Enabling a Responsible Decision-Making and Data-Driven Culture with Data Science

• Activity Number: 517
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Consulting
• Author(s): Thomas Vincent*
• Companies: Dow Jones

Abstract

Now that online and digital interactions are a pervasive aspect of daily life, many traditional and long-standing businesses have had to reconsider not only their internal culture, but also many of their day-to-day operations. Although the interest and drive to leverage digital audiences and data is prevailing, such entities often have no formal process for data-driven decision-making and product development. As such, the responsibility falls upon resident data scientists to recognize and raise awareness on what data can and cannot do, of its biases, messiness and sometimes of its need for a human layer - in other words a story. This talk will describe examples of such work that has facilitated managerial decisions and innovated on a number of data products in risk and compliance at Dow Jones, but will also detail workflows and pipelines currently under development that aim to enhance journalistic work at the Wall Street Journal, and encourage pro-active, rather than reactive, behavior with regards to news events.