Repeal the Curiosity Tax Now!

By definition, a tax is a burden. It is a demand placed upon some valued resource – capital, time, power, whatever. In today’s data-rich business landscape, one of the great undisclosed taxes being levied is what is sometimes referred to as the Curiosity Tax.

The Curiosity Tax is a particularly insidious price that takes a variety of forms. It crops up every time a business executive has a question but is forced to wait for somebody else to find answers. It lurks when there is a hypothesis about a KPI or opportunity, but there are no tools available that enable the person to explore their ideas. Every time a decision is needed but is delayed by a lack of data-driven clarity, the tax collector has come.

In short, when the intellect is restrained, if data is being withheld by those able to use it, or wisdom is harder to acquire than it reasonably should be, your business is suffering under the Curiosity Tax. The tax is paid in creativity, innovation, and, inevitably, profitability.

Most organizations value some amount of curiosity as a catalyst for innovation. Except in rare instances, businesses don’t set out to impose the Curiosity Tax. This tax is nevertheless wholly a construct a business erects against its own best interest. 

In a way, that is the one good thing we can say about it because it suggests where to look for an answer to the question, “How do we repeal the tax?” It starts by looking inside. Here are three principles that underpin a campaign to repeal the Curiosity Tax:

1. Embrace transparency. This is not an argument for a free-for-all in which all data is accessible to everyone. It is, though, a recognition that there is value in creating an environment where access is possible. It is certainly a proposition that businesses and enterprises should not be taxing themselves in this way, restricting the ability of the business scientists in their midst to solve problems, predict outcomes, and optimize practices. Individuals with business knowledge need data to explore their ideas. Analysts also need access to the data behind the models to validate conclusions. Sometimes business scientists need to be allowed to drift out of their lanes, too, to pursue their ideas to a conclusion.
2. Demand Augmented Analytics We have rapidly progressed from the world of just a couple of years ago where the data scientist with their higher-order math proficiency and advanced programming skills were the gatekeepers for all meaningful data exploration. Radical new tools using natural language processing, automated discovery, visual cues, and backed by self-service AI powered Analytics (Augmented Analytics) technology allow anyone with strong business domain knowledge to develop and explore a hypothesis while retaining responsible boundaries and corporate governance. This capability is to be encouraged, not constrained. In fact, business knowledge may be the most important ingredient in teasing out an opportunity that clinical data science might miss.
3. Reward Curiosity We need to encourage curiosity, not disincentivize it. Data only has value when it is given a sense of purpose (outcomes focussed) & combined with curiosity. Thus the Curiosity Tax comes with two costs: restricting one’s ability to get value from data and limiting the ability to weave high-value, insightful stories from the data. Data is cheap raw material that should be set free so it can be converted into its purest, most refined form – the story. There are endless, untold stories, each with the potential to solve a problem, improve an outcome, or predict the future. Create a culture where the storytellers – the business scientists – are encouraged to disseminate their narratives, to welcome feedback, and to spur others to challenge them and unleash their own curiosity to sharpen their ideas.

Just a few years ago, such a blog post would have been little more than lofty campaign slogans, emotionally appealing but lacking in substance. Today the tools exist to repeal the Curiosity Tax. The people are ready. And while it may be impractical to institute overnight on a companywide scale, it is easy to seed the landscape for change. By removing the burden of the Curiosity Tax and giving a few pioneering business scientists the opportunity to answer the many “what if” questions that come to them every day, an organization can start changing minds and building momentum for a bright future! 

See you at Dreamforce !