Data alone doesn't do anything

The more I read, the more I am convinced that the whole Big Data explosion has just become another business trend that no one really understands but everyone talks about. The thing with data is that, as much as we have more data than ever before, most people don't know how to use it.

Data is just the input, and needs to be organized, categorized and mixed in a way that it makes sense for people. And then comes the really important bit: USING THE DATA!


Most people get obsessed about collecting the data, reporting and producing amazing presentations or dashboards that impress their bosses. This is all useless unless you have done the right change management, cultural adaptation process and mindset change in your business about what data can do, and what your organization will do with data.

More and more companies around the world have been using data to drive their decisions for a while now, but as more and more people get into the "big data" trend, it is imperative to think further than the data itself. Data is only the input to understand some of those questions that businesses have always had, but had to rely on instinct because the data was not there.

The important thing is to determine the right questions you want to answer, then look for the data that can help you answer those questions, and finally look at the systems, integration and solutions you need to make that happen. Most companies do it the other way around, and then it's why they fail in really leveraging "big data" which can also be "small data" but very useful.

It doesn't have to be a mega complicated process that lasts 5 years. You can start small and scale it. Whatever progress you make is good, it means your business is starting to make decisions based on data (big or small) and you can only get better at it.

So here's my challenge... what's the one thing you have always wanted to know to make decisions in your business? You should probably start there.