The Little Book of Data

Understanding the Powerful Analytics that Fuel AI, Make or Break Careers, and Could Just End Up Saving the World

By: Justin Evans

Narrated by: Justin Evans

Read by the author.

Data is not about number crunching. It’s about ideas. And when used properly (read: ethically), it is the problem solver of our time.

Yet many savvy people seem to be in data denial: they don’t think they need to understand data, or it’s too complicated, or worse, using it is somehow unethical. Yet as data and AI (just an accelerated way to put data to work) move to the center of professional and civic life, every professional and citizen needs to harness this power.

In The Little Book of Data, each chapter illustrates one of the core principles of solving problems with data by featuring an expert who has solved a big problem with data—from the entrepreneur creating a “loneliness score” to the epidemiologist trying to save lives by finding disease “hotspots.”

The stories are told in a fast-moving, vivid, sometimes comic style, and cover a wide frame of reference from adtech to climate tech, the bubonic plague, tiny submarines, genomics, railroads, bond ratings, and meat grading. (That’s right. Meat.)

Along the way Evans injects lessons from his own career journey and offers practical thought-starters for readers to apply to their own organizations.

By reading The Little Book of Data, you will achieve the fluency to apply your data superpowers to your own mission and challenges—and you will have fun along the way.

You will be, in other words, a data person.

Bringing data to the rest of us

The little book of data is a great guide for uncovering all of the data stories that are all around us, but rarely considered. It’s a fantastic listen to get you to think more deeply about where you could get smarter and more literate about insights and solutions on questions or problems you’re facing in your daily life, your work, life, or your overall point of view. This read as an audiobook is extremely entertaining. The author is quite funny for a data guy. Or really any guy. His examples are superb. Starting most notably with his own colonoscopy and the data stories that surrounded that. Fantastic!

Excellent

Great audio production. Most excellent content not designed just for data people but for anyone interested in marketing.

A fun exploration of strategic data mining

There are plenty of books on the technology of data, but most will be outdated within a year or two. The Little Book of Data offers a timeless birds-eye perspective on the ways ordinary people have used data to shape the world, and how the rest of us can mine for similar results. The stories are engaging, relatable, often funny, and sometimes offbeat. A great read that has me thinking about mining the data of... everything

Good stories about use of data

This book is written in a way that tries to justify paying attention to data and understanding how others have used data. It doesn’t really go much deeper than the stories of how others have used data.
Author makes his political thoughts known in this book. Liberally and passes judgement quite often in the book with snarky remarks.
There are a number of random comments throughout the book that don’t add to the story or to the point. Just odd comments and info that didn’t need to be share that took away from the point.