Beware of Expert Blindness

More and more companies are looking to big data to help them market their products or improve their services. Of course that means more companies are seeking out data scientists and statisticians. But to truly take advantage of big data means the firm must commit to the principles of data science. That is often easier said than done.

Enter the Subject Matter Expert and the common trap of “Subject Expert Blindness”.

Yes. The Subject Matter Expert; the person who has spent a career building knowledge of their business. These are the people who drive a company’s offering; or whose stamp of approval is necessary on any significant project. They believe their experience and learning has given them special insight that others simply do not have.

If you are a specialist in data science, then it is unlikely that you have spent years earning experience in any particular industry. Automotive. Healthcare. Insurance. Finance. It doesn’t matter because your expertise is data. Data is data. And you tell your story with the data.

The expert does not rely on data. Or only needs it to confirm their preconceived insight. The expert, then, becomes blind to alternatives hidden in the data.

Take the case of a recent project of mine. I was approached by a firm looking to find groups of people who were likely to be the most expensive customers to service. The expert provided a list of twenty such groups and asked that we demonstrate that these are statistically more likely to consume services than an ”average” customer.

But the notion of pre-determined groups is silly in the world of data science. Why not run have the data tell us what the highest risk groups are? If the results match the expert’s groups then great, her hunches are confirmed. But the expert will never find the hidden gems that the data often exposes. The expert is simply blind to the alternatives.

The bottom-line: let the data tell the story. Don’t force the story onto the data. Resist the temptation to rely on personal experience to shape the story before the data is even crunched.