Thought Leaders in Big Data: Interview with Patrick Taylor, CEO of Oversight Systems (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: That is very difficult. In one domain you have all the heuristics. But the minute you switch domains, you don’t have that knowledge.

Patrick Taylor: That is why I am saying who gets us into those domains is someone else. They are doing the sales function and the heuristics function. I think there is an interesting set of use cases that will emerge more and more. A lot of what we see in big data and analytics is what we call the discovery process, where I am trying to find some new “aha.”

SM: I think there is a potential opportunity in taking your basic platform and put a creative set of developers on top of it or a set of applications where other people’s domain and heuristics knowledge can be applied.

PT: Absolutely. One of the emerging opportunities in the world is putting “ahas” to work. I am sure you read something about the Obama campaign around analytics. Those are one of the things that really stick out in that. One of the points was this: When a person was going knocking on doors in Cleveland, they knew that apartment 1 was the most likely briefing point where they were going to convince this person to vote for President Obama. When I go next door – to apartment 2 – the thing with this person is that I just need to get them out to vote. They are rock-solid Obama supporters, and my only thing is to make sure they get out and vote. On the one hand, they figured out all the “ahas” – they are going to vote for Obama no matter what, I just need to get them out. The cool thing they did was they got that all the way down to the front lines, so that person knocking on the door could make a better decision. I look at that and say, “That is, in a lot of ways, what we do.”

We could do all that sophisticated analysis; we have the heuristics. We can produce those insights, and we can get those into the hands of somebody to make a better decision. That may be in the case of a foreign corrupt practices issue or in the case of what you are ought to be selling to this customer – it can take a lot of flavors and characteristics. If I can get each front-line employee to make one smarter decision per day, I am going to really move the needle. I am not trying to be critical of the big “aha” decisions – they are great. But there is a whole opportunity step that is around making smarter decisions and executions. Have you ever read the book “Moneyball?”

SM: Yes.

PT: The classic part of “Moneyball” is how they drafted a simple stretch in economic [terms]. As you go on with the story, they really didn’t start winning until they also started using those statistics in how they played the game. So they said, “In the seventh inning we need to take the extra pitches because we are trying to tire that guy out.” Putting the insights to work on a day-to-day basis is what put them on a 20-day winning streak.

SM: Understanding what is going on is one thing; applying it to action is another. Until you go to that last mile – as you pointed out in the Obama story – it is really not very useful.

PT: And it is a challenge, because the farther you run out to that front line, the more you run into a couple of things. Everybody is running lean and mean these days, and nobody has lots of extra time, particularly at the front line. They don’t have a lot of time to try the “what if” scenarios. Number two is this: We have the well-documented shortage of deep analytical expertise. You don’t have the money or the time, and they might not have the aptitude to develop analytics skills across your front lines, but I would say the vast majority of people, if you give them an insight, will make a better and smarter decision. Our real task is to give that to people. Time is the real way to think about it, and not necessarily real time, because I want to get the insight at the point when a person is in the position to make a decision and that insight can be relevant.

SM: This has been very interesting. Thank you and take care.

PT: Thank you very much.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Thought Leaders in Big Data: Interview with Patrick Taylor, CEO of Oversight Systems
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