the little data you consume every day.  I would probably buy this book and learn more information about the data.

Work Cited

Maisto, Michelle. "'Everydata': Littlest Data Causes Biggest Impact - InformationWeek." InformationWeek. Information Week, 12 Apr. 2016. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://www.informationweek.com/big-data/big-data-analytics/everydata-littlest-data-causes-biggest-impact/a/d-id/1325067>.