There’s an interesting post on the New York Times web site about the departure of Nate Silver to ESPN. And as usual, some succinct and sassy commentary from John Gruber on his Daring Fireball blog. But the New York Times’ editor Margaret Sullivan had this to say about Nate Silver.
He was, in a word, disruptive.
Nate Silver is an American statistician who correctly predicted the winner of all 50 states and the District of Columbia in the 2012 United States presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. His Five Thirty Eight blog has become a popular feature of the New York Times web site and his recent book, The Signal and the Noise, became an instant best-seller after the presidential election.
There are some clear parallels in his story to our own stories in the field of analytics and BI. Fact-based decision making from business intelligence frequently goes against the grain of The Established Way of How We Do Things Around Here. Wayne Eckerson captures this maverick spirit, seen in the seven people profiled in his latest book Secrets of Analytic Leaders. Administering a business intelligence platform or even a corporate analytics program pales in complexity to the challenges- both with people and technology- in changing organizational culture to a fact-based, data-saturated culture. The process is frequently disruptive. It takes guts, an even temperament, and a long-term focus.
But as Nate Silver apparently discovered, sometimes it also requires a career move.
