Lots of back and forth over the nomenclature as usual. I hope not to obfuscate further by adding my definition. I'm currently a BI consultant aspiring to the t

Lots of back and forth over the nomenclature as usual. I hope not to obfuscate further by adding my definition. I'm currently a BI consultant aspiring to the title of data scientist and here's my motivation... Traditional business intelligence skills basically refer to people who are 'IT guys that have finance knowledge' ...so generally you'll find yourself doing pretty general reporting along with some financial performance management (FPM) albeit at the data modeling/ metadata modeling level (you're building metadata models and cubes/reports dashboards with drill down not just flat reports.) All of this is done at the whim of some exec/BA/line manager all of whom (in my experience)seldom understand the subject well enough to actually pose sensible strategic questions. Data science implies several levels of creativity expressed through solid technical skills along with a dash of journalism. Maybe it is just a rebranding but what it represents to those in the field is a total paradigm shift in terms of where and how the skills are applied. This is key because all too often my work as a BI consultant boils down to churning out x number of meaningless reports by a certain date so that some head of department can get his bonus and justify the Oracle purchase that incidentally resulted in a 3 day trip to Paris funded by a stunningly sophisticated sales team. If I come off cynical it's because I am passionate about data. I believe that data science and the paradigm shift it represents has the power to really change human lives and I believe that it has a key role to play in the future of the evolution of our species.