Analytics: A technology or a way of thinking

Everywhere we go today, we see the term “Analytics”. I watched the Philadelphia Eagles play the other day (go Birds!) and I heard about how analytics was being used to determine the probability that they would score with several minutes left in the half. Personally, I have been enamored with statistics and analytics since college. But analytics goes much further back in the past then the 1980’s. The ancient Greeks and Egyptians loved acquiring data and analyzing it to understand the Earth and the Heavens. Sun Tzu was brilliant in applying analytic techniques to determine the optimal way to win in warfare. And I have been fascinated by Charles Minard's visualization of Napolean’s ill-fated attack on Russia (see map below).

What is interesting is that all of these were done without laptops, large storage systems, and software products. Granted it took a lot of work for them to do what they did. But it first required a different mindset. All of them had contemporaries that were just as intelligent. But these men seemed to possess a different way of thinking. They were able to look at their problems and see them in a way others didn't. They knew that there were patterns, trends, and relationships that were locked away and they didn't rest until they unlocked them.

At Perceptive Business Strategies, we have that same thirst for unlocking the mysteries hidden in the data to understand the way to bring positive change.