Book Review: Data Science for Business

Data Science for Business: What you need to know about data mining and data-analytic thinking

By Foster Provost, Tom Fawcett

Amazon | O’Reilly

Official intro:

Written by renowned data science experts Foster Provost and Tom Fawcett, Data Science for Business introduces the fundamental principles of data science, and walks you through the “data-analytic thinking” necessary for extracting useful knowledge and business value from the data you collect. This guide also helps you understand the many data-mining techniques in use today.

Based on an MBA course Provost has taught at New York University over the past ten years, Data Science for Business provides examples of real-world business problems to illustrate these principles. You’ll not only learn how to improve communication between business stakeholders and data scientists, but also how participate intelligently in your company’s data science projects. You’ll also discover how to think data-analytically, and fully appreciate how data science methods can support business decision-making.

• Understand how data science fits in your organization-and how you can use it for competitive advantage
• Treat data as a business asset that requires careful investment if you’re to gain real value
• Approach business problems data-analytically, using the data-mining process to gather good data in the most appropriate way
• Learn general concepts for actually extracting knowledge from data
• Apply data science principles when interviewing data science job candidates

My review:

This book is probably the single best book, and the proper way, to learn about the ideas behind the buzzword Big Data.

Understanding the fundamental concepts through totally scientific lens is the key to truly know WHY big data is so important; it also helps us to differentiate the facts from myths in the business world that’s overwhelmed by the abusive use of buzzwords.

I’d say this: if you don’t fully understand everything in the book, it may be a little bit overconfident to say you really know what big data is about.

Science is science, you have to learn the facts before you play with the buzz.