Posts

What is the purpose of data? V2

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We continually move towards better data-led decisions; however, we can easily ask our dataset’s wrong question. Without understanding “What is the purpose of data” on which we are basing decisions and judgements, it is easy to get an answer that is not in the data. How can we understand if our direction, Northstar or decision is a good one?  Why am I interested in this? I am focusing on how we improve governance and oversight in a data-led world.  I wrote a lengthy article on Data is Data. It was a kickback at the analogies that data is oil, gold, labour, sunlight - data is not. Data is unique; it has unique characteristics. That article concluded that the word “Data” is also part of the problem, but we should think of data as if discovering a new element with unique characteristics.   Data is a word, and it is part of the problem.  Data doesn’t have meaning or shape, and data will not have meaning unless we can give it context. As Theodora Lau eloquently p...

Does data have a purpose?

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We are continually moving towards better data-led decisions, however, without understanding “What is the purpose of data / Does data have a purpose”   on which we are basing decisions and judgements, it is hard to understand if our north star (a good decision) is a good one.  Why am I interested in this, as I am focusing on how we do governance and oversight better in a data-led world.  I wrote a lengthy article on Data is Data. It was a kickback at the analogies that data is oil, gold, labour, sunlight - data is not. Data is unique; it has unique characteristics. That article concluded that the word “Data” is also part of the problem, but we should think of data as if discovering a new element with unique characteristics.    For a while, the data community has rested on two key characteristics of data: non-rivalrous ( which plays havoc with our current understanding of ownership ) and non-fungible ( which is true if you assume that data carries informati...

Mapping Consumer Financial Services through a new lens!

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Unpacking and explaining the Peak Paradox model is here , you will need this backgrounder to understand the model so that this article will make sense; it is a 5-minute read. A new way of seeing the same thing will mean we can act differently; this is the peak paradox model’s core tenet.  ---- A recurring question on an executives mind in the finance industry is; “ Why does up or cross-selling not deliver in the way we forecast or predict? ”  Cross-selling is foundational hypnosis for growth.  H0; this customer has one product, and therefore they should want my other products; all customers need all my core finance products.  With years of data, it is evident that a customer who uses my payment system does not want my other products, and after years of cross-selling we still only have 30% of customers with all products. Whilst we can conclude there is a problem with the hypothesis, we choose to ignore this fact and continue to try to upsell as we don’t have a framew...

Data: Governance and Geopolitics

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Interesting article here from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Written by Gregory F. Treverton , a senior adviser. “How data is governed can be thought of along several lines of activity: legislating privacy and data use, regulating content, using antitrust laws to dilute data monopolies, self-regulating by the tech giants, regulating digital trade, addressing intellectual property rights (IPR) infringement, assuring cybersecurity, and practicing cyber diplomacy. Of these, antitrust, regulation, and privacy are most immediately in the spotlight, and are the focus of this commentary, but it will also touch briefly on the connections with other issues.” I have written a lot that data is data ( and not oil) but this article misses the point about the difference between Data Governance (micro) Data Governance (marco) Governance with Data Data governance (micro) is a massively important and large field focused on ensuring that the quality, provenance, lineage of data,...

The World’s Most Influential Values, In One Graphic

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Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/most-influential-values/ Add this to my principles and rules thinking about how to connect risk frameworks.   The key point is the delta.  Will map this onto Peak Paradox

Rethinking the Borad

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Interesting article here at  DEMYST  by Neil Tsappis and Dr Tamara Rusell , presenting principles for a new boardroom operating model.  Worth a read. Worth picking up on several themes 1. diversity at the board - and the assumption that balance is what we want to achieve.  Balance in representation and balance in decisions/ judgment. Compremise may not be the right answer. 2.  Huristics - assumes we have rules, most boards I would suggest have to continually create new ways of working and understanding, therefore resting back on ways of doing something is not going to get to better decisions. 3. fully agree with the market articulation, faster, quicker and more complex.  But we don't actually question the structure of the board and its role.  It apppers to be sacrosanct.   I have explored a few times Organistion 2.0 - where we question the entire thinking.  4. It does not address the skills gap in data - this to me is something we...

Peak Paradox

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In the world full of human bias,  exploring paradox might help us explain our differences. Kaliya (Identity Woman ) and I wrote “ Humans want principles, society demands rules and businesses want to manage risk, can we reconcile the differences?   Have been noodling on that framework of linking purpose and rules with a few friends. This article explores how to look for a paradox within our known cognitive bias and how to identify and manage differences. ---- I follow the excellent work of my friend Rory Sutherland and Nir Eyal (Nir & Far) who are both leading thinkers in behavioural science and economics along with the great Daniel Kahneman . I reflected following a call with the most read man on the planet Robbie Stamp CEO of BIOSS ( a company who can assess capabilities for complex decision makin g), about how to frame bias and conflicts. We are aware that there are over 180 cognitive biases of human behaviour, which because of differences between us; create uniqu...