Data!

According to Statista, the world will create more than 394 zettabytes of data by 2028. We have no shortage of information, but all of this is worthless unless we make use of it. My goal is to illustrate informative ways that we can all use our accumulated data to tell stories that lead to action. Doing so is imperative for ourselves, our customers, and our planet.

It’s the question that drives us

Most businesses collect astounding amounts of data, but to what end? Much of it remains locked away from those who could make good use of it. It sits in both structured and unstructured formats, on everything from personal drives to network shares to data lakes. Some of it is orphaned, where no one even knows that it exists. Information that is unknown isn’t helping anyone to do anything. Once in a while, someone has a concept of a solution intended to alleviate an organizational pain point. But all too often, managers and teams don’t buy into the plan. Which means that its potential remains unrealized.

If it’s not FAIR, is it really there?

How can we use data to become agents for positive change? The roadmap created by the authors of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) data is a good start. Good data governance doesn’t just happen. We all need to begin with the end in mind, even though in the long run, there will be uses that we will never have imagined.

Cleanliness is next to godliness

FAIR is only part of the solution. Some legacy documents have no embedded text layers. Optical character recognition (OCR), one of the first widespread uses of artificial intelligence (AI), is useful for extracting information from such documents, but accuracy remains an issue. Another major consideration involves the structure of data itself, in its rows, columns, and tables. Hadley Wickham developed the concept of clean, tidy data, and this provides a useful guideline for how information should ideally be structured.

Knowledge is power

Whatever data your organization collects and however you choose to store it, making new insights from it should be the goal. New AI tools promise to provide novel solutions, but for now, they remain only part of what your organization needs. In the meantime, having data-driven analysts to provide oversight and suggest innovative solutions are essential. If your organization needs such talent, please feel free to contact me. I’ve managed multiple successful projects and processes while maintaining FAIR, tidy data in several roles, and I’m interested in learning how my skills could help your organization.