How do employees feel about data today?
It's an interesting question, and one that I address in my forthcoming book The Visual Organization: How Intelligent Companies Use Data Visualization To Make Better Decisions. As a student of data, management and technology, it's obvious to me that our relationship with data has changed over the last decade – and I'm not the only one who feels that way.
Jim Davis notes a few of these changes in his post about the view from the corner office:
- More of our employees want access to data than ever before.
- They want answers faster than before, too.
- They want the data in a format they can quickly understand and share with others.
In other words, employees want data that is more transparent, visual and shareable. Organizations like the University of Texas recognize these needs and have taken steps to empower their employees, students and the public at large.
Who would have predicted this 15 years ago? I can remember the early days of the Web. Overhyped B2B and B2C companies promised to disrupt everything. The dot-com bubble burst, ostensibly proving the naysayers right.
Now, that future has more or less come true – although certainly industries have seemed to prolong their increasingly antiquated models. (Cable and healthcare most readily come to mind.) As William Gibson once famously said, "The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed yet."
Simon says
Google deserves much of the credit or blame for the state of data today. (It all hinges on your point of view.) Impatient consumers are often impatient employees. Few of us want to wait for days or weeks to access information. IT is less likely to be seen as the gatekeeper or enterprise data – and it's about time.
This isn't good or bad. It just is. The question is, "What is your organization doing about the new data world?" Is your employer embracing it? Fighting it? Trying to get a little bit pregnant?
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What say you?
