Is that meaningless data?
I'm not a big quotes guy, but one of the few I love comes from Peter Drucker in The Effective Executive: ""The greatest wisdom not applied to action and behavior is meaningless data."
Put another way: If the data tells you something but you don't act on it, that data is useless.
This is why I insist to my clients that collecting the least amount of data required to get the job done is always best. Because the reality is, even when we have more data, we rarely act on it.
For example: Are you collecting demographic data on your members? And if you are, how are you using that data? What action and behavior is actually being effected by knowing that data?
Now look at every piece of data you collect and ask yourself: "How is this data being used? What action and behavior is changing as a result of this data?" If you can't provide really solid answers to these questions, you probably don't need that data.
Like Drucker says: If you're not applying your wisdom, it's meaningless data.
Wes's Wednesday Wisdom Archives
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