Blog: Bringing Data Mining Into the Mainstream

Bringing Data Mining Into the Mainstream
New York Times (07/26/10) Lohr, Steve

A record number of corporate researchers and university scientists are attending an ACM conference on knowledge discovery and data mining, which offers papers and workshops that apply data mining to everything from behavioral targeting to cancer research. Although data mining has become a growth industry, profitably probing large data sets is still costly for companies and difficult for users. According to conference executive director Usama Fayyad, an institutional mindset that recognizes the value of data is needed to bring modern data mining into the business mainstream. The executive level must view data as a new strategic asset that can create revenue streams and businesses. Fayyad also says a translation layer of technology is needed to democratize modern data mining, and the underlying software for handling large data sets should be linked to software that ordinary people can use. Using Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet as a metaphor, Fayyad says the sophisticated data-handling layer should be "built in ways that Excel can consume the data and people can browse it."

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