Data alone doesn’t help anyone get better. Acting on that data can help move the needle.
Of course, she has critics whose brain scans will require one to do a rectal examination. But in a world where facts are no longer in vogue, the fact that there are millions, if not billions of people who are misinformed and ignorant about climate change and many other issues, is really not a surprise.
Greta Thunberg’s activism isn’t the flowery kind. It’s based on facts and data. She isn’t painting an apocalyptic future just to scare people and further her message.
Data. The buzzword that everyone is spewing these days.
The rise of all things data stems from the fact that there are more tools that help us measure almost anything we want to.
The number of likes
The number of clicks
The number of visitors to your site
The number of downloads
The number of people who tuned into the show
What is the best time to post
What words work best in SEO
All of these are examples of data.
Simple question — why has data suddenly become a catchphrase? Weren’t we able to measure things before and take decisions accordingly? Is it some goldmine that we suddenly chanced upon that gives us answers to everything that we are seeking?
Data has always been around. But how we gather and study data has undergone a sea of change.
Greta Thunberg isn’t just going around the world presenting facts, she’s imploring us to act on them. Al Gore did the same thing with the Inconvenient Truth — used his stature to tell the world about the climate crisis that was staring us in the face.
If data isn’t harnessed to make better decisions, it’s pointless, just like demonetized currency notes.
It was at the turn of century when the Indian cricket team first got in a laptop in the dressing room and hired a specialist to record player’s data i.e., the shots they played, how they got out, stats, etc. Today, you will see heaps of data showcased in match shows that tell you everything you need to know about a team or a player.
When this technology was first introduced into the dressing room, Sachin Tendulkar himself wasn’t very comfortable with it. He couldn’t fathom how it would help the team. That was until he realized that what it revealed could help players reassess and modify their games, helping them improve their performances.
Data alone doesn’t help anyone get better. Acting on that data can help move the needle.
In all spheres of life, you will see heaps of unused data.
Organizations ignore exit interviews and continue on their downward trajectory, harming cultures.
Governments shun studies and proof that shows we are headed towards irreversible climate damage.
A player ignores data that shows they are suspect against quality pace bowling.
All of us choose to turn a blind eye to data that tells us that we are spending an inordinate amount of time on our devices.
Here’s how Greta Thunberg is different — she sets a personal example with the way she lives life. When she got to know about climate change, she turned vegan and stopped flying. While these might be might seem extreme to us, that’s one of the cornerstones of her amazing story — she used the climate change data staring all of us in the face to actually make changes in her life. To me, that’s the culmination of using data effectively.
If so many marketers claim to be working on data that have gleaned, why is so much of the communication crappy and irritating?
We’ve seen people who proclaim to live, breathe and sleep data, so much so that if you prick a needle in them, instead of blood, data will come gushing out. They will insert data in their slides, espouse its values and proclaim how they are experts in mining data.
You can shovel all you want but here’s the ungainly (inconvenient?) truth — gathering and mining data is no longer anyone’s claim to fame.
Setting an example by acting on that data — that’s the superpower most of us are missing.
