Tartle Best Data Marketplace
Tartle Best Data Marketplace
Tartle Best Data Marketplace
Tartle Best Data Marketplace
June 11, 2021

Humanizing Data

Humanizing Data
BY: TARTLE

Humanizing Data

Data, data, data, everyone keeps talking about data. And for good reason. It’s an incredibly useful tool for understanding our world, responding to it and even changing it. As always, there are good and bad ways to view and deal with data. Data can be used to figure out the best way to get fresh food into the inner city or it can be used to convince you that a diet based on mac and cheese out of a box is a good thing. Data is merely a tool, a neutral entity that can be used to accomplish whatever the user desires, good or bad. 

The difference in how one uses data depends a lot on one’s particular perspective on what that data represents. It is easy to view data only as a collection of ones and zeros that can be shuffled around in whatever way you deem necessary to get what you want. When dealing in the digital realm, it is extremely easy to view it all as abstract, not connected to anything except what you want. 

TARTLE has a different way of looking at data. It only seems abstract, in truth, it is incredibly real and concrete because at the end of every string of ones and zeros is a person. When you realize that, you undertand all of that data you are taking in and analyzing represents real people, their actions, their thoughts and desires. When you realize that all of that data is inextricably connected with real people, it should fundamentally change how you treat it. Rather than something to manipulate for your own ends, it should be treated with respect, something to help improve the lives of others. 

That’s why TARTLE operates on a Sherpa model, we use our gifts and a talents not first and foremost to build our business but to help people achieve their own goals. Does that actually work though? Won’t that depress the bottom line? First, that is the wrong way to look at it. A company needs to make money, obviously. But the rate of profit doesn’t have to keep going up exponentially. That kind of outlook leads to exactly the kind of manipulative and short term thinking we are trying to change at TARTLE. Second, focusing on people first can actually increase the bottom line. When WD-40 had a change of leadership in the recent past, their stock wound up shooting up in value. Why? Because the new CEO saw problems in the culture of the company, it was focused on squeezing what it could out of what it already had. Instead, he put people first. That meant changing the way employees were treated and it meant making WD-40 available to more people around the world. He genuinely believed in the product and saw no reason it wouldn’t sell as well in India as it does in the US. Before long, the company’s value and profits started going up.

So, how does one change this mindset within a company? A recent article by S. Renee Smith has some thoughts on this.

Increase empathy – Remember that at the end of all that data are people, people with thoughts, feelings, and stories of their own. When you see people rather than numbers, it’s easier to exhibit basic virtues like compassion. 

Engage listeners – Leaders are often caught up in their own bubbles. They spend time in meetings with peers or people directly working under them, or just at their desks buried in paperwork and phone calls. Even with the right mindset, they are still disconnected from the others in the workplace. They need to get out of the office and talk to the people out on the floor. They should learn those personal stories we mentioned above. This goes a long way to building credibility and more importantly keeps the leaders grounded in reality. 

Inspire mission – It isn’t enough for leaders to be grounded. They need to lift people up. That means getting out there and working to inspire them. Remind them what the company’s mission is. If it doesn’t have one or it’s a bad one, then make a new one. One that isn’t focused inward but outward towards the greater world.

TARTLE is focused on this every day, working to build a world in which everyone recognizes that data is more than a tool, it’s a connection to people. A connection that when treated with to proper respect can be used to change the world.

What’s your data worth?

Summary
Humanizing Data
Title
Humanizing Data
Description

As always, there are good and bad ways to view and deal with data. Data can be used to figure out the best way to get fresh food into the inner city or it can be used to convince you that a diet based on mac and cheese out of a box is a good thing. Data is merely a tool, a neutral entity that can be used to accomplish whatever the user desires, good or bad. 

Feature Image Credit: Envato Elements
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For those who are hard of hearing – the episode transcript can be read below:

TRANSCRIPT

Speaker 1 (00:07):

Welcome to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future, and source data defines the path.

Alexander McCaig (00:24):

Jason, welcome back to another beautiful morning here. I really enjoyed this one consultant's perspective.

Jason Rigby (00:35):

Yeah, S. Renee Smith.

Alexander McCaig (00:36):

Renee Smith. Is she from Delaware?

Jason Rigby (00:38):

Yes.

Alexander McCaig (00:39):

She had a great perspective on data. So, I really wanted to talk about her viewpoint and expand upon it, because she aligns a lot with what we're talking about.

Jason Rigby (00:49):

Yeah. They talked about the downturn in 2020, and then also the economic downturn, and then the undeniable racial disparities that we're seeing now. And it's in that and alone, she says, has created a greater appetite for data.

Alexander McCaig (01:02):

Yeah.So, racial disparities. If we already look at a system that's fragile, and it's not built with an egalitarian mindset, when you introduce a systemic problem-

Jason Rigby (01:14):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (01:15):

It's only going to make things worse. The system's already fragile, so you break it down even further, and that causes people to be isolated. What this... Renee, right?

Jason Rigby (01:23):

Yeah, Renee.

Alexander McCaig (01:23):

What Renee is talking about is that when she looks at that data, she looks at it like they're not numbers. This is people on the other end that are generating this information, so we have to take the humanistic feel. You have to open up our perspective that when you analyze big data, you're analyzing people, not just numbers.

Jason Rigby (01:42):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (01:42):

It's a very important thing to understand.

Jason Rigby (01:44):

Yeah, that's what she said. She says, "As an expert in developing leaders, numbers don't mean much to me, unless there's a clear connection to the people they represent."

Alexander McCaig (01:50):

That's precisely correct. So when she goes and she delivers a message to a leader through some sort of business intelligence to say, "Look at this data we have." It's not only that, it's like, "Look at what these people are saying."

Jason Rigby (01:58):

Yes.

Alexander McCaig (01:59):

That small change. Even though data is the fundamental base of all of it, that small change alters their perspective on how we actually appreciate that data that we're receiving and the answers it gives us.

Jason Rigby (02:10):

Yeah. Because she's talking about work, in and of itself, which we've done an episode on that, where we talked about work. But whenever she said, "You understand problems such as inequity, power dynamics, workplace cultures that oppress and traumatize individuals and groups of people, as well as how these issues disrupt families, communities, and business growth."

Alexander McCaig (02:29):

Yeah.

Jason Rigby (02:29):

So, helping these business leaders understand, find and implement solutions to these challenge, she's recognizing that data is central to her work.

Alexander McCaig (02:36):

Yeah. I think data is going to be helpful from an agnostic format for showing the systemic effects of a business, and the choices made within the business, and the products and services affecting those people. At first, I was like, "Great, the product made the money. I don't have to think about it anymore." What is it beyond that? How has it really being used?

Jason Rigby (02:52):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (02:52):

You know what I mean? It's like, "Great, the internet is out there, but then also have Silk Road, and people are selling a bunch of heroin on it.

Jason Rigby (03:01):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (03:02):

You got to look at beyond the product, whatever it might be, heroin or a toy doll, whatever it is.

Jason Rigby (03:09):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (03:09):

How is it actually getting used by the [crosstalk 00:03:11]

Jason Rigby (03:11):

Or heroin being smuggled in, into toy dolls.

Alexander McCaig (03:14):

Into toy dolls. You know what I mean? So there's a disparity there on perspective. This is shown with a really cool statistic that said 68% of the leaders think that they're doing the right thing. This is kind of a funny comment. You're a leader and you think you're doing the right thing.

Alexander McCaig (03:34):

How are you so unsure that what you're doing is correct, that it is helpful, unifying, it is something that helps people evolve? Right? How do you have to ... "Oh, I think it's correct." How are you so unsure if something is just the right thing to do? Does it harm people?

Jason Rigby (03:51):

Well, it's also like looking at data as a revenue source [inaudible 00:03:57] to looking at data as helping humanity.

Alexander McCaig (03:59):

Yeah. And that's what [inaudible 00:04:00] a revenue source. So for them to change that perspective is interesting. But human beings that support their systems, what was it, 15%?

Jason Rigby (04:07):

Yes.

Alexander McCaig (04:08):

15% of people? Look at those companies say they're doing the right thing. 85% of the population of people that interact with these businesses' services feel that these people are crooks.

Jason Rigby (04:19):

Yeah. And she said 68% of business leaders think they're doing the right thing.

Alexander McCaig (04:24):

That's what I'm saying, 68%.

Jason Rigby (04:25):

The disparity.

Alexander McCaig (04:26):

They think they're doing the right thing. But then people who support these companies say that, "Hey, we don't feel you're doing the right thing." But there's no communication.

Jason Rigby (04:36):

No.

Alexander McCaig (04:37):

There's no proactive dialogue. There's a lack of data collection and understanding from those people. These companies take their own data and a little bit of data from the supply chain, and assume everything is going well. And hopefully they get a Google review, and maybe they'll answer it real quick.

Alexander McCaig (04:52):

But they don't understand truly the systemic effects that are happening here. So when she talks about humanizing data, and showing systemic effects of it, that can help with those racial disparities.

Jason Rigby (05:01):

Yeah. And understanding that the data that you're taking in, that there's a responsibility to it.

Alexander McCaig (05:07):

Yeah. That's exactly correct. You have to be responsible to those people and what they are creating, there's value in their thoughts and their interactions. You need to value that properly, rather than the saying, "Great. Look at all this stuff we collected."

Jason Rigby (05:21):

Yeah. She said this, "When executives leave the comfort of their corner offices, and have conversations with real people, those experiences influence and reframe the meaning of data."

Alexander McCaig (05:30):

That's correct. They're so isolated on perspective, they have to open that up. And so, when they can have conversations with all the people that interact with their product or service, or don't interact with it, that's going to change and reframe how they're going to operate as leaders.

Jason Rigby (05:43):

Yeah. And she mentioned a study she was on, she served on the Delaware Commission on Early Education in the economy. And she said there was members of the commission. And she was more than 20 business leaders. She was talking about high quality, early learning programs, [inaudible 00:00:05:59], especially for at-risk learners, how beneficial that was early on.

Alexander McCaig (06:04):

Yeah.

Jason Rigby (06:04):

And then how people were just ... The data showed that. But then people were just denying it.

Alexander McCaig (06:08):

Yeah, for those at-risk learners, they found that if they could foster that creativity in that learning-

Jason Rigby (06:11):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (06:12):

Sooner, it would keep them in school longer.

Jason Rigby (06:14):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (06:15):

It would actually increase their outcomes later on down the road. But other people were like, "No, no, no." But if the data specifically showed that, and then she helped get together that $9 million grant that actually went towards those early stage learners, those people that were at risk.

Jason Rigby (06:28):

Yeah. It's also a short-term mentality versus a long-term mentality.

Alexander McCaig (06:32):

Yes. Correct. People ... "I'll take the apple today rather than two apples tomorrow."

Jason Rigby (06:36):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (06:36):

It's an old philosophical problem.

Jason Rigby (06:39):

To save money from the state, we'd rather not have these early adoptions, because we're judged on our budgets instead of judged on how many children have gone through the system completely, and came out and graduated.

Alexander McCaig (06:50):

Even though the data's showing that within your J curve, it's going to hurt for a second.

Jason Rigby (06:54):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (06:54):

But you're going to have exponential benefits later.

Jason Rigby (06:56):

Yes.

Alexander McCaig (06:57):

That's what it is.

Jason Rigby (06:58):

But what does the average CEO last eight years, other C-suites last four years... So that's max what they are looking at.

Alexander McCaig (07:06):

Hopefully I can last longer than that. I'm quite young.

Jason Rigby (07:09):

CMOs are four.

Alexander McCaig (07:12):

Yeah. That's [crosstalk 00:07:13]

Jason Rigby (07:12):

I've done it for years.

Alexander McCaig (07:13):

You're burn out, dude. You're talking [crosstalk 00:07:16].

Jason Rigby (07:17):

Four years.

Alexander McCaig (07:17):

That's like a four good years out of you, and your own life was piece of nothing.

Jason Rigby (07:21):

Yeah, exactly. I'm just a limp sucking stump.

Alexander McCaig (07:24):

That's all you are.

Jason Rigby (07:24):

Just sitting on the couch, digging into the cushion.

Alexander McCaig (07:27):

"You're pulling the life out of this company. You know what I mean? Your sweat pants don't even have pockets anymore."

Jason Rigby (07:32):

Yeah. "We need to have a conversation." No. Well, CMOs too if they want to go. Because usually what happens is the CEO... You could get this, this makes a lot of sense. So, if we're all about shareholder value, and so CEO has been in four years, then they're like, "Well, let's try a new marketing shift."

Jason Rigby (07:56):

You see what I'm saying? It's like, "Yeah, I've worked with this guy for four years. Let's try a new way to market." And then they try another thing, and then that doesn't work so eight years over.

Alexander McCaig (08:03):

Yeah. So, what they do is run them in cycles like it's a political thing.

Jason Rigby (08:06):

Yeah. And then the CMOs bounce from company to company, to company.

Alexander McCaig (08:09):

If you're doing something of true value, if you're looking at it, like it's actual human beings on the other end-

Jason Rigby (08:15):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (08:15):

It's not a four or eight-year thing. This is a lifetime thing. How can you not feel that great purpose?

Jason Rigby (08:21):

Yeah. I think he recently retired, but the CEO is Australian guy. He took over WD-40 now, you know the lubricant. Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (08:29):

That stuff's amazing.

Jason Rigby (08:30):

And the stock went up like 10 times and, I think, he'd been there for like 15 years or something like that maybe recently. But right when he got there, he said, "Okay. One," he said, "the biggest problem is we don't have the right culture. And that people are first, and I need to implement this with the leaders."

Jason Rigby (08:48):

So you can go onto WD-40 website, and if you click around, it's really cool. And they put all their culture and they have everything. Then he said, "Number two, the product is not out in the whole world. It needs people who will use this product everywhere."

Alexander McCaig (09:00):

[inaudible 00:09:00] It's used for so many things.

Jason Rigby (09:02):

Yeah.Exactly.

Alexander McCaig (09:02):

It's the most ridiculous lubricant around.

Jason Rigby (09:04):

Yeah. I think, it was originally used just for like rockets and stuff like that. That's where it was invented at. When we were doing our whole-

Alexander McCaig (09:10):

Space race thing?

Jason Rigby (09:10):

All that, in 1940s and building rockets [crosstalk 00:09:13] .

Alexander McCaig (09:14):

Yeah.Okay.

Jason Rigby (09:14):

So I mean the [Can School 00:09:15]. It's like a old school, looking Can.

Alexander McCaig (09:17):

It's got a good luck.

Jason Rigby (09:18):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (09:19):

[crosstalk 00:09:19] like the lever thing. So, it keeps it on there permanently. You don't have to stick the red thing.

Jason Rigby (09:21):

But why would somebody not in India with their motorcycle want it just as much as somebody in the United States.

Alexander McCaig (09:27):

Anything that has ball-bearings or metal on metal, which is a majority of all transportation here on earth, requires lubricants.

Jason Rigby (09:31):

Yes, exactly. But he's tried to put people first. And profits rose.

Alexander McCaig (09:36):

Of course-

Jason Rigby (09:36):

Amazing.

Alexander McCaig (09:37):

When you start to value people properly, other systemic effects happen from it. Right? The focus was on people. And when you start looking at data and having the focus that data is people, great positive benefits are going to come from that.

Jason Rigby (09:51):

Yeah. And I want to hear... She had three points on the experience that taught her, that humanizing data can impact us in the following ways.

Alexander McCaig (10:00):

Is this lady ripping off us?

Jason Rigby (10:02):

Yeah, she is.Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (10:03):

She might be. Good for her though.

Jason Rigby (10:03):

So, number one was increased empathy. Every person has a story. Listening to those stories, increase connection. We're able to see ourselves in others and build capacity for compassion. Most importantly, it builds credibility because your employees will know that they matter to you.

Alexander McCaig (10:16):

Yes., correct. So even from an HR standpoint, if you can collect everything and if you analyze everybody's story at once, wow. Think about the power in analyzing all those stories. What's the common thread between everything you'll be able to see that through everyone's nuances.

Jason Rigby (10:31):

Yeah. And then second was engage listeners. As a leader is like you know that there's a problem, but may have difficulty impacting how the issue impacts a person or group of people, this creates disconnects. By talking with people and gathering stories, you engage on deeper levels and develop an understanding of the issue and how to communicate it from your heart.

Alexander McCaig (10:48):

Yeah. Because stories connect with people at the deepest level.

Jason Rigby (10:51):

It's evolutionary process-

Alexander McCaig (10:52):

They understood it. [crosstalk 00:10:53] It's completely evolutionary. They understood it in biblical times. And we've just chosen to forget it now.

Jason Rigby (10:58):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (10:58):

Hollywood hasn't forgotten it. The best films take on the hero's journey.

Jason Rigby (11:01):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (11:02):

But what they had to do to figure that out, you know that works just to take a spinning around Hollywood. Hollywood... there is two guys that developed an algorithm. And what they did is they took a whole bunch of data in with all the top films. And they're like, "What is it about these films that work?" And it's the fact that you take on this thing called hero's journey.

Alexander McCaig (11:18):

So they used huge amounts of data, analyze it and realize that the hero's journey is the thing that sells on films. So now they have a machine where they can intake script. So when someone writes a script and like, "Is this going to be a good script?" All they got to do is put it into the machine. And the algorithm processes all this data to see if it actually works into the hero's journey model.

Alexander McCaig (11:34):

If it does, invest in it, if it doesn't, don't do it. But it's taken so much information over time about what really works and it's at the human level. So, if you want your company to be the next blockbuster, international blockbuster, you got to look at things at the emotional human level.

Jason Rigby (11:51):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (11:52):

And if you want to use data to supercharge that, will you go to [inaudible 00:11:57] supercharge? That sort of data set.

Jason Rigby (11:59):

Yeah. And she said, inspire mission is the last one. "When I was asked to serve on the board," she's talking about that one board, "the data was convincing," but she said, "seeing those children and talking to the instructors, transform the data into clear stories, that moved me to speak to the state legislature education committees."

Alexander McCaig (12:14):

Yeah. So you can have all the data you want. Right. But then if you go to those actual people within that culture, whatever it might be, you're like, "Wow, this is where the data's coming from. And this is how it's actually living its life." The perspective has now become a full body picture.

Jason Rigby (12:28):

Yeah. And she said, "I knew every child deserves an equal education that would more likely lead to a better quality of life. And I was determined to help them get it."

Alexander McCaig (12:36):

Yeah.

Jason Rigby (12:36):

Because she was emotionally involved.

Alexander McCaig (12:37):

Yeah. You become emotionally involved at that point with logic.

Jason Rigby (12:41):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (12:41):

That's so cool. Data helps keep the logic in place. And then you can still emotionally connect. What an interesting way of viewing things. It's not just about making the money, but it's also emotionally connecting with what's going on.

Jason Rigby (12:54):

The data allows you to know who you can speak your story to-

Alexander McCaig (12:57):

Yes.

Jason Rigby (12:58):

And how to speak the story.

Alexander McCaig (12:59):

Yeah. And how to speak it. And it's not to coerce them. It's just to understand that, "I should be doing as the Romans do."

Jason Rigby (13:04):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (13:04):

Otherwise the information and the value of what I'm trying to preach is not being received properly.

Jason Rigby (13:09):

Right. And so TARTLE story.

Alexander McCaig (13:11):

What a TARTLE story, what a [Sherpa 00:00:13:12].

Jason Rigby (13:12):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (13:13):

Okay. We understand the collective power and value in all of our data coming together to solve problems. That's what the world is. Right? If I want to understand consumption behaviors, to help prevent climate change as best I can, I do that by analyzing everything and everyone. Truthful information, understanding how they emotionally connect with their own lives and their own behaviors.

Alexander McCaig (13:35):

So if I can understand that, then I can understand what that data, what decisions we need to make, especially people in an authoritative position to actually go make larger systemic changes. But you have to listen to those people. You have to listen to their consciousness, and their consciousness is the data. It's those thoughts. It's things they do that create their world.

Alexander McCaig (13:52):

And through the perspective defines how life and all of us interact in all of our societies. And so when we look at TARTLE, what a Sherpa in this process. We want to champion people on their data journeys. They are data champions. Right? So we want to help them show them, give them the tool in the power and the education so that they can help come together and emotionally connect with causes that they care about.

Alexander McCaig (14:13):

Because when we emotionally connect, we invest our time and our energy into it. And if you, as a user on the TARTLE marketplace can receive compensation for your sharing, come on, it's a win-win. You're economically incentivizing the world and solving problems at the same time with the collective power of all of our data. Are you kidding me? You tell me, you find a better model for solving issues than that.

Jason Rigby (14:37):

There isn't one.

Alexander McCaig (14:38):

There isn't one agriculture, political research, healthcare, tourism. It doesn't matter. You name it. It's all there. I don't want a farmer planting crops that people aren't going to buy on the shelf.

Jason Rigby (14:49):

Black defense budgets.

Alexander McCaig (14:51):

Yeah. Black budget. Yeah. Black budget, defense things. Can we stop spending money on that people don't want it. We don't need to keep building nukes.

Jason Rigby (15:04):

Yeah. We don't need a nuclear drone.

Alexander McCaig (15:06):

We don't need a nuclear drone. We don't need a new SR-71 Blackbird. You know what I mean?

Jason Rigby (15:09):

Yeah. We need more trees.

Alexander McCaig (15:10):

Lasers are cool though. Let's invest in lasers. You know what I mean?

Jason Rigby (15:13):

The green ones, the red ones.

Alexander McCaig (15:15):

Guy goes into the Pentagon. He's like, "Listen, I got a really cool thing. What if I could freeze a whole city block?"

Jason Rigby (15:21):

Have you seen the lasers that go on firearms? That only you can see if you have a special glasses on, and no one else can see.

Alexander McCaig (15:28):

[crosstalk 00:15:28] spectrum?

Jason Rigby (15:28):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (15:29):

Interesting.

Jason Rigby (15:29):

Yeah. It's really cool.

Alexander McCaig (15:30):

Because you don't want the guy on the other side to see the red dog. [crosstalk 00:15:33] that's not good. [crosstalk 00:15:36] That's not positive.

Jason Rigby (15:38):

[crosstalk 00:15:38] running. Let's go.

Alexander McCaig (15:38):

Yeah. See ya.

Speaker 1 (15:47):

Thank you for listening to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path. What's your data work. [inaudible 00:16:08]