What’s that old saying – Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it?

So will mankind really be better off if we collectively gain better understanding and insight into why we do what we do?

The use of analytics to study and gain benefit from all the “big data” we each contribute to the overwhelming mass of information created each and every second, hour and day of every year holds the potential to help us get a better grasp of where we have been – and where we might be going.

A new report from MIT Sloan Management Review, one of the world’s most respective business and technology think tanks, and SAS, a fast-growing global leader in the field of analytics for more than three decades now, clearly documents that business leaders are “getting” the importance of parsing and understanding all the digital information filling those huge data centers from Google to Facebook and many more.

As “cloud computing” and advances in supercomputing (IBM’s doctor-in-training “Watson” as an example) take mankind into realms of possibilities few thought possible just a couple decades ago, the MIT-SAS collaboration points to interesting possibilities far beyond predicting who will buy what in the next 15 minutes at a store.

New Dawn?

In reading through the report (“From Value to Vision: Reimagining the Possible with Data Analytics,”) I found one quote especially compelling.

Alex Pentland, director of the Human Dynamics Group at the MIT Media Lab, states:

“This is the first time in human history that we have the ability to see enough about ourselves that we can hope to actually build social systems that work qualitatively better than the systems we’ve always had.”

Wow. A true new dawn? Really?

Read on.

“We can potentially design companies, organizations, and societies that are more fair, stable and efficient as we get to really understand human physics at their fine-grain scale.

“This new computational social science offers incredible possibilities.”

If only people – from the common folk to the billionaires profiting from all that information – will use the data for common good as well as personal and corporate benefit …

Well, we all can dream.

IBM’s Push

The SAS-MIT report certainly verifies all the hype IBM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ginny Rometty has created over the past few days. She’s betting much of Big Blue’s future on analytics, from big data analysis to cloud services to Watson.

SAS, always a leader in the so-called “magic quadrants” created by companies who analyze the analytics business such as Gartner and IDC, has plenty to brag about itself as businesses rush to embrace analytics.

The report notes some staggering findings.

The collective “lights” have been turned on in corporate suites about what analytics can mean.

In 2010, 37 percent of business leaders surveyed believed analytics made their companies more competitive.

In this new study based on 2012 data, that percentage has jumped to a whopping 67 percent.

But at the same time, even the use of analytics remains a challenge with 28 percent of the 2,500 firms surveyed saying they remain “analytically challenged.” Only 11 percent consider themselves innovators while 60 percent say they are practitioners.

Pamela Prentice, chief research officer at SAS, says the survey results show companies still have a great deal to learn.

Of course, that’s good for SAS, which provides the tools, analysis and support to turn data into actionable intelligence.

“Analytics is far more than generating and sharing insights,” Prentice said. “For long-term success with data-driven innovation, an organization must continually revise its analytical approach so that insights lead to innovation and competitive advantage.”

The paper, which is available for download free of charge, is worth your time.

Might be some big data in there you and your business can put to good use starting today.