What Is Your Data Driven Narrative?

During my sophomore year of college, I boarded the data train and never got off. I worked in the VCU School of Business doing data analysis to assist the mentoring programs. I focused primarily on user data. Who was participating and what was their major, industry, experience, etc. Now I'm a data analyst with an IT consulting firm where I get to do similar work for various clients. I'm definitely living the dream. Another deciding factor that told me the data train was the place to be was the TedTalk shown above. Talithia Williams is a tenured statistician, mathematician, and professor at Harvey Mudd College. I first came across her watching this TedTalk about owning your body's data. Because of Mrs. Williams, I got interested in data about myself. I started getting curious about my own data-driven narrative.

We talk about creating data driven narratives to impact decision making for the public, private, and non-profit sectors. We aim to help businesses make decisions so that they can grow their businesses, make money, and do their part in the overall economic ecosystem. This is a pretty good motivation to get into data. However, though these entities also collect data about people, they hardly seem to use it in a meaningful way in regards to decision making. To be fair, they hardly have the time. There are over 7 billion people in the world. How are they going to know the data for that many people like the back of their hands? Luckily, we as people have the power to do so. We get to be responsible for one person (ourselves) in the 7 billion. In this TedTalk, Williams discusses that when she was pregnant with her third child, the doctor wanted to induce since she was "overdue," but when she dug into the data with the doctor, she found that inducing the baby wasn't necessary. Later, her husband was having breathing problems and was diagnosed with a heart attack, but it was quickly found out through a data-driven discussion that he had just poorly mixed some medication, and there was another solution. Williams learned then that having data about yourself can actually help you make more informed decisions in the medical field instead of relying solely on doctors to know your story.

So, what is your data-driven narrative? I started this process as part of a summer project. I wanted to understand my perception of thoughts. So I listed some variables. I constructed a dashboard with major life influencers, their opinions, and my thoughts on those opinions. I discovered that my brain perceives thoughts in a binary sphere and gets stuck in a dramatic cycle. That's a fancy way of saying that I can objectively know something and subjectively feel the opposite about it and get stuck in that infinite loop. Knowing that has helped me to self-soothe and regulate my own mood by understanding that I'm actually stuck in a loop and can use the mindfulness techniques I've adopted to get out of it and leave that thought cycle alone. Before knowing this information, I was always struggling to understand why I couldn't get past a situation or why I was always making things bigger than what I knew they were. I learned all of this from data.

A quote from the famous African-American poet, Nikki Giovanni, reads: "If you don't understand yourself, you don't understand anyone else." We use data to make decisions about other people, processes, etc. The data we use to make decisions should start with us. Williams advocated tracking your own weight, temperature, blood pressure, and other factors. I personally am no where near ready to start collecting that information (check with me when I can start hitting the gym again). Still, I do collect other data. I track the foods I eat, the steps I take, my mood, and my income and expenses. We know that data empowers us to make more informed decisions. Knowing data about myself has done exactly that. I know when I tend to eat certain things to determine when to switch up the menu. I know when I haven't been moving around enough or taking enough walks. I can track when I may sink into a depressive mood and when I might be getting anxious or overstimulated. I know when I spend more money and when I spend less.

I wrote this article because this idea seemed so novel to me. It was something no one had ever talked with me about. I was taught about data analysis through the lens of "show the organization the money." I was supposed to use data to help businesses make money in smart and ethical ways. Talithia Williams says, "show me the data." To me, that phrase gets a little closer to the ideal. We all know we showed up to make money. That nowadays goes without saying. Now, we need to show each other the data to answer the big questions. Why does one decision make sense over another? How is the chance "doubling" over time? Who is this really about? What should we do given different scenarios? What's the most feasible option and why? When should we make the decision? How long do we have? The list goes on. The only thing that can safely answer these questions or even start us down the path is data.

The way I see it, we use data for our businesses, to keep people safe in health care, and to keep up with the various ever-changing industries. If we'll do it for those purposes, we can also use it for ourselves. The human experience is not one size fits all. We were all created differently. Not everyone's temperature is a perfect 98.6 degrees. Some people run warmer. Some run colder. 150 pounds on one person won't carry the same on another. Even knowing that, we'll make decisions based on the "average" and the "typical" because that's all we know. Now, we can't expect whole industries to know us all on a one-on-one basis. However, we can know ourselves that deeply and bring our narratives to the conversations. Thanks to data, we can be an integral part in the understanding of our lives, bodies, and minds.

It's your story. Own it! What is your data driven narrative?