Human Analytics
I read an article in the New York Times recently titled “Astros’ Numbers Guy Spends Time in Minors”. The article peeks into the analytics of Baseball. Mejdal states “It’s like you know a secret that’s going to rock their world – not next week, but maybe next year or two years from now.” The team in all likelihood has estimates on career life, efficiency and productivity of players to name few. While I am a big proponent of analytics (I run firm training people on analytics) at times analytics is reductionism. Analytics particularly on people fail to quantify the human experience. How do you measure “heart”? At the end of the day any analysis leading to a prediction is a guess. As Mr. Mejdal rightly stated “…it is still something to take very seriously. It is players’ dreams.” Analytics is everywhere and it benefits different industries. Yet I wonder if this new worldview paradigm is missing the human touch.
