大數(shù)據(jù)并非萬能

Clay Christensen tells a good joke about a tour of heaven. “How come there’s no data here?” the Harvard professor asks his celestial guide. “Because data lies,” comes the response. And that is why, Prof Christensen goes on, “whenever anyone says ‘Show me the data’, I just say ‘Go to hell’.”

克雷•克里斯坦森(Clay Christensen)講了一個有關(guān)天堂旅游的有趣笑話。“這里怎么沒有數(shù)據(jù)呢?”這位哈佛教授問他的天堂向?qū)А?ldquo;因為數(shù)據(jù)撒謊，”對方回答說?？死锼固股淌诮又v，所以“每當有人說‘把數(shù)據(jù)拿給我看’時，我就會說‘下地獄去’”。

The gag got a laugh at last week’s Drucker Forum in Vienna, where fans of the late Peter Drucker’s claim that management is a “liberal art” voiced fears about the way data are wielded to crush human insight and inventiveness.

在近期在維也納舉行的德魯克論壇(Drucker Forum)上，這個笑話引起了笑聲。在論壇上，認同已故彼得•德魯克(Peter Drucker)的管理屬于一門“文科”觀點的粉絲們，表達了對數(shù)據(jù)被用來碾壓人類洞察力和創(chuàng)造力的擔心。

But there are signs of a backlash against big data even where it has loomed largest. As chief executive of UK supermarket chain J Sainsbury until 2014, Justin King commanded a data set that showed, for instance, that purchases of diet products were the best indication that customers were planning to go on holiday — and that they might therefore be open to some deft direct marketing of suntan lotion.

但目前有跡象表明，即便在大數(shù)據(jù)運用最廣泛的領域，大數(shù)據(jù)也遭遇了強烈反彈。比如，擔任英國連鎖超市森寶利(J Sainsbury)首席執(zhí)行官直至2014年的賈斯廷•金(Justin King)掌握的一個數(shù)據(jù)集顯示，購買減肥食品是顧客打算去度假的最佳信號，因此他們可能很容易接受某些精明的防曬霜直接營銷。

He believes retailers should use such information to represent the shopper better in, say, negotiations with suppliers. But at a Financial Times 125 Forum I chaired recently, he said he worried data were now used against customers. He has, for instance, criticised the use of loyalty card data to “game the customer” by offering them vouchers to switch brands.

他認為，零售商應當使用這類數(shù)據(jù)——比如在與供應商的談判中——更好地代表顧客。但在不久前我主持的英國《金融時報》125論壇(FT 125 Forum)上，他表示，他擔心如今數(shù)據(jù)的使用是不利于顧客的。例如，他對利用積分卡數(shù)據(jù)“算計顧客”、通過提供代金券誘使他們轉(zhuǎn)換品牌的做法提出了批評。

It is too soon to declare the triumph of what one ex-colleague used to call “big anecdote” over the ideology of easy-to-measurism that has held boardrooms in thrall for the past few years. For example, the hastily declared failure of pollsters to predict a Donald Trump victory in the US election is more likely to be due to unsound one-on-one surveys than yawning deficiencies in wider data-gathering. The science of data analytics, when combined with cognitive computing and even neuroscientific and behavioural research, is also going to get more sophisticated and precise.

現(xiàn)在要宣稱我的一名前同事所稱的“重磅軼事”相對于“易于衡量”觀念——過去幾年企業(yè)董事會牢牢奉行這種觀念——取得了勝利，還為時尚早。例如，有人倉促宣布民意調(diào)查機構(gòu)未能預測到唐納德•特朗普(Donald Trump)在美國大選中獲勝，但預測失敗的原因更有可能是不可靠的一對一調(diào)查，而不是宏觀數(shù)據(jù)收集方面的巨大缺點。數(shù)據(jù)分析科學，跟認知計算、甚至還有神經(jīng)科學與行為研究結(jié)合在一起，也將變得更先進、更精確。

For now, some of the tools measuring customer satisfaction are as blunt as those smiley-face pads you find at airports, asking you to assess your experience. I still wonder how the airline I flew with last summer interpreted the input from the cheerful toddler who was repeatedly stabbing the angry-face icon on the machine at our departure gate.

目前，有些衡量顧客滿意度的工具就像你在機場發(fā)現(xiàn)的邀請你給旅途體驗打分的笑臉打分板一樣生硬。我仍在好奇，今年夏季我乘坐飛機的那家航空公司，對于那個開心的學步小童反復去戳登機口旁那臺機器上的憤怒臉圖標意味著什么如何解釋。

Separately, Facebook — whose access to vast user-created troves of information retailers and airlines can only dream about — has got into trouble with its advertising customers after admitting mistakes measuring the time users spend viewing video advertisements and articles.

另外，F(xiàn)acebook在廣告客戶那里遇到了麻煩，因為Facebook承認，在衡量用戶觀看視頻廣告和閱讀文章的時間上出了錯誤。Facebook掌握著零售商和航空公司只能夢想一番的海量用戶生成信息。

Too often, computer-generated “facts” come close to overruling common sense. When Pope John Paul II died in 2005, a senior editor noted that the news had surged to the top of the FT website’s most-read stories and ordered me (I was then editing our opinion pages), to commission insights into Vatican policies, Catholic mores and papal history — none of which was a hit. Three days later, Saul Bellow died. His obituary also topped the rankings. There was no corresponding call to deepen our coverage of US novelists and their work.

有太多時候，計算機生成的“事實”幾乎碾壓常識。當2005年教皇約翰•保羅二世(Pope John Paul II)去世時，一名資深編輯注意到，該消息已猛升至英國《金融時報》網(wǎng)站熱門文章首位，然后命令我(當時我是觀點版面的編輯)約一些有關(guān)梵蒂岡政策、天主教習俗和教皇歷史的分析文章，結(jié)果這些文章沒有一篇受到追捧。三天后，索爾•貝婁(Saul Bellow)去世，他的訃告也登上了榜首，但沒人打電話讓我們做美國小說家及其作品的深度報道。

Insights from only a few users can still be valuable. Mr King advises against ignoring the shopper who complains she waited 15 minutes at the self-service tills, even if your spreadsheet shows the average wait was two minutes. Her perception that it took much longer may tell you more than whole dashboards of data.

就算只是少數(shù)用戶的意見，也可能很有價值。金建議，不要忽視抱怨自己在自助收銀機那里等待了15分鐘的顧客，即使你的電子表格顯示平均等待時間是2分鐘。她感到等待的時間長得多，這或許能告訴你全部數(shù)據(jù)以外的東西。

Similarly, asked what Spotify would do with the “customers from hell”, Joakim Sundén, senior tech leader at the music streaming service, told the Drucker Forum that their “deep pain” might be telling you about a problem you had not identified.

同樣，當被問到Spotify如何應對“來自地獄的顧客”時，這家音樂流媒體服務公司的資深技術(shù)主管若阿基姆•松登(Joakim Sundén)在德魯克論壇上說，他們的“深度痛苦”或許正在告訴你一個你之前未曾發(fā)現(xiàn)的問題。

Remember, too, that there are some situations in which data may never be much help. One is innovation, where the tyranny of the business plan cramps ideas and narrows options, according to experts gathered in Vienna last week. As Rita Gunther McGrath of Columbia Business School puts it: “It’s always easier to go back to the spreadsheet.” Roger Martin, who heads the Rotman management school’s Martin Prosperity Institute, says he would ban the word “proven” from organisations that wish to innovate. “It’s hard to explore possibilities if you have to know the answer before you start,” adds Tim Brown, chief executive of Ideo.

也要記住，在某些情況下，數(shù)據(jù)或許永遠幫不上大忙。德魯克論壇上的專家認為，一個是創(chuàng)新，專橫的商業(yè)計劃束縛了思想，局限了選項。正如哥倫比亞商學院(Columbia Business School)的麗塔•岡瑟•麥格拉思(Rita Gunther McGrath)所說：“回去看電子表格，總是更容易的。”羅特曼管理學院(Rotman School of Management)馬丁繁榮研究所(Martin Prosperity Institute)所長羅杰•馬丁(Roger Martin)說，他會禁止希望創(chuàng)新的機構(gòu)使用“經(jīng)過驗證的”這個詞。“如果你必須在開始前知道答案，那就很難探索可能性了，”Ideo首席執(zhí)行官蒂姆•布朗(Tim Brown)補充說。

Knowing your customer will never be a zero-sum contest between a researcher with a clipboard and IBM’s Watson. Nor should it be. The best insights come from some hard-to-define blend of what you know from listening to individual users, what you can learn from their collective past behaviour and what you intuit they will want in future. The really flawed assumption is that a capsule of data inserted into the analytics machine will always generate the perfect brew.

理解你的客戶，永遠不是拿著帶夾子的寫字板的研究人員和IBM的沃森(Watson)之間的零和競爭。也不應該是。最好的理解產(chǎn)生于一種難以定義的混合認知：你傾聽單個用戶所了解到的東西，你從他們的集體過往行為中學到的東西，以及你從直覺知道他們未來想要的東西。真正錯誤的假設是，把一些數(shù)據(jù)輸入分析機器，總會生成最佳答案。