Passion Trumps Data:How the data driven world just misses the point

As a generation X-er I'm now old enough to have experience, yet young enough to still have passion. I believe that my generation has missed the spot!  Today all I hear about is the Millennials.  Shoot, it used to be all about the Baby Boomers but you rarely hear about them anymore.

So as time passes and I reflect on this election it reminds me of my own Yogi Berra-isms: "there are only two problems with DATA--the collector and the interpreter."  That explains how Trump won.  The passion came out yet the data driven world we live in could only concentrate on just that...the data.  In this case the data was the "polls" and they got it wrong because they forgot how sales works.

I talk about sales because the greatest salesperson in the world is the politician.  He has only one product to sell--himself. In comedy, they say the hardest thing to do is make someone laugh. Try making someone believe that the best choice to be Senator, Congressman or, God forbid, President...is you. All you have to persuade with are your words and your past actions (which are always debatable).

If this were 30 years ago the three networks (wow, the "good ol' days") would have understood that Trump had much more than a 50/50 chance.  Why?  They would have had reporters going door to door, face to face, the old "man in the street" interview that gauged the true pulse.  Not the 15 predetermined questions asked in polls, each with a hidden meaning that in turn generated more data that lead to an election night filled with bewilderment and confusion, heartache and the question that rang through the night:  how could we have gotten it so wrong?  Well, the answer is in the data hahahahahah!

Alas, before the point is made "well the polls were only off by 2%", and the election results were within that margin.  So the question becomes was it worth the money to get the DATA?  This is where you should ask yourself how often you see you customers, how well you actually know your customer base.  That only comes from interaction.  No survey will tell you the DATA you desire, its old fashioned face to face interaction.