Data artist and data liars

“Be data driven”

“We want a single source of truth”

“What does the data say about this?”

This is the data echo chamber that we live in.

But there’s a secret that we don’t talk about enough.

Data isn’t objective.

Data isn’t “facts” or truth.

Data is fungible.

It can mean whatever people want it to mean.

You can lie with statistics and with charts alike.

If you don’t set the rules for data, someone else will.

If you don’t have shared objectives, competing incentives will tug-of-war over the narrative.

Data is art and science.

Many days it feels far more like art.

I’m glad you are here,

Sawyer

from The Data Shop