BUILDING COMFORT WITH DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS: Introduction

The last decade has seen Data science and its related sub-disciplines attract a lot of attention from individuals and institutions. Data analysis, analytics, engineering, and so on have been found to have a myriad of applications in several industries: from finance to construction, real estate, energy, medicine, and so on. The central theme to all of the above is "Data".

Data is all around us and we interact with data at different points, whether we are taking notes during a lecture, collecting customer information, recording sales, logging leave days, analyzing petrophysical results, ranking prospects, or querying an already existing database.

While data literacy has seen rapid improvements in the last decade, many individuals and professionals still struggle to understand how data interacts with their lives or core industry and functions. This is especially common in traditional professions such as teaching, engineering, law enforcement, etc. Understanding the role of data, its different forms, and applications in our different spaces would therefore be a valuable addition to any professional's working knowledge.

Personally, I have this broad view about what constitutes data due to my experiences in Entrepreneurship, Accounting, and more recently, Geoscience. Through these experiences, I have gained a better understanding of the different types of data, and how they influence the majority of organizational decisions. For example, with limited funds available, should the management of a company invest in the purchase of an asset or should they upskill staff in the use of a modern tool, or methodology. Another example would be the consideration of two drilling projects based on reservoir size, hydrocarbon type, immediate company needs, quick wins, or longer-term strategic goals. In both examples above, data collection, organization, analysis, and communication of insights generated from said analysis is key.

Over the next couple of releases, I seek to expatiate on the role of data and its different forms, especially in the different industries. This is so that the concept of data and its different uses can be introduced to individuals, students, and professionals who may not be too familiar with the concept.

I will talk about:

1. Data and what it means to different industries, sources, and uses.

2. Data, Basic Statistics and how it affects different aspects of work.

3. Simple tools used in working with data (Hint: you may already work with some)

4. How to improve your overall data literacy with courses.

I look forward to subsequent interactions.