As elusive as Bigfoot, as addictive as a Big Mac, as sinister as Big Brother: the lure of “big data” is perfect bait for fee-hungry experts hunting new business. It also poses untold risks to companies that fail to read the trend, or the data, correctly. Read more
BBC needs a chief operating officer
I’m interested to see the name of Caroline Thomson re-emerge on the list of potential candidates to take over as BBC director-general from George Entwistle, who stepped down humiliatingly on Saturday.
Her farewell speech – predating the Savile and Newsnight scandals that laid Mr Entwistle low – now sounds prescient, with its reminder that the corporation “must never lose sight of its purpose”:
It is always when the BBC loses sight of what it is here for that it runs into trouble with licence fee payers. Confidence doesn’t mean arrogance. Indeed, if we are in a biblical frame of mind, humility is in order.
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John Gapper is an associate editor and the chief business commentator of the FT.
He has worked for the FT since 1987, covering labour relations, banking and the media. He is co-author, with Nicholas Denton, of 'All That Glitters', an account of the collapse of Barings in 1995.
Andrew Hill is an associate editor and the management editor of the FT. He is a former City editor, financial editor, comment and analysis editor, New York bureau chief, foreign news editor and correspondent in Brussels and Milan.
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