The Power of ‘Thick’ Data
Businesses need to know how a product or service fits into the emotional lives of their customers
CHRISTIAN MADSBJERG and MIKKEL B. RASMUSSEN
March 21, 2014 7:15 p.m. ET

Lego analyzed data and arrived at a moment of clarity: They needed to “go back to the brick.”
At its core, all business is about making bets on human behavior. Which product is most likely to sell, what employee is most likely to succeed, what price is a customer willing to pay? Companies that excel at making these bets tend to thrive in the marketplace.
So it’s no wonder that the latest fad in the business world is Big Data—massive data sets sifted by powerful analytical tools. Big Data can be an extraordinary tool, helping to gather new information about our behavior and preferences. What it can’t explain is why we do what we do. Read more of this post