Big Data: does size matter?

Big Data knows where you’ve been and who your friends are. It knows what you like and what makes you angry. It can predict what you’ll buy, where you’ll be the victim of crime and when you’ll have a heart attack. Big Data knows you better than you know yourself, or so it claims.But how well do you know big data?From science to smart cities, business to politics, self-quantification to the Internet of Things, people are talking about big data as a force for change. Privacy, democracy, even our ideas of who we are, could be transformed.

But you don't need to be a Silicon Valley tech prodigy to understand what's going on. Timandra writes comedy, not computer code. The only programs she makes are on the radio. If you can read a newspaper, you can read this book.

This book takes you from the basics - what IS data? What makes it Big? - all the way to the big questions about where big data is taking us: is it too big for its boots, or does it think too small? Are you a data point or a human being? Will this book be full of rhetorical questions?

No. It also contains puns, unlikely stories, engaging people, inspiring feats & thought-provoking dilemmas. Leaving you armed and ready to decide what you think about one of the decade’s big ideas: big data.

Published June 2nd 2016 by Bloomsbury Sigma. Order the hardback, e-bookpaperback or audiobook.

Why should you care? Give me 5 minutes to convince you:

I happily talk about the book at events around the world, (if you'd like me to talk at yours, contact my agent Toby Mundy).