Searching for the mother lode: tales of the first data miners

What do NEA coaches, foster children, and astronomers have in common? The answer: data mining. In the past year, KDD (knowledge discovery and data mining) has taken center stage in advanced technology groups around the world. The first generation of KDD applications are seeing the light of day. The author interviewed data miners from the foster care system in the state of Washington, assistant coaches in the US National Basketball Association, investigators with the US Department of the Treasury, consultants at NCR, and the principal astronomer of the largest sky survey ever undertaken.