A data scientist is someone who is better at statistics than any software engineer

and better at software engineering than any statistician.

Harvard Business Review famously declared that data scientist is the sexiest job of
the 21st century. The most powerful are ranked by well-known publications and the
U.S. government just hired its first official US Chief Data Scientist.
Its official data scientist is the best job in America in 2016, according to users of
online employment analysts Glassdoor.
As Gregg Gordon, vice president of the Big Data practice group at provider of
workforce management solutions in the cloud Kronos tells me, Its not sitting in a
room all day we take our work and apply it to customer problems. Were working
and interacting with customers on a daily basis talking about real problems, then
attempting to replicate, model and solve them.
THE REQUIRED SKILL SET IS REAL AND
UNCOMMON

WE NEED TOOLS THAT

KNOWLEDGE WORKERS

EMPOWER

Robin Harris: Big data is a new field

where we're still figuring out needs,
wants and tools. It is too early to
commoditize data analytics. Beyond
that, the kind of mind that can do deep
analysis on massive data is not common.
Just as Adobe hasn't made everyone a
skilled
designer,
easy-to-use
data
analysis tools - if we had them - won't
make analytics accessible to everyone or
even most. The combination of curiosity,
domain
expertise,
technical
understanding,
statistical
skill
and
insight will never be a commodity. The
term
"data
scientist"
may
be
pretentious, but the required skill set is
real and uncommon.

Andrew Brust: Data scientist is a title

designed to be exclusive, standoffish
and protective of a lucrative guild.
Big data and analytics are powerful, and
the technologies around them are
exciting. But if they can only be
harnessed by highly-paid specialists,
then they havent fully evolved. We need
data and analytics technologies, but we
shouldnt
need
expensive,
scarce,
Shaman practitioners to use them. We
dont need data scientists, we need tools
that empower knowledge workers to do
big data analytics on their own.

Even in the era of hundreds of millions of

handheld computers, we still have - and
need - computer scientists. It's the same
with big data.
RAPID CHANGES

SCIENTISTS OR NOT

Like any new field there is rapid change

going on with big data. The tools are

Certainly we need many more people in

the workforce who have the ability to

undergoing rapid development such as

the
various
no-SQL
databases,
visualization tools, and understanding
what we can do with the data. Much of
the current effort concerns advertising,
but as Google has demonstrated with
flu-tracking, we can learn much about
what is happening in real time by looking
at our collective online behavior.
The easiest way to think about this is to
consider the transition from batch
computing
to
real-time
interactive
computing. Our old form of big data
the data warehouse is a static batch
oriented data store. The new world of big
streaming data is real time and
interactive: we can look at the data as it
is coming in and ask many kinds of
questions.
CUTTING EDGE REQUIRES CUTTING
EDGE SKILLS
People are all in favor of change except
for the change part. The change here is
that big data requires new skills and new
ideas to fully exploit it.
Whether we embrace this or fear it
probably has more to do with our
individual natures than the fact of big
data and data science. The name we
give these people is much less important
than the societal value of their skills.
Perhaps, someday, the Watson Mk.
XXXXII will be able to ingest huge data
sets and make sense of them. But until
then the cutting edge of big data will
require people with a wide skill set to
mine the economic value of big data.

collect, query and analyze big data. But

the notion that we need scientists to
do this, and that we could somehow
produce them in high volumes, seems
misplaced at best. What we need to do
is make Big Data technology accessible
by the people who have the drive to
analyze it and would gain the most from
doing so: people close to the business,
looking for ways to optimize their sales,
marketing or operations.

SPECIALISTS DON'T SCALE

Big data technology is powerful, and it
keeps getting better. But the technology
does, right now, require niche specialists
to derive the greatest business value
from it. These specialists have to be
renaissance people possessing a
combination of technology, mathematics
and business skills, and knowledge. Its
not clear that being so clever and
versatile makes these specialists into
scientists, but it does make them
rarefied.
Nonetheless, for big data and analytics
implementations to grow and become
truly mainstream, having such diverse
skill set requirements for them is not a
sustainable situation. Market need is
going to drive evolution in the
technology such that the barrier to entry
will not be nearly so high as it is now. If
for some reason that didnt happen, then

adept use of big data would continue to

be an option open only to a relatively
small group of customers.
So the solution to our problem isnt
legions of new data scientists. Instead,
we need self-service tools that empower
smart and tenacious business people to
perform big data analysis themselves.
The specialists will still have an
important role, but they wont be the
thing that scales big data across
industries.
WHAT DATA SCIENTISTS DO AND WHO'S HIRING THEM
Most data scientists have advanced degrees and training in math, statistics and/or
computer science. Most likely they have experience in data mining, data
visualization and/or information management. Previous work with cloud computing,
infrastructure design and data warehousing is also fairly common. On a personal
level, they are highly curious and passionate about problem solving.
Any company, in any industry, that crunches large volumes of numbers, possesses
lots of operational and customer data, or can benefit from social media streams,
credit data, consumer research or third-party data sets can benefit from having a
data scientist or a data science team.
WHAT A DATA SCIENTIST DOES ALL DAY
Put simply, data scientists apply powerful tools and advanced statistical modeling
techniques to make discoveries about business problems, processes and platforms.
But, lets be clear: big data is not a science project. Rather it must be
operationalized in specific ways through more personalized offers to customers
and prospects, better insight into pricing trends and closer tracking of customer
behaviors across channels. However, to do those things more effectively and
efficiently, at larger scale and with more precision, requires that someone
continuously seek the leading edge in terms of performance and constantly rethink
whats possible with big data.

That someone is usually a data scientist. They are the ones experimenting with
intelligence-gathering technologies, developing sophisticated models and
algorithms and combining disparate data sets. They will ask the biggest most
improbable seeming questions. They will lead the deepest data-diving expeditions

and boldest explorations into the largest and most diverse data sets. They will seek
the black swans lurking in your data streams. Or maybe just help you identify the
whiskies you might like best.
One important caveat: companies must make sure data scientists focus on solving
big problems and generating big ideas, not on tasks and functions that can be
automated (such as running churn analytics or sentiment analysis). Yes, data
scientists can have a look at these areas and look for deep patterns, but they must
be focused on bigger-picture and potentially groundbreaking opportunities.

IDENTIFYING THE BUSINESS BEYOND THE SCIENCE

Yes, there is an aspect of the laboratory in data science. The scientific method of
inquiry, hypothesis and validation are how data scientists will redefine the possible
for the business. Its R&D focused on disruptions, enabled by data, and directly
aligned to enterprise goals and strategies.
But for investments in a data scientist to pay off, they must have other skills, too.
According to one industry observer:
What we need are data scientists who bring more to the table than just
mathematics and code. We need to find the people who can make data a thread
that runs through the entire fabric of the organization.
That requires strong communications and collaboration skills (and playing well with
others). Real leadership skills and the ability to evangelize (about the use of strong
data practices, for instance) are added bonuses. Theres an increasing awareness
that more creativity is also needed in the data science community, that data artists
might even be the next sexiest job.