Tricia Wang: The human insights missing from big data
王聖捷: 因大數據而失準的視野
With astronaut eyes and ethnographer curiosity, Tricia Wang helps corporations grow by discovering the unknown about their customers. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
poets and politicians,
on life's most important questions,
需要做出重要的決定,
advance into this territory?"
and you would get on your knees,
she would come out of it,
到古希臘,再到馬雅曆,
what's going to happen next.
to make the right decision.
knowing that we can make a decision
保障決定的結果,是很棒的事。
or "deep learning" or "neural net."
「深度學習」或「人工神經網路」。
we ask of our oracle now,
to ship these phones
運到瑞典,怎樣最有效率?」
遺傳疾病的機率是多少?」
with a genetic disorder?"
we can predict for this product?"
and she hates the rain.
to untrain her.
讓她適應下雨。
an oracle, called Dark Sky,
Dark Sky(天氣預報公司)的先知,
in the next 10 minutes.
our oracle is a $122 billion industry.
是個 1220 億美元的產業。
aren't even profitable,
coming up to me saying,
better decisions.
做出更優的決定。
with more breakthrough ideas."
更多突破性的點子。」
of how people use technology,
not helping us make better decisions,
卻沒有幫我們做更好的決定,
who have all these resources
可以投資大數據系統的公司?
a research position with Nokia.
在諾基亞的研究工作。
最大的手機公司之一,
cell phone companies in the world,
like China, Mexico and India --
新興市場中佔有主要地位──
a lot of research
as a street vendor
in internet cafés,
so I could understand
games and mobile phones
from the rural areas to the cities.
移居到城市時的使用情形。
that I was gathering,
among low-income Chinese people.
by advertisements for luxury products
who wouldn't want one? --
the actually enticed them the most
into this high-tech life.
進入高科技生活的途徑。
in urban slums like this one,
住在這樣的城市貧民窟,
over half of their monthly income
of iPhones and other brands.
iPhone 或其他品牌的仿冒品。
with migrants and working with them
that they were doing,
all these data points together --
like me selling dumplings,
像是我賣水餃的事,
on their cell phone bills.
這麼多整體畫面
this much more holistic picture
would want a smartphone,
to get their hands on one.
looking like iPhones.
and realistic people said,
these heavy things
and they break every time you drop them?"
about my insights,
to share them with Nokia.
millions of data points,
of anyone wanting to buy a smartphone,
指出有人想買智慧型手機,
as diverse as it is, is too weak
assuming that people don't know
to get any data back
a smartphone in two years.
have been designed
at these emergent human dynamics
of missing something.
throwing out data all the time
it's our responsibility.
very specific environments,
or delivery logistics or genetic code,
that are more or less contained.
are as neatly contained.
都能被操縱得好好的。
and systems are more dynamic,
that involve human beings,
that we don't know how to model so well.
about human behavior,
are constantly changing.
enters the picture.
on big data alone
that we'll miss something,
that we already know everything.
to see this paradox
that I call the quantification bias,
of valuing the measurable
colleagues who are like this,
company may be like this,
so fixated on that number,
outside of it,
right in front of their face.
wrong with quantifying;
from looking at an Excel spreadsheet,
Everything is under control."
一切都很好。都在掌控之中。」
to kind of keep that in check,
as a numerical value.
into silver-bullet thinking,
for any organization,
都是危機的重要時刻,
the future we need to predict --
that's bearing down on us
是即將襲擊我們的暴風中心。
一無所知來得有風險,
the wrong decisions.
of ancient Greece
握有顯示道路的神秘鑰匙。
that shows us the path forward.
where the most famous oracle sat,
over two earthquake faults.
these petrochemical fumes
right above these faults,
of ethylene gas, these fissures.
babble and hallucinate
她講話含糊不清還看到幻覺,
any useful advice out of her
得到有用的建議?
surrounding the oracle?
on your left-hand side
with the oracle.
and get on their knees,
would get to work,
follow-up questions,
this prophecy? Who are you?
這個預言?你是誰?
with this information?"
this more ethnographic,
用人類學的角度來看,
are huffing ethylene gas,
在呼吸着乙烯氣體,
invalid predictions.
that the oracle needed her temple guides,
and user researchers
that cannot be quantified.
這些無法計量的事物。
that I collected for Nokia
of a very small sample size,
the human narrative.
明白更多信息的經驗。
what's missing in our models.
模型裡缺少了什麼東西。
in human questions,
來說明經濟問題,
big and thick data
insights at scale
of machine intelligence,
rescue the context loss
那缺失的背景資訊,
of human intelligence.
that's when things get really fun,
事情就會變得非常有趣,
just working with data
你早就收集的數據。
that hasn't been collected.
to transform their business.
recommendation algorithm,
for anyone who could improve it.
一百萬美元獎金。
the improvements were only incremental.
Grant McCracken,
格蘭特.麥克拉肯,
that they hadn't seen initially
從量化數據中看出來的,
to binge-watch.
(註:短時間內狂看電視劇)
feel guilty about it.
"Oh. This is a new insight."
this big data insight
量化數據的規模來衡量。
and validated it,
very simple but impactful.
卻影響很大的事情。
the same show from different genres
from similar users,
欣賞更多不同的影集,
for you to binge-watch.
viewer experience,
for whole weekends at a time,
like "Master of None."
they not only improved their business,
to double in the next few years.
會在接下來幾年內翻倍。
watching more videos
insights into the algorithm
police departments are using big data
and sentencing recommendations
of thousands of civilians in Pakistan
or to employment,
by the quantification bias.
is that we've come a long way
to make predictions.
so let's just use them better.
那麽讓我們更好地利用它。
with the thick data.
with the oracles,
與先知一起合作,
in companies or nonprofits
we're collectively committed
missing that something.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Tricia Wang - Technology ethnographerWith astronaut eyes and ethnographer curiosity, Tricia Wang helps corporations grow by discovering the unknown about their customers.
Why you should listen
For Tricia Wang, human behavior generates some of the most perplexing questions of our times. She has taught global organizations how to identify new customers and markets hidden behind their data, amplified IDEO's design thinking practice as an expert-in-residence, researched the social evolution of the Chinese internet, and written about the "elastic self," an emergent form of interaction in a virtual world. Wang is the co-founder of Sudden Compass, a consulting firm that helps companies unlock new growth opportunities by putting customer obsession into practice.
Wang's work has been featured in The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, and The Guardian. Fast Company spotlighted her work in China: "What Twitter Can Learn From Weibo: Field Notes From Global Tech Ethnographer Tricia Wang." In her latest op-ed on Slate, she discusses how attempts to stop terrorists on social media can harm our privacy and anonymity. Her Medium post, "Why Big Data Needs Thick Data," is a frequently cited industry piece on the importance of an integrated data approach. One of her favorite essays documents her day in the life of working as a street vendor in China.
Known for her lively presentations that are grounded in her research and observations about human behavior and data, Wang has spoken at organizations such as Proctor & Gamble, Nike, Wrigley, 21st Century Fox and Tumblr. Her most recent talk at Enterprise UX delved into why corporate innovation usually doesn’t work and what to do about it. She delivered the opening keynote at The Conference to a crowd of marketers and creatives, delving into the wild history of linear perspective and its influence on how we think and form organizations.
Wang holds affiliate positions at Data & Society, Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet Studies and New York University's Interactive Telecommunication Program. She oversees Ethnography Matters, a site that publishes articles about applied ethnography and technology. She co-started a Slack community for anyone who uses ethnographic methods in industry.
Wang began her career as a documentary filmmaker at NASA, an HIV/AIDS activist, and an educator specializing in culturally responsive pedagogy. She is also proud to have co-founded the first national hip-hop education initiative, which turned into the Hip Hop Education Center at New York University, and to have built after-school technology and arts programs for low-income youth at New York City public schools and the Queens Museum of Arts. Her life philosophy is that you have to go to the edge to discover what’s really happening. She's the proud companion of her internet famous dog, #ellethedog.
Tricia Wang | Speaker | TED.com