I Am Not Data-Driven

These days it’s more than common to hear agencies say their work is “data-driven” in an attempt to let potential clients know they don’t just make cool shit. They make effective cool shit. But here’s the danger as I see it. Being “data-driven” suggests that the data is in control, that it's leading the way. It implies that strategy and creativity are being carted around by ones and zeros — that intuition, emotion, arguments, craft, disruption, and art can be calculated. The risk of just being “data-driven” is you'll only make effective shit.

Here’s the deal, data is a tool. A very powerful tool, yes. But it doesn’t have hands or feet, so it can’t drive anything. What it does do is fuel. It fuels people — strategists, creatives, storytellers.

So here’s my proposal. Let’s take the phrase “data-driven,” tie it up real tight. Toss it in the trunk of the ideas we are driving, and head out to the desert. On the way back to town we can stop at the nearest station and fill up with some data. Said simpler, my proposal is to replace "data-driven" with “data-fueled.”

Semantics, you say? No. The shift from “data-driven” to “data-fueled” signals to our teams that they are in the driver’s seat. It’s what they do with the data that makes effective cool shit.