Sizable Impact

• Date: 01 July 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22287
• Author: Tim Chartier
• Published date: 01 July 2017

61

© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI 10.1002/jcaf.22287

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Sizable Impact

Tim Chartier

Data is transforming many

aspects of our world. We

track personal health

data with phones, wristbands,

and watches. Cars collect data

to measure the safety of the

driver or enable an algorithm

to drive the car itself. The

impact of data in our health,

social lives, and businesses is

ever present in today’s world.

Given the breadth of data’s

impact, it isn’t surprising that

government works to harness the

power of the digital revolution.

In the fall of 2016, prior

to the presidential election, I

interviewed DJ Patil, the first

Chief Data Scientist of the

United States, a position cre-

ated by President Obama in

early 2015. A main mission

of his job was to harness the

power of our digital world,

while protecting our nation

from its threats.

Imagine the first days of

Patil’s job. Where do you start?

There are many, many issues he

could address. In his early time

in the position, Patil received

valuable advice from the presi-

dential science and technology

advisory group. They liked his

approach but noted that he was

considering problems in the bil-

lions of dollars. His thinking

reframed when they advised

that his job was “to think only

about the problems that are a

trillion dollars and up.”

Patil needed to think about

tackling issues of a new order

of magnitude. Still, looking

only for trillion-dollar prob-

lems wouldn’t, on its own,

determine what issues to tackle

or how to study them. How do

you refine your lens to perceive,

of the many pressing issues of

our country, what to consider?

Patil noted the inherent ten-

sion this way, “The hardest

thing about being in the White

House—and I’m literally over-

looking the front of the West

Wing entrance—is to really

gain perspective on what you

should work on. Everything

is critically important. There’s

a person at the end of every

problem.”

He needed guidelines

to help guide the work. An

important breakthrough came

in developing two more guide-

lines for picking problems.

Patil described them this way,

“Does the problem impact

more than half the population

of the United States? Then

there are certain problems that

affect a population that has no

recourse. Our job is to make

sure we stand up for them.

That’s our framing. Those three

things: half the U.S. popula-

tion, one trillion dollars and

up, or a populace that has no

recourse.”

These metrics led to his

office working largely in health

care, the criminal justice sys-

tem, and climate change. The

impacts of the office were many.

Be careful, however, to think the

work always required advanced

data science. Patil quickly noted

an example from criminal jus-

tice, “Miami Dade, Florida,

saved literally 10 million dollars

[by coordinating mental health

services and their criminal

justice system] in the first year

by just passing a spreadsheet

around, and they found people

that are being cycled through

the system rather than getting

the help they needed.”

Data, big or even small,

can offer various directions

of exploration. Even before

studying the data, one must ask

what data to collect? Whom to

collect it from? How much to

collect? The questions can, in

themselves, lead to stagnation.

Faced with an enormous task,

Patil developed metrics to mea-

sure the suitability of potential

ideas. He sized up the issues.

Would they have an impact fit-

ting his needs and the mission

of his office?