'Big Data' Sounds Like 'Big Brother,' Could Mean 'Big Trouble'

by Joe Mandese, Feb 22, 2012, 10:58 AM

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That’s what Marc Groman, executive director and general counsel, at Network Advertising Initiative and morning keynoter at OMMA Data and Behavioral in New York suggested.

Actually, Groman said he took the term right of the OMMA event website description, and spent some time riffing on that, as well as the concept that the “data train” is just about to leave the station.

“I don’t like the term Big Data,” Groman groused, adding it “sounds like Big Brother. Or Big Trouble.”

On the flipside of OMMA event promo copywriting, Groman said he was kind of keen on the concept of the “data train.”

“I find the metaphor of the data train much more compelling,” he said, and then proceeded to riff on every conceivable analogy relating to data and trains, milking the metaphor for all it has.

“The data train is moving fast, we are all on it. All of us,” he said, adding, “But we are all sitting on different cars on that train,” starting with the “responsible actors” in the first car, and then “edge riders,” the U.S. government, consumer advocates, consumers, a “car for children 13 and under,” regulators and policymakers. At the end of the train, he said were “media and the press. (Excuse me!). And then various other cars, including advertisers, agencies, social networks, etc., that weren’t clearly ordered in numerical preference.

But you know, I think the most important car on the train was the one Groman was sitting on yesterday while he was traveling on Amtrak from Washington, D.C. to New York City for today’s presentation, and no doubt struggling for a metaphor to create it.

Sorry, but I couldn’t resist a kick in that caboose.

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