Data relativism and the rise of context services
The traditional data warehouse of the 1990s was quaintly called the single source of truth. Joe Hellerstein explains why today we take a far more relativistic view: the meaning of data depends on the context in which it is used.
| Talk Title | Data relativism and the rise of context services |
| Speakers | Joe Hellerstein (UC Berkeley) |
| Conference | Strata + Hadoop World |
| Conf Tag | Making Data Work |
| Location | London, United Kingdom |
| Date | June 1-3, 2016 |
| URL | Talk Page |
| Slides | |
| Video | Talk Video |
The traditional data warehouse of the 1990s was quaintly called the “single source of truth.” Joe Hellerstein explains why today we take a far more relativistic view: the meaning of data depends on the context in which it is used. As a political example, note that a single raw dataset of social media posts can be used to target fundraising appeals, screen potential protesters at rallies, or guide policy statements: each application takes a very different view of the citizen and their recorded properties and behavior. New technologies like end-user data wrangling make this “data relativism” increasingly accessible to a variety of people with different incentives and viewpoints. Joe explores the significant new technology challenge this relativism raises: how can software services help us capture the many contexts and uses of data in an organization, and what could we do with that nuanced, multifaceted knowledge?
