How do you talk about this past week without talking about Big Data, data infrastructure and analytics?
You can’t.
No matter who you voted for or what your party affiliation is, the clear winner in this election was awareness of Big Data, both within the insider circles of the DC Beltway as well as the general public.
A great deal of that awareness is thanks to sabermetrics statistician Nate Silver, who accurately predicted almost every single state’s election returns.
No one in tech is loudly complaining yet, but there’s a funny sort of co-opting of Silver by the political left wing of America going on right now since he accurately predicted President Obama’s re-election. This might get under the skin of long time Big Data nerds, since this has lead to a proliferation of folks in political punditry who claim a monopoly on concepts of math and Big Data similar to the bloom of the “social media guru” during the early days of social media.
For now, I’m choosing to bask in the glow of the national spotlight on Big Data for a while, since it’s sure to fade by the time the next episode of Bravo’s “Start-up: Silicon.Valley” convinces the American public all math majors are throwing nightly toga parties.
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[...] for more info: Electing Big Data: It's Bigger than the White House | SiliconANGLE [...]
[...] but “a funny sort of co-opting of Silver by the political left wing of America,” per Mark Hopkins, has helped make him “the [...]
[...] but “a funny sort of co-opting of Silver by the political left wing of America,” per Mark Hopkins, has helped make him “the [...]
[...] and deep details across the board. One thing getting its due is the Big Data element, from Nate Silver to the world of data-crunching, Big Data is inescapable now. John highlighted this in his opinion this week: Its influence on this election has been poorly [...]
[...] attempt to use analytics to predict who would progress to the Super Bowl next month. Silver, who correctly guessed the results of all fifty states in the presidential elections, came a cropper this time round when he tipped the Patriots to meet [...]