We live in the age of data, a word that is used today probably more than ever before. But already in 1646, long before big data became the key catalyst for the new exploits of artificial intelligence or AI (and our renewed fascination with it), the reverend Henry Hammond wrote, “from all this heap of data, it would not follow that it was necessary.”
The Hammond quotation is the first historical reference listed for the word data in the Oxford English Dictionary. It is defined as “something known or assumed as fact, and made the basis of reasoning or calculation.”
Data is (yes, I know it’s the plural for datum) a key input to learning, the output of tools for collecting and analyzing observations, and the (modern) product of analog to digital conversion.
My adventures in data started with the analysis of data collected by an early supermarket scanning system and continued with managing large-scale survey research projects at NORC. I then moved to the computer industry, doing market analysis at DEC and working in a variety of marketing and communications roles at EMC. More recently, I have been a freelance writer and, with my Pressed Data column, a Senior Contributor to Forbes.com.
Gil Press
