- What is Data — Why it Matters
Data, Look around, Data is Everywhere. The reason I fell in love with it is simple, it helps me getting closer to the truth. Allows to bring Order in this Chaos.
To me, one of the purpose of Life is to Progress, to go from Point A to Point B while enjoying the journey. There is a famous quote that goes following: “What can’t be measured, can’t be improved.” Paying attention to Data is seizing the Opportunity to Measure and Progress in any domain.
Even if you are not in Tech or not working in Science, Data can help you. You don’t need necessarily to be super technical. Even though I think everyone should understand the basic concepts of programming because it teaches you how to think. But at least try to understand what is at stake.Because I truly believe that for some people, understanding the opportunities that arise from getting knowledgeable in Tech, could motivate them to learn about it and eventually could help them mentally to be in a much better place.
You can take a look Outside: Information is all around us in Unstructured Format. So, to this date, there is still a lot of valuable information is not being used. And this is increasing every day.
You can take a Look Inside: Human body is like a Machine with 5 types of sensors gathering all the data for functioning.
Things you think are gut feeling are actually data processed:
- A kid smiling at you in the street — Information given by the angle of his lips
- The wrinkles on a elderly person face
- Data gathered by you SmartWatch (Health data) — SmartWatch that measures your heart rate
- Your Oura ring that will measure your brain activity to know how long how many times you’ve been in Deep Sleep
It can be scary because it just outlines how our brain has limited capacity. Well at least for now… With time, more and more Machines will be inter connected, data is being shared faster everyday. Theoretically if all Machines would be connected, time for taking a decision would be drastically reduced. But this is the Theory and as we know Practice is very different.
It has never been easier to produce Data. From Writing to Laptop to Internet to Big Data. So it comes with a backlas, it’s also harder to make sense of it. This is where pursuing a career in any data related topic will be beneficial. You will have a great advantage, to be able to remove all the noise to focus on the signal. Data Science is the ultimate Tool to Understand the World.
From Data > Information > Knowledge > Power (in the sense of having control in terms of decisions to make for yourself) & Money > Freedom
- Is Data a Bad Thing?
There are some obvious signs. If you look today at most successful companies or most successful people there will most of the time have a technical background. World is only 1% digitalized so you want to be in a market that will be growing. I admit there can be a fine line between a Sytematic Data Collection & just plain creepiness. We don’t want to live in a world where we feel constantly observed.
People are scared — Most of the time scared of what we don’t know and they would prefer it to be “natural” …but what’s Nature? People arguing that collecting Data is just plain evil are obviously wrong. They are usually 2 different schools, either people are scared of it (Addiction to social media, Loss of Jobs etc.), or people are embracing it (Medecine, Services improved like Uber, NGOs, Health companies predicting cancers etc.).
In the end you would just be denying that science is good, it’s more about the intention, it cannot be stopped. Data Privacy & CyberSecurity are crucial subjects of today’s world.
The way I see it for me is that Science of Data Analysis is a way to fight our own Entropy. The idea is not to take Prozium like in Equilibrium where the population is forced to take a daily injection to suppress emotion, similarly to “The Blue” in Voyagers.
Don’t engage in the fake virtue signaling, successful people rely on Data, period. Skill that is more and more needed, Ignoring that data has value can be bad if ignored.
- How to Start Collecting and Using Data
A bit of Practicality Now.
On different levels, being analytical can be applied in your everyday life. You could say: “This is some geeky stuff — this is not for me” or “I don’t have analytical skills“ but here are some examples:
- If you are getting serious at cooking: You are going to follow a recipe, a set of instructions: What — How — Where — How much — How long
- If you are getting serious at weight loss, you are going to measure food, your weight daily so you could start to track data, with dates
- If you are getting serious at gym: you are going to measure repetitions, weight lifted, types of exercices, dates. From this make a graph on Excel as a start.
From Data to the Art of Data Visualization > You know the saying A picture is worth a thousand words.
There are many ways to collect Data: APIs (Yahoo API), Web Scraping, Open Data from Businesses, Open Data from Governments, Own company — businesses, Own tools (Streak Apps) etc.
The mayor of city could use different kinds of sensors — Some examples where data collection could help: Camera video on cops, camera video inside train station to predict rush hours, sensors to inform of empty parking spots in a city, sensors on trashcans to optimize garbage collector routes and not pass by empty trashcans, etc.
As I mentioned earlier, you can apply it in your real life, but as well in your own job, even if your job is not in Tech. Whatever is your job you can be more data driven. Think about your work, aren’t they many tasks that could be automated? Wouldn’t you work on more creative tasks where you have an opportunity to try new stuff and learn?
Conclusion
For me a way to satisfy my curiosity and my appetite for Diversity as well as love for Science. It has changed my Life and the way I approach it. You don’t want to calculate everything. But the idea is basically “Work like a Machine to Live like a Human”, in order to find peace.
We are emotional animals so it’s a way to try to take emotions out. As I said, Data is not Evil, what matters is what you do with it.
Do you provide value? Are you helping out?
See you at work,
Maxence.