I came across a blog post titled “The Best Big Data Quotes Of All Times”.

At first I ignored it. I really like the author, but I’m generally not a fan of this type of ‘content’; of top 10 lists or cute collections or amazing pussy cat videos on YouTube, although I respect other people’s tastes.

But because of its continued high visibility on the LinkedIn network site – every damn page I visited seemed to have a link to it, I eventually succumbed and took a look.

I read all the quotes, and wondered, ‘what the bloody hell was that all about then?’

You may want to read the piece yourself, or you could save yourself a lot of exasperation and the wasteful death of brain cells, by simply avoiding that piece and the rest of this piece altogether.

You have been warned.

Now here for your delight is a blow by blow flashback of the experience – with the names removed to protect the guilty.

Quote #1: “Big data is at the foundation of all the megatrends that are happening today, from social to mobile to cloud to gaming.”

Gobsmacked reaction: “Boloney in a handcart going to hell! If there are people who think that Big Data is anywhere other than on the peripheral edge of a peripheral edge then they clearly need to get out more often and listen to real people.”

Quote #2: “Big data is not about the data”

Gobsmacked reaction: “Say what? Big Data missionaries have always primarily made it about the data, you know, the 3 or 4 or 10 Vs of Big Data and all that jazz. In fact one of the shticks that the Big Data proselytizers have schlepped around is that Data Warehouse can’t do bigger data because it can’t handle the volumes. What they forget to add is that if you first remove the wheat from the chaff it becomes a non-issue.”

Quote #3: “There were 5 exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003, but that much information is now created every 2 days.”

Gobsmacked reaction: “Yet another dope who thinks that one can calculate the value of data by simply weighing it? A ‘sexed up’ version of my n exabytes of ignorance is just as good as your 2 exabytes knowledge”

Quote #4: “Information is the oil of the 21st century, and analytics is the combustion engine.”

Gobsmacked reaction: “This assertion is so dopey that it defies the conventional laws of stupid. For the best part of two centuries we have appreciated the power of having the right information and that our enemies trust in disinformation. But to compare this with the historic and contemporary use and utility of energy sources is off the wall. In a word the comparison is vapid.”

Quote #5: “I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians, and I’m not kidding”

Gobsmacked reaction: “What? When people say weird shit like this one should be wary about asking for clarification.”

Quote #6: “You can have data without information, but you cannot have information without data.”

Gobsmacked reaction: “Of course you can have information without data; it’s just that we usually associate information with the availability of underlying data, which isn’t always the case.”

Quote #7: “Hiding within those mounds of data is knowledge that could change the life of a patient, or change the world.”

Gobsmacked reaction: “Sure! There’s gold in them there hills… or not. Isn’t that right Madame Soleil?”

Quote #8: “Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.”

Gobsmacked reaction: “What? Probability might indicate that this claim could possibly be erring on the wrong side of likely. Apart from that, the bizarre and intellectually questionable juxtaposition and conflation of this quote with Big Data is somewhat embarrassing.”

Quote #9: “To call in the statistician after the experiment is done may be no more than asking him to perform a post-mortem – he may be able to say what the experiment died of.”

Gobsmacked reaction: To call in a qualified surgeon after a piece of hobbyist DIY open heart surgery goes awry may be no more than asking him to perform a post-mortem – but he may be able to say what the bodger’s patient died of.”

Quote #10: “Without big data, you are blind and deaf in the middle of a freeway”

Gobsmacked reaction: “Has the Cosa Nostra gone into Big Data now? This looks more like a threat than an observation. Unless of course the observation was made after smoking forty blunts.”

Unfortunately there are many more like this and worse, and I would love not to hear your favourite ones, I am absolutely sick of them all. Why not make this list a little longer – but without my knowledge – by adding your favourite crap big data quotes in the comments below?

You might also want to share or download this little PowerPoint slide-dreck:

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File under: Good Strat, Good Strategy, Martyn Richard Jones, Martyn Jones, Cambriano Energy, Iniciativa Consulting, Iniciativa para Data Warehouse, Tiki Taka Pro