too much data
Most people that lead want to do the right thing and please almost everyone.¬† It’s just a trait that the majority of us have where we like it when people are happy.¬† Directions in business as well as personal life come about from the need to move forward and all the while not pissing anyone off.¬† There is one big problem with this premise that no matter what a boss does, he/she will eventually upset someone for what ever reason.¬† I think PT Barnum said it best “You can’t please all the people all the time”.¬†
I work for a “data driven” organization where decisions are made when all the data has been analyzed.¬†¬†Translation – choices and options of where to go and when to do it are held up waiting for that one clear light of information that whispers “just do it”. ¬†¬†You see if you wait for any statistics to help with your options, you may be overloaded with too much information that makes it almost impossible to pick right.¬†
The computer age which is still going on, has given the ability for us to gather information that was overlooked decades ago.  We can pop a poll up on a website and get opinions as quickly as people read it. These of course are snapshots in time where for that one instant you got how a person feels about a particular subject.  Convenient, yes, Scientific, I think not, but you can get information you can use to help with a decision. 
This is all great Tom, but where are you going with this?¬† Well I’m reading some posts on blogs and websites around the universe and I see that in the healthy industry there are tons of different statistics gathered to help with a point of view.¬† The problem is that there is conflicting information that can run you into confusion when trying to do the right thing.¬†
Remember back in the 1960s when a study showed that saccharin caused bladder cancer in rats?¬† That news made people stop using “Sweet’N-Low” almost immediately and a temporary ban was put on saccharin.¬† Well the information was inconclusive since the dose given to rats was equivalent to 60 times what a human would ingest.¬† The ban was lifted and saccharin was available again.¬† No harm, no foul right?¬† Well not exactly the end result was that this company, once the outright leader in alternative sugar supplements, dropped into a distant 3rd place now.¬† It cost the company a lot of money and I’m sure people lost their jobs over it.¬†
This is just an example when information is given to people in statistical form and we run with it.  Please be careful and spend a little more time checking out the actual study and not just rely on news agencies to put their spin on it.  Make your own mind up and stay with it.
2 Comments until now
WAY TMD out there.
and the most detailed fantabulous study/’prescription’ even IF RIGHT wont work if it doesnt fit your lifestyle.
Hi one n all … When you put a whole lot of data together that is related to one subject, it can be collected to yield information. In other words, (sets of data) + (collection of related data sets) = information. Let‚Äôs say I want to buy a car. I can collect a lot of data about makes of cars, performance ratings, prices and so on. Once I do that, I have a lot of information about cars and the auto market. Until I think about this collection of data – this information – and put it in context, it is ‚Äúdumb.‚Äù By that I mean it has no meaning. This is what we are flooded with every day.
On the Internet, we can find lots and lots of information Рdumb collections of data. Some of that information may be useful, and some of it may be accurate. But living in an “information age” means we are flooded all the time with access to more information than we can possibly have time to put in context. We don’t have time to decide what it means, and it comes at us so fast! The amount of information available to anyone in the world today is absolutely staggering, given historical standards. It is truly, literally mind-boggling.
All my best to you and your knowledge
Phillip Skinner