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Calling someone an 鈥渙nline evangelist鈥� is usually a metaphor. But in the case of Jerry Kane, a Carroll School associate professor of information systems, the language is less than figurative. Before he became a scholar,听Kane听was a United Methodist minister, and his interest in social media, his field of expertise, grew partly from his ministry. 鈥淐hurches are social organizations,鈥� he says. 鈥淪o for someone with an interest in IT, it was natural to gravitate to social media.鈥� 听

Today, he shares his social media savvy鈥攄are one say he preaches?鈥攙ia the website of the听MIT听听(SMR), part of MIT鈥檚 Sloan School of Management. He鈥檚 a guest editor for听SMR鈥檚 Big Ideas Initiative and regularly writes for the initiative鈥檚听. His online epistles have won an influential convert鈥�Associate Professor Sam Ransbotham, his colleague in the Carrol School鈥檚 Information Systems department. In 2014, about a year after Kane started blogging, Ransbotham also joined as a guest editor and blogger about his field鈥攄ata analytics.

鈥淭he Big Ideas programs are research initiatives that look at large-scale phenomena that are influencing management practice,鈥� says David Kiron,听SMR鈥檚 executive editor. 鈥淲e wanted people with intellectual heft as guest editors, and Sam and Jerry brought that.鈥�

Kane, for his part, says his interviews with IT executives are the thing he sees the most immediate return from鈥攈e often ends up using the published versions of the conversations as readings for his classes.

鈥淚 feel like my knowledge as a researcher helps me weed through some of the hype and ask the deeper questions,鈥� he says. Among his interviewees have been executives with Air France鈥揔LM, snack maker Mondel膿z International, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

As bloggers, the professors鈥� voices are as different as their areas of expertise. Kane typically takes more of an instructional approach, walking readers through the key issues to consider as companies try to expand their use of social media. In a听听on the 鈥減ost-email organization,鈥� for example, he explained the benefits of ditching email and moving to social platforms for intra-organizational communication. He illustrated his argument with his own use of Twitter on campus.

鈥淐ommunicating with my students using Twitter instead of email provides briefer communication, allows me to broadcast responses to the entire group instead of fielding multiple similar emails, and allows others to provide answers to questions if I am not available,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淎s a result, my email load has trickled to nearly zero in these contexts.鈥�

Ransbotham, in contrast, will riff on the news or pop culture to offer up analysis of recent events or a reflection on research in his field. If Kane鈥檚 posts are often how-tos, his can read more like op-eds.

Legions of people and companies are putting sensitive information online, often carelessly, and embarrassing leaks and hacks arrive ever more frequently, he noted. And data analytics, like any tool, from a hypodermic needle to a hunting knife, can be used constructively or destructively. 鈥淯nknown information is agnostic and doesn鈥檛 know if it is an insight waiting to add business value or a secret waiting to harm,鈥� he said.

In another item posted last summer, he pulled a reference from听Dragnet, a classic TV police procedural, to introduce the idea that听.听Dragnet's Sgt. Joe Friday used to demand that people spare him their emotions and opinions and give him 鈥渏ust the facts.鈥�

Too often, business people think 鈥渂ig data鈥� will give them what Sgt. Friday sought鈥攁n objective view of the truth. But even with analytics, facts and truth are as elusive as ever, maybe more so, Ransbotham said.

鈥淲hile data seems to promise objectivity, instead it requires analysis鈥攚hich is replete with subjective interpretation,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淢ore data makes it easier to find support for virtually any position鈥攂ecause more data provides more options, limited only by the creativity of the analyst.鈥�

If anything, big data may blind us to our shortcomings as thinkers, he said. Psychologists have documented that people are prone to confirmation bias鈥攖hey seize evidence that supports their point of view and ignore contradictory information. 鈥淭his is a particularly acute problem for modern analytics due to the potent combination of access to massive amounts of data, sophisticated methods and the seeming irreproachability of data-based decisions,鈥� Ransbotham noted.

Unlike some other bloggers in rowdier forums, both professors say they look forward to the interaction with readers via comments on their blogs and emails. As befits a publication geared toward professionals, reader comments at听SMR听tend to be thoughtful and polite, not the usual online blasts of id, dismissing the writer as a fool, a naif, or worse.

One reader, commenting on Ransbotham鈥檚 post on data subjectivity, suggested users needed 鈥渄ata sociologists鈥� or 鈥渄ata archaeologists鈥� to help 鈥渄etermine subjectivity values the data embodies rather than assuming it is fact!鈥�

Ransbotham says even far-afield comments can be useful.

鈥淚t鈥檚 fun to hear back鈥攖he positive and negative,鈥� Ransbotham says. 鈥淚 like the people who push back more, because maybe I did miss something. That kind of debate can also lead to a good discussion point for my classes. If things are clear and obvious, they鈥檙e not that interesting to talk about.鈥� Or to blog about.听

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