Data Driven Decision: Are You Watching Closely?
You will never have all the information you need to make a decision with a 100% certainty. And yet, you’ll try.
We fail to recognize, or accept, that not all data will develop in actual information. Preventing the unforced error of processing data that is actually noise is necessary to make sensible decisions.
Everyday we consume data from plethora of sources, but do we actually get any information? Do we get any actionable insight or do we just ingest it as is and decide based on the emotions this “data” triggers?
Information is unlikely to be on the surface. To find it, data has to be dug, cleansed and analyzed with different lenses. When reading a book, watching a tv show, reading a news media outlet or listening to a podcast we are receiving subjective information in most cases. That means it has been tailored to the need of the producer to spark interest in the consumer. This doesn’t mean the data supporting this subjective information isn’t factual. But the objective behind consumer it will not necessarily align with the producer’s.
Many online newspapers choose the wording, length of the post, images and even reference sources based on their targeted audience. They serve a share of the audience. Newspapers are not alone in this. Tailoring the information to the audience happens through out our lives. When we are toddlers, we play with little story books that have 4 to 5 thick pages long. Most of our attention is focused on the drawings and not so much on the only sentence we see on any of the pages. The information we receive is in the colors, figures, patterns and that little bit of text. As we get older, that same book, is edited to have a lesser number of pictures and it is composed mostly of words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters and an index.
With confidence, we can say the type of consumer for those 2 books, with the same underlying story, is not the same. The first one is a blank slate. All new content or information received is ingested without further analysis. The latter one, by reading instead of just seeing the images can, maybe, deeply understand the fictional character’s complexity, background story and maybe trace a parallelism with some aspects of this own reality.
Basically, the same story can be told differently. The main question that needs to be answer is… “Are these narratives supported by the same facts?”
If you see the same story, a.k.a information, has gaps, omissions, different characters, timeline and/or even ending, then facts need to be checked. Check the cited references, if any. There has to be at least one root reference connecting them all. From there on, you can link the remaining of each story and see where they deviate, omit or enrich their facts and content. If no references are found, accepting the story is risky, to say the least.
Information is valuable if you act on it. Taking steps based on unfounded information will be a self-inflicting mistake. An awful, and sadly repetitive, example of this are the Ponzi Schemes. That continuously find ways to interest new audiences, but with different names. Let’s suppose a well-known friend of yours comes and tells you he has a good business opportunity for you with amazing returns. Shares that he has money already in it together with some other relatives. The story shared across all his relatives and your friend is alike. The opportunity has a lot of diversification, including real state, cash, retails, etc. That is the information you receive from all of them. But, what about the actual numbers of each investment? What is producing those amazing returns? Financial information would be root reference here. Including, cashflows and balance sheets. As said before information is not on the surface, you have to dig. Digging takes time, but correcting actions take due to unchecked stories takes longer.
To wrap up, not all that glitters is informative gold. Data can be misleading without proper analysis, and information itself can be subjective. News, entertainment, and even educational materials often present information with a specific bias, just like how children’s books tailor their content for different age groups. Don’t be fooled by narratives! To make great decisions, become an information detective. Dig deeper, check the source, and verify the underlying facts. Are you watching closely?
