Wouldn’t it be nice to predict the future? It’s tempting to reach for the analytical tools and big data sets that are newly available and for which big claims are made regarding their predictive capabilities. For entrepreneurs, small businesses and corporate innovation teams, rich qualitative data are far more relevant and collecting these data is far more productive. By this we mean talking to customers and potential customers, observing behaviors rather than collecting clickstream data, and immersing yourself in the unpredictable subjectivity of the consumer. In this week’s Economics For Entrepreneurs podcast, Dr. Per Bylund analyzes what big data can and can’t do for entrepreneurs and the innovation process, and explains how qualitative data can generate big ideas for the future. Show Notes: https://mises.org/library/bylund-big-data-versus-big-ideas "Big Data vs. Big Ideas" (PDF): Mises.org/E4E_31_PDF Economics For Entrepreneurs is also available on... iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/economics-for-entrepreneurs/id1453233518?mt=2 Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Iz2umketq6fu5npyjpb57b7z2cq?t=Economics_For_Entrepreneurs Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mises-institute/economics-for-entrepreneurs?refid=stpr Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/misesmedia/sets/economics-for-entrepreneurs Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7A1kY8ksk1qL2oNf0i97Zp and via RSS: https://mises.org/itunes/735