Chapter 1: THE DATA GARDEN (full chapter, free excerpt)

I'm happy to present the first full chapter from the book “The Data Garden And Other Data Allegories”.

I posted this chapter in five sections in October and November and thought it would be useful to also make it available as a single article so you can read it all in one place.

I've been humbled by the overwhelmingly positive feedback that I've received on this and other stories in the book. If it's the first time you've seen it, I hope you enjoy this chapter. If you like it and want to read more, please do check the book out on Amazon:

• The Data Garden on Amazon.CO.UK
• The Data Garden on Amazon.COM

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Welcome to the Data Garden

In this little Data Garden, the plants and trees are data. They’ve all been planted for a purpose. Some are there to bear fruit. Others are there to look beautiful and provide the users of the garden with joy. Some are there to combine with other plants; and there is a single tree, which was planted to fix a swing to, for children to play on.

The garden is on a particular plot of south-facing land, which has been cultivated for its owners to derive value and satisfaction from. The owners often go for strolls in the garden, and also provide access to it and its abundant resources for others to enjoy. They charge a small price for admission, so they are able to profit from sharing its many benefits with others.

Everything in the garden grows over time. The grass grows deep and long; the bushes expand into thick hedgerows; and the flowers bloom and blossom in all manner of colours, as they spread throughout the landscape.

All of this growth is good and fruitful; but over time, it can also become unwieldy. As the garden becomes overgrown, it becomes cluttered and harder to access. Wiry branches stretch into open spaces; weeds establish a foothold and risk choking the plants that were so carefully placed; and everything starts becoming so overwhelmingly messy.

Also, as the garden gets used, some of the plants and landscape become damaged. Data flowers are trampled so their shape and colours are lost; the patch of grass under the swing becomes an unsightly, scuffed mud patch; and patches appear across the lawn, noticeable gaps across the once lush green carpet.

The owners realise that something must be done. They cannot enjoy their little data garden as they once did, and their profits are being affected too. They make up their mind: they must appoint a gardener.

Congratulations! You’ve been appointed to be the Data Gardener!

Mowing the Data Lawn

The Data Lawn is used by families to play on, so it must be kept in good condition and must not become overgrown. However, like all data, the data grass grows every day, as do all of the other plants and shrubs throughout the garden.

As a result of all this growth, the lawn must be mowed at least once every two weeks; and sometimes once a week, during the summer months. Of course, exactly how fast the lawn grows depends on all kinds of factors, such as how much sun it is exposed to and how well it is watered. Also, it can be damaged through mis-use, which can result in the need for patches of spoilt or missing grass to be repaired or replaced.

One thing is for certain though: it’s a never-ending job. No matter what you do, you can’t stop the grass from growing; and if you want people to be able to get the most out of it and for the garden’s owners to profit from it, you’ve got to look after it.

Given the size of the garden, it’s not that big a task to maintain it by yourself and you’ve been able to quite comfortably keep on top of it, with your small, manual lawnmower and a few basic gardening tools.

You’ve established a little routine for yourself, regularly reviewing the state of the garden and its plants, and taking action to tend to them based on how well they’re getting on. Different data plants grow and age differently; some are more susceptible to damage when people use the garden than others; and as such, the frequency with which you check on them and the things you do to keep them in healthy condition vary. The good thing is, because you know what each of the plants are and the best way to treat them, you can make sure you treat them in the right way, at the right time. Plus, because you keep checking them at regular intervals, if anything unexpected happens, like unanticipated damage from a particularly heavy-footed user of the garden, you can do something about it straight away.

You’re paid a fair hourly rate for your work, and the owners are happy with the service you provide. So happy in fact, that they decide to offer you some more work…

Congratulations! You’ve been appointed to be the Head Data Landscape Gardener!

The Data Landscape Garden

As well as the small garden that you’ve been looking after by yourself, you’ve now been entrusted with a modest-sized landscape garden to tend to.

This garden is far more sophisticated and is used for a wider range of activities. It has a path that winds its way from the entrance around the perimeter, passing through a small wooded area to a sheltered pavilion, next to an open area that has been laid to grass and is used for various medium-sized events such as weddings and family gatherings.

Given the size and complexity of the garden, the owners had already employed two part-time gardeners, who they have now put under your charge. They also know that you’ll need to take a different approach to its maintenance, so offer you a budget and ask you to come back with some ideas on how to improve the way that the data landscape garden is maintained.

Having learnt from the first garden, you start by taking some time to understand the garden. You talk to your new colleagues to understand what they know about the garden, what’s working and what isn’t. You create an inventory of the plants and shrubs and trees; and examine their condition, noting areas that require particular care.

Initially, while you’re building an understanding of the garden, you allow the incumbent part-time gardeners to continue to operate in the way that they had been before, and only make a few minor tweaks to their routines, based on some things that you could immediately see could be improved, and based on your experience.

However, once you have developed your inventory of plants and their condition, you can start to implement some improvements, to make the garden more productive and to be more efficient in the way in which it is looked after.

There are data flowerbeds that line some of the pathways around the garden, which need regular watering to keep the data flowers healthy. Currently, the part-time gardeners need to regularly check the condition of the flowers to determine whether they need watering, then use heavy watering cans, which they fill up at a tap near the garden entrance and carry across to the data flowers. Each time, this can involve multiple trips from the tap and it’s a tiring and time-consuming exercise. It also means that the gardeners, who have expertise in the care of some of the more rare and valuable plants in other parts of the garden, spend a disproportionate amount of time carrying water backwards and forwards, when their time could be utilised in far more valuable activities.

So, the first investment that you make is in an automatic sprinkler system. The system is designed to provide the optimum amount of water to the data flowerbeds and totally removes the need for any gardeners to spend their time watering them. This frees them up to focus on the parts of the garden where they can cultivate the more interesting and exotic plants, which are more fruitful, more pleasing to the owners and will attract more paying visitors.

The next part of the garden that you turn your attention to, is the open space that is used for events. As you stand at the highest part of the garden and the gentle, warm summer breeze ruffles the long grass, your experienced eyes note the size and shape of the area as you quietly calculate the scale of effort it would take to mow and maintain it. You smile as you think of your little, manual lawnmower and how great it’s been for the small Data Garden; yet how totally inadequate it would be for this new challenge.

The next day, you return with a new, ride-on lawnmower. It was quite costly, but you know that by keeping the open space well groomed, it will be far easier to utilise and obtain value from; plus, it will be easier for prospective users to see how they could use it, so you know you’ll be able to encourage more people to hold their weddings and corporate events here, delivering income that far exceeds the cost of the lawnmower. Plus, of course, using a shiny new ride-on lawnmower is far easier, faster and more fun than using the old manual mower; and it means that the other part-time gardeners are keen to help out too!

Your efforts are paying off. Visitor numbers are higher than ever and the owners are delighted with your work. However, with high levels of usage, you start to encounter different problems…

Dealing with Data Litter

The first problem is one that you’re already used to from the smaller data garden: wear and tear. As such, because you and your part-time data gardener colleagues understand the plants and what needs to be done to care for them, you can quickly establish a routine for this. Together, you pro-actively replace patches of grass, cordon off and re-seed where needed, re-plant flowers, and implement a range of other measures. The key difference in this larger garden turns out to be the way in which you monitor the plants: it’s too big to check all plants every day, and there’s no more budget for additional technology or more people, so you have to put in place a prioritised, manual system of checking different plants at different intervals, depending on the likelihood that they will be damaged and also, in some cases, based on their value.

One thing that you also do, which is different from the smaller data garden and turns out to be quite effective, is to ask users of the data landscape garden to report damage to you and your colleagues. Whilst many users don’t report anything, there are some who do, and this additional feed of intelligence helps quickly catch some problems before the plants are irreparably damaged.

However, the biggest problem that comes with all of the new visitors, which is a new one to you, is the Data Litter.

It turns out that some data users are very careless and messy. They drop their rubbish as they walk along the pathways and it gets caught up in the flowerbeds and significantly detracts from the beauty of the landscape. In some cases, it also causes harm to the plants and wildlife, which is an even greater concern.

Initially, you and your data gardener colleagues attempt to tidy the place yourselves, but data litter picking quickly becomes a full-time job in itself!

You need to try a different approach.

In order to work out what to do, you contact an experienced gardener friend of yours to understand what she does for one of the many, much larger gardens that she manages. Her insights are invaluable. She takes the time to show you some of the systems and ideas that she’s tried over time, including what’s worked well and what hasn’t. You can’t thank her enough – it gives you all the ideas you need to turn things around.

Now, when you return to your landscape garden, you know exactly what you’re going to do; and the biggest shift in thinking is to start to actively engage with your data users. They are the ones who gain the most value from the garden being in a good and well-maintained state; and they are also the ones who are now having the greatest impact on the data garden’s health. Before you do anything, you talk to the owners to explain your ideas and obtain their support. They recognise the challenges you’re facing and trust you based on the good work you’ve done for them to date, so agree to your ideas and say that you can call on them if you need anything. With a feeling of hope, you get to work.

The first thing you do is to install bins throughout the site. They are positioned as discreetly as possible, but in places where you know the most litter is dropped. You make it as easy for the users to access and use them as possible, because you understand that it is important to make things easy for people if you want them to do something new. You also agree a routine of litter bin collection with your data gardener colleagues, so you’ll be able to both monitor their use and to keep them from overflowing.

Next, you put signs up at the entrance to the data garden and throughout the site, to provide clear guidance on how to get the most out of using the garden, including its rules. However, you make a point to emphasise the points about getting the most out of the garden and the benefits of your guidance, so you don’t just make the signs about rules. This was one of the things you saw worked well at your friend’s data gardens and you’re keen to replicate this approach.

Finally, and most importantly, you change the way that people are welcomed into the data garden. You make sure that each visitor, when they pay for access, is met with a friendly introductory chat. This up-front engagement is used to understand how they will be using the garden so they can be provided with tailored tips on getting the best out of the data based on what they are trying to do, and also so that the rules of the data garden are clearly explained and agreed to before they enter.

Choosing proportionate measures

The new measures you’ve put in place to deal with the data litter are a great success. Even better, the increased engagement with data users leads to better relationships with them and improved use and maintenance of the data garden as a whole.

However, there were some additional things you could have done, which you consciously chose not to, because you knew that they were too heavy-handed for this particular data garden. In the very biggest garden estates that your data gardener friend looked after, she had implemented CCTV monitoring for the areas where it was required and even security guards to enforce the rules. 

For the biggest data gardens, these kinds of measures were clearly necessary, especially in situations where there were valuables that need to be protected or where there were dangers, whereby breaking the rules could put data users at serious risk. However, these stronger measures bring with them increased costs and detrimental impacts on the experience for data users, such as privacy concerns, which need to be carefully considered in a balanced way before implementing them.

Given that the data landscape garden that you’re looking after doesn’t have any really high value contents that could be stolen and doesn’t have any serious dangers, you knew that trying some of the less heavy-handed measures and seeing if they work was the sensible first step. If they hadn’t worked, you could have considered other measures, but after monitoring the effects of the actions that you tried first, you knew that there was no need to do any more.

Your owners are delighted with the way in which you’ve handled their two gardens. You’ve put in place systems that are proportionate for their size and complexities, which have enabled you to maintain and develop them so that they have become more fruitful and delivered far more use and value than they did before.

One late afternoon, after the gates to the data landscape garden have closed, you are sat out with the owners, enjoying the sights and sounds of nature surrounding you. You discuss the journey that you’ve been on together, from the early days working on the small data garden, to the challenges tackled and overcome in this, now wonderful, data landscape garden.

The discussion soon moves to the future.

The data garden owners are planning on expanding their operation by acquiring a number of large garden estates, at far greater scale than anything they’ve done before; and they’d like you to be a part of their enterprise.

This next venture would be totally different from before, because it would be far too big for you as a data gardener to be hands-on in the running of each of the gardens. You would need to build a team of experienced gardeners to run each of the gardens and would need to establish management structures and systems to optimise the value that all of these various gardens could deliver overall.

This greater scale and scope could open up fantastic new opportunities to share resources across gardens, to develop totally new events and ways to generate value from the gardens. There could be opportunities and options possibly not yet imagined…

Congratulations! You’ve been appointed to be the Chief Data Gardening Officer.

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Lesson 1:

Data Management is like gardening. It’s a never-ending task, because data keeps growing in volume and variety; but with the right expertise and leadership, and by utilising the right techniques and tools, you can keep your data well maintained, and cultivate it to deliver outstanding value.

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Thanks for reading!

• The Data Garden on Amazon.CO.UK
• The Data Garden on Amazon.COM