What Do We Do With All The Numbers?
Numbers. They are fraught with meaning. Or not.
Think back to last week’s 34 to 31 Super Bowl score. Think of World Cups, Olympic athletes and any number of cliffhanger election nights.
Numbers evoke the full and deep range of human emotion — passion, desire, rage, hope, triumph, disaster. Or they are just strings of digits.
Numbers are meaningless on their own without context. That’s something to remind ourselves in an age where Big Data is often held up as something sacrosanct and infallible.
Nate Silver, the New York Times data analyst who gained fame with his perfect state-by-state predictions for the last election, put it this way:
“The numbers have no way of speaking for themselves. We speak for them. We imbue them with meaning…Data-driven predictions can succeed — and they can fail. It is when we deny our role in the process that the odds of failure rise. Before we demand more of our data, we need to demand more of ourselves.”
We speak for the numbers. We bring our knowledge, experience and expertise. We make choices, decisions and judgments. We ignore some things. Favor others. We create the context that delivers a set of patterns, outcomes, findings.
Albert Einstein once said, “Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself anymore.”
Yes, data is as man-made as the mathematical language that it uses.
What gives it its power is the stuff in front of it, around it, beyond it. The stories we create. The context we give. The meaning we transfer.
Don’t get me wrong. Data teaches us, helps us articulate, empower and advance stories. That is its brilliance and its power. Yet the most vital brands today are not simply those who have mastered the numbers, but those who are masterful storytellers.
Brand Strategist and Content Creator
12 年"The most vital brands today are...those who are masterful storytellers." One of the most powerful data-driven storytellers is the economist Hans Rosling. His data-intensive TED talks blow my mind because he weaves such powerful and emotionally-resonant narratives with numbers as the vital support. In today’s competitive and cluttered workplace, it is not enough merely to “know the numbers,” to recite facts and figures as “proof” for this or that choice, decision or judgment. Interpreting data is much like interpreting history: As much an art as a science, told through the lense of the interpreter. And that is where storytelling takes flight.
Jury Trial Consultant | Applied Psychology Professor & Program Director USC (Retired)| Founder & President Leggett Jury Research
12 年There are many who can generate data. Interpreting it, evaluating its credibility, and making appropriate decisions based upon it is much more important.
.... lapses into sense in places but mainly short of coherence.... strong hints of Peter Sellers in "Being There"
CEO at RFPalooza
12 年And you're point is......?
Business Recycling Coordinator, City of Newport News
12 年excellent article... Fact is that numbers aer interesting things... When thrown around like confetti, people who do not really have a clue, (Read: The Media) push and prod them to make their point... But for those among us with a scientific background, I always take numbers and look for three things: Source, Accuracy and the intent of the generator... If you do not know what the intention of the provider of the statistics are, you can not be sure of what the numbers mean...