My Data Protection Diary: 14 Reasons To Fall In Love With Data.

Written on 19 February 2021.

Hi everyone,

Welcome to the second instalment of my Diary of 2021.

These days, the pages of social networks are coloured with red and hearts, to celebrate Valentine's Day.

Being a social media expert, I pause to look at what companies and individuals are sharing on their pages for this day (offers of products and services, love messages, flowers, typical sweets, bottles of wine, etc...). All these posts, to celebrate February 14th, gave me the right inspiration to write my new entry for this month.

Well, here I am, red pen in hand, white sheet, and so much love in telling you about one of the most overwhelming lessons I have been attending with the two Databasix experts, Kellie and Regina.

In love with the word 'love' and passionate about my daily work, I struggled a little to find the right combination between these two 'ingredients'. The result was a wonderful online session with an exchange of ideas and different ways of expressing love.

One Friday afternoon, the meeting started with a topic from me: '14 reasons to fall in love with Data'.

Hearts opened and our voices coloured this new blank page of 'My Data Protection Diary'. Here are 14 reasons to fall in love with data.

1. First, Kellie mentioned a fundamental aspect that makes the world of data fascinating. The real motivational engine of a company is customer satisfaction. What do people like about your business? The answer is customer feedback. Each review is a collection of data, and each star you acquire on the web is a ranking of your company's reputation. Positive data statistics are the decision indices for other consumers.
   
   
2. Every company is made up of individuals. Every company is successful if the available human resources are suitable for that type of job. The data allows recruiters to select the right staff for each organization in relation to one data container: the CV. Data help HR to make the right decision.
   
   
3. Numerical representation of data can produce fascinating, colourful, and useful visual graphs. Millions of data presented visually, in a graph or can reveal a story. Have you seen ‘Information is Beautiful’? We think you should check it out!
   
   
4. Kellie asked: would you ever have been able to track coronavirus parameters without data on people who are symptomatic, asymptomatic or who have died from Covid-19? The answer is no. The data about the circumstances in which we are living are essential to understand trends of the global pandemic.
   
   
5. Regina intervenes by suggesting one more reason to be passionate about this world of data. Thanks to the trends you have the possibility to predict strategies to improve the current situation. Data is critical to understanding how to manage response during a pandemic, nationally and locally – even to an individual level with the COVID-19 app.
   
   
6. Trends are not only important during a pandemic, adds Kellie, but they are also essential for planning future strategies for your business. The annual or monthly report, produced from data, is essential to have a solid roadmap for the future. And if data is fundamental for the strategies to be implemented, Regina adds one more reason…
   
   
7. … with the right data within your organization you can recognize errors. You can explore where an error originated from, why it happened and understand how to fix it for the future.
   
   
8. For every organization, data is essential to achieving success... but now is the time to add some non-business reasons to love this world of data. Since all three are nature lovers, we cannot fail to mention the importance of data for understanding human behaviour at the expense of the earth. Through data collection and analysis via satellites and remote sensors, we are aware of how much pollution there is on our planet and how many harmful gases we are producing. How the latter can transform our landscapes is evident from satellite imagery over time.
   
   
9. The data can be transformed into imagery to visualise the impact of the damage that has been caused, such as, for example, the fire in California and Australia. This allows us to study the environmental impact today and what the future consequences may be.
   
   
10. Continuing this theme, we wanted to share with you one more reason to love data, our project with Uganda. We were working on a collaborative data project funded by the UK Space Agency. Working with experts in the field, data analysis about weather forecasting, local agriculture, earth observation data and platform development, Databasix helped the project team to engage stakeholders and ensure the data would be useful for people to make decisions.
    
    Wow, we have already provided 10 great reasons to love the world of data. Regina provides two more, shifting the focus to the sports sector.
    
    
11. She is passionate about running, she loves running. And like every athlete, loves to see performance progress. The data provided by your running watch that allows you to track your progress. As you improve your performance, your motivation grows every day. Setting a goal and measuring it is only possible thanks to data!
    
    
12. Our expert continues the conversation, stating that by tracking the calories of foods you can forecast which exercises are the most adequate for your body. Let me say: Wow! We do not realise how many tasks we perform using always and only data!!
    
    At the beginning of my session with Kellie and Regina, I thought 14 reasons were too many. Well, only two are missing and our ideas are still many. We talked about the correlation between data and business, between data and nature, between data and sport... now it is the turn of my motivations that led me to be in love with the world of data.
    
    
13. My main topic of interest is Marketing. From my first lessons at university, I learnt that marketing objectives must be measured and tracked. Without data, how would we marketers have done? Every Monday, I select data to present in my Strategic Report to see if my strategy is right or not. This is the daily motivation to improve myself and my impact on my company. Thanks to the world of data, we can measure not only progression, but also satisfaction and effort.
    
    
14. Last but not least, the data allows me to quantify how many people listen to the Databasix podcast each week. Without those statistics, knowing people around the world are listening in, the Friday morning motivation to create a new episode might not have been as strong as it is.

Thanks, data, for keeping us always so motivated.

Having come to the end of my February instalment, I invite you to reflect on how much and in which ways data are important in your daily lives. Treat them with care!
I hope this quite different session has been interesting for you and if you have any more reasons to fall in love with this world... let me know, I will take it as a starting point for the next page.

Love is in the air, data is all around the world!
See you soon xxx
Giulia