What is Data Science and why should you care?

1. Why
Data Science?
September 22, 2015

2. Hello!
I am Ryan Swanstrom
Data Scientist and
Blogger
You can find me (just
about everywhere) at:
@ryanswanstrom

3. More About Ryan
◎ Blogger at Data Science 101
◎ Employed by large bank
◎ PhD from SDSU
◎ Guest Blogger
◎ Influential On Twitter (for data science)
◎ Thought Leader by UC Berkeley

6. 1.
Data
Products
End Goal of Data Science

7. Data
Product
Any tool created with
the help of data to
make a more informed
decision

8. Examples
◎ Dashboards
◎ Spreadsheets (sometimes)
◎ Emails (sometimes)
◎ People You May Know
◎ Movies to Watch
◎ Many Others

9. 2.
Data
Science
What is it?

10. “
Data Science is statistics on a Mac
@BigDataBorat
2013

11. “
Data Scientist (n.) - Person who is
better at statistics than any
software engineer and better at
software engineering than any
statistician.
@josh_wills
2012

12. “
A Data Scientist is a statistician
who lives in San Francisco
Unknown

13. Drew Conway’s Venn Diagram
http://drewconway.com/zia/2013/3/26/the-data-science-venn-diagram

14. Yanir Seroussi
http://yanirseroussi.com/2014/10/23/what-is-data-science/

15. Really, what is data science? According to NIST
Data science is the empirical synthesis of
actionable knowledge from raw data through
the complete data lifecycle process.
According to NIST Big Data Framework

16. Simpler Definition of Data Science
The creation of data products

17. Data Science Takes a Team
Similar to Sports
Specialization is important
One person cannot do it all

18. 3.
BIG
DATA
Big Data ≠ Data Science

19. Three V’s of Big Data
◎ Volume
◎ Velocity
◎ Variety

20. “
Data Science doesn’t need big
data
Ryan Swanstrom
Sept. 22, 2015

21. 4.
Data Science
Workflow
How to get there?

22. No Perfect Workflow
Question
Data
Preparation
& Cleaning
Data
Product
Analysis &
Modeling

23. 5.
Data Science
Goals
Why do data science?

24. Get All Three
◎ Descriptive
◎ Predictive
◎ Prescriptive

25. Thanks!
I am hoping for questions?
You can find me everywhere at:
@ryanswanstrom

26. Credits
Special thanks to all the people who made and released
these awesome resources for free:
◎ Presentation template by SlidesCarnival
◎ Photographs by Unsplash & Death to the Stock Photo
(license)