So, for example, it only takes a small sample of data to know what book is most popular with people who read Steven King's last book, but it takes a whole heckuva lot of data to predict which few products each and every Amazon customer is most likely to buy this week. The reward for plowing through masses of data is in getting detail, new and focused information that conventional data sources can't reveal. I wanted to read this book so much that I bought an advance copy from a used book dealer before the book's release.īig Data isn't valuable just because there is a lot of it. So I was hoping for more, juicier and deeper goodies in Dataclysm. His work wasn't exactly scientific grade, but neither is most business data analysis. And he gave us all inspiration to use our own data in practical ways. He shared specific, actionable information. He explained, with data, why men should consider dating older women ( ) and what polite question to ask on a first date to get the odds on the impolite question you really want to ask ( ).

Visually arresting and full of wit and insight, Dataclysm is a new way of seeing ourselves-a brilliant alchemy, in which math is made human and numbers become the narrative of our time.Ĭhristin Rudder's OK Trends blog featured lots of analytics news you can use, or at least imagine using. And he grapples with the challenge of maintaining privacy in a world where these explorations are possible. What is the least Asian thing you can say? Do people bathe more in Vermont or New Jersey? What do black women think about Simon & Garfunkel? ( they don’t think about Simon & Garfunkel.) Rudder also traces human migration over time, showing how groups of people move from certain small towns to the same big cities across the globe. He shows how people express themselves, both privately and publicly. He charts the rise and fall of America’s most reviled word through Google Search and examines the new dynamics of collaborative rage on Twitter. In this daring and original book, Rudder explains how Facebook 'likes' can predict, with surprising accuracy, a person’s sexual orientation and even intelligence how attractive women receive exponentially more interview requests and why you must have haters to be hot. Data scientists have become the new demographers. As we live more of our lives online, researchers can finally observe us directly, in vast numbers, and without filters. In Dataclysm, Christian Rudder uses it to show us who we truly are.įor centuries, we’ve relied on polling or small-scale lab experiments to study human behavior. Our personal data has been used to spy on us, hire and fire us, and sell us stuff we don’t need.

An audacious, irreverent investigation of human behavior-and a first look at a revolution in the making

Dataclysm by Christian Rudder