I am going to discuss the evolution of Data Mining from a layman’s point of view. I have this perception that Data Mining is going to be the future of BI as we switch over to Knowledge era from Information era. To understand the evolution of Data Mining we have to recapitulate the basics of Artificial Intelligence. The concept of intelligence built upon four elements: Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom or Intelligence. Let us unfold each component briefly,
The basic compound for intelligence is Data. Actually raw facts and numbers are known as Data.
Information is produced by assigning meaning to Data. Simply we can consider Information as “Data in context”.
Structured information about one domain is known as knowledge in that domain.
Intelligence or wisdom embodies awareness, insight, moral judgments, and principles to construct new knowledge and improve upon existing ones.
Following Bank example would illuminate the definitions:
Data: The numbers 100 or 5 without any context
Information: Principal amount of money: $100, Interest rate: 5%
Knowledge: At the end of Year I get $105 back
Intelligence: Concept of growth
We have discussed the basic components of Business Intelligence. Now we can have a look at the stage by stage evolution of Data Mining.
Evolutionary Step | Business Need | Enabling Technologies | Properties |
Data Collection (1960s) | "What was my total revenue in the last five years?" | Computers, tapes, disks | Retrospective, static data delivery |
Data Access (1980s) | "What were unit sales in New England last March?" | Relational databases (RDBMS), Structured Query Language (SQL), ODBC | Retrospective, dynamic data delivery at record level |
Data Warehousing & Decision Support (1990s) | "What were unit sales in New England last March? Drill down to Boston." | On-line analytic processing (OLAP), multidimensional databases, data warehouses | Retrospective, dynamic data delivery at multiple levels |
Data Mining (Emerging Today) | "What’s likely to happen to Boston unit sales next month? Why?" | Advanced algorithms, multiprocessor computers, massive databases | Prospective, proactive information delivery |
As we know currently we are in the switch over process to Knowledge era. Data Mining is going to be the indubitable tool in this age. Bear in Mind the tool for age of Intelligence is still under construction…………
