Imagine two marketing people sitting across a table from a data analyst. Marketing wants “simple numbers,” they say, and the analyst understands. The three of them know all the past conversations, the questions that arose and were answered, the points that got made, the conclusions or unresolved questions that remained.
Easy enough. But now with the rise of so-called “smart cities,” where the data spigots open and everyone with any point of view at all takes part, things can get into a mess. There, the starkly disparate points of view, which in business get talked through in relative calm, really show teeth.
Imagine the scene: From the city might come staff analysts, department heads, even elected officials. From the public come experts from interest-groups, grassroots politicians eager to make a name for themselves, owners of mom’n’pop stores, or even the even the grandmother who’s mad as hell. Each side — there may be several sides, and even divisions within each one — may have never set eyes on the other before, though some may know each other from decades of work together. Everyone’s got a different idea of past conversations, or no idea at all.
If only they had a nice, simple tool — as simple as a book, notepad, or whiteboard but also available for fast searches before meetings or quick refreshers on a tablet held just out of view from everyone else. Something as simple as — to use a metaphor by Alation vice president of marketing Stephanie McReynolds — a bicycle. You could walk across town, but it’s a lot easier on a bike. It has no hidden parts. Like any good machine, it makes more of whatever effort you exert.
Past conversations — rich with context, observations, and ideas — can be preserved and studied. Then those who like “simple numbers” might really talk.
“Smart” starts with context. Real decisions, no matter what data anyone has, still takes place among people — every one of whom has to know the context of any decision they’re part of.
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