Wisdom Of The Week

To deepen the benefits of Big Data, we must put the social sciences and the humanities on equal footing with math and computer science - I cannot agree more !!

The things we want to measure, but don’t know what data to collect.

The data we want to collect, but don’t know how to capture.

The data we’ve captured, but can’t use because they’re not accurate.

The data we’ve captured, but don’t know how to interpret.

The data that we misinterpret, because there’s too much noise and not enough signal.

The data that we misattribute, because we mistake correlation and causality.

The data that we misuse, because we want them to support an agenda based on falsehoods.

Without Data Literacy, we end up in one of the following scenarios with regard to Data:

we don’t collect it;

we ignore it;we look at it, but don’t apply it;

we apply it incorrectly;

we extract the wrong meaning from it;

or twist it to support our (wrong) ideas.

Data Literacy can help us solve those problems, but it’s only one part of the puzzle. Anyone can throw a few numbers together to make a quick statistic, or compile tons of them into massive spreadsheets, but without any real meaning to be extracted we’re left with numerical gibberish, or “data salad,” if you will. This is where contextualization, narration, and design / visualization come into play; described for the purpose of how we can enable Data Literacy.

[--]

Employing methodologies and frameworks from the social sciences and humanities can get at key questions like:

• Who created the data, for what reason, under what conditions, for which purpose? What are the barriers, entry points, and backgrounds that impact their ‘data exhaust’?
• Who is gathering, analyzing, interpreting, explaining, and visualizing the data — what are their goals, seen and unseen biases, and personal backgrounds they bring to bear on these exercises?
• Who the ultimate audience or audiences? What framing do you have to employ to best communicate the findings — and what happens if they don’t understand or agree?
• What impact do things like the current zeitgeist, their geopolitical position in the world, or previously held beliefs play in the audience’s willingness to engage? Ability to understand?

[---]

Therefore, if we are to move from:

• Big Data / Even Bigger Data to More Meaningful Data
• Data Science to Data Literacy

… we must employ the art, craft, and science of narration. The danger in not doing this leaves the understanding, application, and adoption of data and Data to those who are skilled in the art of collecting, storing, and parsing it. In my experience in and around the field over the last decade, at best you will get an academically-presented assessment and at worst, you will get an obtuse, ‘inside baseball’ report.