The latest from Prosper on Forbes.com on 9/15/2017…
What happens when a buzzword like big data is uncovered as a half truth? While big data may be big in quantity, the data quality may be low grade and could even be hazardous to algorithms.
Factors that contribute to the declining value for much of big data include: fraud, inaccuracy, not representative of the market, incomplete, and one dimensional. It often requires unverifiable assumptions to be made for such issues as the meaning of a smiley emoji, or value of a “like.” Big data is also woefully void of the things that make a human “human,” such as their feelings toward the economy and retailers, and happiness in general. Big data falls short in the realm of future plans or purchase intentions and what motivates consumers. Even highly valued transaction data is still backward looking and could be holistically enhanced with real human data variables.
While the addition of the human element may seem as an apparent or requisite data input, the rush to employ technology to gather, scrape, and crunch anything other than real human responses has only served to create greater distance between much of big data’s consumer surrogates and real human beings.
However, two innovation firms, Consumer Edge Research and Prosper Insights & Analytics, intend to bridge the gap between big data short comings and real human insight to enable new predictive analytics for the financial services industry. Continue reading…