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| Bear in a Prius |
Everyone who has bought a car, has probably experienced the Car Doppelganger Effect. You know, after purchasing a car and driving it around for the first time, you start to notice how many other cars are exactly like yours, down to the make and model and maybe even the color. And you’re probably thinking, “Huh, looks like I just bought other Ordinary.”
I’m having the same growing awareness as I have increasingly come across the unique usage of data analysis wherever I turn. Whether I’m reading a Douglas Adams book that happens to go into a storyline about Excel spreadsheets, or how the movie Revenant was the first to use wrist wearing devices to gauge audiences’ emotional responses, convert it into a data algorithm and find out how long people were captivated.
In case you’re curious, 76 bear terrifying minutes of the film’s 156 minute duration. But what caught my attention recently was how Big Data is being used to resolve the issue of equal pay. There has been so much political talk (really, political?) about whether women and minorities were getting a fair shake in their paycheck. There wasn’t any hard concrete data implemented to actually see if there was any fact-based pay discrepancy among employees, and if there was, how wide. Is the seventy-nine cents to the dollar gap, real or a myth?
Until recently there have been talks about using big data. There has been news of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) proposing that large companies submit data reports based on employees’ W-2 forms to see if there are any inconsistencies in salaries and if there are, execute programs to rectify the salary discrepancies.
One of the companies that did come out on their own volition to address this contention was Intel. And what they found out in their company after analyzing employee experience, responsibilities, education, and job evaluations that there were no gaps to speak of. Which of course, rendered Danielle Brown, the Intel’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, speechless. Well, it was more like, almost fell off her chair. It will be interesting to see if cold hard data analyses can be used to end other volatile issues. How about not buying the same car as pretty much everyone else?
Gets me worked up every time.
Debbie
Wallis and her husband Robert, are owners of AXbean, a guiding light to
all things Microsoft Access and Excel. They reside in the central
valley area of Sacramento, California between agriculture and government
central. When not working, you can see them running about outside,
exploring shops, chowing down at all kinds of eateries and whenever
possible, being more curious than a cat. Find out more at AXbean.com. Labels: bear, Big Data, Car, doppelganger, EEOC, Revenant
