Stephen Bakers' book entitled The Num3rati is fascinating on many levels, and downright frightening on some others. I honestly don't know if I should be excited or petrified of the future. Baker has done to the world of data mining what Malcolm Gladwell did to blinking. The Num3rati, didn't sell near the number of books, I happened on it by accident. It's an interesting book for sure and it's worth the time invested to reap its contents (whether by reading or by listening). It falls into the same genre of Blink, Outliers, Freakonomics, and The Undercover Economist as it looks at some interesting facets of life in search of the hidden messages.
As I stated above, Baker takes on the task of data mining. In statistical terms, data mining is a bad thing. It's where people have a data-set an look for correlations, any correlation they can find. An example would be linking driving habits to the Zodiac.* In the case of The Num3rati, data mining refers to the collection of data by companies and governments to better understand a given population. The data is collected with a purpose and to answer specific questions, but the process is similar to mining for ore in the actual process of data collection.
Data collection is a key enterprise in the American business culture. We should all be familiar with the saying that "knowledge is power".** Companies expend Billions in better understanding their target populations. It's well worth it, especially when the data allows the company to more easily target their audience. Rather than use the shotgun approach on national TV (very expensive), they can use a sniper approach on specific shows and channels frequented by their targets.*** The ultimate goal is to get sellers and buyers together.
The data collection spans other areas as well. Baker spends a chapter dealing with internet dating, primarily Chemistry.com, which was started by love guru and Purdue professor Helen Fisher. To test out the validity of the algorithm, Baker and his wife set up profiles, just to see if they would get matched up with each other. After a few days, nothing happened. Baker then realized he'd set a parameter that excluded his wife's age group. With that correction, happily they showed up on each other's prospective lists.
Collecting data also comes with some very positive uses. The number-crunchers are finding ways to help people with medical problems. Patients with severe medical conditions can be "watched" by their doctors via electronic equipment that monitors their rhythms and patters of behavior. When the patter is broken unexpectedly, then doctors know that something may be amiss and can intervene immediately. It may be where a patient gets up to pee around a certain time each night.
The Num3rati covers many areas of life and showcases good and bad uses of the collected data. The book is certainly not ground-breaking by any stretch of the imagination, however the information is useful and puts many things into perspective when considering the technology of the day. I found the book worthwhile to read, though not necessarily to own. What is contained in the book will be out of date and it doesn't make a mark the way that Freakonomics did, at least not enough for a follow-up called Super-Num3rati. I definitely recommend it, because is is informative, but save the few bucks and pick it up at the library if you can.
* These are items that have no relationship (aside from the fact that Astrology is crap), but people have made claims that there is a real relationship due to identified correlations. Because the data was not collected for that express purpose and people were merely looking for correlations, it's no surprise they found one. The issue is that when you just mine data for correlations, you're bound to find something, but when the data was not collected in a way as to answer a specific question, the correlations have little meaning.
** Knowledge is not power, though knowledge put to use comes somewhat closer to that reality. All the knowledge in the world does little for you, even if you know about David Letterman's affairs.
*** Targets are a very good description after listening to this book. While Baker doesn't use the term himself, the description of the aims is quite clear. It might not be all bad, but it's certainly isn't all good.
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