Data is People

Data is today's shiny object.

Every client wants to leverage it.

Every platform claims have to more of it.

Every agency promises they know what to do with it.

In reality, much of it is smoke.

Perhaps, more accurately, much if it is cloud.

You see what you want. Or what someone convinces you to see.

It's abundance and depth is undeniable, its alpha, however, remains more difficult to grasp.

I am not a data denier.

Given the choice between a data desert and a data ocean, throw me into the water.

The option to know always trumps the cruelty of not being able to.

I'm just trying to figure out what to do when the problem is no longer getting the data, but stopping it from drowning you?

My motto: never forget that data is people.

No matter how advanced the machine learning, how intricate the dashboard, how impressive the jargon-- data is simply the aggregate collection of human thought and behavior.

The forms of collection are getting more sophisticated everyday, but the people themselves?

Not so much. And not so much for thousands of years.

People are imprecise. You should expect the same messiness from data.

People can be irrational. You should expect data to reflect as much contradiction as linear logic.

People can't describe what they want in numbers. You shouldn't expect the numbers to describe what people want.

Data is merely a clue. A flirting hint.

Don't let its abundance dazzle lull you into false confidence.

Strip away abstraction at every opportunity.

And above all, embrace the limits of data.

Data can tell you where he lives, what TikTok's he watches for how long, what he buys, when he buys it, but an idea can do something completely different.

With data, you can find the 30-year old searching online for flowers, gifts and fancy restaurants trying to impress a potential mate.

But with an idea, you can make that consumer know with absolute certainty that a clear, abundant, hard piece of coal is worth two month's salary. And is required to impress said potential mate.

Data can help find where and when consumers are.

Ideas can create a consumer that simply wasn't there before.

Now, that's a real shiny object.

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