This document discusses the importance of context and narratives for unlocking business value from big data analytics. It argues that narratives provide context to data and are important for the "last mile" of data. The document also discusses some issues with traditional "best practices" approaches to big data, including that they can be contextually blind. It suggests that future business analytics will need to contextualize across different data types and bridge the gap to more strategic decision making. The document advocates using narrative thinking to reimagine products and building storified products using narratives.

1. Context, Narratives and Big Data Analytics
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2. Putting context in context
Understanding narratives
Understanding “Best Practices”
Implications for Big Data Analytics
Agenda

3. Which is the primary key that unlocks the business
value of the data?
A: Big Data
D: Narratives
B: Algorithms
C: Analytics

4. D: Narratives
Which is the primary key that unlocks the business
value of the data?
C: Analytics

5. D: Narratives
Which is the primary key that unlocks the business
value of the data?
C: Analytics

6. • Information which defines the causal relationship with its neighboring entities
• Information which characterizes interaction between user and application
• Information or conditions that can influence user perception
User Factors
Mood, activity, company, location
External Factors
Time, Weather, Season
How am I
feeling?
Who am
I with?
Where
am I
going?
Why Am
I here?
Putting context in context*
*Reference: http://www.slideshare.net/vitoostuni/sersy12-cinemappy
What I am
doing?

7. Context Report Card
Do I have the information
when I need it?
Is it relevant?
Putting recommendations in context*
*Reference: Key Lessons learned building
Recommender systems
http://www.slideshare.net/posse001/key-lessons-
learned-building-recommender-systems-for-largescale-
social-networks

8. Why do you have to bother about context?
“The problem with big data is context. As the amount of data and
data dimensions increases, and demands on systems increase, the
only way to manage the challenges is to establish context”
- Benjamin Black, Co-Founder, Boundary
“Everybody thinks it’s about the content, and all the action right
now is in the context”
- Gary Vaynerchuk, Social Media Guru, Entrepreneur

9. content is subservient to context

10. What are Narratives?
• Spoken or written account of the story
• Homo Narrans
Source: Narrative Science Website

11. What are Narratives?
Data Facts Angles
StructureNarrative
• It provides context to numbers
• Last mile in data
Source: Narrative Science Website

12. “Consulting, a profession grounded in building
narratives [and naïve rationalization] “
-
Image courtesy: Wikipedia

13. Jim is married, outspoken and deeply engaged
with social issues.
Which of the following is more likely?
Jim is a bank manager
OR
Jim is a bank manager who is an active volunteer
at a nonprofit organization
Image courtesy: Freedigitalphotos.net

14. Rockstar hero
wakes up to his bad
dream where his
uncle is killed
Hero is suffering
from <Insert the
latest syndrome>
Hero meets the
assassin
Hero kills the
assassin
Assassin was the
hero’s dad’s best
friend
Image Courtesy: IMDB, Wikipedia

15. There is too
much data out
there.
What’s your BIG
DATA Strategy??
Follow “the best
practices” based on
our tested and proven
methodology
Voila! Welcome
to Big Data 2.0
Deliver Roadmap
and ensure
strategic alignment
between business
and IT
The story of “Best Practices”

16. Business Analytics as we knew it
• “What you do not know” problems - What? | Why? | How?|
• Means-End Reasoning – Programmed decisions
• As-Is to To-Be journey

17. Side-effects
• Tools and approaches are contextually blind.
• The mirage of single point of Truth
• “Best practices” aren’t good anymore
• Denial of complexity
Reference: Claudia Cibora 1997 Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems

18. Image Courtesy: Google Images
Intermission

19. Content is subservient to context

20. Business Analytics as we will know it
• What you do not know that you know problems
• Situation specific questions – When, Where, Who?
• Contextualize across unstructured, structured, biometric, biographic,
geospatial data*
• Bridging the gap towards strategic decision making
*Source:IBM® InfoSphere™ Sensemaking - A Big Vision
and a Journey Worth Being Part Of, Jeff Jonas, IBM

21. Use-case Personas to Archetypes*
…try to quickly gather
information and report
on their findings.
Reporting /Task Centric Activity Centric Data Centric
An emphasis on
filters/sorting which
shifts focus to activities
a user tends to perform
The primary focus is
typically centered
around a specific data
set that a user would
have a relationship with.
What’s the primary focus & behavior of someone using your product?
In what environment do analytics actions take place? (In office, during
meetings, time of day, etc.)
In what environment do analytics actions take place? (In office, during
meetings, time of day, etc.)
*Source: Developing Archetype: https://medium.com/@paulfarino/developing-archetypes-

22. How do you build storified products?
• Narrative thinking to re-imagine stories for building new products
“This is how the remembering self works: it composes stories and
keeps them for future references”
- Daniel Kahneman

23. • Best practices are debunked until proven
• Storifying products using narratives
• Use-case Personas to Archetypes
Takeaway

24. Questions??