Friday, July 29, 2022

CMIIW: Data is a Life Story

 

(This article is opinion as a professional with 10+ years experiences, not a mean to thus bring down any company/person, thus the title CMIIW)

 

Technology has been growing immensely, especially after millennium, and it affect our life directly or indirectly. Most people, whether they admit it or not, were depending on technology in their daily life. And the thing that technology has in common is the data that they got from every single aspect of life. In the era of machine learning, it is important to notice the pattern of certain segment and give notes to develop better understanding and enhancing the machine learning. Yet even then, there bound to be things that deviate from the user need and therefore the profession related to data processing emerge rapidly.

Data. A simple word yet very powerful tools if someone know how to use it. Nowadays, businesses are busy finding personnel who has experience or expertise in the field of data, be it Data Analyst, Data Scientist, Data Management, and other title related to it. Many claims to be an expert, yet there are also discontent from the employers that the people they hired could not fulfil the said role.

From the experience gained with many companies I’ve worked and my other clients, there are similarities of problems that the companies encounter. Majority of them are the inability to translate the management need with the actual condition, or the inability to read the trend for future use, or the lack of understanding of what is important for other divisions to deliver their best performance/KPI.

Although the education nowadays was giving chances for being a professional in data processing industry, yet there are things that people forgot to get enough exposure of which is data about people itself. Things are easy to read once it was written down in data language, be it in a table form or journal or many other things. Yet people are not that easy to read, because there are certain aspects that may influence the decision someone take from the other. Some ethnicities may do certain things when they are introduced to new exposure, some religion may have certain habit at certain period compared to other, or someone that grew up in a single-parent household might also decide things differently from those with big family background.

Therefore, the journey to make a map of data is truly a fascinating subject that has no limit if you have immense creativity and curiosity. Enough pattern may also lead to the change of how business will develop in the future, due to the habit of the customer and people in overall. This is what the business is aiming for, to hit the jackpot of riding the trend people are doing or be the trendsetter and stay in the front of the game from other businesses.

Developed countries are already up their game in the data-related profession, and yet they are also still need some more breakthrough to keep on the top of their game. Whereas the developing countries are still struggling in introducing the importance of data in most aspects of life. However, the problem is not only stop there, but it just started. The reason I said Data is Life Story is because of in anything we do, people are generating data.

In daily example, person A woke up daily in average on 6.30-7.00 am. This implies that there are things that might be triggered afterwards like making coffee, how much electricity used while making coffee, breakfast, bath, etc. Then there’s the habit of smoking and its impact in the health of the person, whether it is a habit or just for socializing and it may also affect the trend whether this person will retain this habit in the future or not. When person A work, how long does he sit, call, check emails and so on. There are plenty of data in even the minutes detail, which evoke the study on human behavior, consumer behavior and many other things. This data also became the trigger of why the influencers also picked up certain themes at one moment and other in the other, evoking debates and this also collecting many other supporting data. That is why I say that data is a fascinating subject because it touches many things and can igniting much other.

Another example, Company B is using 2kgs coffee bean in average, however during June and December the usage is only 1kg beans due to holiday, or in March the usage is 4kgs due to some other reason. Although it is a simple habit of coffee bean usage, this data can also affect many other things for Company B, and other companies that have cooperation with them. Therefore, data is not really a simple 1+1=2 but a myriad expression within that may make 1+1=100

Data-related profession is not only touching the aspects that can be easily seen like those habits, but it also digging deeper into the decision of why such things happened, and what will be the impact if certain things change. Management called it Plan A, Plan B, etc., some will say it as scenarios, and it all depend on the language each person use. Yet, it is coming from the same source, data that were taken from

Some people may say that data is fascinating, while others may have an indifferent attitude about it, or maybe some even find it boring. It all depends on the perspective of the people who are dealing with it. For business to thrive in this era and further, they need to be interested and delve even deeper than what they are doing right now. Because after all, there is one common thing each business has, which is their customers are people.

People are trying to develop Artificial Intelligence and each of the result breaking through its predecessor, it is in truth comprised of boxed information that interlinking each other in a seamless manner. Yet there are much more possibilities that have yet to be found even up to today. The algorithms itself is still calculating each possibility there in their designated box of expertise. Sometimes, the findings can cause someone to scrap the knowledge they have known for their entire life to be unbiased in accepting the new revelation.

Same as biography or autobiography that supposedly share certain person’s life story, it only zoomed in into chosen part of that person life that are worthy to be told of instead of all the nitty gritty. However, is that enough to know the person in deep? Definitely not. Because it is designed to let people know what they allow you to know. That is why in the title it is said that data is equivalent as a life story. Because you are only allowed to know what the presenter wanted you to know. Be it the process or other things that may or may not affecting the result, it is another different perspective.

 

= AS =

July 29, 2022