I was speaking with a friend recently and he said something that caught my attention… “Of course I keep track, I’m a data whore and so are you!” Data whore doesn’t sound like a real polite term but I think it expresses our value on data. So many people focus on getting the job done that they don’t pay attention to how the job got done and what it means for the job tomorrow.
Until a few years ago it was difficult to store data with just the hope that it would be valuable someday. We had problems collecting data, storing data, and then analyzing data but today the technology has greatly reduced the cost of storage, given us a connected world to share the data, and just started giving us tools to see and realize the value!
One of the challenges we have always faced is recognizing the appropriate data to collect to collect, what will be important and what only qualifies for trivia. Daily temperature readings for the last hundred years give us facts for climate change but the ratio of green to brown M&M’s over time seems less important. My friend, that data whore, has archived all of the email spam he has ever received, almost 20 years’ worth. Data that most of us consider worse than worthless he has saved and it is interesting to ponder what future sociologists might glean from the evolution of junk advertising.
I admit that I am a long time collector of information, I can detail all my personal spending in the 90′s, how my every opponent fought in BattleMail jousts, and the gas mileage over time for every car I’ve owned. Some of this data has obvious immediate value and some of it I just collect with the thought that it could be useful. I don’t believe all of the data has to be necessarily useful in isolation or intrinsically meaningful, correlation and trends are the meta data that might have the real value.
I have just started collecting a little bit more data and it will be interesting to see what I can really pull out of it. I recently purchased a FitBit which promises to collect health information and that seems valuable but I also have to think about FitBit, which is aggregating all of the information and consider how it will be of value to them. Is the data just going to help someone sell me something or is there additional value to humanity somewhere in there?
Data is interesting and I don’t think enough people stop to consider how things happen. I’d like to encourage everyone to find a way to contribute to the general pool of human knowledge even if it is noting likes and dislikes of blog entries!
The Internet has made it possible for most people to become “data whores.” When I found out I could have access to the latest research on several fields on my google reader every day without lifting a finger I got extremely excited. It is really addictive: there is a moment where you feel if you don’t stay “up to date” you’ll be left out of the loop.