Briefings Direct

It's a shame when the data analysis providers inside a company get the cold shoulder from the business leaders because the data keeps proving the status quo wrong, or contradicts the conventional corporate wisdom.

Fortunately for GSN Games in San Francisco, there's no such culture clash there. "The real thing that's helped us get to the point we are is a culture where everybody is open to being wrong -- and open to being proven wrong by the data," says Portman Wills, Vice President of Data at GSN Games.

"One of the things we use data for is to challenge all of our assumptions about our own products and our own businesses, says Wills. "It's really gotten to a point where it's almost religious in our company. The moment two people start debating what should or shouldn't happen, they say, 'Well let's just let the data decide.' That's been a core change not just for us, but for the game industry as a whole."

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How did GSN Games get to the point where the data usually wins? It took a blazing fast data warehouse of 1.3 trillion rows that consumes, stores and produces analysis from some 110 million registered game-players in near real time. The next BriefingsDirect podcast focuses on just how GSN Games exploits such big data to effectively uncover game-changing entertainment trends for their audience. Oh, and it changes corporate cultures, too.

The discussion, at the recent HP Discover conference in Barcelona, is moderated by Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

Subscribe ot the podcast on iTunes. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: HP.