Changing the Focus of My Newsletter

For the last several months I've been working on trying to think about an apt metaphor for describing the work I've done over my career to turn data bits and dashboards and databases into useful insights, decision support tools, and real knowledge that can be used to go from interesting visuals and charts into real impact for customers.

There are plenty of articles out there about how most data initiatives fail, a lot of the work around data science that has failed to produce value, and the millions of dollars companies spend on large-scale data infrastructure that fall short.

The reasons range from ignoring culture and solving the wrong problems, to underestimating the overall cost and not producing actual value as the outcome.

The world is full of data in all shapes and sizes, and more are produced every day with more and more people learning the skills necessary to engineer, manage, and analyze that data in a variety of ways. Companies worth several billion dollars exist solely to help store and analyze data for companies of all sizes. Yet, there are still many ways this whole concept of data analysis falls short. Data isn't the point, it's the knowledge that makes the difference to an end user.

In the movie Tron: Legacy, Kevin Flynn (played by Jeff Bridges) talks about a race of programs called Isomorphic Algorithms that spontaneously evolved on the Grid, as opposed to being written by users. While regular programs conform to the rigid structure defined by their users, ISOs had evolved, complete with a genetic code of sorts that even Kevin Flynn couldn't comprehend. This inner structure of their code would potentially have allowed ISOs to develop beyond the capabilities of regular programs. What if we use the metaphor of an ISO, for the evolution of traditional data systems into knowledge systems? Questions and Answers vs dashboards and charts? What's the equivalent of evolving from basic programs to ISOs in the analytics world?

I've been challenged by Donald Thompson these past several months to think about data at the atomic level and instead focus on the systems built on that data that drive outcomes that drive business impact, economic growth, and decision-making. If we remove the word data out of our vocabulary when we talk about these systems, and think about what the point of data is, we can focus instead on the kinds of breakthroughs and insights that are possible with the right systems built on top of that raw data and the benefit it has to the consumer. If I have enough of those systems, breaking through traditional barriers of we think is possible with the data we have, and really go after the bigger questions vs settling for basic insights, could we evolve our knowledge beyond just what's captured in an excel workbook or tableau dashboard? Could we use voice to talk to our data, query our data using questions and answers, visualize our information in entirely new ways, and leverage technologies like OpenAI to change the way we engage with the data around us? Is Dall-E about data? How about GPT-3? Yes, they contain large amounts of data - but that isn't the point of the tools. They are tools to move people's creativity, ideation, and knowledge forward into exciting new places.

Just as the ISOs were an evolutionary leap forward in the Grid, beyond basic programs, could we perhaps move past talking and just using data and instead think about driving the real impact, creating knowledge, and moving companies and people forward in entirely new and interesting ways?

The best conversation I have with customers in any industry is that I don't really care about data - it's the means to the end. I care about solving business problems and helping customers make better decisions more effectively. When we elevate the conversation beyond talking about data infrastructure, and tools and instead focus on business problems we have to focus on solving - the data itself fades into the background, and we instead focus on the real impact these tools can have when applied in the right way. It's the knowledge I gain, not the data I analyze that's the point. It's not just data that gets me there, but the tools and models that use that data combined with the right interface for the user to maximize the usability to get at that real impact.

In a way, that is really the point of all these tools anyways. Helping make positive changes, measuring KPIs to drive impact, and collecting larger sums of data in order to make more novel insights. If that all terminates in knowledge being created, shared, and taken in then those tools have served their real purpose.

The name of this newsletter was originally "Bad Data" because I was going to focus on data-specific problems I've worked on over my career along with the tools that helped me get there. It's now focused on one of my favorite movies because it represents the step change we all need to have in our thinking about what the real purpose of all this technology really is - what's the real outcome we are going for? If we can all evolve our thinking to focus on knowledge vs data, maybe we will start to see those ISOs start to appear in the midst of our exchange and really move our companies and employees forward into new and exciting places.

So this is the last you'll see me use the word "Data" here - and instead, will focus on knowledge and insight and the tools/use cases/stories/ideas that help shape the thinking of folks out there evolving our use beyond dashboards and databases into truly impactful solutions that have the kinds of impacts everyone wants but maybe has a hard time articulating. Let's focus on impact vs interest, knowledge vs databases, and going after the big problems that make a real difference in the world with the technology that's a means to that end.

A special thanks to Donald Thompson for shaping my thinking about this space, and for the ongoing collaboration around computational knowledge management that he's been so influential in helping develop and shape.

In there is a new world! In there is our future! In there is our destiny! - Kevin Flynn

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