“If you don’t find an insight, slice it and dice it, and then drill it, till you kill it,” Swami declared last time we met for coffee.
“Nice line, who said it?” Jigneshbhai asked, his curiosity piqued, albeit un characteristically, by Swami.
“Raichand said that last week, just before a client presentation,” Swami reported. “He wanted us to give some insights, but I had no idea what to say.”
Jigneshbhai sipped his coffee in silence and with a smile. Swami and I knew something was coming. We waited.
“Can’t you say nothing when you have nothing to say?” he asked. It was a question that Swami didn’t like.
“Well… Raichand will say something to me then.. Don’t you understand that we are paid to give something? How can we say nothing?” Swami protested.
“Hmm.. that’s why, drill it till you kill it then,” Jigneshbhai replied and focused back on his coffee. A few awkward moments of silence followed. Swami and I also sat in silence focusing on our coffee. It was Swami, as usual, who spoke first.
“See.. what has happened is.. that over time, the old problem of not having data doesn’t exist anymore,” he said. “A new problem has replaced it.”
“And that is, let me guess.. ,” Jigneshbhai interjected. “The problem of too much data, too little information, and negligible insight.”
Swami was surprised with our wise friend being so much on point. “Perfect. Data is everywhere,” he said. “But how long will you keep slicing and dicing it even if Raichand likes it?” he asked.
“And what will you do with it?” Jigneshbhai agreed. That seemed to have triggered Swami into an outpouring of words and emotion.
“Don’t ask me. Nobody does anything with it in most cases. But they still track metrics,” he started. “Stupid slicing and dicing reports are generated. How many customers who had tenure of five years or more had done 15 or less transactions over the past 18 months, or some such complicated metrics. And that’s just the start. Everyone has to feel they were doing something useful. Actually it is useless.”
Jigneshbhai had a wry smile as he bit into his chocolate muffin with the coffee. In his small setup, he wasn’t used to such inefficiency. But Swami had not finished yet.
“In the scores and reams of information, we have developed an insensitivity to dashboards and data. It just seems nice to have colorful charts, hi-tech models and key takeaways with no one doing anything about it.”
“It creates work. The old problem of adding good quality data has now given way to the new problem of deleting useless data. There is hoards and hoards of data and reports that we generate, and it is just lying there.”
Swami took a breath from his relentless monologue of frustration over piles of data. Jigneshbhai, for once, sympathized with him.
It was then that we noticed that the wealthy old man from the sprawling bungalow who had been listening to our conversation from the adjacent table walked towards us. He put a hand on Swami’s shoulder. It was much needed solace for our worked up friend.
“It is like the old junk we keep in our homes for years,” the old man who spoke cryptically said. “And every time we do a cleanup, we keep some things aside thinking that, maybe some time, it could be useful,” he said, bringing a smile on our faces.
“It isn’t,” he continued. “The question that should be asked of that junk, much like it needs to be asked of the data, is the same: When was the last time you used it, and What will you do with it?”
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