Clayton Christensen Quotes

If the statistics are boring, you've got the wrong numbers.

You can use data wrong. It's just like polling. There have been a lot of politicians who go conduct a poll to figure out what they believe.

I say I write extrapolations. I look at data points and ask what the world could look like.

There is a rampant tendency in any industry where someone is trying to sell something with a bunch of data, where they cherry pick a little bit... bias a little bit. This becomes quite easy when there is an enormous amount of data to cherry pick from.

Good data is hard to find. Hard data is good to find.

It is easy to lie with statistics. It is hard to tell the truth without it.

Data is very important, but you have to be good at reading the data in an emotional way. If you look at a selling report, there's an emotional trend to what's selling.

The next darwin is more likely to be a data wonk than a naturalist wandering through an exotic landscape.

It's amazing how much data is out there. The question is how do we put it in a form that's usable?

Even more important than statistics is then having the staff that can take the data and ensure it's presented in a way that improves individuals and teams.

Most variables can show either an upward or downward trend, depending on the base year chosen.

Big data is indeed a buzzword but it is one that is frankly under-hyped.

Above all else show the data.

Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.

Without the hard little bits of marble which are called 'facts' or 'data' one cannot compose a mosaic; what matters, however, are not so much the individual bits, but the successive patterns into which you arrange them, then break them up and rearrange them.

Statistics always remind me of fellow who drowned in a river where the average depth was only three feet.

The impulse to collect data preceded the ability to make sense of it. People facing a complicated problem measure whatever they can easily measure. But the measurements by themselves don’t lead to understanding.

The reality is that most of the time, the more bizarre the trend, the more bogus the results.

We do a lot of "capital I" important stories, but one I'd highlight is the work we've done on guns, not only for the acclaim it's gotten but also because it showcases all the different kinds formats we use. So we compiled a database of all the variables of all the mass shootings in America - work the government doesn't do, thanks to the NRA - which allowed us to surface patterns and make data visualizations of it.

The business of the statistician is to catalyze the scientific learning process.

Statistics, one may hope, will improve gradually, and become good for something. Meanwhile, it is to be feared the crabbed satirist was partly right, as things go: "A judicious man," says he, "looks at Statistics, not to get knowledge, but to save himself from having ignorance foisted on him."

Then: I google "time-series visualization" and start work on a new version of my model, thinking that maybe I can impress her with a prototype. I am really into the kind of girl you can impress with a prototype.

Data only exists within the framework of a vision you're building to, a hypothesis of where you're moving to.

Statistics do not speak for themselves.

Context is to data what water is to a dolphin