Monitorology the art of observing the world

Abstract: In the age of ever increasing demand for big data and data analytics, a question of collecting the data becomes fundamental. What and how to collect the data is essential as it has direct impact on decision making, system operation and control. Specifically, we focus on the art of observing the world by electronic devices such as sensors and meters that, in general, we call monitors. We define five challenges to ensure effective and efficient monitoring that still need a lot of research. Additionally, we illustrate each challenge by example. Since reliance on big data and data analytics is continuously increasing, these challenges will become ever more relevant to save the world from flood of meaningless, dumb data, leading frequently to false conclusions and wrong decisions whose impact may range from a minor inconvenience to major disasters and even loss of lives.