The newsonomics of “Little Data,” data scientists, and conversion specialists(niemanlab.org)
niemanlab.org
The newsonomics of “Little Data,” data scientists, and conversion specialists
http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/10/the-newsonomics-of-little-data-data-scientists-and-conversion-specialists/
6 comments
This is also the origin of millions of buggy-VBA stuffed Excel spreadsheets that are running tons of fortune 500 companies.
Fat chance. If the NYTimes had hired more engineers, those engineers would have told management they needed to innovate to survive, just like everyone else was telling them. And management still wouldn't have listened.
Don't you think every single employee at NYTimes Co knows that?
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Not really. I believe there is still a big divide between the content providers and the content distributors. Most dinosaur publications are not innovating enough to keep up with new media. One reason why Bezos bought Wash Post.
What a surprise: a media dinosaur dismissing new technologies before it was too late.
Also, how about appropriately titling the link instead of paraphrasing the opening line?
Also, how about appropriately titling the link instead of paraphrasing the opening line?
I hope you're not suggesting that "The newsonomics of “Little Data,” data scientists, and conversion specialists" would be a better submission title...
In your face!
They hired some very good ones. Jeremy Ashkenas (Backbone, Underscore, Coffeescript) and Sam Clay (NewsBlur, DocumentCloud) were both there.
To be fair, the NYT did hire, among many other technical talents, both Jeremy Ashkenas (Backbone/CoffeeScript) and Mike Bostock (D3), who may not be engineers by training, but are at the forefront of web and interaction technology.
But the problem isn't just number and/or quality of engineers. It's about top-down leadership and mindsets that encourage and cultivate engineer-led innovation. Sure, some of Google's early employees invented some huge projects with their 20% time, but that's because that was an engineering company that geared itself towards such projects. Media companies were huge money makers in the 90s and early 2000s. The money that spawns massive startups today would've been pocket change for them back then.
But the problem isn't just number and/or quality of engineers. It's about top-down leadership and mindsets that encourage and cultivate engineer-led innovation. Sure, some of Google's early employees invented some huge projects with their 20% time, but that's because that was an engineering company that geared itself towards such projects. Media companies were huge money makers in the 90s and early 2000s. The money that spawns massive startups today would've been pocket change for them back then.
Mike Bostock just finished his Ph.D. in Computer Science (in the School of Engineering) at Stanford, so I would argue he is the definition of an engineer by training.
Also note the article says that the NYTimes didn't hire enough "engineers and data scientists", which apparently got cut off in the title here.
Also note the article says that the NYTimes didn't hire enough "engineers and data scientists", which apparently got cut off in the title here.
Nate Silver as well comes to mind.
I can think of several other news agencies - other than NYT - who still haven't taken analytics seriously. This could be a blueprint for how to build the case.
It was so bad that my department director jokingly recommended hastening a small, public-facing project by using Google Spreadsheets as a datastore, rather than deal with the overhead of involving the database team. I took his advice at face value and shipped the app quickly. He grinned, and said in a congratulatory tone, "you actually used Google Spreadsheets!" It was like a subversive victory.