A romantic notion surrounds “data.” “Data is the answer.” “Data is magical.” “Data will save our company.” Although I agree with the importance of data in making money, I want to temper some of these comments. Data is a tool you can use. But let’s take a look at data to understand what data is rather than relying on romanticism.
First, data is . . . dumb! Data has no idea from where it came. Data has no idea what can or cannot be used. (By the way, I know I ended those sentences with prepositions). Why do I say this? Because it is true! Also, when I started in data warehousing, I was told I could not use this data for operational reporting and that this data was only used for analytics. Who says?! Is the data going to explode if I use it for operational reporting? Is the data going to take a poke at me if I don’t do analytics or use data outside the data warehouse for analytics? NO! Data is dumb; we limit it.
Next, data is . . . the artifact of a process! Believe it or not, data does not spontaneously generate! Believe it or not, data does not spontaneously combust! I know, at times, things happen that would make you dispute this contention, but each time these things occur, you always find the something that happened. So . . . if data is the artifact of a process, you can audit or even monitor the process using these artifacts. Likewise, you can analyze the effects of a potential process changes with the data. By the way, this use does not preclude other uses of the data, such as analytics, operational reporting, tactical reporting, strategic analysis, etc.
Finally, data is an asset! We will discuss this further in the next post. If you believe that data is an asset, treat it as such. Stay tuned, and you will see what I mean.
Until Next Time
Dr. Dave