Don’t treat data like a fancy dinnerset
My mother has a fancy Noritake dinnerset that she keeps for special occasions. It’s a gorgeous blue and white set, made of fine porcelain. Once upon a time it sat proudly on display in a glass-fronted cabinet, but eventually it got packed away into the cupboard to ensure it didn’t get broken. And there it stayed. I don’t remember the last time that it was ever used.
It’s also what I often see happening with data: many organisations think its important to collect it and that it will be useful one day, and so carefully stockpile it away into a data store. Sometimes, the data is curated. Sometimes, its thrown hap-hazard into a drive and forgotten about. Almost always it is only brought out on special occasions —like when an investor, board member or someone the company wants to impress comes to visit.
I find it sad that a beautiful dinnerset — made not just to be admired , but to be used as a functional item — sits unappreciated in a dark cabinet. I also find it sad that data also may suffer a similar fate.
Of course, there’s lots of good reasons for keeping things locked away, but if it is only ever used on special occasions then is it really that valuable?
I don’t think we shouldn’t treat data like a fancy dinnerset unless we make every day a special occasion: maybe it’ll be risky, maybe a little scary, but hopefully it will make us realise what we have been missing out on when we put our data and fancy dinnersets to use.
