The Four Best Big Data TED Talks for Practitioners in the Field

The editors at Solutions Review curated this list of the best big data TED talks for practitioners in the field.

TED Talks are influential videos from expert speakers in a variety of verticals. TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from business to technology to global issues — in more than 110 languages. TED is building a clearinghouse of free knowledge from the world’s top thinkers, and their library of videos is expansive and rapidly growing.

Solutions Review has curated this list of big data TED talks to watch if you are a practitioner in the field. Talks were selected based on relevance, ability to add business value, and individual speaker expertise. We’ve also curated TED talk lists for topics like data visualization and AI and machine learning.

How data will transform business – Philip Evans, TED@BCG San Francisco

Evans, a senior partner and managing director at the Boston Consulting Group, is the co-author of Blown to Bits, about how the information economy is bringing the trade-off between “richness and reach” to the forefront of business. He argues that a new force will rule business strategy in the future — the massive amount of data shared by competing groups.

In an informative talk, Philip Evans gives a quick primer on two long-standing theories in strategy — and explains why he thinks they are essentially invalid.

What do we do with all this big data? – Susan Etlinger, TED@IBM

Susan Etlinger is an industry analyst for Altimeter Group. She is a globally recognized expert in digital strategy and has authored a series of reports and frameworks on topics including artificial intelligence, big data, analytics and digital ethics. She was named one of the “Must Know” Top Writers in Technology by LinkedIn in 2016.

Susan’s talk mirrors what so many business leaders ask. Does a set of data make you feel more comfortable? More successful? She explains why, as data volumes continue to pile up, it’s important for the scope of understanding has to expand. Since the point of data collection is to gain a better understanding of whatever it is we’re questioning, it’s important to move beyond the promises of ‘big data’ into how we can apply it to generate insight.

Big data is better data – Kenneth Cukier, TEDSalon Berlin, 2014

Kenneth Cukier is the Data Editor of The Economist in London and the co-author of Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think. He is a regular commentator on BBC, CNN, and NPR, and a member of the World Economic Forum’s council on data-driven development. He is a board director of International Bridges to Justice and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Kenneth starts of this talk with an amusing anecdote on why America’s favorite pie flavor is not actually apple, and how data has helped us uncover this. He also dives into the future of data-driven technology and design. There’s also a look into the future at how machine learning is going to be (it is) a major development for the use of big data in the business environment.

The era of blind faith in big data must end – Cathy O’Neil, TED2017

Cathy O’Neil is a mathematician and the author of several books on data science, including Weapons of Math Destruction, which was nominated for the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction. She was the former Director of the Lede Program in Data Practices at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Tow Center, and was employed as Data Science Consultant at Johnson Research Labs.

Cathy is a self-proclaimed ‘data skeptic’ who argues for ethics within the use of data. She explains how algorithms decide things like who gets a loan, job interview or even insurance. The problem is, that algorithm may not automatically make this process fair, and she coined the term ‘Weapons of Math Destruction’ in response. Her talk, the era of blind faith in big data must end, is a showcase about the hidden agendas behind these ‘secret’ formulas.

For more big data TED talks, browse TED’s complete topic collection.