Data Is For Everyone – that is the first and only name that came to mind when I set up my virtual school of data workshops and courses this year.
We live in the data every day (by choice or not, with awareness or not). For example, open your health tracker app, and you will find your steps, heart rate, sleep pattern, and more.
We consume data daily—for example, that report on how we did this quarter to make projections for the next.
That has shaped our reasoning to use data for:
1. Decision making: allowing data to provide information that can help make choices.
2. Understanding: using data to improve understanding of complex phenomena, such as economic trends, social patterns, and environmental changes.
3. Progress: by using data to drive progress and impact.
What gets missed in these three ways of looking at data is that we take data as the dish's key ingredient.
We fail to question – if that data is all of it? Complete? A true representative of the community? We need to do better, then, at understanding the voice, noise, and silences in the data. For example, comparing my heart rate on Fitbit means I should gather more context on what that line chart and number says – not just generally – but in comparison to women around my age, background, and health.
Data is not the key ingredient of the dish. It is the supporting salt – added to everyone's taste– without which you do feel the difference, but we never say, "tonight I am making salt for dinner".
So, data is indeed for everyone – to learn, engage, question, guide, and be guided about the world around us.
Until the end of the year, I am keeping site-wide and individual product-based social equity discounts on the website (link below).
Invest in your learning or purchase any workshop as a gift for someone else. When you want to make this investment for someone else, make your purchase and drop me a message. I will set up the next steps from there.