- What do the expeditions led by Roald Amundsen over 100 years ago tell us about the everlasting hunt on data?
introduction
This paper entails the difficult struggle between the scientific data collection and the mission of the Roald Amundsen during his arctic explorations in the early 20th century. I would like to take the opportunity here to compare the purpose of data collection back then to our current circumstance. Since there are bigger and larger discussions going on about data collection by tech-companies the underlying human driver might become visible in comparing data-collection in the name of science to that of today. After all, little has changed in the way humans innately behave.
To give you a short introduction into Roald Amundsen, we need to take note that the Arctic Expeditions a century ago took place during a time in which most of the great explorations came to an end since most large and considerable expeditions had done most of the work. Ronald Amundsen is described as a man who had little interest in science but showed a bigger interest in becoming a famous explorer. Hence, he was very pragmatic and understood that he would need financial support and that the allowance of scientific research during his expeditions could help him reach those goals. He was not at all uninterested in the data collection, but it was for sure not his main priority.
As thorough and meticulous his planning was for expeditions to the most remote and hostile environments on the planet, he regarded money as a necessary evil with no value on its own. An interesting note is that the finances of Roald Amundsen were remarkably unorganized and disproportionate in comparison to the complexity of the expeditions he led. This is a stark difference from the data-gatherers of today. As a citizen from the Netherlands, I know all too well how meticulous modern tech-companies, those who now hold and store the data, avoid paying taxes due to very organized financial structures. Perhaps showcasing a lower interest in fame and prestige then there counterparts a century ago.
Roald Amundsen saw himself as a facilitator of science rather than himself being a scientist. This could be compared to tools like Whatsapp and Gmail these days. Both these applications serve not just to give you easy access to unlimited and free communication, they also use the information you put out there for big-data analysis to support marketing and other unknown purposes. Imagine DHL going through all your letters and walking with you in the supermarket and relate those the information in the letter to your friend overseas to your purchasing behavior in the supermarket to create the perfect advertisement for you.
What can the curious executive learn from this?
During the famous arctic expeditions, the scientists were already toggling between the old induction approaches to scientific research versus the hypothesis minded geoscientist that dominated that time. I am careful enough to separate science from the data-collection that I discussed earlier on.
What happens today is not just the observation of geomagnetic and other data and analyzing but entire consumer behavior patterns are analyzed in a way that was never possible before. For a scientist, it is still not possible today to scan the movements and fish-preferences of seals and penguins on a humongous scale, but for humans, things have drastically changed.
During the latter expeditions of Amundsen, the evermore larger scientific teams mainly came from Norway and thus improved its international visibility and recognition as a scientific power. Which at that time led to the founding of the scientific journal Geophysical Journal. One of the dominant journals in that field today as I have been told. So in brief, the expeditions of Roald Amundsen facilitated the radical improvement of fields such as Polar Meteorology, Terrestial Magnetics, Electricity, Oceanography, and Ethnography.
How can we tie this to a common purpose? As we have learned in POTW #5 people often try to find ways of acting which suit both themselves and something more global. In this case, science and personal fame paired up so well that it could become a foundation for innovation. Hence, today we face similar scenarios in which big-data analysis drives innovation as well. Common purpose typically serves as an idea that it should benefit all of us humans at least, and hopefully other species can be taken into account as well.
This time things are a little different, Roald Amundsen was the leader of an expedition and facilitated data-collection but had little interest in how it was put to use. That was taken care of by the universities and institutions that sent their best scientist on those missions. Hence, there was no issue with morality. The morality of large cooperations is something we should always be careful with, as the Cambridge Analytica scandal depicted Facebook cares less about the valuable data it has collected, then the scientists that Roald Amundsen took on board. For a scientist, there was no incentive to share, but also to misbehave with the data that is gathered. This is completely different for companies that exist to be profitable.
Important Notes
Full credit goes to Aant Elzinga. The one-and-only aim of this paper is to further promote it’s content to a wider audience. For the original paper please visit: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A606889&dswid=-3240
Author
Bram van Kleef is a founder + consultant @ VanKleef/Andersson and is located in Amsterdam. He holds an MSc in Business Administration: International Business & Marketing from Kristianstad University in Sweden. For inquiries: info@vankleefandersson.com
